The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 4 by Bella Forrest (life books to read TXT) 📕

of her blood-curdling screams still rang in his ears from time to time, whenever he allowed himself to dwell too long on what he had done. None of it made him feel particularly good about himself, and he knew he could never share the thrill Elias felt at another person’s suffering, no matter what that person had done. It had never been his intention to kill someone, and Elias’s words made him realize how close he had come to doing just that. It didn’t sit easy with Alex, though it led him to wonder whether he would have to kill somebody, before his time in the magical world came to an end. A shudder ran up his spine.

Thoughts of golden beasts and spilt essence and traumatizing screams made the pain in his chest return with a vengeance, the sudden jolt of it taking his breath away.

Elias’s face contorted in a frown. “Can I help?” he asked.

Alex wondered what the shadow-man meant, somewhat perturbed by the borderline compassionate note in Elias’s echoing, otherworldly voice.

“With what?”

“With that,” Elias replied, resting a shadowy finger on Alex’s chest.

Glancing down, Alex’s eyes went wide in alarm as he saw a dim silver light glowing beneath his skin. He found himself frozen to the spot, unable to pull away as Elias felt for the damaged pulse of his coiled essence, his wispy fingers sinking disturbingly through Alex’s flesh, into his ribcage. Alex could feel the cold chill of the dark mist moving through him, but as soon as Elias touched the broken edge of his soul, everything felt better, like smoothing a cooling ointment on a burn. What surprised him most, however, was the lack of snowflakes where the wispy creature touched him. Whatever Elias was made from, it wasn’t an ordinary sort of magic.

“It’s good I wasn’t wearing my nurse’s uniform, or this could have been really uncomfortable,” Elias cackled, making Alex laugh despite himself.

Elias removed the fronds of his wispy hands, the raw edge of Alex’s essence calming to an almost imperceptible ache. Even breathing felt easier, his chest relaxing, his shoulders loosening.

“Elias?”

“Yes?”

“How did you know Professor Gaze?” Alex asked, remembering that she had mentioned him before she died, telling them that she had adored him once. He presumed she hadn’t meant the wispy anomaly before him, giving rise to the question of what Elias had been before he was this. It was a question Alex had been consistently curious about, but to have heard Elias spoken about by someone else made the shadow-man’s humanity somehow more possible.

“Ah, that wizened old thing,” he said, though, to Alex’s surprise, the insult carried no malice. It sounded almost affectionate, though Elias quickly covered it with a languorous flick of his wrist. “A memory from a lifetime ago, no more, from a time when I was both more and less than I am now.” He tapped his vaporous foot against the floor, though it made no sound.

“She said she adored you once,” Alex murmured. “You must have known her well, at one time?”

“A tragic passing.” Elias seemed to nod, the words spoken through gritted, starry teeth, as if he hadn’t wanted to say it but could not prevent himself. “A fine mage from a former life.”

A vision returned to Alex’s mind.

“There was a figure standing in the hallway, in the flashback I had when I picked up Derhin’s bottle—that was you,” Alex said, realization dawning. “You were a professor at Spellshadow, dressed in robes, and you were watching them laughing. It was you, wasn’t it?” he pressed, though he was sure of it. The figure had seemed somehow familiar, even then. It had been the same with the portrait on the wall, in one of the Spellshadow corridors—the only portrait with the plaque torn off. The man in the painting had been so familiar, yet Alex hadn’t been able to put his finger on why. Now, it made sense.

The stars in Elias’s eyes flashed a warning at Alex. “Elias made me, and I am Elias.”

“It was you, wasn’t it? Just tell me it was you.”

“Life comes and life goes. There is no avoiding fate,” he replied cryptically, his voice dripping with bitterness.

“What happened to you?”

Elias was more evasive than ever, glancing around, looking anywhere but at Alex. It was clear he didn’t wish to dwell on what he had been before, but Alex couldn’t drop it. People didn’t just end up as wafting shadows, flitting here and there. There had to be a reason Elias was the way he was, and Alex was desperate to know it.

“I thought I was clever… but never mind that,” the shadow-man sighed. “You seem to be all in a pickle. I can feel it, buzzing off you—most annoying.” He shook out his vaporous body, swatting the air as if ridding himself of a vexatious wasp.

“What do you know of Caius and the Kingstone essence?” Alex asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get the answers to Elias’s existence just yet, but remembering there were other answers he might be able to coax out of the shadow-man.

“I know that you’re barking up the wrong tree, wasting time with the idea of waiting on corners like the sad little vagrants you are. Caius is no fool. He will sense you before you’re even close—he’ll certainly smell you,” taunted Elias, wrinkling up the place where his nose should have been. “What is that? Eau de Pond Scum?”

Alex frowned, realizing he still needed to find something to replace his moat-soaked clothes. He had cleaned them as best he could, but Elias was right—the scent still lingered.

“I fell into the moat,” he muttered.

Elias roared with laughter. “Didn’t get munched by one of the monsters?”

“Evidently not,” Alex retorted, wanting to get back to the topic of Caius. “So how would you do it? How would you smoke him out?”

Elias flashed his starry teeth in a gleeful grin. “I never do the chasing, I always let the admirers chase me. Why wait, when you can have the pleasure of