The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(14)

“Pull me up,” he rasped, looking up to meet Agatha’s green eyes.

“With pleasure,” Agatha replied, hauling him up over the window ledge and back into the relative safety of the prison. Alex had never been so happy to feel hard stone beneath his cheek.





Chapter 6





After a brief rest and a much-needed shower, Alex returned to the fray, against his better judgment. Over the next few days, they scoured as many floors as they could, following the roughly sketched map of suitable hallways that Vincent and Agatha had drawn out for them. It seemed their rough idea of safe passageways was in need of updating, as they ended up running into countless traps from the depths of Caius’s box of trickery, ducking swarms of flying golden arrows and powerful waves of force fields that knocked the air right out of them. Not to mention the pack of golden hounds that chased them through at least four floors, their teeth snapping at their heels. Still, Alex pressed on, reviewing the rudimentary map that was beginning to take shape and the crosses upon it that signaled traps. They managed to reach as far down as a subterranean floor of mildewed, yet-to-be-filled cells, only to be faced with a black swell of bats that triggered the tremble of the ground beneath them, sending them sprinting back the way they had come.

Back in the comfort of the tower room, after a particularly nasty encounter with a jet of toxic gas that had left their throats raw and their eyes running, Alex realized there were just too many unknowns in Kingstone Keep. Glancing down at the map in his hands, he saw that most of the floors were covered in more crosses than there was room for. He hated to admit it, but Lintz had been right—the risk was too great. They needed a better way to track down the essence, instead of blindly scouting the whole prison in search of it.

Lintz had disappeared after the moat incident, claiming there was something he needed to attend to, but Alex knew the professor had every right to say, “I told you so.” Still, even given the opportunity, the old man hadn’t said any such words. He just seemed relieved that Alex was still in one piece.

Demeter and Vincent had stayed in the tower room to review the notes they had compiled about the keep’s layout. Alex almost wanted to tell them not to bother; there was no point in pretending they could find the essence using their current strategies—not before one of them got killed.

“So what do you suggest we do now?” Aamir asked the group sullenly. “We’ve mapped out this whole place, searched every corridor—well, the ones that haven’t tried to murder us. I’ve yet to stumble across any secret passageways, and Jari has been completely unhelpful.”

“What! I take one nap, and now I’m ‘unhelpful?’” Jari snapped, using air quotes.

“You locked me in the guard’s toilet, you dunce,” Aamir retorted. “I swear, I thought I was going to suffocate.”

“I let you out eventually, didn’t I?”

“Should we just give up on the idea of going home, then?” Ellabell asked suddenly. Her quiet words brought a hush about the room. Even Jari didn’t have a quip for what they all knew to be a hopeless situation. Alex swallowed hard. He wanted to comfort her, to assure everyone that they would find a way out soon. But how could he, when he had no such hope himself?

From the well of despair, an idea slowly began to come to him, materializing in his mind—another way of tracking down the essence. He was certain Caius had the essence, or would keep it close by, as all his royal brethren did.

“We need to think of a way to make Caius tell us where the bottles are,” Alex announced, breaking the tension.

The others looked at him as if he were mad, but Demeter seemed more optimistic as a thoughtful expression flashed across his eyes.

“If I was given the right opportunity, I might have a way of making Caius talk,” he replied cryptically. There was a dark glimmer in the ex-teacher’s eyes that intensified Alex’s curiosity as to what Demeter’s “special skillset” actually was.

“Really?” asked Alex. He could understand the bewildered expression in his friends’ eyes; Caius was a dangerous, terrifying mage—the last person they wanted to meet in this dark place. But time was ticking, and Alex didn’t know how they would escape before Alypia arrived if they didn’t figure out how to glean the essence’s location from the one person who knew. He just hoped that, if they did come face-to-face with him, they would all be able to hold their nerve—and escape alive.

Demeter nodded, all eyes now on him. “It would be extremely dangerous, but I think I can make him talk if we can find him... Tracking him down will be tricky, however.”

“Can it be done?” Natalie asked.

“There are areas of the prison that Caius visits sometimes, on the few occasions he comes to the keep, so I suppose we could stake out those places and take him by surprise, spring on him when he appears,” Demeter suggested.

“Sounds like a lot of waiting around,” Jari mumbled, evidently not as impressed by the plan as everyone else.

Demeter nodded. “It would definitely be a lot of waiting around, and the man is unpredictable at best. When I say, ‘visits sometimes,’ I mean once in a full moon, but I think it’s our best option if we wish to catch him.”

“It is ‘blue moon,’ I believe,” muttered Natalie.