The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(101)

A shadow darkened the snow-covered shelf of rock in front of him. Someone was standing behind him. Despair made his heart sink—he had been caught. It took all the strength he had left to turn around, expecting to see Caius standing there behind him, having somehow evaded Vincent and his spirits, or even Vincent himself, possessed by the soul of a wispy devil, intent on killing him.

To his shock, it was neither.

Perched on the ledge behind him, head cocked, stood a gigantic bird, though Alex didn’t feel as if the word “bird” did the magnificent creature justice. It stood at around ten feet tall, towering over Alex with a full plumage of beautiful, glistening feathers. They began as a pale silver around its head, flowing seamlessly down through a medley of pale blues, into a darker shade of teal, and then toward the cobalt end of the blue spectrum, which bled into the gargantuan wings, though the tip of each wing was colored a regal gold.

She was like nothing he had ever seen, except in paintings and illustrations.

He didn’t know how he knew she was female either; he just thought she looked decidedly female as she dipped her head toward him, making him stagger back into the ice shelf. Above his head, he noticed strands of grass and branches sticking out, nest-like, from the ledge of rock.

Alex gasped with a mixture of awe and fear as she edged closer to him, and his eyes took in the stunning creature once more, noting the deadly-looking beak that faced him, the actual curve of it seeming to be made from solid silver. As concerned as he was by the potential ferocity of the beast, he was relieved to see that the bird seemed to be more curious about Alex than she was threatened by him. Bright black eyes, shot through with a bolt of electric blue, watched him intently.

Tempest, he remembered suddenly, confident that was who the mountain was named after—the great warbird upon which Leander had driven fear into the hearts of countless warriors. Although the specimen that stood before him was likely not the same one his ancestor had ridden upon, she seemed no less fearsome than the bird of legend. Curiously, he leveled his gaze at the creature, deliberating whether she would let him ride on her back, or whether that was an accident waiting to happen.

As if sensing Alex’s thoughts, the huge bird tilted her head and moved even closer to where Alex had ended up, slumped against the rock face. Getting almost too close for comfort, bending her neck toward him, she tapped close to his fingers with her beak. Alex froze, only to marvel as he realized what she was doing. Staying perfectly still, he rested his hand flat on his leg. Gently, she sought out his fingers, nudging his hand until his palm lay the other way up. Bristling her feathers in apparent delight, she made a soft cooing sound in the back of her throat that sounded almost like a purr, and lay the sharpest point of her metallic beak carefully on the soft indent of his palm.

It made no scratch or cut, she was so gentle in her actions, and though Alex wasn’t sure what it meant, it gave him hope.

He wondered if, somehow, she could get him to Falleaf House, even if they took a somewhat longer route than the usual portal-to-portal one. He wasn’t at all sure how he was going to navigate to the mystery realm, or if the bird would even let him on her back. But he still had one of Lintz’s beetle beacons in his pocket, shoved in there when Alypia came through from Stillwater, with a sliver of magic remaining within the intricate clockwork. An idea sprang to his mind.

If he could just latch onto Lintz’s magical signature, he could follow the beetle on a path toward the fourth haven.

Glancing back toward the magnificent bird, Alex realized he was getting slightly ahead of himself.

First, how to fly a Thunderbird?





Epilogue





After hiding away awhile, seeking out a spot where he might lick the stinging cuts of his wounded pride, Elias drifted sourly from the dank rafters of the turret room. He loathed surprises, and Alex’s little stunt with the mind-trickery had been more surprise than he could stomach. It was good he didn’t have a nervous system, he mused, knowing he’d be in a great deal of pain if he did happen to own something so grotesquely mortal.

He stretched languidly, glancing down to see the vaporous strands of his shadowy body trying to slip away. Rolling his galactic eyes, Elias struggled to grasp at the tendrils, trying to corral them back toward him. They had a mind of their own, and he knew precisely where they wanted to go. But not yet, he insisted silently, as his wispy form lunged toward a piece of torso that had almost reached the far wall.

Smugly, he thought about the overconfidence of the Spellbreaker, who was so certain he was in charge of when and how Elias came and went from his life. It never ceased to amuse him, that Alex thought he had any say in the matter. Grinning at the memory of their last encounter, Elias delighted in the delicious irony of Alex’s final action, accidentally stealing a piece of Elias’s soul, thus connecting them for life, whether Alex liked it or not.

And he’s sure to despise it, Elias thought with utter glee. Though it serves him right for trying to outwit the wittiest of them all. Elias grinned to himself, relishing the idea that the young man thought he’d seen the last of the shadow-man’s silver-tongued, charming, handsome self, not realizing that what he had actually done was make the opposite true.

It thrilled Elias to plot his surprise revelation, just when the young Spellbreaker least expected it. There was a stubborn desire for delayed gratification too, wanting to make Alex beg for his returned presence, to appeal for his aid with heart-breaking desperation, and perhaps an apology for the way they had parted. That was what Elias wanted. Whether he’d be able to hold onto the sum of his parts until then remained to be seen.