The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 5 by Bella Forrest (best biographies to read TXT) 📗

the choices they’d made. If they hadn’t sought to destroy Finder, down in the tombs, where would they be now? Would they be wandering the halls still, going to lessons, learning what they could, stealing private moments in the wine cellar? Would they be as strong as they were now, if all they’d done was wait for the day when they would be called up to graduation? If Aamir hadn’t striven to defeat Derhin, would he be dead?

Spellshadow Manor still held a plethora of unanswered questions. The truth was, they had taken the path they had taken, and there was no going back. He just had to continue to convince himself that it was all for a reason, that they had done all of this for a greater good. Even if he didn’t make it out alive, he knew he had to remember the reasons they had gone down this road in the first place. Where there was injustice, there had to be a leveling. It just so happened that he was the leveler.

“Do you ever wonder what life we might be leading, if we hadn’t escaped?” he asked, turning to Ellabell, who had come to stand beside him.

She smiled wistfully. “Sometimes.”

“Do you think we’d be better off?”

“I think we did the right thing… We took the action nobody else would,” she replied quietly.

“Being back here, it’s weird,” Alex murmured.

She nodded. “It is. It’s like coming back to the scene of a crime.”

“I just hope this is all worth it.” He sighed.

“It will be,” she assured him, squeezing his hand tightly.

A rustle behind him broke his reverie. For a moment, he felt a flutter of panic, which was swiftly squashed as Aamir, Demeter, and Vincent appeared between the crumbling trunks of the trees, seemingly unhurt.

“You got through okay?” Alex asked, turning to greet them.

Aamir shrugged. “We had a bit of a close call with some guards, while we were building, but Hadrian managed to steer them away. We had to close it as soon as we came through,” he explained, his dark eyes turning toward the gloomy façade of Spellshadow. Alex smiled, imagining his friend’s expression mirrored his own—a mixture of dread and anticipation.

“Weird, right?” Alex chuckled.

“Very weird,” Aamir agreed. “I never thought we would end up back here.”

“I don’t think any of us did,” Alex muttered. “But, we’re here now—we should probably head for the gardens,” he suggested, thinking of Helena and the others, who should have been through by then.

“What is that?” Demeter asked, pointing at the gigantic bird hidden in the trees.

Alex smiled. “This is Storm. She’s a Thunderbird—perhaps the last.”

“May I?” Demeter asked, walking up to the feathered creature.

“By all means,” Alex replied.

With tentative steps, Demeter approached Storm, laying his palm flat. Alex glanced at the ex-teacher in bemusement, not knowing how it was that the auburn-haired man knew more about these creatures than he did. Perhaps, somewhere in the annals of Spellbreaker literature that Demeter had read, there had been a passage on taming these magnificent beasts.

“She’s a beauty,” Demeter marveled, as Storm placed her beak in the palm of his hand.

Alex nodded. “She certainly is.”

“So, this is the fabled Spellshadow Manor?” Vincent asked, staring out at the barren landscape, toward the school.

“Welcome,” said Alex wryly, turning his attention back to what lay before them.

With nothing more to say, the quintet began to move across the field, with Storm flying low overhead. However, as soon as they set foot on the dried earth, something felt wrong. This place was unearthly, and the eeriness didn’t fade as they took a few more steps. It became clear, seconds later, why it felt so utterly unpleasant. With a gathering groan, the ground began to rumble, the cracked earth splitting in places, puffs of searing-hot steam erupting from within.

“Run!” Alex yelled, as the smoky streams began to turn into long, snake-like creatures.

The quick-moving apparitions followed Alex and his friends as they sprinted toward the rise of the hill in the near distance. Snapping at their heels, the snakes were persistent, moving fast, but the quintet was faster, reaching the edge of the smoking field before the summoned beings could do any real harm. At the grassy lip between hill and field, the snakes retreated, slithering back down into the scorched earth.

Even so, Alex and the others did not slow down, scrambling up the hill until they reached the summit. Only then did they dare to turn and look back, just in time to see the snakes sucked back into the ground, lying in wait for the next trespassers. Catching his breath, Alex wondered what the creatures were, given that he had never seen them before. He wondered if it was simply because he had never ventured across the wasteland before, or if it was a new addition, put in place by the Head to ensure added security, after the debacle of their failed uprising. It would certainly be an escape deterrent, he thought, recalling the serpents in the moat at Kingstone.

No longer fearful of snapping snakes of fiery steam following them, the anxious group walked toward the walled garden, which lay just up ahead. Alex went first, climbing through a broken section in the wall, trying to sense any traps that might ensnare them. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any, and he squeezed through to the other side.

As the others clambered through after him, Alex took the time to look around. The sickening feeling of déjà vu was even stronger here. The gardens were exactly as they had left them, though the barrier around the place felt infinitely stronger. He didn’t even need to touch the wall to know that; his body was already attempting to retaliate. Forcing the impulse down, he wandered toward a lichen-covered water fountain, and found himself picturing it in its heyday, when everything was bright and beautiful. It was a hard image to conjure, but he managed it, and wondered if one day it might return to that, or if this place would