The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(11)

“What did you do? To land yourselves in prison, I mean,” asked Jari eagerly, his gaze flitting between Agatha and Vincent. It was the question Alex had been too polite to ask.

Vincent smiled his peculiar smile. “Ladies first,” he said, gesturing toward Agatha.

She blushed. “Oh, no! You go first, Vincent.”

“Very well,” he acquiesced with a delicate wave of his hand. Every movement he made seemed deliberate and exquisite, like macabre cabaret. “You wish to know my story?”

The group nodded, and Alex found himself nodding too.

“Well, young ones, I am afraid to say I was placed in here for necromancy. As you no doubt know, necromancy is frowned upon among our kind,” he began, his voice like honey.

Unless you’re a noble, Alex thought, remembering what the Head had done to Malachi Grey and had been encouraged to do again with Renmark.

“I admit that I moved in shadows, and I was duly punished for it, although I sought discovery of the darkest arts for a pure purpose. My heart was in the right place, as they say. You see, I am not like other necromancers you may come across, though I hope you never meet another—the other necromancers held within these walls are here for good reason. They are cold and cruel and unnatural and should never be permitted to feel daylight upon their faces again, for the acts they have committed,” he seethed, his dark eyes flashing. He seemed too disgusted to tell them the actual crimes these other necromancers had been imprisoned for, but the emotion lacing Vincent’s voice reinforced the certainty that it was bad beyond words, whatever it was that had led to their incarceration.

“What kind of necromancy did you do?” pressed Jari, his eyes as wide as saucers.

Vincent grinned oddly. “Those are not tales for mortal ears.”

Alex felt disappointed he wasn’t going to hear the nitty-gritty of what had put the strange man behind bars.

“Shall I take it from here, dear heart?” Agatha asked.

Vincent nodded, his thin neck bobbing with unexpected grace. “The floor is yours, dear lady.”

Agatha seemed a little eccentric, but far too nice to be a criminal. Alex couldn’t imagine her committing any misdeed worthy of as harsh a punishment as Kingstone.

“Well, cherubs, I was put in this place many moons ago for the petty crime of theft and the somewhat larger crime of trying to kill a royal… though I didn’t know he was a royal at the time.” She winked. “If I’d known, I’d have tried twice as hard. I’m not even anti-royalist—well, I wasn’t before they put me in here. I sure am now!”

“What did you steal?” asked Ellabell shyly, pushing her spectacles back up onto the bridge of her nose.

“Just the question I was hoping for!” Agatha cried with delight. “I stole a diamond as big as a Thunderbird’s egg—oh, you should have seen it! It was a beauty. I saw it through a window, and it was in this glass box, just sitting there, sparkling away, calling my name, and I couldn’t just walk past it. So, into this great big house I slipped, and I nabbed it, and on the way I ran into some problems, what with alarms and guards and whatnot. That’s where the almost-killing part comes into play. But I held that glorious diamond in my hands for a good hour before they could pry it away from me. I can still feel it now, if I close my eyes and wish hard enough.” Accentuating the point, she squeezed her eyes shut and rounded her palms, as if she were holding an invisible egg. A smile spread across her face. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Impressive.” Ellabell grinned. Alex could see why; it was hard to imagine this old hippie as a jewel thief, no matter how unsuccessful she’d been.

“Oh, you’ve no idea how lovely it is to have some young blood wandering freely about the place, with the blooms still freshly in your cheeks and your whole lives ahead of you. Goodness, what I wouldn’t give to be your age again. The things I got up to!” She cackled mischievously, and Alex could only imagine what this woman had gotten up to at his age. On second thought, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “I say that, but I suppose it can’t be so lovely if you’re in here, can it? It’s devastating when they bring those youngsters through from that fancy-pants school. Terribly sad, the way their minds depart for greener pastures, leaving only the wild-eyed husks behind. Is that why you’re here? I do hope you don’t end up the same way, cherubs. You’re such dear things!”

“These ones are more like guests than prisoners,” Demeter explained. “They’re here purely to make a pit stop while they build a portal home. And, with your assistance, they’re going to be able to do it all the swifter,” he added in a low voice.

Both of Demeter’s friends shared a smile at this news, which made Alex feel even more hopeful as they pressed on, moving deeper and deeper into the keep in search of the essence that would take them home.





Chapter 5





As they walked, it began to dawn on Alex that the keep was far bigger than he had imagined. Taking a quick look out of one of the nearby windows, he could count at least ten other windows descending beneath, but that was only what his eyes could see. The more they mapped out, the more he realized just how vast this place was.

Passing hallways upon hallways of cells, Alex noticed there was a small vestibule at the end of many of the corridors, and each one had a long, cylindrical contraption attached to the wall. Sometimes it was beside an open window, looking out on the bronze fog; sometimes it was in the center of a solid stretch of masonry. The contraptions themselves were built from pure gold that shone in the torchlight. Alex wondered what purpose they served, thinking that, perhaps, they were some kind of alarm system that alerted the guards when a prisoner escaped. It would certainly explain why they seemed to be at the end of most corridors.