The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (book series for 10 year olds .TXT) 📕

to wait until morning, and though that frustrated Alex deeply, there was a hint of relief too. He was utterly exhausted; he could wait one evening before putting his plan in action.

Chapter 15

It seemed his night wasn’t quite yet over, however, as the shadows began to shift in the corner of the room, dripping downward in a vaporous waterfall. They slithered along the floor, and Elias burst up out of the darkness. For the first time since Spellshadow, there was no barrier seeking to distort Elias’s form; he was as whole as a wispy thing like him could be.

Alex rolled his eyes, turning away from the shadow-man. It had been coming for a while, this appearance, but Alex wasn’t ready for it. There was a lot of unspoken rage inside him, where Elias was concerned, and he didn’t think another meeting would do much to heal the wound. No amount of good intention could ever bring his father back, nor could Elias be forgiven for his kidnapping of Ellabell. Even if it had been Elias helping her in the vault, trying to ease her fear of the dark by handing her the key, it didn’t make up for the act that had probably made her afraid of the dark in the first place.

“The fun has arrived!” Elias grinned.

“The fun should go away,” Alex remarked sourly.

“Is that any way to speak to your new partner? We’re linked now, kiddo—there’s no escaping me this time, so you might as well get used to having me around,” Elias purred.

Alex flashed the shadow-man a dirty look. “I’ve been trying to ‘get used’ to you since the moment we met,” he said curtly, his expression changing as he processed the words Elias had said. “Wait, what do you mean ‘linked’? What have you done to me?” Whatever it was, he knew it had something to do with the visions he’d been having.

Elias pulled a face. “It’s not what I have done to you, but what you’ve done to me. You tore off a little piece of my soul, and now we’re linked forever—whether you like it or not.” He chuckled. “There’s a funny sort of irony in it, wouldn’t you say? You try so hard to keep me away, then go and do something stupid like get yourself mentally joined to me. I do love a delicious slice of comeuppance.”

“It’s not me who needs the comeuppance, Elias,” Alex growled, letting the words sink in. Elias was the last person in the world he wanted to be linked to, in any way, shape or form. Regardless of the reasoning, Elias was the one responsible for the death of his father, and the knowledge of their new bond made Alex feel as if a terrible virus had crept its way into his veins.

A moment of tense silence stretched between the two acquaintances. It was Elias who broke it.

“I know, Alex,” he said, with uncharacteristic solemnity. “I’m… sorry for the pain I have put you through, and the things I have done to hurt those you love. I promise I am trying to be a better being, in any way that I can.”

Elias hung his head, and Alex felt as if he were in therapy, listening to the words of a recovering addict. It was tricky to gauge whether the sentiment was genuine or purely for show.

“What’s brought all this on?” Alex asked. “It’s not like you to be so gushy.”

The shadow-man gave Alex a withering look. “Here I am, pouring my heart out, and all you can do is mock. Well, I shall take my feelings elsewhere—or, perhaps, I’ll feed them into your mind until you beg me to go back to gushing. How about that?”

“So it has been you feeding images into my head?” asked Alex.

Elias sighed wearily. “You really do need everything spelled out for you, don’t you? I’m sure if I whacked you around the face, you’d say, ‘Did something just hit me?’ How you coped before I came along, I’ll never know,” he teased. “Yes, it has been me, feeding my thoughts into yours. I’d say I’ve come in pretty handy, wouldn’t you?”

Alex had to admit that he had. If Elias hadn’t used their mental link, Alex knew he might still be standing on the edge of a mountainside, trying to figure out how to ride a Thunderbird.

“You’ve done okay,” he said reluctantly, though it didn’t make up for all the hurt Elias had caused.

“Ouch—damning me with faint praise.” Elias scoffed.

“Was it you who got us into trouble, in the vault?” Alex asked, ignoring Elias’s dramatic expression of hurt, one shadowy hand pressed to his vaporous forehead.

Elias lifted his wispy shoulders in a shrug. “Even if I hadn’t helped that curly-haired crush of yours, you’d still have had to do what you did. That nosy guardian just decided to throw me under the bus, to make you blame me. He’d have made something else up, even if I hadn’t given my assistance. Your little sweetheart would likely do the same again, given the chance. Quite the firebrand, that girl. I’m starting to think I should have started pestering her instead of you,” he remarked, with something akin to respect.

Alex had a feeling he was going to prefer it when Elias hadn’t liked Ellabell, and yet, there was a small part of him that wanted to thank the shadow-man for how he had helped her, in the pitch-black room. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say so, after the enormity of what had happened between them. Not yet, anyway.

“Do you think you’ll be able to help me collect the blood I need for the spell?” Alex asked, changing the subject.

Elias tilted his head from side to side. “I may come up with something—what did you have in mind?”

“You don’t already know?” Alex joked. “I was thinking of asking Hadrian to call Venus to Falleaf. Maybe you could get the blood for me, if you can sneak up to her?”

“Not really in