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

“So what do we do now?” asked Natalie.

Alex turned to Lintz. “We take every beetle you have left, Professor, and we let that evil witch come through. When those sirens scream, we ignore them. No more waiting, no more contemplating. This is our chance to strike, and strike hard,” he said. “When she comes for me, we’ll be ready.”

Lintz frowned. “I’m not sure we can overcome her power, Alex.”

“If we can rope Vincent and Agatha in again, we’ll have a fighting chance,” Alex assured him. “She might expect the five of us to try something, but she won’t be expecting another four.”

This seemed to cheer Lintz. “I hadn’t thought of it that way… You know, I think we might just manage this.”

“That’s the spirit, Professor!” Alex cried.

For the first time in a long while, he too thought luck was on their side.

Chapter 23

The group were eating bowls of thin soup when the shrill sound of Alypia’s imminent arrival, emanating from the large pile of beetle beacons that lay on the table, brought their tense meal to an abrupt halt. Alex’s heart pounded, fear and exhilaration surging through his body on a tidal wave of adrenaline.

They were out of time. It was happening now.

“Let’s go!” Alex roared, rallying the troops. In his outstretched hand, he held a beetle beacon, brandishing it before him to seek out the portal’s location. As they grew closer, the beeping intensified, becoming more insistent with every step. They were headed for the courtyard.

As a unit, the group sprinted toward their respective starting positions, parting ways at the long hallway that led to the courtyard. Agatha was the only one who had not joined them, with Vincent apologizing for her absence, citing a relapse. That being the case, Alex had been almost glad she wasn’t with them. As much as he liked her, he didn’t want to have to worry about her attacking him mid-plan.

Everyone but Alex remained in the lobby area at the top of the corridor, moving into vacant cells and pressing back against the wall, so they could not be seen from the courtyard itself.

“Good luck!” Natalie, who was closest, whispered.

“You too,” he whispered back, before making his lonely way toward the courtyard’s entrance.

Whirling vividly in the center of the far stone wall, in the exact spot where Helena had pushed him through on the day of their Kingstone arrival, a portal was beginning to appear. It was no bigger than a hockey puck, but it was getting larger by the minute, expanding with each swirl of sizzling white energy.

The portal swirled wider and wider. Alex’s hands felt hot and sticky. He stood at the entrance of the open courtyard as the bright light of the gateway stretched and gaped.

Eventually, the swirling light faded away, leaving behind the mirror-like surface of a fully forged portal. Alex inhaled sharply, readying himself. He could see a room beyond the gateway. Blood rushed in his ears as a figure emerged from the glimmering light.

It did not surprise him to see that Alypia had brought a retinue, though there were not as many guards as he might have expected. What did surprise him, however, was the state of her appearance. With the time that had passed, he had expected her to be her usual, formidably beautiful self—or mostly back to normal, at any rate—but it seemed she was still in a bad way, the exquisite mask of her face not yet recovered. Parts of her skin were porcelain-smooth, plump and youthful, while other sections were sagging and covered in liver spots, revealing fractions of her true age.

She stepped across the threshold, her feet touching down on the flagstones. Her pale eyes flashed with fury as soon as she saw Alex standing there, her face twisting up into a sour expression. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but Alex never get to hear what she was about to say.

A blast surged from the walls, knocking Alex backward and sending Alypia tumbling to the ground. The same crackling, red haze they had encountered on the first day swelled from the stone, rippling toward them. Alex scrambled to his feet as the sentient fog poured down the throats of Alypia and the two unfortunate guards who had come through behind her, searing through their eyes. Alex glanced around, trying to figure out what had caused the explosion, but he couldn’t see anything nearby that might have sparked the fuse. He guessed it must have been Alypia herself, or the appearance of the portal. It made sense—the barrier reacted because it didn’t like the being coming through, just as Caius did not like her.

Alex looked toward the entrance of the courtyard, willing Caius to appear, but it seemed the old warden had forgone his previous promise to hang around, and wasn’t about to pop up and save the day. Panicked, Alex looked beyond the entrance and saw that his friends were running pell-mell at the top of the corridor, the fog seeking them out. He sprinted toward them, abandoning the dazed guards and Alypia, who seemed to be out cold on the floor, her body jerking violently as the red fog took over her mind and body. He left them to the haze, rushing instead to his friends, trying to stand between them and the fog—but it simply ran through him as if he weren’t even there, dodging his strands of anti-magic.

There was nowhere to run, to escape the fog. The others dashed away from Alex as he tried to reach for them. He called out to them, urging them to fight it off. In running from him, they permitted the fog the time it needed to swallow them up, taking hold… but the screams never came. Instead of nightmares, they were seized by paranoia. Alex could see it on their faces as their eyes flew wide, glancing in all directions, fidgeting with hands and fingers and the fabric of their clothes, muttering