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

The shadow swooped again. Alex looked down at his father’s hands, only to see that they were beginning to disappear into the same dark mist. Alex guessed, with a heavy heart, that what had happened to the pursuer was now happening to his father, as everything went black.

He wanted to travel back to the park, to see what his mother had done, but he couldn’t. It was no longer in his father’s timeline. His father was dead. Alex didn’t need to see a funeral or a headstone; he understood what the abrupt, black ending meant. But he realized, with a pang of heartache, that his mother did not. The thought of her being oblivious to the truth frustrated him more than he thought possible, as he imagined her turning with two ice cream cones in her hands, only to find her lover gone, never to be heard from again. Worst of all, he knew she would have agonized over it, wondering if it was something she had done that made her love leave without a word. Alex couldn’t even begin to imagine how that must have felt, but he found he now had a greater understanding of her tears whenever he had brought his father up in conversation. She must have thought he had up and left her pregnant self, since there was no body to find, and she would never know why he had run or where he had gone.

Slowly, he unfurled from the vision, feeling utterly overwhelmed and vengeful toward the evil, shadowy sprite who was responsible for all this mess—the creature who had killed his father. He wanted answers. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know everything.

“Are you well?” Vincent asked, reminding Alex that he was still in the room.

Alex turned to the eerie necromancer. “I will be,” he said quietly. “Thank you for all you have shown me. It’s time for me to leave.”

“Certainly, young Spellbreaker. We have much work to be getting on with,” Vincent said, though there was a flash in his black eyes that made Alex wonder how much the necromancer really knew of what he had just seen. There wasn’t time to ask now.

“Of course,” said Alex. He stood, almost in a trance, and hurried from the room.

He ran toward the doorway, up to one of the small turrets he had passed days before, and pounded the stairs to the summit. Bursting out into the cold evening air, Alex stepped up to the very edge of the wall and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“ELIAS!” His voice echoed until he had no air left, his chest burning. “Elias, come out and face me, you coward!” he yelled, hot tears prickling his eyes. “Face me! Face what you did! Come out and admit your crime, you monster!” He slammed a fist into the wall, feeling it crackle against his skin as he screamed and screamed, the tears running down his cheeks.

Nothing made sense. Why had Elias bothered to help him, when the shadow-man had been keeping such a vile secret to himself all this time?

As his screams echoed into the ether, Alex became aware of a shadow loitering at the very edge of the steps behind him.

Chapter 10

Siren Mave stood at the entrance to the turret.

An initial shock rippled through Alex, seeing the toady woman standing there, her cheeks ablaze with liberally applied blush. But his gaze quickly moved elsewhere, driven by frustration. He didn’t want to see Siren Mave; he wanted to see Elias.

“Oh dear, Alex Webber, what a state you’ve gotten yourself into,” she murmured quietly, her voice not unkind. Cautiously, she approached.

“You?” he snapped. “What are you doing here?”

“I go where am I needed, Alex,” she replied simply.

He glowered in her direction. “How can you even be here?”

“I go where I please,” she said, making Alex remember her appearance at Stillwater too.

“It’s not you I want to see… Where is he?” Alex growled, completely beside himself. This wasn’t what he wanted—Siren Mave was no good. He wanted the shadow-man, and nothing else would suffice.

“You know I’m not going to tell you that, not with you like this,” she said firmly, adjusting her horn-rimmed spectacles. “Let’s try some breathing, see if we can’t get you to calm down.” There was a slightly patronizing note in her voice that set Alex’s nerves on edge.

He shook his head. “I don’t need to calm down, I need to see him. If you stand in my way, I will take you down too,” he hissed.

Siren Mave sighed like a henpecked mother. “You won’t, Alex, and as much as I’d love to see you try, I don’t think you’d come out of it too well,” she said, amused. “You really do need to calm down—getting worked up like this will do nobody any favors, least of all yourself.”

He glared at her, wishing she would go away and disappear into the hallways of the keep, as she had done in all the other hallways in all the other havens. Why was it that the one time he least wanted to see her, there she was? He thought about saying so, but held his tongue, reserving his venom for Elias.

“I don’t have time for this. I need to see Elias, now!” he yelled, growing more impatient by the second.

“How about we begin with you telling me what has caused all this?” she said, gesturing at Alex, a mass of beaded bracelets jangling heavily on her wrist. She mimicked the state he was in by puffing out her rouged cheeks, making herself look somewhat ridiculous. “I’m not going anywhere, Alex, so you may as well speak to me. I can be of help to you, but it’s a two-way street,” she added, with a note of frustration in her voice.

Alex wondered what on earth she had to be frustrated about. She wasn’t the one who had just found out his father was dead, and learned that the creature