The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(79)

“Don’t worry, we’ll handle it,” Demeter replied.

Alex turned toward the closest corridor and broke into a run. With the threat of Alypia fresh in his mind, he headed down a series of hallways, allowing his instincts to lead him.

You think you’re hunting my kind, Alypia, but you’re wrong, he thought bitterly to himself. You are the prey, so run while you can—I am coming for you.





Chapter 26





With the taunts of inmates thundering in his ears, Alex raced through the labyrinthine keep, his mind focused solely on his friends. Some prisoners he found more difficult to ignore than others, especially the ones who called out things about Ellabell and Natalie, with one inmate noting how beautiful they’d be with their mouths sewn shut as he made a foul slurping sound. The rest of the comments were too repulsive to repeat, making Alex’s blood boil, though he knew he couldn’t stop to punish anyone, not this time.

He ran on, skidding to a halt at the entrance to the corridor that held Agatha’s cell. With his heart pounding, he walked slowly down the hallway, pausing beside her door. Carefully, he reached out and checked to see if it was locked, pulling firmly on the handle. To his relief, he found that someone had been there before him and shut it tight, locking her in. He was glad of that foresight and guessed it was Vincent who had turned the key, given his concern about her relapse.

“SPELLBREAKER FILTH!” Agatha slammed her full weight against the wood, which was starting to look more than a little flimsy. The tremor sent a jolt of fear through Alex. A second jolt shot through him as her face appeared at the grate, spittle flying close to his face. “Come closer, have a taste of a mage’s fury! I’ll twist up your insides and turn them to mush—you’ll pray for death when I’m done with you, you wretch!” she screamed, her eyes wild.

Alex quickly moved on, leaving Agatha to her slurs, hoping she’d forget about them once the haze faded.

At the next cell, he paused again. Vincent’s chamber wasn’t locked, the door standing slightly ajar, much to Alex’s horror. He wondered if the necromancer had returned to his cell, like a bird coming back to roost. Alex braced himself for whatever he might see.

Instead of an angry changeling rushing at him, Alex was met by the sight of Vincent sitting on the floor, apparently in a calm, meditative state. The strange-faced necromancer looked up and saw Alex, waving him on with a flick of his slender wrist.

“I am fighting it, my good man. I will overcome… Do not tarry here when others require your aid,” he insisted, his translucent lids sliding over the impossible black of his eyes once more.

Alex paused, uncertain, wondering if Vincent meant he was battling a golden monster, but as he looked closer he could see that Vincent’s eyes, still half-visible through the translucent lids, were clear of the misty haze of the red fog, and he was merely striving against the residual influence of paranoia.

“My thoughts are not real. My thoughts are not my own,” the necromancer repeated rhythmically, letting the mantra do the work.

Satisfied, Alex hurried on. He ran down a familiar corridor and turned left into a very dark hallway he didn’t altogether recognize. Where once torches had flickered on the walls, now they had sputtered out, and Alex knew it had not been caused by a chance gust of wind.

Without warning, Jari sprang from the shadows and jumped onto Alex’s back. Alex cried out, grasping for Jari’s arms and throwing his friend to the floor with a hefty thud. Undeterred, Jari sprang again, dragging Alex down onto the flagstones. Alex winced as a hard punch caught him square on the cheek, followed by another vicious blow to the gut that made his eyes water, but he fought back just as hard, clawing for Jari’s arms. As Alex caught his friend with a lucky upper-cut to the jaw, he felt Jari go still for a moment, giving Alex the window of opportunity he had been waiting for. But Jari was quicker than that—the boy leapt straight back into the action, ducking out of Alex’s range.

Frustrated, Alex fired a shield in the direction of the darkest shadows, where he could hear Jari creeping. The boy yelped as the shield found him, and Alex could hear the muffled sound of his indignation. The glowing barrier kept Jari from doing harm as Alex pushed his hands through the shield and rested them on either side of Jari’s head.

As he removed the fog and paranoia with his silvery strands of anti-magic, Alex saw flashes of Jari’s life that made him smile. It was like watching a slideshow of highlights from Spellshadow Manor. An image of the Christmas they had all spent together popped into the spotlight—the great tree erupting from the ground, all of them standing to watch the lights and ornaments, the fleeting joy they had felt. He saw moments between Jari and Aamir, seen through Jari’s eyes, in the days before he and Natalie had arrived. They were laughing at something, stretched out on the grass, the sun beating down upon their grinning faces. Alex could almost feel the sunlight on his skin.

Among the memories of Spellshadow, there were brief glimpses of Jari’s family life, his dad cracking jokes around the dinner table, an array of bright, beautiful paintings adorning the wall behind. Alex remembered something about Jari’s mother being an artist, and wondered if the paintings were hers.

If they were, he thought, she was very talented.

Another set of images flickered into Jari’s mind, showing Alex a hazy, heavily filtered montage of Helena, all the times she had looked at him with her piercing golden eyes, tossing her long silver hair. In Jari’s view of her, she looked like a forties movie star, everything heightened and smoothed out, seen the way he wanted to see her. It made Alex grin; he was truly seeing things through Jari’s eyes. It was tempting to Alex to search farther into his friend’s mind, but he quickly recoiled, confident the paranoia had gone. He realized just how close he was to deliberately invading Jari’s privacy. It wasn’t what he had learned mind control for, and such intrusion was exactly what he had promised himself he wouldn’t do.