The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(97)

She smiled coldly. “You think he cares about the indiscretions of the mages? They’re his nighttime reading. Even when I was a child, he used to tell me tales about the men he’d killed, and the executions he’d attended. His greatest achievement is what he did to your race, Alex,” she sighed. “You think I’m some sort of monster, but you don’t know monstrous until you have seen what my father can do, and does do, on a regular basis. I am a kitten in comparison. He could blow up a man from the inside out and think no more of it than if he had squashed a fly. Mind you, he’s going to be so peeved when he hears he came so close to you without knowing.”

“He won’t get the chance,” Alex replied brazenly.

Alypia chuckled. “You have no idea what you’re up against, little boy. You had just better hope that I don’t find a way out of here, or find a way to get a message to my father. If I do, you will wish he knew the meaning of a quick death. He will make every one of your little friends suffer in ways you couldn’t even imagine.”

Alypia was making it very hard for Alex not to regret, just a little bit, that he hadn’t let Caius kill her.

“We’ll be long gone before he even knows there’s a problem,” Alex retorted.

“As I say… you’d better hope so.”

Alex frowned, his heart pounding. “You sound like you worship the man. How can I look at you and not think you’re a monster, when you adore a man who is capable of all those things?”

“I value power,” she said simply. “And he has immeasurable power.”

“And what about the way he treats your mother? Surely, you can’t stand for that?” Alex asked, wanting to see how far he could push Alypia.

“My mother is weak,” she whispered. “My father was right to punish her—she didn’t fight back. She is my father’s property, and she allowed herself to be tarnished.”

Alex couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of Alypia’s mouth. From such a strong, formidable woman, they sounded absurd, making him wonder if she had somehow been brainwashed along the way, to believe the vile things her father said and thought to be morally right.

“She’d be dead if it wasn’t for Caius,” Alex said. “You should respect Caius, not your father.”

Alypia was silent for a moment. “Perhaps that would have been kinder… if she had died back then. I’ve often thought so.”

“We’re done here,” said Alex suddenly. He’d heard everything he wanted to know about Julius, and the threat the king posed if he found out what the others were doing at Stillwater and Spellshadow. It made him realize he had to be quicker than ever; he had to go through the portal to Falleaf, retrieve the book, get Virgil to do the counter-spell as fast as he possibly could, and get everyone out of there.

He had just reached the door to the cell, when Alypia’s sickly sweet voice called his attention back.

“You know why my uncle allowed you to stay and speak with me, don’t you?” she said softly.

Alex frowned. “So I could get information from you—you heard me say it.”

“Sometimes, my uncle forgets which side he is actually on. It’s a personality disorder of some kind, making him believe he’s a Spellbreaker when he’s really one of us,” she purred. “He would do absolutely anything to punish his brother. He would do anything to keep you from saving the rest of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were already at your little portal, dismantling it as we speak. Don’t get me wrong—it’s the opposite of what I want, but I figured you should know… you know, in case you wanted to stop him.”

Alarm rippled through Alex’s body.

“What?”

She smiled. “Go see for yourself…” she whispered.

Pulse racing, Alex darted out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him in case she decided to make a break for it. His feet pounded hard against the flagstones as he sprinted toward the place where the portal to Falleaf was, hoping against everything that it was still there.

She has to be wrong. She has to be, he told himself as he ran, turning the corner into the hallway where the antechamber was.

Alypia’s voice followed him, echoing down the corridors.

“You should have taken my offer, boy! You’re doomed now!”

He skidded to a halt in front of the door to the small room. Slamming his fists against it, he pushed the door open with alarming force and peered into the darkness beyond, desperate to see the glimmer of the portal staring back.

No, no, no, no, no...

Shaking his head, his heart thudding with a sick dread, he ran toward the wall and clawed frantically at the blocks of stone, but it was no good.

The portal was gone.





Chapter 32





Gulping in great, panicked breaths of air, Alex tried to rationalize the sight before him. His fingertips were raw and bleeding from attacking the stone wall in desperation, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He had asked Lintz to keep the gateway open, and though it was gone, Alex knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for its disappearance.

Maybe it closed by accident, he thought to himself over and over, trying to calm his fractious nerves. Alypia can’t be right… Please don’t let her be right.