The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(97)

“I didn’t do this!” Helena cried to the others, her eyes glimmering with furious tears as she looked upon her mother with such palpable hatred that the guards standing beside Alypia had to lower their gazes, uncomfortable beneath the ferocity of it. “Please believe me—I didn’t do this!”

Alypia smiled, her voice cold and calculating. “Of course this wasn’t my daughter, though I can see why you might have mistrusted her. You don’t seem to like me very much, so it only seems natural you’d find her deplorable by association.” Her mouth curved into a vicious grin. “No, no. You have been betrayed by someone much closer to home.”

Alex struggled against the guard holding him, and the sight made Alypia chuckle icily, her eyes glittering with malice.

“Oh, you’re going to find this one very hard to stomach, Alex Webber,” she purred. “She only did it for you, Alex—she only came to me, whispering secrets, to save your life. Isn’t that right, Ellabell?”

Alex turned to Ellabell, a look of bewilderment on his face, but Ellabell’s expression showed nothing but rage as she tried to struggle free of her guard, wanting to lash out at Alypia. There was no shame, no guilt, just pure fury from the fiery, bespectacled girl as their eyes met.

“Liar! If you’re going to tell tales, at least make them believable!” Ellabell smirked, her eyes burning brightly. “Alypia threatened to kill you if I didn’t feed her little tidbits about your powers and secrets,” she explained, turning from Alex back to Alypia, “but I knew it was a load of garbage! I would never betray him like that. You needed him too much! I knew you’d never lay a finger on him. It was all smoke and mirrors, and I’m not stupid enough to fall for a stupid trick like that. At least do your research if you’re going to try and blackmail a person.”

Jari looked at her with understanding, and Alex realized they must have been offered the same thing. Though Ellabell had taken the offer, it was clear she hadn’t complied with what Alypia wanted.

“Yeah—you want to turn Alex against her. That’s all this is!” yelled Jari. “None of us would betray him or anyone like this. You can try and pin it on any one of us, and we’ll tell you the same thing—piss off!” He grinned triumphantly.

Ellabell leveled her gaze at Alex, but he didn’t need any further assurance. He could see the truth in her strength as she defied Alypia’s words, her face showing she would not be broken as she turned back toward Alypia, her mouth set in a grim line.

Alex looked slowly over his shoulder, seeing something strange out of the corner of his eye. Skulking behind the intimidating group of guards, a trail of frayed gray robes flashed between the gaps in the guards’ bodies. Alex caught the glint of smug satisfaction in the black, dead eyes of the ghostly Renmark as his foul face appeared over the shoulders of the oblivious Stillwater soldiers. It was not Ellabell, or Helena, or Natalie, or Aamir, or Jari.

Renmark was the mole.

Alex realized he must have missed the phantom’s presence, with Renmark managing to hide away, unseen, overhearing all of their conversations and watching their movements, witnessing everything and scurrying back to impart his knowledge to Alypia. At least that answered Alex’s question about whether or not Alypia could see Finder-like creatures. It turned out she could not only see them, but she could use them for her own dastardly purposes.

And this Finder seemed uniquely designed to find Alex.

As understanding dawned on him, he found himself thinking back to the moments, so often recently, when he had felt his skin crawling with the heat of unseen eyes on him, prickling the hairs on his arms and shivering up the back of his neck. He thought back to the ransacked cottage, when he had simply shrugged the feeling off as a guard having seen him and passed on information. Having forgotten about it, he had not remembered the peculiar sensation it had made him feel, of how it didn’t add up. He realized now that it must have been Renmark, in his phantom state, having arrived at Stillwater already—before Alex first saw him with the group from Spellshadow. Perhaps he had tipped off the guards to search the place. It could have been Renmark’s first offering of inside information, gifted to Alypia, to make himself valuable to her.

Alex knew then that he had not been cautious enough. He had allowed himself to feel invincible, and that was the most dangerous, vulnerable place to be. Perhaps, Alex thought, in addition to being able to see him, Renmark had added skills to those of the previous Finder, Malachi Grey—something that made Renmark less visible to Alex. Or perhaps Alex just hadn’t been looking hard enough.

All Alex knew was that he wanted to apologize to Helena with everything he had, for not trusting her. She had not been involved, that much was evident now. This affected her as much as any of them, if not more so; her chance to escape had been stolen too, by the ghostly espionage of Renmark.

Alypia had turned her attention to her daughter, the disappointment evident in her noble eyes as she glowered in the girl’s direction.

“Take them away!” commanded Alypia.

“No! This was my fault—they had nothing to do with this!” pleaded Helena, her eyes gleaming with fear.

“Silence!” Alypia roared, her voice shaking the ground. “You have done quite enough.”

Nobody manhandled Helena as the guards stepped forward to take the others away, sharing one prisoner between two guards to prevent them from wriggling free. It was evident that Alypia would be having private words with her daughter, away from the prying eyes of the guards and the would-be escapees. There would be no prison cell for the princess, though Alex knew he’d much prefer one to the wrath Helena was likely to face.