The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(75)

“Wait, so how do you know I can do the counter-spell?” Alex asked, expecting a suitably vague answer. Instead, Elias came straight out with it.

“I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve got the stuff, kiddo,” he replied, glancing down at his non-existent feet. “It’s like an aura around you—I can see it, feel it, sense it. You’re lit up like a big silver Christmas tree. With our friend Virgil, it’s not so clear. He’s like one of those tiny plastic trees made out of tinsel that just look sad, stuffed on a shelf and forgotten about. The energy is weaker, diluted in some way, probably by his magical side.”

Alex wondered where Elias’s obsession with Christmas-based metaphor had sprung from, but there was no time to joke about it. There were too many questions Alex needed answered, and he still had to think of a way out of the cell. Time, his arch-nemesis, was once more against him.

“Why isn’t my Spellbreaker side diluted by my non-magical side?” Alex countered.

“Doesn’t work that way. Supernatural energy paired with non-magical ordinariness is complementary, and the supernatural overtakes the ordinary side, using it as a vessel through which to flow. When supernatural energy is paired with supernatural energy, it creates a conflict, and one side has to prevail or the host would implode. In little Virgil’s case, the magic side seems stronger,” Elias explained. “It’s why it was thought to be impossible before he arrived and trounced everyone’s painstakingly crafted theories, because the two sides fought on a cellular level too, meaning conception wasn’t possible until Virgie Virge came along—he is a true mystery. It’s just a shame he’s so intolerably dull.”

“So are there others like me?” Alex wondered aloud.

Elias sighed. “Afraid not, though I understand the desire to have another stand in your place, when the consequences are what they are. Believe me, we’ve looked high and low. If there was anyone else, I wouldn’t have spent the last eighteen years dangling like a streamer from shadowy corners, keeping out of the way.”

“Is this what you wanted all along, then? To feed me little bits and pieces, make me think I was becoming something, building me up to a strength where I might be capable of doing the counter-spell, just so you could then try to coax me into it? Is that what all of this has been for—just a setup for my eventual demise?” Alex asked coldly, trying to stop the bristle of anti-magic that threatened to push through his skin. “Naturally, you couldn’t just tell me why you wanted me to do all of these things, so you let others do it for you, watching and waiting until you could strike and get me to do it… thinking you could appeal to my compassionate side, no doubt.”

With something akin to regret, Elias spoke. “The curse that was placed on Siren and me, though ‘gag order’ is a better term, worked like Aamir’s golden band. Neither of us could say anything directly—you had to find out your heritage and purpose on your own, to prove your worthiness,” he said quietly, his voice echoing strangely around him. “We didn’t make the rules, but we had to follow them. We followed them to the letter with your father, in that we weren’t allowed to influence anything directly, to help. But, as a result, he learned nothing and discovered nothing about himself. As far as he knew, he was ordinary. If we’d been able to equip him… Well, things may not have happened as they did.” In the wispy dark of his throat, he made a strange gulping sound. “So, over the years we discovered ways we could bend the rules a bit, to make things easier if another Spellbreaker ever came along… and you did. Here you are,” he whispered, a palpable sorrow in his voice. It was almost worse than the sarcasm.

“I guess I’m asking the right questions now?” Alex said wryly.

“Finally,” Elias replied, though the humor sounded forced.

“What were you going to say before you disappeared in a flash of light? You said, ‘It is not their—’ or something. Then you disappeared—what were you going to say?” Alex asked, hoping the question was precise enough to garner a clear answer.

“I was going to say, it is not their battle. They were all squabbling over who gets you, not realizing that it isn’t even their fight or their choice. I mean, they could force you, but it might end up with the same results as Virgil’s feeble attempts. In the end, it is your battle, not theirs.”

“Can you make me do it?” Alex asked, trying to keep the trepidation out of his voice.

Elias shook his shifting head. “Even now, I’m not allowed to influence you one way or the other, as much as I would like to,” he jested. “So far, I haven’t come up with a way of getting you to do it, and I have been wracking my brains for a long time. No, in all seriousness, the decision has to be yours.”

A sudden, horrifying thought came to Alex’s mind. Perhaps Elias hadn’t thought of a way around the no-influence clause, but Alex could think of someone who might have figured out an emotional loophole. He wondered if that was why Siren Mave had made Aamir offer to return him to the real world, to be reunited with his mother. With a pang of bitterness, he realized there could well have been a darker, less altruistic side to the offer. If it had happened, if he had accepted the offer before Jari and Natalie had burst in, would the trip home simply have served as a sweetener, to persuade him to accept his “purpose” and give his life for the cause? A reminder of what he was fighting for, to make him feel so overwhelmed with guilt for all those who couldn’t go home—a chance to say goodbye before he gave up his life? With a sinking feeling, he understood it was a grave likelihood.