The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(79)

Natalie seemed excited about the prospect of learning again, especially from teachers who were so formidable and encouraging of their students. There was only so much that could be self-taught, as Alex knew too well, and all of them knew they were a touch rusty after so long without any real guidance.

“I wonder what we will learn?” Natalie squealed, a renewed vigor in her dark eyes as she looked over the lessons she would be attending. Alex peered over her shoulder at her schedule and spotted some unusual class titles, including Mechanoid Magic and Barrier Combat.

Ellabell seemed excited too, though she was less vocal about it. There was a nervous energy about her as her eyes scanned the schedule she had been given.

“Looks like we have most of our classes together!” she exclaimed to Natalie.

As the two girls went on speculating about what the classes would be like, Alex felt somewhat envious. He wished he could have the comfort of being with his friends throughout the day—and have every class with Ellabell. Still, he was glad she wouldn’t be on her own with a bunch of strangers who had still not made up their minds about the newcomers, thanks to Alex’s behavior in the arena. The Stillwater students showed a general wariness toward the group of them, guilty as they were by association with Alex. But Alex could see that his friends were eager to start classes. It was a routine they had all been lacking, of late, and one they knew they could slot easily back into. No matter whether it was magical or non-magical, school was school.

The only one who had yet to receive a schedule was Jari, who was still safely tucked away in the infirmary, enjoying the daily attentions of Helena. The young woman still felt responsible for not knowing what was going to happen to Jari in the arena, and she seemed to be seeking his forgiveness by spending as much time with him as he wished. It had all worked out unexpectedly well for the boy, who had even whispered a “thank you” to Alex, the last time he had been there, when he had caught sight of Helena coming into the room with a plateful of cakes, cookies, and drinks. Jari was living a life of luxury, and it made Alex smile—at least someone was benefitting from the danger of this place.

“Well, we’d better be off,” announced Ellabell, checking her schedule.

With that, the others departed to their various lessons. Aamir had a private tutorial at the same time, in the same wing, but Alex had a thirty-minute window before he was due at his first session with Master Demeter, on the other side of the villa. His lesson was to take place in a room just off the Queen’s Courtyard, giving Alex an idea as he set off toward it; with thirty minutes to kill, he had more than enough time to fetch the book he had stowed away, and now he had an excuse if anyone were to stop him.

Alex walked toward the wall, striding quickly across the empty courtyard, which wasn’t being used that morning. Reaching toward the stonework, he was just about to begin his upward climb when a trumpet blared loudly above his head, from somewhere farther up the battlements. Intrigue pulled Alex’s attention from his hidden book as he quickly scaled the wall and ducked down, sprinting as fast as he could in the direction of the sound, careful to skirt past the guard-posts as he did so, to avoid detection. Technically, he wasn’t going against the terms he had agreed to; he wasn’t outside the walls, he was merely on them. Still, he knew Alypia wasn’t a shades-of-gray kind of person. She was entirely black and white, and he didn’t want to test her patience so soon after their last meeting.

In the near distance, he saw people moving toward the villa.

Alex knew the gargantuan doors to the villa rested a short way from where he crouched, and he guessed that must be where the special visitors were headed. Looking ahead, he saw the spire of one of the corner towers and rushed toward it, clambering up through one of the windows into the room beyond. To his relief, it was empty—little more than a storage room, filled to the brim with clutter and broken furniture. However, the window looked out onto the stretching fields below, giving Alex the perfect vantage point from which to watch the arrivals.

As they neared the main entrance, Alex could see the small band of individuals was made up, mainly, of guards. The same ones, he supposed, as the ones he had watched rowing away, from the lighthouse. Two of the guards carried a shrunken figure awkwardly between them, shrouded in a heavy woolen blanket, though the being beneath seemed to be putting up something of a decent fight despite its diminished size. Once or twice, the two Amazonian guards almost lost their grasp on the blanketed figure, though they always managed to regain control of the prisoner.

Much to his displeasure, Alex saw that the Head was with them too. Alex marveled at this yo-yoing of the Head’s, consistently showing up at Stillwater to beg assistance from his sister, but there seemed to be a more relaxed quality to the Head this time as Alex watched the hooded figure embrace Alypia, who had emerged from the doors beneath to greet the arriving party.

“Has it all been dealt with?” she asked insistently, holding her brother at arm’s length.

“Thanks to you, everything is back in order,” replied the Head with a strained smile, the expression looking deeply unnatural on his drawn, skeletal face.

It was then that Alex noticed the additional figure, trailing behind the rest of the group. It was a face and form Alex had not expected to see.

Behind the guards and the prisoner, a graying, spectral figure moved slowly, as if through molasses. He was dressed in threadbare clothes, the edges of his robe frayed and torn, though not quite as ragged as Alex remembered. Catching sight of this awful being, Alex found himself combatting horrifying flashbacks of the last time he had seen Finder, in the tombs at Spellshadow, wondering if Finder had come back from his second death, somehow, and was hell-bent on haunting him. But, on second viewing, Alex realized this figure was not quite the same. He was wearing robes of some sort, but they were more modern than Malachi Grey’s had been, and his face was altogether less ancient, though it bore the same vacant, disturbing stare.