The Chain Read online

  Once he was sure he wasn’t visible to anyone who might catch sight of him on the walkway, he reached out and picked up the biography of Leander Wyvern, desperate to start with the history of the Spellbreaker he felt he almost knew, from reading the words of his final days and learning of his fate. It wasn’t a huge book, but Alex could not quell the excitement he felt for what might be inside. Taking a deep breath, he opened it.

  It began with Leander’s heritage and made mention of the six Great Houses of the Spellbreakers, one of which was the House of Wyvern. Reading the other, familiar names, Alex couldn’t help thinking about his own, unknown father, and hoping that somehow he had belonged to one of those Great Houses. Of course, there were hundreds of other Spellbreaker lines, but Alex wanted, secretly, for his father to have been from one of the Great ones, if only to make his own lineage more exciting.

  He read through a bit more of Leander’s heritage, but it was information Alex had already learned. As he flipped through page after page, a sinking feeling began to creep through him, that there wasn’t much in the biography he didn’t already know. That was the problem with one-sided history—there was only ever one account, repeated over and over again.

  For a moment, Alex thought about giving up and reading something else, but he persevered, scanning each chapter for something new. It was only as he came to the back few pages of the book that the read started to bear fruit, growing a little more colorful as it delved into the personal life of Leander Wyvern. Alex raised an eyebrow as he scanned over a section that remarked upon Leander’s penchant for non-magical women. Apparently, he was known to have a strong affection for these ordinary women, despite it being frowned upon to fraternize with people of non-magical origins.

  Alex wasn’t exactly surprised by this bigoted mindset, though it made him think of Helena’s warning comments about others in the villa not being so welcoming of outsiders—perhaps some noble mages still upheld the values of the past, he thought, as the biography said.

  It made him smile to think of the heroic Spellbreaker as something of a Casanova, wooing whomever he pleased, regardless of what they were. Intrigued by this new facet to Leander’s character, Alex read on:

  Though he never married, it is thought Leander Wyvern had a favored mistress from the non-magical world; however, the rumors have never been confirmed and the woman has never been identified. Whether it was a tale spread simply to mar the man’s reputation, or it was the very real truth of a notorious Lothario, we will never know. What we do know is, he was an eligible Spellbreaker in his time: a man of considerable fortune, a heroic warrior with great skill on the battlefield, the heir to the House of Wyvern, and a tall, powerful, genetically blessed individual. He certainly made the ladies swoon wherever he went, yet remained a bachelor until his death upon the Fields of Sorrow in 1908. No woman ever garnered a proposal from the legendary Spellbreaker—at least not as far as history is concerned. If there was a woman out there who captured the heart of Leander Wyvern, her name died with him.

  Alex frowned, re-reading the part about Leander’s love of non-magical women. It brought to mind unspoken thoughts about Alex’s heritage and the anomaly of his own bloodline. He had the power of a Spellbreaker, there was physical evidence of that, but, as far as he knew, his mother wasn’t one and nor were his grandparents. That meant the Spellbreaker abilities had to have come from his father’s side, but Alex didn’t know what had gone on with his father. He knew his father wasn’t around anymore, but what had actually happened to him was something his mother had never mentioned, because as soon as Alex had begun to ask, she had broken down in tears, silencing the subject from Alex’s lips. At least from that, Alex could guess it hadn’t been something good, though he was still in the dark about the specifics.

  Confusion itched at the back of Alex’s mind as he dwelt upon his father and the root cause of his powers. With it, memories of the Fields of Sorrow came rushing back, only adding to the mystery. In the accounts of the Fields of Sorrow he had read and heard, it was assured that every single Spellbreaker in existence had been wiped from the face of the earth. It was written in black and white. Every Spellbreaker. The extinction of a race. Yet he was alive and he was a Spellbreaker; he had the anti-magic to prove it.

  Curiously, he wondered if it might be that his father, and his father before him, and his father before him, all the way back to 1908, were the product of a union between a Spellbreaker and a non-magical person? Perhaps that was the loophole to his continued existence; if an ordinary woman had been pregnant with a Spellbreaker child at the time of the final battle, then truly, every living Spellbreaker would have been wiped out on that day of absolute elimination. But there would have been a child, with Spellbreaker potential, yet to be born.

  It was food for thought, and the idea made Alex tremble with giddy anticipation, though there was disappointment in the knowledge he could never really have it confirmed. All those who might have been able to corroborate it were dead.

  Suddenly, Alex became aware of soft footfalls creeping below. He had been so absorbed in the book that he hadn’t heard them advancing, until now. Crawling cautiously over to the very edge of the walkway, he saw shadowy figures moving across the marble floor of the library, stealthily heading for the stacks. For him, no doubt.

  Panic shot through Alex’s body as he stepped back and looked at the books spread out across the table. If he left the books, the creeping guards beneath would undoubtedly suspect a trespasser in their midst. Hurriedly, Alex shoved the tomes back among the shelves, though he made sure to grab the one text he really wanted to keep—the Wyvern biography. But when he looked down at the book beneath his arm, he realized he had made a mistake. He had grabbed The Royal Households instead.

  The footsteps below quickened, and Alex cursed under his breath. It was too late to switch out the books. He turned and struggled to climb up to the top of the closest stack, only to feel Leander Wyvern’s notebook slip out of its familiar spot in his back pocket and land with a smack on the marble floor.

  Everything went still.

  Fraught with dread, Alex sent out a snaking tendril of anti-magic, copying the floating spell he had seen Helena do with Aamir, as he maneuvered the book into his outstretched hand. Pushing it firmly back into his pocket, he scrambled up the rest of the stack, before rolling along the top surface into a crevice in the wall behind it. Swiftly, he sent up another camouflage barrier around himself, just in case any of the assailants decided to peep over the very top shelf. He had just managed to dim the shield to a barely discernible sheet of anti-magic when he heard the creak of the ladder, leading up to the platform he was on. Alex’s heart was pounding, but it was his labored, panicked breathing he was worried about. He was convinced they would be able to hear it, as he sensed the approach of figures below.

  They were whispering in low, refined voices, and Alex could hear the scrape and thud of moving furniture as they pushed the table and armchairs to one side, searching for any sign of recent occupation. Alex had pushed his reading selections far back into the stacks, but he couldn’t help but feel a shiver of fear that the lurkers would somehow find the books and, in seeing titles about havens and Spellbreakers, would presume the reader to be an intruder.

  The Royal Households book dug into Alex’s side as he waited and tried to hold his breath, his cheeks reddening and his eyes bulging.

  The investigators seemed to take forever, rustling pages and shifting objects, making Alex’s pulse race even faster every time they came too close, but eventually he heard the subtle sound of them disbanding. The ladder creaked, signaling their departure, but even after they had gone, he didn’t dare to move; he stayed there, staring up at the ceiling of the library, for what seemed like hours.

  Only when enough time had passed did he chance a peek at the walkway below. Scanning the area briefly for any changes, he caught sight of several small objects flashing at the corners of the platform, that had not been there before. Squinting for
a better look, he couldn’t work out what they were, but he knew the searchers had placed them there for a reason. A recollection flashed in his mind; they looked a lot like the clockwork traps he had read about in a book Ellabell had recommended to him once. If that’s what they were, thought Alex, he’d be caught the moment he set foot on the ground.

  Rolling back into the crevice, he waited, trying to come up with a solution from his hiding place. Suddenly, he remembered the clockwork mouse, still buried in the papery depths of his pockets. He had transferred it from his Spellshadow pants into his Stillwater ones, almost without thinking; he had grown so used to the weight and feel of it that he had almost forgotten it was there.

  Retrieving it, he held the delicate, metal creature in his hand, knowing the message he needed it to carry. Without paper, it was going to be difficult, but he was hopeful the mouse would let the others know what to do.

  Cupping his hands around the intricate, detailed clockwork, he let his anti-magic flow into the tiny being, feeling the cogs begin to whirr and the metal eyes light up with a silvery glow, as he willed it to find Helena and bring her back to where he was hiding. As he set it down on the wooden shelf-top, he wasn’t sure if it would work, but within seconds the mouse had scurried off. Staring back up at the ceiling, he hoped it would. Otherwise, he would never be leaving this library prison.

  Chapter 17

  As the sun came up, glowing with hazy warmth through the huge library windows, the world around Alex fizzed with chaos. It seemed the news had traveled fast, and Stillwater had gone on high alert following the suspicion that there was an intruder among their ranks. With dwindling optimism, Alex awaited Helena’s assistance, though he was beginning to wonder if it was ever coming.

  From his perch in the library, he listened to the hushed, worried whispers of students talking about the intruder, all of them oblivious to his presence. Each time someone passed close to where he lay, his ears pricked up with curiosity. There was a childish glee in eavesdropping unseen, Alex thought, although the stakes of him being discovered were somewhat higher than when he was a kid.

  “Aurelia told me the guards were sent out last night to investigate some kind of disturbance,” a pretty female voice said.

  “Did they find anything?” replied a rich baritone that made Alex immediately picture a musclehead with a chiseled jaw and perfect teeth.

  “Not really,” the girl sighed. “But I think there is someone on the loose, although heaven knows where they’ve come from or what they’re doing here in the first place. Everyone is talking about it!”

  “Well, what if there’s more than one? There could be a handful of intruders lurking around, for all we know. A whole flock of them.”

  “Don’t joke about that, Lars! It’s scary.”

  Many students had colorful guesses about the intruder’s motives, and Alex smiled as he listened to the long list of what he might be. Some said the intruder was an escaped prisoner from a neighboring community; others said it was the crazed remnant of a student who had survived their Gifting Ceremony or a spurned ex-lover of the beautiful Princess Alypia who had come in search of revenge for a broken heart. Alex sensed this last speaker had read one too many romance novels, but it amused him nonetheless. Another said it was probably just Siren Mave, messing around, setting off alarms by accident as she wandered the school in the middle of the night. This last one caught Alex’s attention, making him wonder how they knew who she was. Surely, it had to be the same toady woman as the one from Spellshadow—there couldn’t be too many women with a name like that.

  The day stretched on. Alex’s muscles ached, and his eyes itched. He didn’t dare fall asleep in case he rolled off the bookshelf, so he stayed awake, his body cramped into the shallow recess of the wall. Eventually, every appendage felt numb. From his dim hiding spot, he watched as the bright sunlight moved across the sky, deepening to a burnished orange glow as the day began the slow move toward sunset.

  Around early evening, when all of the other students had abandoned their studies in pursuit of more pleasurable activities, Alex heard a creak on the ladders.

  “Alex?” whispered Helena.

  Alex breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he rolled across to the edge of the stack and gazed down. “Up here!”

  His muscles had seized after so long spent in one position, and the sudden movement of his roll along the bookshelf sent jolts of dull pain ricocheting through his nervous system. Seeing Helena looking up at him, he was more than pleased to see her; he was hungry and thirsty, and she had come to get him out of there. Scanning the walkway, Alex noticed that the clockwork traps were no longer there—Helena must have disabled them, he presumed, as he shuffled his body toward the edge.

  He clambered awkwardly back down, before trying to jiggle some life back into his muscles as he stretched and flexed, steadily regaining the feeling in his toes and fingers.

  Helena held up the glinting mechanical mouse. “I believe this is yours?”

  Alex grinned. “I’m just glad it worked,” he said, taking it from her.

  “It was Ellabell who told me about it, actually,” she explained, as she waited for Alex to stop his latest stretch.

  Alex frowned. “Ellabell?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, it went to her, and she figured you’d sent it because you were in trouble—trouble seems to follow you, doesn’t it?” she mused, though there didn’t seem to be any malice in her words. It was merely a truthful observation; trouble did seem to follow him. Or maybe he just followed trouble.

  Alex smiled with a touch of embarrassment, realizing it must have been Ellabell he was thinking of when he sent the message, instead of Helena. Still, he was glad Ellabell had managed to decipher his message and pass it on to Helena, though he knew he’d definitely be in for a reprimand when he got back to the tower. Not that he’d be able to blame Ellabell; he’d put them all at risk.

  “I suppose.” Alex shrugged. “Thanks for coming to get me—I don’t know how long I could’ve lasted up there.”

  “You should thank the mouse,” she quipped. “That’s quite the little piece of clockwork. Did you make it?”

  Alex shook his head, lifting the mouse to his eye-line. “Sadly not. The magic is mine, though.”

  “I meant to ask you about that. How come it has that strange color running through it?” Helena asked, trying to get a closer look at the inner workings of the creature.

  Alex shoved the mouse swiftly into his pocket, keeping his hand over it as he sucked the anti-magic out. “I changed it to that color so it would blend into the clockwork better.”

  Helena frowned, and Alex could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced.

  “Well, whoever made it must have been very skilled,” she said finally, the frown lifting. “We’d better go,” she announced as she led the way toward the banister of the walkway and rested her palms on it, readying herself to jump over the edge. She paused as she saw Alex’s hesitation.

  “I’ll take the ladder,” he insisted.

  She flashed him a puzzled expression. “Why?” she said flatly.

  He shrugged. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t say—it’s stupid.”

  “What’s the matter, Alex? We don’t have time for this,” she muttered, looking displeased.

  “I’m afraid of heights,” he fibbed, hoping she’d believe him.

  Amusement glittered in her striking gold eyes. “You’re afraid of heights?”

  “It’s not funny.”

  She grinned. “Fine. You take the ladder, and I’ll see you at the bottom.”

  He watched as she soared over the banister and landed gracefully on the floor below. It was something Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to try, anti-magically speaking.

  Trying not to look past his feet, he climbed back down from the lofty heights of the second highest platform, and didn’t exhale until he reached the ground, where Helena was waiting
for him, her foot tapping impatiently on the gold-flecked marble.

  They hurried across the library toward the door, where Helena held her palm up in a gesture that made Alex stop. He did so, and she peered out into the corridor beyond, ensuring that the coast was clear. Then she slipped out. Alex followed, not wanting her to get too far ahead as she raced through the hallways, probably knowing the layout of the place like the back of her hand.

  “Excuse me, Helena!” a gruff voice called out.

  Helena skidded to a stop and shoved Alex into a doorway with a frantic look. Alex pressed himself flat against the doorframe, hoping it would keep him hidden from view. He’d have thrown up a shield to hide himself better, but he knew he didn’t have time to dim it down to the level he needed. The shadows would have to do. He heard the jingle of keys as the man approached—a guard, most likely. Alex swallowed hard.

  “Where are you headed?” the guard asked Helena.

  “Oh, I’m just heading out to the lake. It’s such a beautiful night,” she replied casually, and Alex was sure she was wearing that persuasively cheerful grin of hers.

  “It is indeed!” the guard replied. “Well, be safe. There’s an intruder on the loose, you know. Wouldn’t want your—”

  “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out. I appreciate your kind thoughts,” Helena interrupted.

  “Of course. Good night to you then, my lady,” the guard said congenially.

  “Good night!”

  Everything about these people is elegant, he mused, as he hid in a doorway with his imperceptible camouflaging shield around him. Helena appeared in front of him again, her smile both relieved and giddy.

  “Let’s go!” she whispered.

  Eventually, after what seemed like a much longer journey than the one he had taken with Elias’s misty messenger, they reached the familiar gloom of the courtyard, and the tower spiraling up in the corner. Walking through the front door, Alex was anxious about the reaction he was likely to get. He had been reckless, he knew he had, but for a good cause.