Ellabell seemed excited too, though she was less vocal about it. There was a nervous energy about her as her eyes scanned the schedule she had been given.
“Looks like we have most of our classes together!” she exclaimed to Natalie.
As the two girls went on speculating about what the classes would be like, Alex felt somewhat envious. He wished he could have the comfort of being with his friends throughout the day—and have every class with Ellabell. Still, he was glad she wouldn’t be on her own with a bunch of strangers who had still not made up their minds about the newcomers, thanks to Alex’s behavior in the arena. The Stillwater students showed a general wariness toward the group of them, guilty as they were by association with Alex. But Alex could see that his friends were eager to start classes. It was a routine they had all been lacking, of late, and one they knew they could slot easily back into. No matter whether it was magical or non-magical, school was school.
The only one who had yet to receive a schedule was Jari, who was still safely tucked away in the infirmary, enjoying the daily attentions of Helena. The young woman still felt responsible for not knowing what was going to happen to Jari in the arena, and she seemed to be seeking his forgiveness by spending as much time with him as he wished. It had all worked out unexpectedly well for the boy, who had even whispered a “thank you” to Alex, the last time he had been there, when he had caught sight of Helena coming into the room with a plateful of cakes, cookies, and drinks. Jari was living a life of luxury, and it made Alex smile—at least someone was benefitting from the danger of this place.
“Well, we’d better be off,” announced Ellabell, checking her schedule.
With that, the others departed to their various lessons. Aamir had a private tutorial at the same time, in the same wing, but Alex had a thirty-minute window before he was due at his first session with Master Demeter, on the other side of the villa. His lesson was to take place in a room just off the Queen’s Courtyard, giving Alex an idea as he set off toward it; with thirty minutes to kill, he had more than enough time to fetch the book he had stowed away, and now he had an excuse if anyone were to stop him.
Alex walked toward the wall, striding quickly across the empty courtyard, which wasn’t being used that morning. Reaching toward the stonework, he was just about to begin his upward climb when a trumpet blared loudly above his head, from somewhere farther up the battlements. Intrigue pulled Alex’s attention from his hidden book as he quickly scaled the wall and ducked down, sprinting as fast as he could in the direction of the sound, careful to skirt past the guard-posts as he did so, to avoid detection. Technically, he wasn’t going against the terms he had agreed to; he wasn’t outside the walls, he was merely on them. Still, he knew Alypia wasn’t a shades-of-gray kind of person. She was entirely black and white, and he didn’t want to test her patience so soon after their last meeting.
In the near distance, he saw people moving toward the villa.
Alex knew the gargantuan doors to the villa rested a short way from where he crouched, and he guessed that must be where the special visitors were headed. Looking ahead, he saw the spire of one of the corner towers and rushed toward it, clambering up through one of the windows into the room beyond. To his relief, it was empty—little more than a storage room, filled to the brim with clutter and broken furniture. However, the window looked out onto the stretching fields below, giving Alex the perfect vantage point from which to watch the arrivals.
As they neared the main entrance, Alex could see the small band of individuals was made up, mainly, of guards. The same ones, he supposed, as the ones he had watched rowing away, from the lighthouse. Two of the guards carried a shrunken figure awkwardly between them, shrouded in a heavy woolen blanket, though the being beneath seemed to be putting up something of a decent fight despite its diminished size. Once or twice, the two Amazonian guards almost lost their grasp on the blanketed figure, though they always managed to regain control of the prisoner.
Much to his displeasure, Alex saw that the Head was with them too. Alex marveled at this yo-yoing of the Head’s, consistently showing up at Stillwater to beg assistance from his sister, but there seemed to be a more relaxed quality to the Head this time as Alex watched the hooded figure embrace Alypia, who had emerged from the doors beneath to greet the arriving party.
“Has it all been dealt with?” she asked insistently, holding her brother at arm’s length.
“Thanks to you, everything is back in order,” replied the Head with a strained smile, the expression looking deeply unnatural on his drawn, skeletal face.
It was then that Alex noticed the additional figure, trailing behind the rest of the group. It was a face and form Alex had not expected to see.
Behind the guards and the prisoner, a graying, spectral figure moved slowly, as if through molasses. He was dressed in threadbare clothes, the edges of his robe frayed and torn, though not quite as ragged as Alex remembered. Catching sight of this awful being, Alex found himself combatting horrifying flashbacks of the last time he had seen Finder, in the tombs at Spellshadow, wondering if Finder had come back from his second death, somehow, and was hell-bent on haunting him. But, on second viewing, Alex realized this figure was not quite the same. He was wearing robes of some sort, but they were more modern than Malachi Grey’s had been, and his face was altogether less ancient, though it bore the same vacant, disturbing stare.
Understanding dawned—the Head had done as his sister had asked and found a replacement for Malachi Grey.
It was Renmark.
Renmark was the new Finder, a mass of floating, ragtag gray, with one sole purpose. The Head had done to him what he had done to Malachi Grey, all those years ago, reducing him from mortal being to phantom helper with a wave of his hybrid hands. As much as he hated Renmark, he couldn’t help feeling a pang of remorse for what the teacher had become, wondering if he would end up feeling the same way about it as Malachi had, in the end, resenting the Head and everything his half-life had become.
Suddenly, Renmark’s gaze lifted toward where Alex was watching from. Instinctively, Alex ducked back behind the wall of the tower, even though Renmark shouldn’t be able to see him, just like Malachi couldn’t. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was run into a phantom Renmark, which was possibly the only thing worse than running into a living Renmark.
His previous pang of remorse turned to a feeling of grim irony.
You finally got the high-powered position you wanted so desperately, Renmark, he thought to himself. After all, being the new Finder technically made Renmark the second Head; a position of authority high enough to satisfy Renmark’s hunger for power, surely? Alex wasn’t certain it was quite what the ex-teacher had had in mind.
Alex didn’t dare peer back out, though he strained to hear what was being said as voices filtered up from below. Annoyed that he couldn’t make out what they were saying, he braved a glance out the window, just in time to see the Headmistress walking toward the prisoner, who struggled vehemently between the strong arms of the guards. Alex willed Alypia to remove the blanket from the prisoner’s face, so that he might see who was beneath it. But she did not, leaving his questions unsatisfied. Instead, Alypia simply turned and walked back toward her brother, apparently unimpressed by the blanketed gift he had brought for her.
As intensely as Alex scrutinized the shrouded prisoner, he couldn’t work out who it could be. There was an androgyny to the shape, and he couldn’t discern any defining features, aside from the size. But then, the guards standing next to the figure were of such a towering height that anyone would’ve looked small beside them.
He ducked back into the tower as he spotted Renmark raising his ghostly gray eyes once more toward where he stood. Unsettled, and frustrated at no longer being able to see what was going on, Alex shuffled as close to the edge of the window frame as he dared, straining to listen.
“And everything is back as it should be?” Alypia asked, her tone tinged with doubt.
Drily, Alex wondered what it must have been like for the Head, growing up with a sister like Alypia, but he found he could not easily picture them in the domestic setting of ordinary siblings. These two were as far from ordinary as it was possible to be, and who knew how many more royal siblings were out there who had been part of this dysfunctional family unit? It made him think back to the portraits on the walls of the ballroom at Spellshadow, pondering how many of those had been siblings and how many had been other relatives.
“The faculty has been restored, though rather more hastily than I would have liked, and I have managed to regain control of the school—all those who proved troublesome have been dealt with,” insisted the Head, though Alex could garner little else from the conversation. Every time they began to speak of something interesting, the wind changed, carrying their voices away from him so he couldn’t make out what it was they were saying anymore.
Still, what he had heard was enough to cause a wave of dread to pass through him, sinking to the pit of his stomach. If the Head had regained control and everyone had been dealt with, what did that mean for the students? He felt slightly more optimistic at the sight of only one prisoner, but it wasn’t much of a consolation; he hadn’t expected the guards to bring anyone back at all.
He listened as the group moved through the doors and into the villa itself. Only when he was sure they had moved far enough inside did he dare to look back out of the window. Glancing at the field below, he froze, his blood running cold. Staring straight back at him, meeting his gaze head-on, was the full, blazing stare of the ghostly Renmark.
This time, Alex knew he had been seen.
Chapter 32
After holding the specter’s gaze for the briefest of moments, Alex ducked back against the wall, his palms sweating and his heart racing. In the gloom, he listened for the sound of the villa doors closing with a heavy thud. Daring to peer back out, he saw that the field was empty. The strange group had gone inside the villa walls, following Alypia. The thought of Renmark being in the building did not sit well with Alex at all, especially now he’d learned that, somehow, this Finder could see him.
He wanted to go and find Helena to ask if she had any information on the person who had just been brought into the school, but he knew he didn’t have time to find her and retrieve his book from the statue where he had hidden it. Knowing he’d have more chance of finding her later, when he wasn’t so pressed for time, he decided to go and fetch his book instead. He had about fifteen minutes before he was due at his first session with Master Demeter, and he didn’t feel like pushing his luck.
He climbed out of the tower window and darted back along the walls toward the statue that stood sentinel just above the Queen’s Courtyard. Careful not to be seen, he reached up to the folded stone arms and then inside the natural recess behind them, half-expecting the book to be missing. It was still there, just where he had left it. Relieved, he plucked it from the hiding spot and tucked it awkwardly into the band of his black pants, pulling his t-shirt over the top and hoping nobody would notice the square shape at the base of his spine.
However, just as he was about to climb down, his eye was caught by the tree-line nearby, where he knew the cottage was. It was strange, but, peering toward it, Alex felt a peculiar sensation at the back of his mind, as if something wasn’t quite right. Although he knew he was really pressed for time now, and Alypia would be straight after him if he was a no-show at his first lesson, compulsion forced him to clamber down the other side of the wall and walk toward the cottage.
As he neared it, he was glad he had listened to his gut instinct. Something was wrong. The place had been disturbed, the ground all churned up outside as if there had been a lot of people scouring the perimeter of the tiny cottage. The most obvious sign of disorder was at the entrance, where the earth was a muddy mess. Stepping cautiously into the interior of the cottage, he saw that the whole place had been ransacked. Everything had been turned over and shoved out of the way, as if somebody had been trying to find something within. Whatever furniture there had been was now a crumpled pile of debris, good for nothing but kindling, and the floorboards had all been torn up to search the foundations beneath.
Alex felt a tingle of trepidation. Somebody had been here, and it looked as if they had been searching for something. It seemed strange that this should have happened so soon after he and Elias had spoken there. It made Alex nervous, wondering if somebody had, perhaps, seen him speaking with his shadowy acquaintance.
Trying to focus on the memory of the night Elias had appeared to him, he recalled the sensation of eyes on him, the strange, unsettling feeling that came with being observed unawares. He had ignored the feeling at the time, but perhaps there had been someone else—someone who had watched Ellabell and followed her, leading them to see the exchange between himself and Elias, or at least Alex speaking into the shadowy darkness. That would have been a mysterious sight to an outside observer. Perhaps a guard had spotted him and passed on the information, thinking there might be something in the cottage worth investigating. It was the only reason Alex could think of.
Still confused, but having run out of time, he reluctantly returned to the school walls. As he walked, he became aware of eyes on him again, prickling the hairs on his arms until they stood on end. Glancing around, he couldn’t see anyone watching him from the windows and spires in his line of sight, but no matter what he did, he could not shake the feeling of being watched.
Hoping it wasn’t Alypia, he climbed the wall and dropped down the other side, moving quickly across the courtyard and under an archway that led toward the study room where he needed to be. He arrived outside it just as Master Demeter did, much to Alex’s relief. The teacher was younger than Alex had expected, around late-twenties, with the same flawless features that were found on all the residents of Stillwater House. He had light brown eyes, curling bronze hair, and an olive complexion, the combination making his heritage difficult to place.
“Excellent—punctuality is next to godliness!” Demeter smiled, mixing up his proverbs in a way that Alex would come to realize was normal practice for this clever, if slightly eccentric, man. “Remember, Alex, a watched clock never boils, so I want no boredom from you—you’ll find the time passes much more swiftly if we take no heed of it. So, let’s hop in and begin,” he encouraged as he unlocked the door to the small study room and ushered Alex inside.
They spent the whole morning in the stuffy study, though it wasn’t exactly uninteresting. Master Demeter proved to be an enthusiastic, animated individual who possessed a wealth of knowledge on Spellbreakers. There was almost a streak of hero worship in the older man whenever he told a particularly good story he liked about a battle or a war in which the Spellbreakers had been fearsome foes. He spoke of Spellbreaker warriors like they were comic book superheroes, gesturing wildly as he informed Alex of their great deeds, sometimes acting out sections, to Alex’s total bemusement. He had no idea what to make of this teacher, who seemed so oddly passionate about a subject Alex had thought to be taboo among mages.
He was also prone to poor dad jokes, though Alex had no idea whether to laugh or stare most of the time. Demeter’s love of humor didn’t seem to fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the school, but then neither did his subject matter. Aside from Demeter, Alex couldn’t actually recall the last time he had heard somebody crack a joke in this place, and it was as refreshing as it was weird.
Most of the lesson covered historical education, and although Master Demeter didn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already heard, Alex didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the man’s stories by saying so. Alex simply sat back and let Demeter do the talking, answering only when absolutely necessary. It was an easy session, to say the least, with him nodding along with the teacher’s madcap theatrics and enthusiastic tales, like when his high school teachers had put on movies before school vacations—informal but interesting. Alex wondered in disbelief if he might actually come to like his sessions with Master
Demeter. His lessons with Alypia would be a different ball-game entirely, he guessed, but these ones he could definitely see himself enjoying, especially if they moved beyond things he already knew.
As the lesson came to an end, the clock on the wall showing it was almost lunchtime, Demeter turned sharply toward Alex, startling him with a clap of his hands. “Alas, we must end our session here for the day. That wasn’t too bad, was it? I’d say that went pretty quickly, if you ask me?” he said, prompting Alex.
He shrugged. “Pretty fast.”
“Remember, Alex,” Demeter lowered his voice, as if about to share a great secret, “time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana!” He cackled, clearly pleased with himself and his joke. Alex found he couldn’t help a smile from pulling at the corners of his mouth—Demeter’s clownish humor was oddly infectious. Still, he also couldn’t deny he was glad the lesson was over; the book still tucked into his jeans had been digging a cleft into the flesh of his back, which had gone worryingly numb.
“Very good, sir,” he encouraged, as he stood to leave.
“More of the same this afternoon?”
“If your joke book can take it,” quipped Alex.
“Very good!” Demeter grinned. “You must be ready for some food by now?”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty hungry.”
“Hi, Pretty Hungry, I’m Master Demeter!” he howled, thrilled that Alex had walked into his joke.
Alex tried hard not to roll his eyes. “Another zinger, sir. Can I go to lunch now?” he asked, half-expecting the man to do the usual teacherly jest of, ‘I don’t know, can you?’, but he didn’t. He simply waved Alex off with a nod, returning to a box of sandwiches he had already opened on top of his desk.
Alex didn’t need telling twice. He ran off across the empty square and clambered up the wall, following it until he reached the abandoned courtyard at the far side of the school. Not knowing whether the door would be open or not, he snuck in through one of the windows instead, pleased with the quiet solitude he found within, as he landed on the familiar flagstones of the vacant bell tower. He glanced back at the window to check that nobody had followed him, before disappearing up to the very top floor and sitting back against the wall. Pulling the book, with great relief, from his waistband, he opened it in front of him, seeing that it was another history of Leander Wyvern, entitled Leander Wyvern: The Last Spellbreaker. Excitement coursed through him as he flipped to the first page, wishing he had retrieved the book sooner. It was a nice surprise, after so many bad ones, and he found that Master Demeter’s lesson had put him in a history sort of mood.