The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(72)

“Think about it—what are you?” encouraged Elias with a twist of his shadowy wrist as he languished on the floor, contorting his fluid body to look up at the ceiling.

“A Spellbreaker.”

“Good. And your heritage? I know you’ve been thinking about it.” Elias smirked, tilting his head back at an unnatural angle so he could stare into Alex’s eyes.

Alex shrugged. “So what if I have?” he muttered, remembering his thoughts on Leander Wyvern and a mysterious, non-magical partner. The loophole that had, perhaps, given him life. “It makes no difference. I can never get a proper answer, so why bother thinking about it? They’re all dead.”

For once, Elias didn’t throw a sarcastic remark back at Alex, but looked at him with something akin to kindness. It was almost as frightening to behold as his usual disdain. Nothing on Elias’s face did what it was supposed to, with everything shifting and moving of its own volition.

“You have a truly powerful heritage, Alex—and they will fear you more, once they know.” An expression of remorse twisted Elias’s face. “They have been looking for you. They have been searching for such a long time. They never thought you could exist, yet here you are. Nothing can ever be the same now.”

Alex frowned, not knowing what to make of Elias’s mysterious words. “You’re like a sphinx or something, always talking in riddles—why do you always have to be so vague? If there are things you want me to know, why don’t you just spell them out for me? It’d be a lot more help than this rigmarole.” He gestured between them, a look of sheer frustration on his face. “Do you know how annoying you are?”

Elias grinned. “Do I vex you, Alex?” he purred. “There’d be no fun in simply giving you the answers.” There was a strange flash of something in his galactic eyes that Alex couldn’t put his finger on, as if there was something more to it than Elias was letting on.

“I swear you just show up to irritate the living hell out of me!” snarled Alex, his temper flaring. “Maybe you just shouldn’t bother anymore.”

Elias twisted back up to a standing position, most of his lower half trying to float away from him. “Well, then maybe I shouldn’t bother with this,” he said, pulling a book from the cavern of his starry ribcage. The bizarre, nauseating act didn’t seem as simple as it normally did—retrieving the book from his chest seemed to cause Elias a great deal of strain, a few minutes passing before he finally managed to maneuver it out into the open. Sections of his shadowy figure had disappeared, dissipating into the atmosphere.

“Are you okay?” asked Alex, suddenly concerned by the pieces of Elias that had simply vanished.

Elias tilted his shifting features in a nod. “I will be.”

Taking the proffered book, Alex looked up at Elias’s starry eyes with a frown. “How are they going to use me? These royal mages?” he asked.

“It’s funny,” mused Elias, “that you come to me with all these questions, when a source of great knowledge is in your midst every day. I must say, he’s doing a rather good job of keeping his mouth shut. I suppose he wouldn’t want to spoil things, now that he’s one of you again.” Elias grinned sharply, his black eyes teetering on the edge of menacing.

“You mean Aamir?” whispered Alex, as the seeds of distrust started to sprout again. They had never truly gone away, but he had hoped he had learned all he could from his friend—he had just begun to trust Aamir again. Glancing at Elias, he wasn’t sure whom to believe, though Elias seemed to be on a roll of generously giving information. Surely, the shadow-man had no reason to lie? Alex was about to ask another question when the wispy figure of Elias simply disappeared into the shadows, with a whorl of his transient body.

The last thing Alex heard as the shadow-man evaporated was a whisper on the wind, murmuring. “You think Aamir hasn’t been here before? You’re smarter than that, Alex. Not much, but definitely smarter than that.”

Left alone with his thoughts, his mind full to the brim with yet more mystery, Alex looked down at the book he had been given. It had a plain, brown cover and did not seem to have a title on the front or the spine. Flipping through the first couple of pages, Alex saw that they were blank, though he could tell there was definitely text later on in the book. Just as he was about to turn to the page he hoped the title might be on, he found himself distracted by the sound of more scuffling around the side of the cottage. It sounded oddly like somebody trying to creep away. Knowing it couldn’t be Elias, Alex moved around to the other edge of the cottage, in time to see the familiar figure of Ellabell trying to leave as stealthily as she could. It was almost comical, her movements exaggerated, like she was a cartoon character trying to slink away.

“Ellabell?” he called.

She froze, then turned slowly, a look of concern in her eyes. Alex walked toward her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said quietly, bashfully lifting her gaze. “I shouldn’t have spied on you, but I saw Elias, and—he worries me, Alex. I don’t believe he is a friend to you. He’s capable of dark deeds, and I just don’t want you getting caught up in them. I’m sorry… but I just can’t believe his intentions are good.”

Alex felt the urge to defend himself, to convince Ellabell that he wouldn’t willingly associate with her attacker. “I know Elias is a tricky creature, but I don’t have any say in when he visits me. This wasn’t planned—he comes to me when he feels like it, and I take the information he gives with a pinch of salt. Most of the time, it’s all just riddles anyway,” he assured her, resting his hand on her arm. She seemed a little shaky at the sight of the shadow-man, and Alex couldn’t blame her, after what Elias had done, but she was putting on her bravest face.