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

stashed away for them in the tower room, the group ate and drank quickly, talking very little between bites and sips. The food in their bowls was some sort of thin, gelatinous porridge, gray in both color and flavor, though the tea they had to wash it down with made it more palatable. Alex still felt on edge, but the nourishment perked him up slightly. A few times, he caught Ellabell looking at him with concern, but he smiled reassuringly at her, trying to let her know he was okay. Whether she believed him or not was another story.

After breakfast, Lintz was going to show them the beetles that would alert them to any opening portals, before Demeter introduced them to his friends so they could get on with their mission of locating the keep’s stash of essence. In a place full of necromancers and murderers, Alex couldn’t imagine the label “friend” being a wholly accurate one.

The group got to their feet, with Aamir holding out a hand to Alex. Alex shook his head, confident he was recovered enough to walk unaided.

“You sure?” Aamir asked, frowning at Alex.

“I’m fine,” he replied, more tersely than he had intended, though Aamir didn’t seem to notice.

After the first few minutes of walking, Alex found he could ignore the dull pain in his chest. As long as he kept moving one foot in front of the other, he could pretend he was okay. Slowly, he followed the others, with Lintz leading the way, until they came to the large common room below. A workbench was set up against the far wall, with a few of the beautiful clockwork beetles arranged on top.

“You’ll each need to take one of these,” Lintz said, passing out smaller variations of the beetles to everyone present.

Alex turned the intricate mechanism in his hands, marveling at the craftsmanship. The beetles themselves were no bigger than the palm of a hand and looked more like scarabs than their larger counterparts. The metal that formed the carapace had been tempered to look multicolored, the hue changing depending on how the light hit it.

“Incredible,” Alex murmured.

Lintz grinned. “These are my beetle beacons,” he explained. “I’ve been using them to inform me when a portal is detected. If one senses a portal appearing, it will flash and make a high-pitched siren sound. The lights work like a compass. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Lintz ran some of his magic through the mechanism. The scarab lit up, a shrill sound piercing the air. A light shone on each side of its shell, four in total. The alarm sent a shiver through Alex as he wondered what it would be like when the device went off for real, signaling the impending arrival of Alypia. He knew such an event was imminent, and that knowledge filled him with a cold dread.

“Now, you see, all four lights are flashing, but if a real portal had appeared, it would only flash in the direction of where the portal was opening. All you have to do is follow it, and the sound will grow louder the closer you get,” Lintz continued.

“And how do we turn it off?” Ellabell asked, covering her ears. The sound was irritating, to say the least.

“You simply press down firmly on the carapace of the beetle,” he replied. With his chubby thumb, he pressed down on the multicolored metal shell; there was a small click, and the shrill sound came to a grateful end. “So, say the two of you are on beetle duty,” he said, gesturing toward Alex and Ellabell. “You would follow the sound and light, reach the destination, and then pull away the portal. If you find yourself on beetle duty, you will need to carry fully charged big beetles with you, and once you have removed the portal, you’ll need to replace the used-up beetles with the fresh ones, and bring the depleted ones either to me or whoever is on magic-filling duty. And so the cycle will repeat.”

The process seemed simple enough, and Alex was eager to begin their exploration of the keep.

“So, you’re sure these friends of yours will be able to help us, Professor?” he asked.

“The two of them have been here for a very long time,” Lintz said, pocketing his own beetle beacon. “I daresay they know this place better than even Demeter or I by now.”

“They’ve been allowed out of their cells?” Aamir asked dubiously.

“They’re good people, and their doors are always unlocked because they’re important… associates… of ours, and so they have as much free rein of the place as we do,” Demeter said. “They’ll be expecting us shortly. Come on, we must strike while the iron is on fire!”

“I should check on my other beetles—I’ll catch up with you folks later,” Lintz said, a slight grimace crossing his face. Alex suspected the professor was still peeved at their choice to find the keep’s essence against his warnings.

They made their way out of the room, heading through a number of hallways and corridors in a series of turns. Demeter paused in front of two wooden doors that were ajar, situated at the end of a wide hall. He knocked on the first of the two doors.

A willowy older woman emerged, dressed in a tattered, once-violet dress. Her hair was dark gray, falling well past her waist, several sections woven with what looked like strands of colorful silk—though where she would have gotten such a luxury, Alex wasn’t sure. She wore dried flowers in a woven band across her forehead and around the back of her hair too, structured into a sort of flower crown that gave her a distinctly earth-mother quality. As the torchlight caught the side of her face, Alex could see that she had once been beautiful. Her high cheekbones gave her a dignified air, and her green eyes glittered with a perpetual irreverence. She flashed an easy smile at them as she stepped out into the corridor. It was bright and welcoming, and Alex felt