Shadow Read Online Free PDF

sounds as familiar as the walls of her room or the sky out the window. As familiar was the pause, then keys rattling in Arch’s hand, sliding into the lock and twisting around. The hideous face peered in, hideous even to Aziel who treasured his deep scholarly voice and even the sometimes foul smell of him, as he smelled now. Which meant he’d cast recently. He’d promised her he wouldn’t, unless he really had to. She didn’t like how it hurt him.
    A black feather was caught in his collar. She reached to pluck it off, earning a smile from the good side of his face. The burned mangled side didn’t so much as twitch.
    He’d been in his shape-shifter form, the big black bird he posed as when travelling in secret. She felt the heat still easing from him, though no smoke came from the three large horns weighing down his head. ‘May I sit?’ he asked, knowing such courtesy – however unnecessary – pleased her.
    â€˜You may,’ she said, curtseying. She watched the pained way he moved and knew he had travelled far. He was not a natural shape-shifter; holding an animal form would, for him, be like squatting in a very uncomfortable position for a long time.
    For a while he just sat and breathed his laboured breaths, his face turned so the deformed side was away from her.
    â€˜Ghost says, Father’s changing. Ghost says—’
    â€˜I’m aware. Very much aware.’ He sighed wearily. ‘It’s far from complete. But the last stage of it all approaches. You can’t see it with your eyes, Aziel, but power gathers itself toward him, independent of anything I do. It is loose power for now. It surrounds him like a great whirlpool, but will condense and be part of him. Not simply used and burned up, like a mage would use it. And I doubt now that there’s even time to—’ He glanced at the window shards on the floor. ‘Ghost, you say. Is it here now?’
    â€˜No, Arch.’
    â€˜What did it want?’
    â€˜It fled when you came. It seemed afraid. Of Father, and of you. It always is of course, but this time it wasn’t the usual kind of afraid.’
    â€˜Ah.’ He drummed the fingers of his good hand on the long silver staff, forked at both ends, which lay across his lap. The other hand lay still and looked like a twisted blackened stick pulled from a fire. ‘I think we should move you to a lower floor,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Further away from him. Eventually out of the castle altogether, if need be.’
    â€˜Won’t he—’
    â€˜Be angry? Perhaps. I can handle his anger. I think. It is likely to lack focus, to spray about the place.’ The Arch Mage glanced at her sidelong and winked. ‘Or perhaps he’ll be angry with your nanny. It depends who he thinks moved you.’ She laughed, not knowing if he was joking or serious. ‘You’re his caged bird, Aziel, whose voice he loves. That is all. You are less important to him than he and you both think.’
    To her surprise, though he’d surely not meant it to, the remark stung. ‘Then who is important to him?’
    â€˜As it has always been: he is important to him. And someone called Shadow, I suppose. Aziel. Did you hear anything of the Wall at World’s End? Or anything else unusual?’
    She thought of the clouds, but didn’t want him to think she thought something so silly as that could be important. ‘I saw big airships. Strange fat things. They floated along slowly. One came right over this tower!’
    â€˜Ah good, they returned. They are mine. I had them built in Esk. Not well enough, apparently. One crashed: I don’t even know where.’
    â€˜What are they for?’
    â€˜They gathered some … some rare airs for me. From far away. You have heard nothing about the Wall?’
    â€˜What about it?’
    He sighed. ‘It is destroyed.’
    She did not understand.
    â€˜We don’t