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

as you do. You said so yourself—that criminals are running riot. To take her back there would be to put her in harm’s way.”

“As long as you trust she won’t be able to escape again, at least until all of this is over,” Alex murmured.

She flashed him a look of hurt. “I doubt she will be going anywhere anytime soon.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Alex reluctantly.

With a visible shiver, she shook the sad expression from her face, replacing it with a mask of bravery. “I shall see to it that my mother is kept secure for the duration of the battles that will lie ahead, but there is more we must do—you said something about calling my grandmother down?”

Alex nodded, knowing it was a bad time to make such requests. “We need to get Venus to come to us, alone, unless you know where the king and queen live?”

“If I go to them, they will suspect something,” Helena replied. “I go once a year, when summoned. It would not be taken well if I were to simply show up.”

Natalie glanced at her friend thoughtfully. “So, we will have to use that to get her to come to us?” she asked, pointing toward the ruby bee that Ellabell still clutched in her hands.

Helena nodded. “In theory, but I won’t lie—it will be difficult to get my grandmother on her own. Julius doesn’t like to let her out of his sight, given their history. I think he lives in fear of her being snatched up by a wandering Romeo,” Helena said wryly.

Alex realized this was precisely the reason calling Venus to Falleaf had failed so spectacularly; he hadn’t taken into account the strength of Julius’s neuroses. Of course the king wouldn’t let his queen go off on her own, not after what had presumably happened the last time he did. Virgil was no doubt a constant reminder of that.

“How does it work?” Jari asked, peering curiously at the scarlet orb.

“It works like a coded messenger, I suppose,” Helena explained. “You feed your magic into it, tell it what you want to say, and it encrypts the message before sending it to the recipient. I think Julius has four at his end, but the havens must only have one each, though I’ve only seen my mother’s.”

Alex nodded. “Would you be able to get a message to Venus, pretending to be your mother, or would Julius still come along for the ride?”

“It’s hard to say,” said Helena. “Ordinarily, the only people whose call Venus would answer alone would be my mother’s or Virgil’s, what with them being her kids, but I can’t make any promises.”

“They’re not bad odds—better than the Falleaf ones,” Alex said, hoping to raise the optimism of the others in the room. “So we could get her to come to Stillwater, and get everyone into battle positions while we’re waiting.”

Ellabell spoke up, loosening her white-knuckle grip on the ruby bee. “Wouldn’t it be better if we called her to Spellshadow? I imagine, knowing what we know about Julius, he would be far less likely to join his wife there, given his hatred for Virgil,” she said. “I don’t think he’d want to spend any time around the dirty royal secret.”

Helena nodded. “You could be onto something there.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Alex, knowing it was probably the best chance they had. It was true—of all the havens, Spellshadow was the one the king was most likely to avoid. Plus, it would mean they’d have the Head and the royal blood in one place, making the preparation for the counter-spell much easier. “You think Virgil will have one of these things in his office somewhere?” Alex asked, gesturing toward the device.

“I think it’s a very strong possibility,” Helena replied.

Alex smiled. “Then that’s what we’re going to have to go with,” he said. “If you send for your grandmother, pretending to be Virgil, using the device that will hopefully be in Virgil’s office, we can infiltrate the manor and do a clean sweep. When she arrives, we can attack and take both Virgil and Venus into custody at once. It’ll give us enough time to get prepared, and to try to rally some of the Spellshadow students to the cause.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me!” Jari whooped. The others nodded in agreement.

“Although, we may have to meet the rest of you at Spellshadow by coming through from Falleaf, instead of coming through from Stillwater,” Ellabell said.

Alex frowned. “How so?”

“We need to make sure Kingstone is secure again—failing that, we need to at least make sure that we get Aamir, Vincent, and Agatha out, and see if Hadrian can offer the latter two a bit of sanctuary after their long incarceration. Hadrian will want to know what’s going on too. He might be able to offer some assistance,” she explained.

Alex nodded. In his excitement, he had almost forgotten that they were still waiting on Aamir and the Kingstone duo.

“You might want to pick Demeter up on the way,” said Natalie with a concerned expression.

Alex had simply presumed the auburn-haired teacher was otherwise occupied with training students, or imparting his Spellbreaker knowledge on unwilling ears, but it appeared there was more to the man’s absence than met the eye.

“Where is he?” Alex asked.

“Demeter went through to Spellshadow several days ago. He was intending to meet up with you at Falleaf, but I am guessing he hadn’t managed it by the time you left?” Natalie said, her brow furrowed.

Alex shook his head. “He wasn’t there when we traveled to Kingstone, though he might have arrived while we’ve been gone. I’m sure he’s fine, wherever he is.”

“I really hope so,” murmured Natalie.

“I’m sure he made it through just as we left, and this is nothing more than a case of really bad timing,” he assured her. “We’ll head back through to Falleaf, via Kingstone, picking up our various strays as we go, and update Hadrian on what is going on.”

“Do you think we should send