The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)(99)

He sniggered, gaining a sharp glare. “You were just the benevolent spirit-guide, helping me on my way?” He raised an eyebrow in disbelief, willing her to challenge him so he could rip her to shreds for it.

“It’s not a joke, Alex. This is not a silly game you and your friends can play at your leisure,” she hissed. “This is serious. This is life or death. I wanted to build you up, to be a formidable Spellbreaker, but you have squandered what goodwill I had toward you. I may not be entirely altruistic, but I am fair. With me, you would all have had a better chance at returning home. Now, you have zero chance—do you hear me?” She snapped her teeth at him. “Zero.”

For the first time since entering the room, he felt fear. Not for himself, but for the others. Alypia was not a woman to be messed with, and they had caused her a world of trouble. The offers had been just, and they had flouted them. He began to wonder if, perhaps, they hadn’t just made a huge, irrevocable mistake. The others might have been happy here, even.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“I wanted you trained and coached, but I’m going to have to make do with the strength I’ve got,” she muttered under her breath. “You understand I cannot permit you to remain within the school walls, after the way you have influenced my daughter? I could perhaps have forgiven an escape attempt, had you not tried to rope my girl into it, leading her astray the way you have. She’s a fantasist, you know?”

Alex thought that was unlikely, musing that perhaps a lifetime under the same roof as Alypia was what had driven Helena to want to leave. He didn’t dare say as much, though the words danced on the tip of his tongue for a moment, begging to be spoken. For the sake of keeping Alypia’s temper as bottled-up as possible, he held the accusation back.

“She seems perfectly sane to me—saner than a lot of the people here, I’d say,” he replied, skirting as close to his cutting comment as he could.

“You don’t see what I see, Alex. Her mind is easily swayed. She is an idealist, with dreams of leading a life beyond the magical world, beyond her royal duties, out in the ‘real world.’” Alypia laughed coldly.

“That sounds perfect to me,” Alex retorted.

“Your mind is so small, you cannot see the gift right in front of your eyes,” she snapped. “You might have had your dream too, had you stuck it out like a good little boy. Not now—now I have but one option for you. You have forced my hand. Just remember, you brought this upon yourself.”

His blood ran cold. “So you’re just going to waste me?” he ventured, wondering if he could garner any information about his fate.

She smirked cruelly. “Hardly. Your curly-haired friend was right. I would never have simply killed you… You are much too valuable,” she said wistfully. “You are the key to stopping this godforsaken plague hacking away at our numbers—it only seems right, seeing as you are responsible for wasting so much essence. You created an imbalance in the chain, Alex. Thanks to your paltry little uprising and that foul, gray little man, we have been cheated out of far greater numbers. You have sent us back more steps than I care to count, so perhaps it is fitting that your life is forfeit.”

She scraped her chair back, getting to her feet. Running her long fingers absently along the spines of the books upon the bookshelf, clearly more anxious than she wished to let on, she prowled around the room, twisting a strand of white hair between her fingers as she muttered to herself. Alex watched her lips moving, trying desperately to figure out what she was saying. All he could make out was the word “unprepared” before she rounded on the wall, slamming her fist against it with a flare of anger in her pale eyes.

“But what choice have you given me?” she snarled at the air around her.

All the while, with Alypia visibly distracted, Alex had been forging anti-magic beneath his hands, hiding them beneath the desk as he felt the familiar twist and coil of the silvery strands bending to his will. Glancing at the perplexed Alypia, he knew he only had a slim window in which to do what he planned. Taking a deep breath, he let the cold energy sink back beneath his skin, feeling it snake through his veins and into the deepest, most enigmatic part of his being. Shivering, he touched upon the very edge of his own essence, feeling the searing pain of it as it burned rapidly through his body, bringing every cell and fiber to life as he utilized the smallest piece of his soul.

His whole body began to tremble and smolder with white-hot heat. He looked up toward Alypia, feeling the blaze of his eyes glowing at her, suddenly vibrantly silver and blinding with bright white light, flecked with sparks of black.

For the very first time, he saw terror on Alypia’s face. Having only witnessed what he could do in the setting of the arena, Alex understood why. Poor, misguided Alypia had believed he needed anger to use those powerful anti-magical skills, the kind that made his eyes burn silver. What she didn’t know was that his hatred for mages like her was always bubbling away, just beneath the surface, ready to be used when he needed it most—a veritable well of fuel for his silver fire.

Holding his palms steady, he fired the liquid silver directly at her, feeling the force of it tear through his skin as it surged forward, twisting around her beautiful face, clawing at her perfect form, trying to sink beneath her smooth, porcelain skin to get at the pulsing red glow within. She howled like a wounded, scared animal as it raked at her flesh, making her muscles spasm as it tried to feed upon her magic. In the mist of fine, glittering light, Alex could see Alypia’s face had turned sour and demonic, the fa?ade of perfection falling away against the grasping fingers of his anti-magic, which seemed to temporarily stall the effects of the strange magic all around them—the crackling air that appeared to have brainwashed all those within Stillwater, as well as made those within its influence more beautiful.