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

Elias exhaled, all pretense dissipating. “I couldn’t tell you,” he replied, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Many times, I thought about damning the consequences, but that hasn’t exactly worked in my favor up to now. Whenever I try to tell the full truth, well, let’s just say someone shuts my trap for me. I only get a few strikes and then… well, I’m out. Gone. Done. I’m just about down to my last one, if memory serves.” Finally, the shadow-man had the decency to look sheepish.

Alex thought of what had happened to Elias in the cell, when he had disappeared in a snap of light. As Siren Mave had said, it seemed that his “guardians” could only tell him the answers when the right questions were asked.

“So it’s up to me to perform the counter-spell?” Alex asked.

Elias said nothing, refusing to lift his black, star-spangled eyes in Alex’s direction. It infuriated Alex to see the shadowy creature still so reticent, even now, when just about all of the secrets Alex could imagine were out on the table.

“Can Virgil do it?” Alex pressed, the name still sounding utterly alien.

Elias sniggered. “Name doesn’t fit him, does it?”

“Can he do it?” Alex repeated. “Can he do the spell and rid the magical world of the Great Evil? If there’s a chance it doesn’t have to be me, I’d like to hear about it,” Alex snapped, losing his already tested patience.

Elias lifted his wispy chin, finally looking Alex in the eye. Alex had forgotten how intense the galactic stare could be, when directed entirely at him. Still, he refused to sever the connection. At long last, he felt as if he were about to get a straight answer. Elias sighed, as if a weight had been lifted from his weightless shoulders, making Alex believe he must be asking the right questions, finally.

“In theory, our wizened friend Virgil should be able to do it, though I should warn you that all his previous attempts have failed, and he hasn’t tried it again for several decades. Not that that means much—I think he deliberately threw his endeavors, wanting to make it look like he wasn’t capable. A pretty cowardly move, considering most of the royals think he’s utterly useless, particularly his apparent step-father. But at least he got to keep his life. Saying that, there is always the slim chance that he was telling the truth and he just can’t do it, even if he gave it proper gusto. Looking at him, I wouldn’t rule it out.” He smirked.

“Could he be made to do it again?”

“You’d be better off getting a giraffe to try,” Elias quipped. “Nothing will get that wormy creature to do it again, aside from a king’s command, but that won’t come again anytime soon. It’s probably why he’s so intent on handing you over like a bicycle on Christmas morning. The last attempt was something of a drama, and I don’t think anyone is ready to repeat that fiasco. I think the wails could be heard from here—in fact, if you listen hard enough, I think you can still hear them… Simple answer: he won’t do it again unless somebody makes him.” This made Alex curious, seeing as that was exactly what he wanted to do.

“Wait, so how do you know I can do the counter-spell?” Alex asked, expecting a suitably vague answer. Instead, Elias came straight out with it.

“I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve got the stuff, kiddo,” he replied, glancing down at his non-existent feet. “It’s like an aura around you—I can see it, feel it, sense it. You’re lit up like a big silver Christmas tree. With our friend Virgil, it’s not so clear. He’s like one of those tiny plastic trees made out of tinsel that just look sad, stuffed on a shelf and forgotten about. The energy is weaker, diluted in some way, probably by his magical side.”

Alex wondered where Elias’s obsession with Christmas-based metaphor had sprung from, but there was no time to joke about it. There were too many questions Alex needed answered, and he still had to think of a way out of the cell. Time, his arch-nemesis, was once more against him.

“Why isn’t my Spellbreaker side diluted by my non-magical side?” Alex countered.

“Doesn’t work that way. Supernatural energy paired with non-magical ordinariness is complementary, and the supernatural overtakes the ordinary side, using it as a vessel through which to flow. When supernatural energy is paired with supernatural energy, it creates a conflict, and one side has to prevail or the host would implode. In little Virgil’s case, the magic side seems stronger,” Elias explained. “It’s why it was thought to be impossible before he arrived and trounced everyone’s painstakingly crafted theories, because the two sides fought on a cellular level too, meaning conception wasn’t possible until Virgie Virge came along—he is a true mystery. It’s just a shame he’s so intolerably dull.”

“So are there others like me?” Alex wondered aloud.

Elias sighed. “Afraid not, though I understand the desire to have another stand in your place, when the consequences are what they are. Believe me, we’ve looked high and low. If there was anyone else, I wouldn’t have spent the last eighteen years dangling like a streamer from shadowy corners, keeping out of the way.”

“Is this what you wanted all along, then? To feed me little bits and pieces, make me think I was becoming something, building me up to a strength where I might be capable of doing the counter-spell, just so you could then try to coax me into it? Is that what all of this has been for—just a setup for my eventual demise?” Alex asked coldly, trying to stop the bristle of anti-magic that threatened to push through his skin. “Naturally, you couldn’t just tell me why you wanted me to do all of these things, so you let others do it for you, watching and waiting until you could strike and get