The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 4 by Bella Forrest (best e book reader android TXT) 📗

was staring at him with a fearful glint in her widened eyes, though perhaps it was just the atmosphere playing tricks on him, making him see and feel things that didn’t exist.

Her expression made more sense as he glanced down at himself, seeing the crackle of his anti-magical aura beginning to edge through his skin, trying to defend against the onslaught of Natalie’s words.

He had to get away. Her words had intensified the crawl of rage beneath his skin, and it was overwhelming him. He turned and ran.

“Alex, come back! Don’t leave me like this!” she called.

Her voice faded away until he could no longer hear it. He couldn’t trust himself around any of them, with the barrier manipulating him the way it was. He wondered if it might also have something to do with Elias’s attempt at healing him, the shadow-man’s touch simply making things worse in the long-run, after a momentary relief. Alex felt he needed Vincent’s lesson more than ever to escape the pressure of it all, if only for a short while. He needed the claustrophobia and the anger and the skin-crawling sensation of the keep to pause. If he didn’t catch a break, he sensed he might lose his grip on reality for good. It was already slipping away from him.

He continued on his way to the tower room and reached it quickly. After retrieving two of the black bottles, Alex strode back through the corridors of Kingstone Keep, trying to take the edge off his anger, and soon found himself once again at Vincent’s cell.

Inside, it was unexpectedly spacious, with a large window cut into the far wall that made the room seem airy and bright. Vincent sat in a chair in the corner, a book open on his lap.

“Are you all right?” Vincent asked as Alex entered. “You look like you have a thousand demons whispering away in that head of yours, young Spellbreaker.”

“There’s been a lot to think about, that’s all.” Alex sighed, trying to push all thoughts of Natalie aside—for the time being, at least. “I’m ready to get on with this.”

“Come, sit,” Vincent said, gesturing toward the chair opposite. A small fire burned in the grate between the two seats, making Alex anxious. Vincent smiled, gazing down into the warming blaze. “If you begin to feel faint, I shall extinguish its flames. We don’t want a repeat of what happened earlier…”

“Thanks,” Alex said, taking the offered seat. It seemed as if the necromancer was settling down for a long discussion, and the idea made Alex instantly antsy. He didn’t know how Vincent could be so calm when they still had so much to do.

“I feel it’s important we get to know one another a fraction better, before I begin to teach you about a side of necromancy I feel comfortable with—spirit lines and how to walk along them.”

“You said it’s a talent of…great import, right?” Alex asked, the formal phrasing feeling strange coming from his own mouth.

“Most certainly. Spirit lines can reveal deep-seated fears and secrets. If you know a person’s past, you know their vulnerabilities. Such a skill may be of use in your fight against the royals,” Vincent said with a wave of his long fingers. “Now, trust is the key to success, and if you do not trust, doors will not open. I hope you feel able to trust me, by the end of this session. I realize you must have your concerns; I wouldn’t think you sound of mind if you didn’t.”

“I’m still not sure what to make of you,” Alex replied bluntly.

“Good, we are off to an excellent start. Honesty from the outset—wonderful.” Vincent clasped his hands together in apparent delight. “Now, allow me to paint you a picture. As I mentioned before, I am a sympathizer with your kind. I have always been so. You see, I was there on the last day of the Spellbreakers, when the earth was drenched in a ravenous silver that turned many mages into dust… I saw and I understood the painful price, and Leander Wyvern’s revenge. There are many within these walls who were there, though they do not all share my sentiments. I sought equality where they sought bloodshed. I do not think either side won.”

Alex wasn’t sure Vincent looked old enough to have been alive in 1908, but that was the mystery of the necromancer—he could have told Alex he was any age, and Alex would have believed it. The man’s eerie skin and blacker-than-black eyes made him seem infinite, as if he might go on forever, never changing. Alex wondered if it was a trait of necromancers, to look this way, prompting him to wonder why the veins beneath Vincent’s translucent flesh were the same color as the veins beneath his own flesh, only clearer—whereas the man behind the grate, the one Natalie had been speaking with, had been covered in tangled webs of deep, poisonous black.

“Does necromancy turn your blood black?” he asked, intrigued.

Vincent tilted his head, gazing curiously at Alex. “What makes you ask such a question?”

“I think I saw another necromancer, in one of the cells, but the veins beneath his skin were dark, not at all like yours,” he replied, hoping it wasn’t a rude question. How was he to know whether or not it was polite to ask a necromancer about his strange appearance?

Vincent nodded. “While I am indeed a necromancer, I do not share in the wicked delights others find in it. I do not perform the ungodly—I seek only to help, following the light, trying not to stray too far into the darkness. It is the darkness that blackens the blood,” he explained. “My joy is in tracing spirit lines and focusing upon them, utilizing but not seeking to control the phantoms within. Keeping to the light, I do not poison my body with dark magic, though I have had to compromise on the eyes.” He smiled wryly, gesturing languidly in the direction of the onyx pools