The Secret of Spellshadow Manor by Bella Forrest (classic english novels txt) 📗

felt a surge of sorrow for his dead people, murdered and unceremoniously disposed of, and fervently hoped he would not join them.

“Let’s just go,” he said softly.

Natalie took a minute to burn the ice from their path, working with a precision and quickness that belied her weakened state, and Alex took point as they descended into the depths.

The strength of the golden line wasn’t the only thing that had changed since their first visit. First and foremost, there was the intense cold. It grew as they descended, reaching a pitch where Alex could feel his bones stiffening and creaking as he walked. It was uncomfortable, but not entirely surprising. He looked over at Natalie, but she seemed unaffected.

“Magic,” he muttered. “Strong, too.”

Natalie looked over at him, then nodded.

Next, there was the ivy. The plant, previously absent from the underground resting place of the lords of Spellshadow, now hung heavy on every wall. It lay still, for the moment, but there was something predatory about it. Like it was lying in wait somehow, attentive to their progress.

“Don’t touch the ivy,” Alex said, finding his voice hushed to a whisper.

“Was not planning on it,” murmured Natalie, giving it a wary look.

As they drew past the tall statues of the old lords, Alex thought they looked somehow more decayed. The statue of Gifford White, previously laced in ice that looked like lightning, now dripped with loose-flowing water, his outstretched hand looking more placating than powerful, his eyes forlorn. The skull on the plinth before him was browning, missing teeth.

Looking around, Alex saw that all the statues were in a similar state. The gemstones had fallen from the eye sockets of the lords, giving them hollow, endless stares. Alex swallowed hard as they made their way toward the end of the hall. He just had to keep moving, he told himself, trying not to look at where gray ivy had wrapped itself around a female statue’s neck like a noose.

All the same, when he saw Finder’s statue, he stopped, and could not tear his eyes from it.

The tall statue’s shoulders had hunched, his muscles atrophied down to nothing more than spindly limbs under a too-large hood. Bony fingers stretched from under a cloak of marble, his golden eyes reduced to burnished holes in the shadows of his garment.

Under him, upon his plinth, sat the skull, with the hole carved into the forehead that looked like nothing so much as a third eye.

Alex felt another wave of magical energy spill over him, shivering against it.

“There it is,” Natalie said, putting an unconscious hand on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex nodded, stepping forward. He could feel the raw magical power of the skull as he reached out, his fingers slowly wreathing themselves in white frost as they inched closer and closer to the source of Finder of Spellshadow. Even through the cold, he could feel the strength of the magic. It burned a hole in his defenses, and through it he could feel…something.

The feeling cut off when Natalie let out a scream.

Alex spun, his heart in his throat, and there he was.

Malachi Grey stood between the two of them, one hand outstretched toward Natalie, who was struggling, her hands scrabbling at gray-gold lines of ghostly magic wrapping around her. She gave Alex a desperate look, her fingers twitching in feeble attempts at making magical signs as Malachi twisted his power tighter.

Alex acted on instinct born of weeks of training with Aamir in the cellar. Stepping forward, he cleared his mind, a swirling hole of anti-magic forming in his palm as he thrust it toward the ghost.

A rumble ran through the room, and Malachi let out a cry of pain as he spun, the ghostly coils around Natalie coming undone in an instant, his empty eyes searching for his new assailant. He looked down, and his eyes lingered on the icy water dripping off him like blood to pool on the floor.

“Spellbreaker,” he whispered, the word like a holy oath. “So you’re really here.”

Alex skipped back a step, feeling the cold emanations of the source at his back. With his current skill, he wouldn’t be able to exorcise a ghost, but Natalie had fallen to her knees, one hand at her throat as she sucked in hungry, frantic breaths.

He had to buy her time.

Finder rolled forward in a powerful movement, his hand coming up in a sign that Alex didn’t recognize. With a boom like thunder, a wave of force that covered the width of the crypt rolled toward Alex. He held up a hand, expecting to feel the familiar wash of cold, but instead he found himself slammed to the ground, sprawling head over heels across the floor.

“I may not be able to see you,” Finder said, “but my family has been killing your kind for longer than you could ever know. If you wish to destroy me, you’ll need to work at it, child.”

Destroy me.

Alex scrambled to his feet and bolted for the skull atop Finder’s altar. A second blast nearly knocked him back to the ground, but he managed to keep his feet, his hand outstretched. He felt his fingers plunging through the cold energies of the source, then closing around yellowing, strangely soft bone.

Magic erupted into Alex’s mind, and he let out a shout as light poured into him. He could feel himself lifting, being thrown like a ragdoll as time and space themselves came undone.

“My lord.”

Alex blinked the sparks from his eyes, bringing his vision into focus. He was lying on the lawn of Spellshadow Manor, before the great gates. Something had changed, though.

There was no ivy.

The midday sun hung lazily in a blue sky, its light falling over beautifully tended gardens, lined with statues of proud, powerful wizards. On the main path that led to the door, two men stood facing one another.

Alex knew Finder at once, although this version of the man better reflected the statue in the crypts below Spellshadow. He had broad shoulders, his hood thrown back to reveal a square