SHADOWSPELL ACADEMY

THE CULLING TRIALS, BOOK 2

K.F. BREENE

SHANNON MAYER

Copyright © 2019 by K.F. Breene & Shannon Mayer

All rights reserved. The people, places and situations contained in this ebook are figments of the author’s insane imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3

Also by the Authors

About the Authors

CHAPTER 1

Standing in a shower, buck naked, in a crappy little portable sometime after midnight, being caught out as a girl by one of my teammates was the last place I wanted to be. Check that, the last place I wanted to be was here in the Culling Trials at all.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my middle, realizing belatedly that guys didn’t cover their chests, but what else was I supposed to do? Let the girls hang out? Yeah, that was not happening. Besides, maybe the towel thing didn’t matter—that ship had sailed.

“Crap,” I muttered, grabbing another towel and draping it over my shoulders in an even more awkward arrangement.

“I just saw boobs,” Pete whispered, his face bright red and his eyes wide. “Why do you have boobs?”

A disembodied voice cut through the air. “You’ll want to watch who you tell—”

I startled at the unexpected, if familiar, voice and Pete shrieked.

Orin stood in the far corner, his face blank and eyes piercing as he stared at Pete.

“How long have you been there?” I gasped, pulling the towels tighter around me and scooting into one of the toilet stalls.

“I was keeping watch,” Orin said as I locked the stall door.

“On what, the door or my ass? Because you didn’t do a bang-up job on the former.”

“I was distracted by your neck. You have a strong heart. Your blood pulses in a very nice rhythm—”

“Did I just see boobs?” Pete mumbled, clearly to himself. “I couldn’t have. I’m dreaming. Sleepwalking. But dang what a dream!”

“Close the damn door, Orin,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “We don’t need the whole place hearing this conversation.”

The door clicked as I hurried to dress, donning a sports bra before pulling on my T-shirt and boxers. The cloth stuck to my damp skin as I wrestled it into place, all the while listening to Pete’s mumbling.

“They were perfect,” he said, whispering. “Round and perky with pink nipples. That isn’t right. Right? He’s a…he. Guys don’t have…”

I unlocked the door and pushed out of the stall, grabbed Pete by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. I leaned into his face, schooling my expression into a hard mask.

“You didn’t see boobs, got it?”

His widened eyes stared at me, but it wasn’t because of my thinly veiled threat. He was still lost in the vortex of female anatomy that had interrupted his midnight pee.

“Shake it off, man.” I slapped him across the face, just hard enough. “They are for feeding kids, for cripes’ sakes. Every second adult has them.”

He blinked slowly before his eyebrows pinched above his nose. “You have boobs?”

“He’s not the brightest crayon in the box,” Orin said with an eye roll.

I curled my fingers around Pete’s neck. “As far as you are concerned, no, I do not. I am a guy. I have a dick and a flat chest. Got it?”

Understanding lit Pete’s face, and a grin twisted his lips. “I saw your boo—”

I increased the pressure on his neck, willing him to understand. I didn’t want to hurt Pete. I liked him.

“It is really surprising human males are tolerated with this type of behavior,” Orin drawled.

“They aren’t all like this,” I said, remembering when Rory, that lying bastard, saw me naked by accident once. He’d walked into the bathroom while I was showering, thinking it was Tommy. When I’d unknowingly flashed him, he’d simply apologized, turned his back, and asked if we needed anything from the store. He hadn’t said a word about it ever again, not even to tease me in front of my brother.

Pete needed to grow up.

I was about to help him.

“If you mention this to anyone, I will kill you,” I said, low and rough. “I will slit your throat in your sleep and let you bleed out in that cozy little bed out there. You saw me in the final trial—you know I’m not bluffing. I could do it.”

I was totally bluffing. But he didn’t know that.

His face paled as he wheezed around my fingers. He nodded his head adamantly, fear finally cutting through his confusion and humor.

“I am pretending to be a boy to save my brother,” I went on. “I’m here in his stead. He’s not even sixteen—he never would’ve made it this far. If you mess with me, you are messing with my family, do I make myself clear? I will kill for my family.”

A strange sensation pulled at my stomach. An assurance. A confidence in what I’d said. That primal part of me wasn’t bluffing. I would do what it took to save my family, and this place would give me the tools to protect them. I felt that as surely as I felt the ground under my feet. And to keep Billy and maybe eventually Sam out of this, I would use those tools violently if need be.

“They don’t bring people in that young,” Pete struggled to say through his squeezed windpipe. “It’s against the rules.”

“He is incapable of focusing on the threat to his life,” Orin said. “Fascinating. That or he trusts you implicitly.”

I released my hand and stepped back before pointing at myself. “Boy. I am a boy.”

Pete rubbed his throat. “Yes, fine, I won’t tell. But…” His brow furrowed. “They don’t even take geniuses below the age of seventeen. The academy isn’t just about academics—people have to be a certain age to properly control their magic before they can be tested.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “Mr. Sunshine said he got it cleared.”

“Who?” they asked in unison.

“The Sandman. Sideburns. My own personal Grim Reaper. When he checked me in, he said he’d gotten Billy cleared. It was pretty clear then that he knew I wasn’t Billy. I assumed he didn’t say anything because it would look bad on him if he showed up with the wrong kid.”

“Why not just bring in you?” Orin asked. “You’re the right age, aren’t you?”

“He said something about my electing not to come. But I never saw a letter or anything.”

“Oh. One of your parents must’ve filled out the form,” Pete said. “Though why would they opt out for you and not your brother?”

I wondered the same thing, though a larger issue nagged at me. “It wouldn’t have been my parents to fill out that form.” I couldn’t bear to elaborate. I didn’t want to talk about my mother dying early, or the role my father might’ve inadvertently played in my other brother’s death.

Thinking of Tommy—

“Could a sibling have filled out the form?” I asked.

Pete shook his head. “It has to be a legal guardian.”

“Then who would’ve—”

“Hey!”

We all jumped. Ethan stood in the doorway with a glower. “Can you guys shut up? It’s late and I’m tired.”

“Sorry,” Pete nudged me with his elbow, “I was just talking with my bro here.”

I rolled my eyes and made my way out of the bathroom, thinking on what Sideburns had said. Wondering why the school had gone after Billy so aggressively, well before it was prudent, even if I was mysteriously excused. Something wasn’t adding up. Or, I should say, another something wasn’t adding up. I needed to know why my family was a target—why my mother had tried to keep us out of this life.

There was someone I could ask who might know. Rory. And tomorrow, a rest day, I’d find that miserable, two-faced, cowardly sonuvabitch and force information out of him.

One way or another.

CHAPTER 2

A  siren blared through the crappy little portable, echoing in the small, close space. I startled awake, sitting up on my top bunk and smashing my head on the ceiling.

“Owww.” I pressed my palm to my forehead.

The lights flicked on, dim, showing that it was still not quite light outside.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” someone shouted in at us.

An object clattered across the floor. A moment later, small blasts filled the space, crackling and popping. Someone shouted outside.

“What’s going on?” Pete thudded against the floor below me as I scrambled to the bunk ladder.

Ethan threw his legs over the railing of his top bunk and leapt to the ground, landing in a half crouch.

“He’s a douche, but he’s an agile douche,” I said, attempting the same thing and half sliding, half falling from mine. Amazing that I could run across a log while being pummeled with arrows and spears, but could barely manage dropping out of bed. Then again, there was no adrenaline pumping despite all the noise. These theatrics were irritating, certainly, but not dangerous.

Another set of mini-explosions drowned out the shouts and yells from outside—fire crackers meant to scare and drive us out.

The door burst open, and a woman with short platinum hair and thin lips stepped in. Her clothing style said she was part of the program. “Get moving! Let’s go, slugs!”

“What’s going on?” Ethan yelled over the blaring siren.

“Your second trial starts in half an hour. Get to the gate or get a ticket home. Let’s go!” The woman peeled away from the doorway as we staggered forward, sleep drunk.

“Today is supposed to be a day off,” Ethan called after her as she strutted down the narrow lane leading to the other portables. People waited in their clusters, their crews, rubbing their eyes and huddling together against the early morning chill. More kids surged out of the mansion, their movements jerky from the shock of being woken up just after the butt crack of dawn.

Pete stretched and then groaned. “I’m still sore from yesterday.”

“We all are. That’s why we’re supposed to get a break,” Ethan groused.

“Head to the buses.” The woman stalked toward us, motioning us to the buses. “Load up.”

“When was the last time the academy changed stuff up like this? They’ve always had a day of rest between each trial,” Gregory asked Pete.

He shook his head. “Wally would know.” He pointed. “There she is!”

Wally broke away from a group of girls and jogged toward us across a broad stretch of lawn, waving her hand like she was stranded and flagging down a rescue plane.

“She’s not supposed to leave her group, I don’t think,” Pete said softly.

Ethan rolled his eyes and shoved me forward before grabbing Pete by the shirt and yanking him after me. “Hurry up. They’ve been known to leave without people.”

“Suddenly the team player?” I asked Ethan dryly as Wally caught up to us.

“I need someone to trip if we’re being chased by beasts,” he replied. Funny enough, I didn’t think Ethan was kidding, not for a second.

“Only three times in the history of the Culling Trials have they altered the format,” Wally said breathlessly. “This is very exciting.”

“Why do you think they’re changing things?” Gregory asked. “Do they want to hurry us into school, maybe? But really, what’s an extra few days?”

A line of chartered buses waited for us in the mansion parking lot, the doors open and an attendant standing by each. I didn’t see Sunshine or Rory anywhere.

“Which one should we choose?” Pete asked.

“Follow me.” Ethan cut through the crowd.

At the fourth bus from the end, the attendant held up her hand. “Room for one more group. Let’s go.”

“That’s us.” Ethan put out his hand to stop another group of five guys who stood much closer to the bus. “Find another bus,” he told them with a haughtiness that seemed as grotesque as it was useful, given they all deflated and backed away. He glanced back at us. “Come on.”

“Why this bus?” I asked, seeing no distinction between this one and the rest.

He didn’t answer, only strode past the empty seats at the front. Near the back of the bus, he stopped next to a seemingly random seat and jerked his head at the occupants. “You’re in my seat. Move.”

The two starry-eyed girls fell over themselves to get out of his way, batting their lashes and showering him in sweet smiles.

I scowled at them. “Grow a spine, ladies.”

“You too. And you.” Ethan motioned for more seats to be vacated, this time by equally starry-eyed guys before taking his seat and nodding for me to sit with him. The way both genders reacted to him was unreal.

“People just do what he says?” I asked Wally as the displaced kids found new seats and the bus door slid shut.

“He’s a Helix.” She shrugged and sat.

Apparently, that was answer enough.

I slid in beside Ethan as he pulled a square of thicker type paper from his pocket. After a cursory look around, he peeled the corners away and read the sheet. His hand slid to his belt where his wand stuck out of a canvas holster.

“Do you have your cell phone on the other side, nerd?” I asked with some snark. I didn’t plan to mention that I was so poor, I neither had a phone nor a belt to put it on. “You should at least get a leather belt. It’s way cooler.”

The bus shimmied to a start, following behind those in front. The sun lit the interior and a few people started chattering.

“Did I hear right that you don’t know anything about magic?” Ethan asked, refolding the paper and tucking it into his pocket.

“Yes, you heard right. This is all new to me.”

“But you made it to the end of that Shade trial.”

“Teamwork. You should look into it.” I looked out the window as we rode. The scenery was all trees and bushes in full summer bloom. The heat wasn’t too bad, at least, especially not this early in the morning. If this trial was as physical as the last, we were going to be hurting in a few hours.

“The others in the crew, they’re useless. You’re…” A small crease formed between his brows as he studied me. “Odd.”

“Great. Good observation.” I turned away, nervous about how he was studying me. He was the last person I wanted to know my secret. His kind would sell secrets to the highest bidder and laugh when “Billy” ended up paying the price.

“You know Rory Wilson?” he asked.

The change in his conversation threw me and I paused before answering. Until yesterday, I would have said we were friends. Not anymore. “We grew up together.”

“He’s trouble.”

“Always has been, yes.”

“He’s the best Shade in his class. Nearly the best in the school, though he’s only a third year. Well, fourth year coming this year.”

“He’s a lying blockhead that’s going to get a thump as soon as I get a chance, so help me God.”

“What’s he doing here though, at the trials?” Ethan asked.

I paused again, having no idea where the conversation was going, but still not expecting it to end up where it had.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly. The bus turned down a small dirt road. Dust flew past the windows, fogging the view. Anticipation quickened my heart. “He didn’t tell me he was coming here. I thought he was in Nevada. He sent me a postcard from Nevada.”

Ethan didn’t say anything for a long time. A quick glance told me he was staring at the side of my head.

“Is there a problem?” I asked

Ethan’s eyes bored into me. “Rory Wilson doesn’t have friends.”

“As of yesterday, I know why. Where are you going with this?”

The bus came to a stop, and Ethan pushed me to get out of the seat.

“He’s an enigma. People wonder what side he is on,” Ethan said.

“Side of what?” I moved in line as everyone exited the bus. He didn’t answer. Great, another question to add to the pile.

The five gates stood in front of us once more, sentinels lined up at the top, same as the day before.

Ethan blew air from his nose, and I got the distinct impression it was supposed to be a laugh of derision. He motioned me to a gate with a sparse crowd waiting in front. Our crew followed behind.

“You better hope you keep being useful,” Ethan said, “or someday soon you’ll be crushed by your lack of knowledge.”

“You should get a side job writing for fortune cookies. You’d be a smash hit.”

“This is the House of Unmentionables,” Pete said, interrupting us. “Why are we doing this one?”

“We have to do them all, and we have to do them all together. I’ve got a pattern we need to follow.” Ethan shifted as the same beautiful woman from the day before walked along the edge of the wall.

“Welcome, everyone,” she began.

Ethan didn’t stop to listen. “This is one of the easiest. All we have to do is beat the simpleton creatures and find the gold. I know where it’ll be…mostly…and the basic spells I’ll need. With you guys to run interference, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Hopefully by the next trial we’ll be used to working together and you won’t drag me down.”

Wally’s voice dropped low. “This cheater always prospers.”

The gates shimmied open and Ethan gestured us on ahead of him.

“Go back with your team. You’re going to get in trouble. You’re going to get us in trouble!” Pete tried to shoo Wally away, like a wayward dog.

“You’re my team. They are just my dorm mates,” she replied. “The school will catch on eventually. That’s how this works, you know.”

As we crossed the threshold into the trial, bare dirt was all that was in front of us. A few scraggly bushes dotted the way and one lonely tree reached into the sky, its branches bare and trunk gnarled and hunched. Gradually, a hush pressed in around us, unnatural for so large of a place. The wall behind us melted away, and the desolate land stretched out to infinity.

“This stuff trips me out,” I said as Ethan found a path on the cracked earth and followed it without hesitation.

“Did you memorize all the right paths or something?” I asked, scanning the way for any sign of danger. A warning vibrated through my body, but it didn’t take a form or indicate a direction. We were in the thick of danger without any indication where it might come from.

Giddyup.

“Yes. It’s good to have friends in high places.” Ethan stopped at a fork, looked each way, then went right. “Except I don’t remember that fork.”

“Super,” I glanced back at the others. “Thoughts?”

“He’s the one cheating. We’re just playing follow the leader,” Pete said. “We can claim we didn’t know.”

“I agree. This is the best-case scenario at the moment.” Wally turned in a circle while walking. “When he doesn’t need us anymore, that’s when we will need a plan B.”

“Wise woman,” Ethan said.

I gritted my teeth. His overconfidence that we were all idiots or incompetent would be the ruin of him. I’d make sure of it. But right now, Sunshine’s words burned through my brain. I needed to stick to the middle of the pack. To let Ethan take the heat off me so I’d go unnoticed.

“We’re about there, I think,” Ethan said, hitting a three-way stop and choosing the far right path. He’d clearly made the correct choice at the previous fork.

“Where is there?” I asked, winding toward the left before Ethan took yet another right turn. Then another. My brain said we were going in a circle, but my sense of direction said we were still winding our way east. The path was a mind bender for sure.

“The bridge. It’s the easiest crossing place,” Ethan said.

The roar of water grew louder as we walked. Ahead, I could barely see the rolling, boiling, white water of a large chasm. Foam floated up, creating a rainbow in the strengthening sun rays, then cut off abruptly as if tumbling off a cliff. The oddity was the land was flat. There was no actual cliff, no natural drop off. The chasm cinched into little more than a stream.

“I do not like this,” I grumbled as Ethan pointed right.

“There,” he said, picking up the pace.

“We have all day. We don’t have to hurry,” Pete groaned, jogging to keep up.

“I’m not the only one with connections,” Ethan said, not slowing. “The first one to the gold takes it all. I want to be the first.”

“Don’t you have enough money?” Orin asked, drifting along behind us, in no apparent hurry.

“You can never have enough money,” Ethan replied. “And this isn’t about the money. Not really. It’s about taking all the glory. It’s about winning.”

A stone bridge was built into the side of the river, leading over the thinnest part of the water. The drop from the bridge was plenty steep, I had to admit, but only a trickle of muddy water flowed through, probably knee high at best.

“What’s the task?” Wally asked.

“Simple, we have to get across the bridge,” Pete replied as we all slowed near the stone steps.

“It won’t be simple,” Gregory said quietly. “I can guarantee that.”

A deep growl issued from somewhere. At first, I couldn’t figure out the source, but the growl rose in strength until a deep, booming roar reverberated from under the bridge.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, knowing exactly what was coming. Mom had read me enough fairy tales for me to know what lived under bridges. “No freaking way.”

Another roar like a garbled “ahhhhhh” followed, shaking the ground and sending my senses into overdrive. Everything in me said to run. To get away. Fighting whatever was under that bridge was absolute madness. You didn’t slap a lion on the nose and then put up your dukes. No. You climbed a tree and hid like a coward. Right?

My laughter rang out, a reflex I couldn’t control, as a huge green head poked out from under the bridge. Warty and hideous, it had a wide nose with big nostrils dripping thick yellow goo. An enormous hand grabbed the edge of the bridge, its thick fingernails chipped and deeply lined with the color of dried blood.

“Who’s going first?” Ethan asked, taking his wand out of its canvas holder.

Almost as one, everyone looked at me.

CHAPTER 3

I  shook my head as the others backed away from the bridge and the oversized deep green troll climbing out from under it, which effectively put me out in front. I stood sideways so I could keep an eye on both the troll and the traitors.

“Some friends you all are,” I said.

“You’re the quickest of us,” Wally said, her eyes glued to the troll. “If you can get the troll to follow you, then maybe the rest of us can get by with minimal fighting.”

“Basically, what she’s saying is, you first, Shade,” Ethan said. “I’ve got your back, but we all know you move like lightning.”

I turned a look on him. “Really? Compliments now?”

Pete snorted but didn’t step up. “He’s trying to sweet talk you into going. You know, as if you were just as dumb as he is.”

A bellowing roar snapped my head around and I took a few steps back. I couldn’t help it. I might be braver than I was smart, but even I could see this was far from a slam dunk.

The troll now stood fully exposed in the center of the bridge, flexing his big hands with those disgusting cracked nails. His feet and toes matched his hands, right down to the chips in the nails and the junk jammed under them.

But to be fair, that was not what had my attention. I blinked and shook my head. When I said he was fully exposed, I do mean fully exposed. The big bastard was over eight feet tall and his hands, feet, and…other appendages…were about three sizes too big for his body.

“How does he not step on it?” Pete wondered out loud. I had the same question, but I was as irritated as a cat who’d been thrown into bathwater. The irritation kept me from freaking out and letting fear control me.

“Put some clothes on!” I snapped and pointed a finger at the troll. “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

The troll bent at the waist and roared in my direction, showing off cracked and broken teeth, a tongue split in three and a maw big enough to stuff my entire head in and bite down.

Fear tickled at me, working its way down my spine. I fought it hard. Pushing it away as it fought to take me over. “You look ridiculous. Like an oversized Shrek, you know that?”

“Yelling at him won’t work,” Gregory said behind me.

“Really? What are you going to tell me next? That the pope is Catholic?” I brushed the hair from my eyes and adjusted my hat. “So what will work?”

“Why are you asking him?” Ethan barked. “Get moving!”

I rolled my eyes and held my ground. “Gregory?”

“His sensitive spot is not what you might think. Trolls are capable of—”

A crack behind us preceded a burst of light as though a series of fireworks had been let off.  Gregory yelped, and something snapped my ass like a metal-tipped whip on steroids.

“Ah, what the hell?” I jumped forward as heat and pain sliced through my right butt cheek, making me gasp. Cold washed over my body. The troll startled as though I’d snagged my foot on a trip wire.

“Ethan!” Wally gasped. “How could you do that? He’s on our team!”

“We need him to move. He’s the bait today.”

As if I needed any confirmation of who’d just shot me and with what. I put a hand to my butt, but my rear end was far from my biggest problem.

Apparently, there was an invisible line I’d just crossed—a line that Ethan had known about and pushed me over on purpose.

And now the troll was coming for me full tilt, mouth wide, hands outstretched as it made grabby motions with those wretched fingers.

I darted to the right, drawing the troll back to the bridge. If I could get him to follow me to the other side, then my crew would be free to cross. Maybe this was like those golems from the Shade trial, and we could leave the troll behind to terrorize the next set of kids.

I ran up onto the edge of the bridge, climbing the stone railing so that I was almost as tall as the troll. “No questions? Isn’t that how the fairy tales work? Shouldn’t you ask me questions before you go crazy and try to kill me?”

“No, don’t engage him! Keep moving! He’ll overwhelm you!” Gregory yelled.

The troll curled his lips and rolled his wide shoulders as he slowed his advance. “You wanna question, little duck? How about a rhyme? Do you think you can outsmart me?” The troll’s lips curled and pulled wide, a grotesque sort of smile if I’d ever seen one. “Give me a moment, and I’ll have you.”

He wiggled the index and middle fingers on his left hand, and a strange sizzling feeling rolled over my skin—his magic, if I had to guess. Trolls clearly had magic.

I worked to brush it off, but a scene interrupted my vision. The troll stood over me as I lay with my limbs bent at strange angles, my eyes wide and pleading.

I blinked my eyes then rubbed them, trying to clear away the image. Trying to root myself in reality and shake the visual he was forcing on me. I couldn’t quite do it, but it no longer commanded my attention. Pain throbbed through my body as though his huge, meaty foot had stomped on me.

My legs shook from the visceral reaction, so badly, I had to lock them to keep standing.

“See?” the troll breathed the word, hissing it. “Now you see. You see what I will do to you. What I will enjoy doing over and over again.”

Gregory groaned. “It isn’t real, Wild! None of what he will show you is real—ignore it and fight!”

I gave a slow nod and breathed through the washes of fear coming at me, like breakers in the ocean. I squinted through the double vision. “Try again, dumb ass.” I gritted my teeth as I made myself grin at him.

His bulbous eyes bugged out even farther. “Not possible! You will fear me!”

I couldn’t stop myself from flipping him off, even though the effort left me shaking. I forced my frown into a grin. “So much eloquence coming out of a big, dumb-looking, booger-riddled creature. Why is that? What do you have? Some smarty-pants magic user feeding you lines?” I adjusted my stance on the thick stone railing of the bridge. Or tried to. I fought to lift a foot, but I was stuck to the stone. The troll’s smile widened and the bugger winked at me.

Oh crap.

“Six little ducks went out one day.” He took a step toward me.

“Get ready to run. He’s about to be very distracted,” Ethan barked, but I didn’t think it was at me. No, I was the distraction here. My crew would run to safety, leaving me to handle the troll.

The troll took another step and the image it was taunting me with shifted again, showing my intestines spilled out into the water below the bridge, the water turning pinkish red. I blinked it away and fought to keep my balance as vertigo hit me hard and left me swaying.

“Over the bridge and far away.” The troll took another step and I tried again to yank my feet off the stone. Glued, I was damn well glued to it with some sort of troll magic.

“Boots, get them off!” Gregory yelled.

I bent and ripped frantically at the laces. Got one of them off.

“Mother duck called quack, quack, quack.” The troll reached for me before I could free my foot from the other boot. “But only five little ducks came limping back.”

That big paw of a hand swept toward my head and I did the limbo backward on pure instinct, my one foot stuck in the boot that was still attached to the stone. I yelled as I swung down, the force wrenching my knee before that foot came loose at the last second.

I tumbled through the air, landing in the water below with a sickening thud. Not enough water to cushion my fall, not enough mud to sink under me. I groaned as I rolled onto my belly and feet, soaked through.

“Hurry!” Wally said. “Trolls are known to eat as many as ten people per annum.”

I lurched toward the far side of the creek, the cold water soaking my clothes and chilling me despite the warm weather. A huge splash behind me told me all I needed to know. My new friend had followed me, allowing the others to cross.

I spun, reaching for my knife as I whipped around.

The troll was a hell of a lot bigger than I’d thought, that or he’d grown in the last few seconds.

“Little duck, you are going to die. Better that I do it now than you see what is coming for you. What is coming for you, oh, that is much worse than anything I could do.” He grinned and pointed a finger at me. A magic finger that could make me see horrible things.

Well, that was enough of that garbage.

I lunged toward him and slashed with my knife, aiming for that finger. He was far too slow, and I took the finger off at the second knuckle before he could so much as blink.

We both stared as the digit fell into the water. Bloop. For just a split second, there was nothing, no noise, no drop of blood, and then it all went to hell.

The troll fell backward, swinging up his hand, and in the process, spraying me with blood the color of a grapefruit’s innards. Pale pink splattered over me—the smell of it not that far off citrus either—and I pushed my back against the solid ditch behind me as the troll wailed at the top of his lungs.

The fear was gone as were the visions he’d superimposed on my sight. But for how long?

“My fingy, my fingy, she took my fingy! You said I wouldn’t get hurt. You said I’d scare them and get to eat them, but none were mean enough to hurt me! Oh, I’m going to tear this bitch apart.” He roared the words as he straightened himself up, his eyes coming back to find me on the far side of the ditch.

Time to go.

Panic clawed at me. I had no boots, a single knife, and a troll that had just decided I needed my body parts rearranged.

“I need help!” I yelled up at my team, hoping they hadn’t gone far.

“Here, I have a stick,” Pete called from above me. I spun and reached my hands up to see he’d oversold it—it wasn’t a stick but a twig that was thin and wobbling even as he stretched down to me. I spread my hands wide.

“That isn’t a stick, Pete! Find a branch, not a sliver!”

His shoulders slumped. “Sorry.” And then he slunk back, leaving me there.

“Damn it, I still need help!” I yelled.

“Oh, the humanity! I’m going to tear her a new hole!” the troll hollered. He slammed into me again, but his eyes were rolling as though the pain in his finger was nothing short of incapacitating and it made him super sloppy.

Score one for me.

I spun with him, like some sort of horrible tango. His snot slapped onto my face. He gripped at me with his good hand and something bumped my leg.

“Get off me, you freakshow!” I yelled and shoved him away. Shockingly, he fell backward, right onto his butt into the water, still holding his hand, still crying massive crocodile tears as he spewed obscenities.

“Pain in his hands is his downfall. It steals his magic!” Gregory leaned over. “You did good. That injury will keep him occupied for at least a few minutes.”

“I’m coming, Wild!” Pete yelled from above.

I stared at the wall of dirt and stones that comprised the ditch, able to see some handholds now that the troll’s magic had diminished. “I can climb out, just warn me if he’s coming.”

Only Pete didn’t wait for me. No, Pete was in what I like to call white-knight mode. Was it because he knew I was a girl now? Yeah, most likely.

A new snarl from above cut through the air and then a honey badger came flying down.

A furry Pete —in full on honey badger form—landed between me and the still inconsolably sobbing troll.

Gregory groaned. “He will be far deadlier once he snaps out of the shock. You two need to get out of there!”

A snarl of serious ferocity ripped out of Pete and the troll opened his eyes.

“Oh, no.” Gregory said. “Get out of there!”

“Trying!” I yelled back, only now I couldn’t leave. Not without Pete.

He snarled and lunged at the troll’s foot, snagging a big toe in his mouth and flipping his head back and forth so hard his body was a blur.

The troll bellowed bloody murder as Pete put the toe hold on him. “I’m eating badger for breakfast!” he roared.

His hand shot for Pete and I lunged forward without thinking, knowing only that Pete was one of mine to protect. I slashed with my blade, catching two more of the troll’s grasping fingers.

They plopped into the water and the troll lurched to the side and puked as his newly cut fingers bled pink into the churned-up water.

A gargled ahhhhhhh ripped out of the troll. “Imma kill her ten ways to the solstice and back!”

Jesus Murphy, he was going to unmask me if I didn’t get my ass out of here.

“Come on, Pete!” I grabbed his stubby tail and pulled him backward while he fought to get closer to the troll, clawing at the ground, muddying up the waters even more as he went.

“No, we have to go!” I snapped at him. We did, although I still had to figure out how to get us both out of the ditch. Although we hadn’t noticed the ditch’s walls as we approached, they now appeared never ending.

This place was such a mind trip, I literally couldn’t grasp what the hell was going on with the landscape. But one challenge at a time. Still dragging Pete back by his tail, I got us to the wall of the ditch.

“Look out!” Wally yelled from above. I swung sideways, and by virtue of my farm muscles, swung Pete up as a kind of honey badger weapon.

He snarled as I turned, his claws outstretched for the troll’s very wide eyes. He would have gotten them, too, except that big maw had also opened. I pulled Pete back just as the troll’s teeth snapped shut, but I kept swinging, throwing Pete, sending him up and over the edge of the ditch.

There was a yelp from one of the others and then another body tumbled into the ditch with me.

It was like we were in some sort of deadly comedy. I was just waiting for a pie in the face to mark the end of the scene.

A flash of dirty blond hair, and then Ethan hit the water beside me. The troll didn’t so much as turn toward him. Not even a glance.

“Go on, go after him a minute. He’s an ass. Nobody likes him.” I made a quick shooing motion, like I would have done with a badly-behaved cow.

The troll tipped his head and squinted an eye at Ethan before turning back to me with a wide grin. “Not allowed. That one has protection on him. You, little duck, do not. And you have seriously pissed me off.”

“What the hell?” I yelled. Ethan stood as if nothing had happened, took his wand from his pouch and made a lazy swirling motion with it. The wall of the ditch shifted, changing into a set of stairs that led up and out of the water.

“You dirty son of a bitch, you could have helped all along!” I snarled.

But I got no more than that because I’d been stupid. I’d taken my attention off the troll, which was the only opening he needed to wrap his remaining fingers on one hand around my neck.

“Got ya,” he whispered.

CHAPTER 4

F rom above me, stuck in the ditch with a troll’s one good hand wrapped around my neck, Ethan hollered to the others. “Let’s go. We’re down a Shade, but we don’t need him now that we finished his house trial.”

He was just going to leave me here?

Anger burned in my gut—not at the troll, but at Ethan—strong enough to shatter whatever remaining hold the troll had on me. Well, minus the hand around my neck.

He squeezed my neck as he grinned. “Imma pop you like a daisy.”

I lifted my hand, still holding my knife, and laid the razor-sharp blade against the back of his remaining knuckles. I breathed out—or should say I tried to—and let all the anger swell in me, let it bleed into my eyes until there was nothing there but the urge to finish the troll off. I’d fight like a rabid wolf if he forced my hand. Maybe I’d die, but I’d take him with me.

For a split second, his magic rose around us, dark green and misty, and I…breathed it in? Was that right? No, maybe I absorbed it somehow. It soaked through my skin, and I owned it. I held it tightly for a beat before it flowed out through my eyes.

The world around us flickered and changed, but this time it wasn’t a misty image or a disorienting overlay on our world. It seemed entirely real.

The troll was drawn and quartered, tied under the bridge by his feet like a cow carcass hung to tenderize, the pink blood dripping slowly into the water below, dead eyes glazed with a white film. All ten fingers missing.

“No.” The troll let me go, turned and touched his own image. The flesh moved and he howled, and bolted away from me at top speed. I went to my knees as the troll raced away down river, his body jiggling like a bowl of jelly. But I couldn’t laugh. I could barely breathe and I’ll admit a large part of that was straight up fear catching me.

That troll meant to kill me, and I didn’t see any teacher showing up to stop him, no supervisor of the Culling Trials making sure I didn’t indeed have my head popped off like a daisy.

“Let me go!” Gregory yelled, and then the little goblin was running down the stairs that Ethan had cut into the side of the ditch. He looked at me on my knees in the water and then at the retreating figure of the troll. He said nothing but hurried to my side and helped me to my feet.

“You okay, Wild?”

I swallowed hard, coughed a few times, and finally nodded. “Thanks for the advice. Helped.”

“You…handled him well.” We slowly made our way up the stairs. At the top, Pete was still in honey badger form, being held by Wally as though he were a fat house cat and not a snarling twisting maniac of a badger.

Ethan raised his eyebrows.

“Boots,” Orin said, thrusting my boots at me. I bent and yanked them back on, lacing them up quickly. Behind us was the next group of kids. I could just hear their voices, and I knew we had to get going. Being passed was bad. Even if my heart was still racing, even if I wasn’t entirely sure just what had happened here.

Because part of my brain said I’d somehow sucked in the troll’s magic and spat it back at him, using his own gift against him.

I swallowed hard. “So, we’re done now, right?”

Wally shook her head slowly. “Three challenges for each house. We have two more. The final one will be where the gold is, assuming we chose the paths correctly.”

I rubbed my head. That couldn’t be the full story. There was something missing. There was no way that a place like this used the exact pattern for each trial. The trial for the House of Shade had been all about strength, speed, and predicting your enemy’s moves. Made sense if they were badass assassins. But the House of Unmentionables was not the House of Shade.

If my childhood fairy tales had taught me anything, trolls and goblins hoarded things.

Ethan was already partway down the path, eyeing up his piece of paper. Out of earshot. Still, I bent and spoke quietly into the goblin’s ear.

“Gregory, do trolls have any sort of talisman?”

His eyebrows rose and he slowly nodded. “Usually they bury something close to where they haunt. A trinket they love.”

I ran down the stairs into the ditch and did a slow circle through the muddy water, ignoring the sloshing inside my boots. “Would it be precious metal or something else?” I couldn’t explain what was driving me other than this challenge’s lack of complexity. Getting past a troll had been physically hard for me, not having done it before, but for Ethan, it would’ve been a cakewalk. There had to be something more.

Gregory hurried down the stairs and took a big snort of air, his eyelids fluttering. “A ruby. There’s a ruby buried in the creek.”

With Gregory helping as a magical treasure detector, we pinpointed a slight depression in the ground in under a minute. I started clearing away the wet rocks and mud.

“Stop messing around and get out of there!” Ethan snapped from the top of the stairs, then disappeared again. Thankfully, he wasn’t the suspicious type, just impatient.

My fingers slid over a smooth surface, different in look and texture than the rocks around it. In fact, it was a perfect square, strange to exist out in nature. I pulled it out and rinsed it in the water. Vivid red. I’d found a gemstone. A ruby.

I handed it to Gregory. “Hang on to it.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know, just hang on to it. And keep it from Wonder Bread.”

He snorted. “No problem.”

We ran up the stairs and reached the top just as voices filtered to us from the opposite bank.

I looked over my shoulder at the approaching kids. “We’d better move. That troll isn’t coming back anytime soon to slow down the next group.”

Ethan looked past me and waved his wand with a sharp stabbing motion. A circular bubble shot out of the tip, wrapped around the stone bridge and vibrated.

“What—”

The bridge erupted, stones flinging every which way, the noise cutting through the air and making my ears ring.

“That will slow them down.” Ethan snorted.

Pete snarled and lunged out of Wally’s arms, going straight for Ethan.

“No, Pete. Leave him.” Much as I wanted to see the honey badger take a piece out of Ethan, I knew in my gut we still needed him.

Why, I wasn’t sure, but I was a pro at listening to my instincts, and I wasn’t about to stop now just because Ethan was a giant douche canoe who deserved to have his head bashed in.

Ethan waved a hand for us to follow him, and I fell in behind him even though I was struggling with what all had just happened. Gregory dropped back beside me, Pete and Wally stayed to the middle, and Orin was off to the side.

Gregory was the first to speak. “We can’t trust him, Wild. He would have let you die in there. If Pete hadn’t shoved him in, he would never have created those stairs.”

“I know,” I said. But if Ethan hadn’t fallen—or been pushed—in, I wouldn’t have been caught in an inescapable situation, and whatever…thing I’d done wouldn’t have happened, either. I was pretty sure I needed to figure out that piece of the puzzle. Maybe they’d given me the wrong designation?

“Then why follow him?”

“Can a person be in more than one house?” I asked.

Gregory looked up at me. “What?” I’d given him conversational whiplash.

“Can you be in more than one house?” I repeated slower. “Like, say your mom was magical like Ethan and your dad was a shifter like Pete. Could you be in more than one house?”

Wally dropped back to walk with us. “Yes and no.”

Gregory started. “What?”

She shrugged. “There are very rare cases where an individual carries the genetics of multiple gifts. One gift will always be dominant, but you could have secondary traits. Say you favor shifting but can still manage a wand to some degree. Less than one in a hundred have this magical quirk. And usually it is trained out of them in the academy. The trait that is considered of higher quality is cultivated, and the lesser talent is ignored and ultimately unused and considered dormant.”

“I didn’t know that,” Gregory said softly, touching the tips of his ears.

Wally turned her head to look at me, long black eyelashes fluttering a little. “Why do you ask, Wild?”

Her explanation, funnily enough, didn’t make me feel any better. Did that mean I wasn’t a Shade? Weird that I could be bothered by the thought of not being trained as an assassin so quickly after learning it was a possibility. I was cracked.

I frowned and rubbed at my head, worry prickling at me. “It’s just that—” Hell, I didn’t even know how to explain to them what had happened back there because I didn’t understand it myself.

And I didn’t get a chance to say more than that.

“Look sharp!” Ethan snapped. “We’re at the second challenge.”

“Not it,” I responded just as sharply. “You first, Wonder Bread. I’m tired of being the one to test the waters.”

Something bumped against my leg and I looked down. Pete looked up at me, still a honey badger.

I sighed. “Sorry, we forgot to bring extra pants.”

He shrugged and chattered his teeth, and I could almost hear him say, Pants-shmants, this way I can pretend I don’t understand all of you.

“That’s cheating, Freckles,” I said softly.

His head whipped around and he stared at me, slack jawed. I stared back, my own jaw dropping wide.

“What is happening?” I whispered. I was not hearing a honey badger talk, was I? I was not like Pete. I was no shifter.

“What’s happening is we have to get our asses up that tower,” Ethan said. The dubious quality to his voice snapped my focus back to the moment.

I tilted my head, looking up at a massive tower that appeared out of nowhere, reaching a good hundred feet into the sky, flat on top. Large blocks, nearly my height, made up a few rows along the base, but above that, the wall seemed to even out, nothing but divots and small ledges to the top. There weren’t even windows or doors—it was basically a massive climbing rock.

“Where the hell did that come from?” I asked, daunted.

“Looks easy, but there are bound to be nasty surprises,” Ethan said softly.

I huffed out a laugh. “Climbing that looks easy?”

“Goblin, you go first, seeing as this is your house,” Ethan barked.

“This tower will be protected by gargoyles,” Gregory said, analyzing it. “They’re as dumb as the rocks they’re made from, but they are vicious. They’ll try to pick us off as we climb. See them there, at the top?”

I squinted, as though that would help my vision. It didn’t, of course, but I still saw what he’d spotted. Three oversized stone gargoyles perched at the top. One of them had wings, two were without. All resembled mishmashes of creatures—lions, dragons, crocodiles—the bits and pieces jammed together to make horrible stone beasts.

One of them moved—the dragon-headed one with the set of wings peered down the back side of the tower. Another chill of warning made my breathing shallow, and my body flooded with adrenaline, prepped for anything. Sort of.

Figures gathered at the bottom of the tower caught my gaze. I didn’t know how a team had gotten ahead of us, but clearly one had. Maybe the troll bridge they’d crossed was easier. Maybe they hadn’t faced a troll at all. Regardless, this was an opportunity that we hadn’t had yet, to see how another team fared at a challenge.

Ethan and Gregory made to pass in front of me and I grabbed them both, one in each hand. “Watch.”

Ethan and Gregory both went still as the scene played out in front of us.

There was a moment of silence as the kids started to climb the tower. They’d made it twenty feet up when a sudden movement caught my notice. A creature—a gargoyle—I hadn’t seen, stretched to life, much smaller than those perched higher and nearly matching the color of the stone under its feet. It shot down, moving like a spider on a wall, heading straight for the kids.

“It’ll be like this all the way around,” Ethan said, stepping to the side as if that would get him a better look.

A sudden high-pitched scream cut the air, and a winged gargoyle flew straight into the air behind the tower. As it rose, it circled closer to us, clutching a student in its talons. The kid’s legs kicked in panic.

I grabbed Ethan’s shoulder. “Save him!”

Ethan huffed. He didn’t move a muscle.

“Ethan, save—” The screaming kid’s flailing body disappeared from the sky.

“If they killed everyone, there would be no one left for the academy,” Ethan said dryly. I caught a whiff of you’re an idiot in his tone.

“No time like the present.” Ethan shoved Gregory in front of him. “Go.”

“You’re a real class act, Wonder Bread. A real stand-up guy,” I said, stepping forward with Gregory.

“And you’re white trash,” he replied, following behind us. “Just be glad you’re not also useless.”

Any other time, he’d be flat on his back with a split lip. This time, though, I figured we needed his wand. Assuming, of course, he’d actually use it.

I directed the others. “Gregory, stick close to me. Orin and Wally, you take the rear. These suckers move fast—yell out if they get in behind us.”

I was at the base of the tower and Pete was still beside me.

“You, my fat little friend, are getting a boost.”

He chattered his sharp teeth. Can’t climb. I could hook my claws in, but I can’t—

I grabbed him around the belly and tossed him against the wall as high as I could. “Then hook in, buddy. I have a feeling we’re going to need some honey badger badassery.”

He screeched until he hit the wall and his claws dug in. He glanced down at me, teeth chattering rapidly.

“Rude, so rude.” I grinned up at him. “Now, move your furry little butt. We have a tower to climb.”

And another token to find. I was sure there’d be treasure here, just like the ruby we’d found at the troll’s bridge. Call it intuition, or maybe just plain logic, but each challenge would have a talisman.

He curled his lips up and snapped his teeth once more, but then he did start climbing, contrary to what he’d said about his capabilities. Given that his claws were scraping against stone, and the divots had been designed for hands, I was mighty impressed.

Magic.

I took a deep breath. I’d need to get used to this new reality that defied the logic with which I’d lived my life, and soon.

I jumped up, catching a handhold just above my head, and hung there a moment while I searched for another. “Come on, everybody, this will be easy. Ethan said so.”

“Any idiot can climb a wall,” Ethan said as he started up to my right.

“You’ll be proof,” I bit out with a grin.

“Incoming!” Wally shouted, and I looked up as one of the wingless gargoyles skittered down the wall at us like a lizard.

It blinked rapidly a few times, swaying from side to side, a long tongue flicking out to taste the air.

“It can’t see,” Gregory whispered. “But it can feel us move.”

I lifted a foot and dug it into another hold, a few rocks falling.

I grimaced and looked up as the gargoyle came straight at me.

CHAPTER 5

“C rap stains on white jeans,” I spat out, my heart rate ramping up. “How the hell am I supposed to fight a freaking nightmare?”

The gargoyle was coming straight for me as I hung by my fingers and toes on the side of a stone block tower. This did not bode well.

I scanned the immediate area for all available divots and handholds, lodging them into my brain. I needed a strategy. If these suckers were made of stone, jabbing them with a knife wouldn’t do me a whole lotta good.

“You better react, or you’ll go flying,” Ethan warned.

“Very helpful,” I grunted.

The gargoyle closed the distance with lightning speed, shimmying down the flat surface as though its feet had suction cups on them. Rather than strike out, I let the stone creature keep its momentum. When it was just two feet away, I threw myself sideways, heart in my throat, and grabbed a new handhold with my right hand.

The fingers on my left hand just barely scraped against the other hold I’d targeted, but my own momentum swung my body past it and to the right, leaving all my weight pulling on one precarious hold. My jaw clenched and I let out a groan as my fingertips tore into the stone, one nail bending back. That was going to hurt later.

The gargoyle zipped past me, right into the rest of my crew. Wally screeched and Gregory hissed and pulled back, skittering across the stone like it was second nature to him. The gargoyle slowed and turned, focused on its target—me. But between us was Ethan, stuck to the wall with one hand and one foot, his wand out and his baby blues wide. I knew that look. He’d frozen in panic.

“Do a spell,” I hollered, reaching with my left hand to secure my position before starting back up. “Hurry! Anything!”

Growls and hisses drew my attention upward. I fully expected another gargoyle to launch into us. Instead, surprise stopped me cold as an incensed honey badger dropped through the air, all four legs spread out like a flying squirrel. Pete landed on the gargoyle’s shoulder and scrambled to get purchase, claws digging in, tiny pebbles dropping from the stone beast.

The gargoyle made an ear-splitting sound, a cross between a shriek and a high-pitched baby’s cry. Pete, incredibly ferocious in this form, ripped and tore with his mouth and claws, biting off chunks of the gargoyle and throwing them into the air. Rocks shed from the creature and it shuddered. It reached up to slap at Pete, making him slip and scramble to stay on its back.

“Help him!” I yelled, nearly there but blocked by Orin.

Ethan started out of his stupor, closer than any of us to Pete.

Lightning fast in a way only someone from this house could be, Gregory crawled across the wall with ease. Long and incredibly strong fingers fit into tiny pockmarks and divots no normal human could use. He pulled himself up to just below the shrieking and distracted gargoyle before reaching in and raking his fingers across the stone beast’s belly.

The gargoyle froze, its face twisted into a mask of agony. Its limbs slowed and hardened.

“Grab Pete,” Gregory called, raking his fingers across the stone creature again for good measure.

Ethan, finally reacting, stowed his wand and reached out, grabbing the spitting and growling honey badger by the tail. He flung Pete upward, just barely getting him onto a ledge jutting out the side of the tower, startling a kid standing on it. The other kid fell backward, arms windmilling as he went down.

“Hang on, buddy,” I called out as Pete hunkered against the wall, teeth chattering away with enough profanities that I was shocked the others couldn’t hear him.

“Clearly, we’ll need to head in that direction,” Wally mumbled.

The gargoyle finished its metamorphosis back into a statue, stuck on the side of the stone wall like it was glued there.

“Knowing how to disable them would’ve been nice,” I grumbled, heading in Pete’s direction.

“You need claws, and the more blows the better,” Gregory said, following me. “Let’s hurry. It will only stay immobile for a little while.”

“You don’t have claws.” Wally grunted as she found the next handhold.

“My nails are as hard as claws, if not as sharp quite yet. They will be, though. Eventually,” he answered. “Wild, your magical knife will probably work. Ethan’s magic would too, if he’d use it.”

I said, “My knife isn’t magical—”

“Yeah, nice reaction time, Helix,” Orin said below everyone and apparently not at all remorseful about it. “Daddy can give you the winning magical spell, but Daddy can’t teach you courage, can he?”

“I saved the badger, didn’t I?” Ethan ground out. “Besides, I didn’t see you do anything, blood sucker.”

Orin didn’t miss a beat. “This is not my house. I expect to fail here. It will hinder neither my transformation into full vampire nor my eventual acceptance into the academy.”

“Ten percent of vampiric recruits are not accepted into the fold because of their inability to work with others, and of that ten percent, ninety percent are eventually staked by fearful magical folk afraid the vampire will go rogue,” Wally said, relaying the stats in her perfect monotone as she climbed. Her voice dropped to that of her namesake. “There is a fine line between confidence and delusion. One will help, and the other will hinder.”

“Fascinating,” Ethan said, sarcasm dripping from the word.

A yell caught my attention, to the right. Someone else fell from higher up, his arms swinging through in the empty air. Another scream on the distant left, a girl plummeting to the ground.

I pulled myself up, my hands and muscles screaming. “A lot of people got here before us.”

“Doesn’t mean they’ll finish,” Ethan said, strain in his voice. “Now move it. Let’s get to the top.”

Reaching Pete, I grabbed a hold of him and swung him up. Unfortunately, I botched the release and he sailed out too far right, hitting the wall and sliding until a small ledge stopped his fall.

Several feet above him, just below the lip surrounding the top of the building, the three stone creatures perched on the large overhang shuddered. One by one, their limbs stretched away from the wall, no longer stone. And one by one, they all turned their stone heads to look at Pete, clinging to the tiny ledge above a whole lot of empty air.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” I said, reaching for the next hold, pulling myself up as fast as I could.

“That was a terrible throw,” Ethan chuckled. He didn’t follow me. Instead, he climbed straight up where the coast was clear. He was going to let us be the distraction so he could get to safety.

“You filthy, stinking…” I gritted my teeth.

“Cheat. Hoodwinker. Scam artist,” Wally finished, thankfully heading toward Pete. “Deceiver. Liar. User. Jerk.”

“Okay. We get it,” I said.

“Morally bankrupt whoreson—”

“Wow. We get it.”

All three gargoyles started down the tower, each larger than the previous. My heart rate increased and adrenaline buzzed through my veins. This was about to get hairy.

Gregory skittered below me, moving nearly as well as the gargoyles on the rough stone wall. He reached Pete and climbed onto the tiny ledge beside him, positioning himself between the honey badger and the monsters.

“There are too many for just me,” he called out, watching the creatures slowly move toward him.

“I’m coming,” I said, out of breath, arm muscles screaming for more oxygen. “I’m coming.”

Fingers starting to cramp, I grabbed another handhold. I braced the blunt toes of my boots, horrible for climbing, against another too small hold. My leg shook with the effort. The creatures descended, speeding up. Their eyes were all on Gregory, who clung to the wall, braced for action.

Understanding dawned, cutting through the lack of oxygen.

“They sense that you’re one of their kind, in a way,” I said while reaching up. My fingertips brushed the edge of a hold and slipped. My weight shifted and I slid, my cheek scraping against stone. I just barely caught the next hold, my weight pulling on my grip, my fingers threatening to give out.

“Yes,” Gregory said. “They’re making it harder for me. Testing me. Which means…”

“You’re…worthy,” Wally finished. I could hear the approval in her strained and tired voice. “Congratulations. I hope you don’t mess up.”

I chanced a look down. Sweat dripped off of my face and sailed into the nothingness below. Down the way, bodies clung to the wall. They looked awfully small way down near the bottom. As I watched, someone peeled away from the sheer face, falling back with slack arms. They hadn’t been thrown, they’d simply given up.

My stomach flipped. While heights didn’t scare me, falling did. While other students might be magically saved from their doom, my family seemed to be targeted for death. I had to assume that everything I did here was life or death. It had been for Tommy, after all. And it would’ve been for Billy.

More adrenaline coursed through my blood, giving me a boost. The gargoyles sped up, their feet and arms churning over the stone. I grabbed the next hold, and the next, putting everything I had into getting to that ledge.

Gregory surged up for the first gargoyle. It swiped out with a claw. He ducked out of the way and then lashed out, nearly scoring a blow of his own. I reached the ledge and pulled myself up beside Pete, shaking with exhaustion but knowing I couldn’t stop now. Gargoyle number two picked up speed, passing Gregory and the first gargoyle before working back around, ignoring me and the others.

I let it pass, getting in position to flank Gregory before balancing my weight on the ledge and snatching out my knife. It might not be magical, no matter what Gregory said, but it was sharp and currently all I had to fight these creatures.

Gregory scraped gargoyle number one along the side, but he hadn’t gotten deep enough. The gargoyle slashed out, opening up four parallel red lines on Gregory’s shoulder.

Gregory sucked in a breath and pulled back, the pain clearly acute. He balanced on his toes at the very edge of our landing. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back without taking my eyes off gargoyle number one.

The stone muscles on gargoyle number two bunched in preparation to strike. I stretched, using my long reach to my advantage, and quickly jabbed my knife into it.

The creature shuddered as I dragged my blade across its hard-stone underbelly. Its lunge cut short before it had even began, it slowed and then turned back to stone.

“Huh,” I said, jamming my knife into the sheath before changing my position. “Guess it doesn’t need to be magical after all.”

“It does,” Gregory grunted as he crawled along the wall, drawing the first gargoyle with him. “I felt it when I first met you. It smells like magic. I assumed you knew.”

I didn’t have time to argue. The third gargoyle had honed in on me, realizing Gregory wasn’t the only threat. It zoomed down the wall so fast, I could barely focus on it. Bracing my legs as wide as they’d go, I yanked out my knife again, my mobility drastically cut down now.

Gregory slashed out before moving up the wall. I lost sight of him as the huge stone gargoyle bore down on me, the big lion head at odds with its lizard-like body. A claw shot out, slashing straight at me, a blow I couldn’t avoid. Blistering pain seared the skin on my arm.

I jabbed forward. My knife clinked against the thing’s side. It slashed again, barely missing me, before changing position. I cut off a curse. With only one good hand, needing to hold on to the wall, I was stuck. The gargoyle had the high ground, literally.

The hissing and spitting increased in volume, and Pete leapt up to latch on to the creature’s hind leg. It squealed and jerked away. I used the distraction, stretching as much as I dared, but my angle was off. I slashed under the thing’s arm, not far enough in.

Ignoring Pete for the moment, gargoyle number three pushed forward and struck out. My eyes widened as the claws, aiming directly for my neck, whipped through the air. I jerked my knife up, but it wouldn’t help. My fingers slipped as I shifted, trying to brace myself for those stone claws to tear into my neck.

CHAPTER 6

T  he gargoyle had me dead to rights, and there was nothing I could do about it but try and stare it down and pray someone saved me.

Orin’s body popped into my line of sight. He pushed up in front of me and stuck out a forearm, taking the blow meant for me. The gargoyle’s claws raked across his arm, but the injury didn’t stop him. His fingers elongated into nasty, grayish-black claws, and he darted forward and slashed the underbelly of the gargoyle in one weirdly graceful movement.

Sparks flew and the creature’s face closed down in pain, eyes shutting tightly. It immediately began to slow, the stone hardening into a statue.

“Wow,” Wally said, poised on the tiny ledge next to me, her arms shaking as she clutched two handholds. “That was fast.”

“My kind have no problem with these creatures,” Orin said, and I could hear more than a trace of snootiness in his tone. It was clear why he hadn’t bothered to get involved until now, thinking himself above gargoyles in the magical hierarchy. So then…what had changed? Why come to the rescue?

Panting, Gregory clung to the wall next to a slowing gargoyle, watching it return to a statue. Below us, a group of three people, all somewhat spaced out, worked up the wall unimpeded, the way cleared by us.

“Let’s go.” Gregory pointed up at Ethan reaching the topmost ledge. He doggedly pulled himself over. “All he’ll have to do is find the treasure on top, if he knows to look.”

“He didn’t know last time.” Orin grabbed Pete by the tail and abruptly flung him. Pete sailed up over the ledge and probably smashed painfully onto the roof. Orin pulled himself ahead of Wally and me, moving like an oversized spider with those long thin limbs of his.

“I guess we’re lucky Ethan didn’t memorize all the details,” Gregory said dryly.

Utterly exhausted, arms and legs shaking, I pushed myself up the last ten feet. The guys reached the top edge and pulled themselves over. Wally labored beside me, working harder than she likely ever had in her life up to this point.

“You know… what I said about the percentage… of vampires being staked… for not working with others well? I made up…that fact…about them,” she whispered, nearly at the top. “I’m sure…there is a stat… I just…don’t know it.”

“Why bother?” I asked, my foot slipping. I jammed it back into the closest divot.

“The trick…with a vampire… is to appeal to their…intellect and fear. Dying scares…them like it scares…anyone, and the ones who aren’t…trained and don’t find a faction, often turn…rogue and dangerous. Then they’re…killed. He might not…totally believe me, but…it is just as easy…for him to help…us as to not. I gave…him incentive to do so.”

I let out a tired laugh as I pulled myself up and over the top, spilling myself onto the glorious flatness of the roof. “Well done, Wally,” I said, dropping my hands to my sides. “Well done.”

She crashed down right next to me. “Thanks,” she said sheepishly. “I’ll have to look up…more stats in case he stops helping. I’m sure…” She gulped and sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sure there are many. I’m tired. So, so tired. I hate this challenge. I’ve never liked climbing.”

I had to agree.

“Let’s go,” Gregory said urgently, reaching down and plucking at my arm.

“I’ve never seen…man boobs on a strong, skinny dude,” Wally said randomly, looking at the sky. “Weird.”

I froze for one moment before hopping up and tugging on my shirt, making sure it didn’t cling. “We all have our genetic issues,” I mumbled, glancing over the edge at the wall. One of the first gargoyles we’d shut down had reanimated. It slashed at the girl closest to it, claws sliding across her chest. She jerked back, screaming, lost her hold, and fell end over end. The other gargoyles slowly came to life as two more people climbed closer. But they were like the golems—we’d passed their territory, and they didn’t seem to notice us any longer.

“I snore,” Wally said, getting to her feet. “I get it from my dad. My mother always complains. Genetics are a funny thing. So don’t feel bad. Not like you can control it.”

I didn’t respond, figuring it was best not to engage in discussing my “man boobs.”

Instead, I focused on where we were going next. A free-standing door stood at the corner of the massive dirt and stone covered space. Two slouching, clearly exhausted people from the other team I guessed, reached it. One pulled the door open. Light glowed within, but nothing took shape beyond it. After both people passed through, a jacketed arm reached out, grabbed the handle, and pulled the door shut.

“Either they didn’t know to look for the treasure, or we’re too late,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. Damn it, it frustrated the hell out of me to come so close only to lose. I wasn’t going to bother commenting on the lack of a visible room beyond the door. Or the disembodied arm. Clearly the situation was magical, and everyone would just roll their eyes at my discomfort.

“They didn’t know. But Ethan does. The trinket is gold. I can feel it over that way.” Gregory nodded toward Ethan, who stood kitty-corner to the door. “He figured out that he has to find something up here.”

Pete took off running toward Ethan, and we stumbled after him, limbs heavy. We reached Ethan as he bent down and started digging through the dirt and rock at his feet.

Pete sprung at Ethan—and slammed into an invisible wall. He rolled backward, shaking his head, growling and spitting, claws slashing at the empty air.

A wide grin spread across Ethan’s face as he turned to face us, protected in his magical bubble. He fisted his hand and stood. My heart sank as he peeled back his fingers, showing us what lay on his palm.  A chunk of gold in a perfect square. Like a Rubik’s Cube only without the moving pieces.

“Dang it,” Wally said, deflating.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed at us, cutting between me and Gregory. “You found the treasure at the last challenge, didn’t you? That’s why you stayed behind. You found it, but you didn’t say anything.”

We all shifted in the following silence.

Ethan nodded like that was answer enough. He dropped his square chunk of gold into his pocket before waving his wand, taking away the magical barrier. Rather than stow the wand, he pointed it at Pete to keep him at bay.

Pete gave one last hissing snarl, turned and lifted his tail at Ethan. A distinct roll of stink filled the air, aimed at Ethan. His face turned green as he shot forward, through the cloud of stench and toward the doorway.

“I won’t forget,” Ethan said through clenched teeth, “but we may still need each other. For now.”

The rest of us followed him to the door as two individuals on opposite sides of the tower crawled up over the ledge. Both looked a lot…well, more goblin-like than Gregory. They had large eyes, small, gangly bodies and knobby, curved fingers.

Wally’s voice dipped. “Keep your enemies close, and your friends closer.”

“You have that saying wrong,” I said.

The six of us stepped through the door and shut it behind us.

Hands banged on it—the goblins who’d followed us.

We stood in a nondescript white room, empty but for a stooped figure in a suit with a huge, pointed nose and large, globe-like eyes. Obviously another goblin. His expression didn’t change as we passed, though he seemed to watch us longer than was prudent.

The only way to go was through an empty white corridor. Our footsteps echoed and none of us spoke. We reached another white room devoid of furnishing, art, or any identifying marks whatsoever. A padded room wouldn’t have been so uncomfortable—at least the upholstery wouldn’t have had such a bright, punishing gleam. Three doors stood side by side, not labeled.

“I hate this place,” I said, feeling a strange urge to drift toward the door on my right.

“We have that much in common,” Ethan said, marching toward the door I would’ve picked. “We’re almost done. The last challenge will be the easiest.”

“Oh really? Fantastic. I could use a break,” Wally said, starting off after him.

Ethan grabbed the door handle with the confidence born of a leader—or of a cheater who knew where he was going. As we shuffled in after him, my mouth dropped open.

An enormous field stretched out as far as the eye could see filled with nothing but row upon row of hay stacks. Equal distance apart, the same size and height, there was no telling them apart, and once the door behind us closed and disappeared, there were no doorways out.

“I think I’d rather be back in the white room,” I muttered, now glad to follow Ethan. I had a feeling a person could walk for an eternity in these fields, the landscape never changing, the bright though sunless sky never dulling, and never find a way out.

“I thought you were a farmer,” Wally said. “You should be familiar with hay.”

“Being familiar with hay is vastly different than…this.” I shook my head as we wound through the rows.

Ethan pulled out his paper and tapped it with his wand. Blue lines slowly soaked into the page, forming into a map, which then rose up as a 3D configuration of the area around us, including Ethan. A miniature figure bent over an even smaller piece of paper, appeared within the 3D map.

“Wow,” I said, stepping closer. On the map, another figure popped into existence, standing beside the first—me, I was guessing—and circled in red. A warning. Someone was too close and would know what he was doing. “Your source is thorough with the details.”

Ethan turned, getting his bearings before setting out, the rest of us in tow like the little ducklings the troll had thought us. “My family employs only the best,” he said, stalling occasionally when he needed a prompt from his paper. The thing was idiot proof.

“But surely some other high-powered family who lacks morals also has a good insider,” I said, grabbing a piece of hay and rolling it between my fingers. It didn’t feel quite right, a little silkier than what I was used to—not scratchy enough to be real.

“We employ the best, because we are the best,” Ethan answered. “There are others with similar information, sure, but as you’ve seen, they can’t cut it in the trials. They aren’t good enough, even with the guiding hand.” He paused for a moment. “And it isn’t a moral issue. These trials are rigged. They are geared toward those with the right magic. That’s unfair for everyone else. I’m simply…making it fair.”

“No.” I smiled and shook my head. “You’re not evening the playing field for everyone, just for yourself. Nice try, though, with the whole justification speech.”

“The trials are supposed to sort people into houses, and the big prizes are intended for the best of each house,” Wally said, “No one is good at all five houses. Except for the Shadowkiller, but he doesn’t count. He was an anomaly. Basically, by trying to win a prize in the houses you’re weak in, Ethan, you’re stealing while also confusing the selection process. You don’t want to be put in the same category as the Shadowkiller.”

“Bull,” Ethan said, winding ever closer to the glowing spot on the map. “I’ll be in the House of Wonder. Everyone in my family history has been in that house. We only marry within the house to keep the magical lines pure. I use a wand, for Christ’s sake. Finding the gold is just a boon, and why should it only go to someone from a specific house? How is that fair? It should be fair game for everyone.”

“It is,” Wally replied. “We work in groups so we can pool the strength of all the houses. We would not have done this well in this challenge without Gregory’s help.”

Ethan huffed, and I had the feeling he was rolling his eyes. “How many intact groups made it to the top of that tower?”

“One,” Orin said. “And it is rather miraculous that we should have done so. The strategy of working in diversified groups has largely failed across magical society. Of course, that is why the trials are set up this way, to encourage groupings like ours.”

“See?” Wally put her finger in the air in triumph. “Our success is what makes this setup fair.”

“Except we’re currently being led by a cheater because we don’t know which way to go,” I reminded them. “We’re all cheating at this point. Which should probably make me feel bad.”

Uncomfortably, it didn’t. I didn’t want to lose any more than Ethan did.

“I know the way,” Gregory said quietly.

“What’s that?” I asked, half turning back to look.

“We’re getting closer. It’s another gemstone. Sapphire, I think. I can feel it. I’d be able to find it. The proverbial needle in the haystack. That’s the game here.”

“There you go. See?” Ethan walked three-fourths of the way around a haystack before cutting between two others. “Not cheating. We could be using the goblin’s cursed talents to win.”

“Talking about morals with someone that has none is a journey of dead ends,” Wally said and then sighed.

“Here.” Ethan stopped in front of a haystack like any other. The 3D person projected above the paper stood next to the glowing treasure spot.

“No.” I pointed to the haystack to his right. “There. Your figure on the map is next to it, not in front of it.”

Gregory didn’t wait for Ethan to figure it out. He circled the haystack, his focus totally engaged on the task at hand, and then stopped to face the pile. He ran his hand down the angled sides, barely touching the hay. A few seconds later, about halfway down the pile, he slowly pushed his fingers through the hay. His eyes were half closed, his head angled—he was feeling for the sapphire with his magic.

Ethan folded up the paper and tucked it back into his pocket.

“No, no.” I pointed at it. “We need that to get back out of here.”

He rolled his eyes but didn’t comment. Clearly, I was incorrect.

Gregory leaned farther in, up to his elbow. Further still, nearly to his shoulder now. He closed his eyes fully and drew in deep breaths.

“No wonder the goblins have all the money,” Wally said softly. “They can just wander around and collect it like in a video game.”

“Precious gemstones don’t just lie around in the world in perfect, ready-to-sell pieces,” Orin said. “They are usually stripes in lesser rocks. They must be dug out, broken apart, harvested. Gold, as well, is not just found—there is more work to it.”

Wally shrugged. “Same difference.”

A muscle in Gregory’s arm jumped, and he pulled back, faster now. Hand out of the haystack, he opened it. A perfect square sapphire, the same size and shape as both the ruby and Ethan’s gold square.

“It’s very pretty,” I gushed as it caught the light. Ethan gave me a funny look.

Crap. Guys clearly didn’t gush about gems. Or if they did, not in that way.

I had opened my mouth to fix the situation when the scene around us shivered, melting away. Haystacks wobbled, then spun through the air, sending straw whipping around us, like we were at the heart of a tornado.

I reached out and gripped Wally to steady myself, my stomach flipping with dizziness. Before I could adjust, smoke rose from below our feet and the spinning scene faded. The illusion dimmed. Darkness rushed in, muting our surroundings until a new scene presented itself.

Two or three torches were attached to each of the dark gray walls around us, which shimmered and danced as though wet. The room was triangular. In front of us, behind a heavy metal gate, sat a robust chest decked out in precious gems, overflowing with gold coins that sparkled in the glow of the room. This haul was definitely bigger than the last one—enough riches to buy my entire family a whole new life. Several lives maybe.

Staring at all that wealth, I let a breath slowly tumble out of my mouth. They were just giving it away. All these trials—this whole organization—clearly had more money than they knew what to do with.

“We just need to fit the pieces where they go,” Ethan said, looking down at his square chunk of gold. “Put all the trinkets on the table so we can figure this out.”

The table in front of us hadn’t commanded my attention as much as the heap of gold behind it, but it was triangular, same as the room we stood in. An odd shape to say the least. There were three square openings embedded in it—one for each of the treasures.

Gregory hesitated, not that I blamed him. Arranging the pieces on the table would mean putting them within striking distance of Ethan.

“There’s nowhere to go,” I said, motioning for Gregory to comply. “We’ll finish this one up together. We have to, or we won’t be finishing it at all.”

With all the square pieces on the table, Ethan put his hand over his pocket. He didn’t pull out his paper, however, and after catching his eyes flicking around us, I knew why. He didn’t want to get caught. This room was probably closely monitored, and while some cheating was allowed, if not condoned, it wouldn’t be accepted here, not when there was so much money on the table.

“Puzzles. I can do a puzzle.” I leaned forward, seeing each piece as it stood alone. All square, all cut exactly the same. I moved the pieces around, but each would fit into any of the openings on the table.

I frowned, trying to figure it out. I knew gold was a softer metal, and the two gemstones would be a fair bit harder, but that’s about all I could come up with from my limited geology instruction in school. I thought of them as a whole. Given that there were only three of them, there were only six possible permutations. But which were they looking for?

I knew without asking that whatever I entered into the squares in the table would be our final answer. We’d need to sort this out before placing the stones.

“This wall is inlaid with rubies,” Gregory said softly, turning to the wall on his right.

I reached over and ran my hand over it, feeling tiny little bumps against my palm, the source of the shimmering. A strange sensation washed over me, sliding along my skin before soaking down into me. Suddenly, the wall took on a different feel, impossible to describe, slight but persistent. Back at the table, the same feeling, though much more potent, throbbed along my skin.

The ruby. I was feeling the gem. Just like Gregory could.

I could feel the other squares we’d gathered too.

How the hell?

I didn’t stop to question the how. I could mull over it later when I no longer needed to focus.

“Can you feel sapphires in one of the other walls, Gregory?” I asked.

He didn’t even need to stop and consider it. “The wall behind us,” he said, his ability to feel gems much stronger than my borrowed ability.

“Right, right,” I said, my hands working, already connecting the dots. “And gold is to the left of us.” The triangular room was set up just like the table.

Just. Like. The. Table.

I arranged the gems and gold beside the openings in the table, feeling the satisfying click as they fit together. I pointed at the red square “Ruby”—then the wall—“wall inlaid with rubies. Sapphire, wall inlaid with sapphires. Gold…with gold.”

“So easy,” Ethan murmured.

“Only easy for those who can feel it,” I said, running the scenario through in my mind to make double sure I was right. “You wouldn’t know gems made these walls shimmer. Even if you figured it out, there’s no color to the shine. You would have gotten the gold right, sure, but you’d only have a fifty-fifty chance of choosing the gems correctly.”

“I’m not sure I would’ve put two and two together,” Gregory said, rubbing his nose. “I mean, it is easy now that I know, but…it hadn’t occurred to me that the walls would be the hint.”

“And that is why they want magical factions to work together. You see?” Wally braced her fists against her hips and nodded.

“I’m going with this, unless there’s an argument…” I let the statement linger for a moment, and when I didn’t get pushback, delicately placed the stones in the corresponding openings on the triangular table.

The squares sank into the stone table, and a flash of light made me stagger backward. The wall to our right glittered red. Blue twinkled behind us. The gold shimmered, and for a moment I thought it would all disappear just like the haystacks, but the metal gate shimmied upward instead.

We’d done it. We’d won!

As if on cue, Ethan stepped forward with his chest puffed out, and I knew he would try to claim the victory for himself, just like last time.

CHAPTER 7

“N ot this time,” I ground out before rushing forward and grabbing Ethan. There was no way he was going to claim this victory as his own. I flung him back with all my strength. His legs caught the edge of the table, which swept them out from under him. He dove, head first, onto the ground, skidding to a stop on his face. That was going to leave a mark.

Pete snarled and hissed before nipping Gregory’s heels, clearly in agreement with what I was trying to do. Gregory shrieked and danced forward as a line of light traced a shape in the far wall behind the gold, outlining a hidden door

“It wasn’t my win,” Gregory said as the door slowly swung open, revealing a short, stooped figure with large, circular glasses over crazy big eyeballs.

“We did it together,” Wally said, “especially you and Wild, except he’s not supposed to win, since the Sandman and his really hot sidekick said so, so you need to be the frontman. You were the second most valuable player, not including the cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.”

“Shut up about the cheating,” I grumbled through the side of my mouth as I fell back behind Wally and next to Orin.

Two other people, thin and slightly taller, flanked the lead figure as they all walked slowly through the door. The lead figure’s large, slightly glassy brown eyes took us all in, shrewd and calculating. His gaze paused on me for a fraction of a second longer than the others, before flicking to Ethan getting up from the floor.

Busted.

Whatever. Knocking someone over wouldn’t draw the same notice as claiming an enormous stack of gold from someone else’s house.

“I am impressed,” the lead figure said, stepping forward on his spindly legs. His clothes had to be made special—not even a master tailor could transform a regular suit to fit this creature’s oddly shaped body with the long, swinging arms, and bowed legs. Was this what Gregory would eventually morph into? “No winner in our history has ever stood before us with their group intact, let alone with so many of you. You do realize that larger groups have a harder time going through? We rarely, if ever, see six team members.”

Wally preened, and Pete looked up at me, chittering.

I’d really like to change back into my human form, but this would be an awkward time to stand around naked.

I suppressed a grin as Ethan threw back his wide shoulders and sauntered to the front of the group with Gregory. He clapped his hand on Gregory’s shoulder, making the smaller guy jump.

“Gregory was integral to helping me find the hidden gemstones and solve the final puzzle. He really did our group proud.”

Though he didn’t say it outright, it was clear from Ethan’s tone and manner that he was claiming the leadership role. He was magnanimously patting Gregory on the back for his role, while at the same time calling him a spoke in the wheel turned by Ethan.

I ground my teeth, and Pete growled.

Wally didn’t seem troubled. “Yes, without Gregory, none of us would’ve gotten up that wall,” she said. “Ethan had the right idea. I should’ve climbed straight up, away from the danger, like he did. It would’ve saved my arms. Gregory handled the danger like a pro. I believe he did his house rather proud.”

I couldn’t suppress a smile at Wally’s less-than-subtle jab at Ethan. Pete’s growl cut off and turned into a funny little snicker.

The authorities came to a stop behind the gold. No one else rushed in to congratulate us like they had in the last trial.

“We certainly saw some great leadership in this trial,” the lead figure said, though he didn’t look at any one person when he said it. “But you have claimed champion of the trial as a group, and therefore, the proceeds will be divided accordingly.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Ethan said, all ease and bravado. “It was a group win. That’s the right thing to do.”

The lead figure stared at Ethan silently for a moment. “Do any of you need healing?”

“I’ll live,” I said quickly, putting a hand to my throbbing arm where the gargoyle had slashed me. Maybe I could go to the healers later. Right now, I didn’t want to chance a meeting with Sideburns and his lying jackass of a sidekick. I didn’t want to upset Wally, who thought he was dreamy, when I had to rearrange Mr. Tall Drink of Water’s face. “I’ll just head back.”

Through the door and beyond another of those strange, nondescript, white rooms, we found ourselves in a small, closed-in corridor that angled upward. At the end, the circular metal handle clunked after a quarter turn. The metal door swung inward.

“How the hell are we at ground level?” I asked as my mind dizzied again. “We just spent the last few minutes walking up a hill.”

“Magic,” Wally said as Ethan veered left, toward the back of the massive mansion hunkering in the distance. Shapes dotted the way, idly walking and occasionally limping. “That’s why we’re so close, too. We don’t need the bus to bring us back.”

Ethan didn’t veer off to the portables or the healer tents. Instead, he kept on straight, unperturbed by the fact that we’d popped out of the ground like daisies. His destination appeared to be one of the grand, well-lit rear entrances of the mansion.

“Where are we going?” I asked, picking up speed to close the distance between Ethan and the group.

“You’ve lost your mind if you think I am going to stay in that hovel for another night.” Ethan didn’t notice the limpid, doe-eyed looks darted at him by a couple of girls. Nor did he notice a group of three guys puff up their chests and attempt to look important as he passed. The whole campus clearly knew Ethan by sight, and they were all trying to get into his good graces.

The whole thing irritated me. Ethan was the last person I wanted on my team.

“We don’t get to choose where we stay.” I followed him closely as we neared the back entrance, not sure if I should just break away now, maybe circle back to the healers, or see where this was going.

“You don’t get to choose where we stay,” he said, yanking the door open and shoving past someone trying to make their way out. He didn’t apologize and the skinny boy with thick-rimmed glasses didn’t seem to expect him to.

“I’d go with it,” Wally whispered. “I’ve heard the portables aren’t very nice. I got lucky and slipped into the twenty percent who get to stay in the mansion. I’d use his connections on this one.”

Wally did have a point. The high, arched ceiling in the foyer stretched up to dizzying height, its gothic design allowing us to see all the way to the top of the building. The dark brown hardwood floor, polished to a high shine, stretched out before us, climbing up the large staircases we passed, of which there were many, and lining the balconies of the four floors above us. Huge paintings in gilded frames adorned the walls. The place was absolutely gorgeous, and just being in it gave me a soft, comfortable feeling.

The smell of something cooking floated on the air and my belly grumbled, reminding me that we hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

Every so often, a crest with a strange symbol etched into metal took up wall space. One we passed gave me a shiver of recognition. The Web of Wyrd.

A series of three triangles interlocked.

A giant, multi-branched tree held within a circle.

A pair of back-to-back ravens, their heads tipped toward one another and holding a bone between them.

Finally, what looked like an unfinished figure eight, the ends of it curling in on itself in tiny flourishes.

My best guess was that the crests were the house symbols. Five houses, five crests.

The Web of Wryd was the only one I knew by name.

I dragged my eyes away from the crests as Ethan hooked a left around an ornate banister and started up a wide staircase with a strip of fake gold on each stair.

I slowed and looked a little closer.

No, not fake gold. This was real.

“How much money does this school have?” I asked in wonder, lagging behind everyone else to stare.

“This place isn’t just used for the Culling Trials,” Wally whispered as we reached the landing and turned onto the next flight of stairs, curving up to the third floor. “The Culling Trials are only once a year for a week. Otherwise it’s a training facility for the elite. It’s like The Farm for the CIA. They’re the very best students from the various academies. That’s why there are portables for half the students—a lot of these rooms are taken. Only those that have graduated left an empty room.”

“So…the elite are still here?” I asked as we hit the third staircase. “I haven’t seen any of them.”

“They get a couple weeks furlough,” Gregory said, “but their stuff’s still in their rooms. Which means someone has to be kicked out for us to get a room in here.”

“It’ll be others in the Culling Trials,” Wally said as we reached the top of the first flight of stairs. After fighting a troll, climbing a tower, and wandering a field of magic haystacks, I was spent even with just one set of stairs. “No way are they kicking out the magical elite. If anyone is going to go, it’ll be the dumb kids.”

“That’ll make us insanely popular,” I stepped aside so Pete could file in. Ethan hit the last landing and headed down a grand hallway lined with an exquisitely designed rug.

“It will, actually. Anyone hanging out with Ethan gets preferential treatment,” Wally said. “We’ll be noticed wherever we go.”

I chewed my lip, following Ethan to the last door in the corridor, painted red with a shining gold “1” affixed to the surface. Being noticed was the last thing I needed.

I shouldn’t be in my animal form in here, I heard reverberate through my skull. Naked would still be worse, right?

If he didn’t know, I certainly wouldn’t, so I just shrugged.

Ethan reached the door and knocked twice. The sound, a great, booming noise, ricocheted off the walls and sank into the room beyond before echoing back to us. The effect explained the lack of door knockers.

The handle turned and the door swung open, revealing a burley looking man with a grim set to his mouth, shortly cropped brown hair, and a shiny black suit.

“Yes?” the man said in a deep baritone.

“Ethan Helix to see Director Frost. She should be expecting me.”

“Yes. Of course.” The man glanced behind Ethan, his gaze falling on each of us in turn. When it lingered on me, I felt as though I’d been put on a massive scale, each of my attributes weighed and measured. He stepped back, his gaze on Pete. “I will get you some sweats, shifter.”

“There you go,” I told him quietly as I followed the others into the large and plush waiting room. A few full bookshelves lined the back wall. To our right sat two empty overstuffed chairs. Next to them was a brown leather couch with a cat sitting on one of the cushions, its tail curled around its body, eyes at half-mast, watching us walk in like some sort of disapproving supervisor. “You’re all set.”

“Have a seat. She’ll be with you in a moment,” the man said, gesturing at the furniture.

“Oh look.” Wally pulled out a book in the bookcase. “The latest Jack Reacher novel. I just love fantasy.”

“That’s a thriller,” Orin said, standing in the corner with his hands at his sides and his face blank. The guy looked like he was at a funeral wherever he went.

Wally laughed, taking it to the couch. She gave the watchful cat plenty of space. “However you dress it up, it’s still fantasy.”

The tight-laced guy returned with a neat stack of folded sweats. He handed them off before directing Pete to the restroom where he could change, in both forms of the word. To the rest of us, he said, “Follow me. She’ll see you now.”

He led us down a small hallway ending in what looked like a reception area. A large black desk faced four chairs. A plant stood stationary in one corner, and the plant opposite it moved in a strange breeze I didn’t feel. Next to the desk a door stood open, leading into a much larger office, full of deep oranges, yellows, and pinks, as if a sunset had been poured into the room.

“Ready?” Wally asked, plucking at my sleeve.

The man stood beside a desk, his dark eyes rooted to my face. I had the distinct feeling he didn’t like me. But no warning blared along my skin, so I’d leave it alone for now.

“Yup.” I scurried in past him, uncomfortable and not sure why, until I remembered I was supposed to be a guy, and they probably didn’t scurry. A moment later, however, my fears were put to rest as Pete scurried in behind me.

“Madam Director,” Ethan said, standing in front of a massive oak desk with two computer monitors on one side, and one of those padded calendar desk toppers on the other. Between them was a solid black box, like a jewelry box. The top of it had been shined to a perfect lustre. Something in me itched to flip it open and see what was inside.

A full-sized couch faced the desk with other chairs positioned in clusters around the room.

A petite woman in her late seventies stood behind the desk, a fitted suit hugging her small frame, thick glasses mostly obscuring her smoky gray eyes with pronounced crow’s feet, and short-cropped gray hair in a style not unlike her assistant’s. Aged, but aged well, she was calm, her demeanor one of faint amusement. The sensation of mirth was there and gone before I could be sure of what I’d sensed.

“Mr. Helix, how can I help you?” she asked tersely. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she wasn’t overly thrilled with Ethan. Clearly, she had more sense than the others if she recognized what a pain in the butt he was.

“My father should’ve touched base with you by now regarding our poor accommodations,” he said without embarrassment. Boy, had we grown up differently.

The director’s lips pursed, and her eyebrows lowered behind her large glasses. “Yes, he did. I do so apologize for the previous accommodations, Mr. Helix,” she drawled, her tone so dry, a spark would light it on fire. “I would love to make your stay with us as comfortable as possible. I have taken the liberty of swapping your portable for one of our rooms within the manor. I merely had to displace other young people to do so. I’m sure they won’t be put out at all. Hopefully that will be to your liking?”

“That will be fine, thank you,” Ethan said matter-of-factly. He was ignoring her sarcastic tone with great aplomb.

“Fantastic.” The director turned away to her monitors. “If there is anything else, just have your father let me know, and I’ll do everything in my power to assist you. Or you can contact Adam here, and he will always do his best to fit you into my schedule. In the meantime, he’ll show you to your room.”

“Yes, perfect,” Ethan said, still missing the overtones of sarcasm.

A grin worked up my face as I turned and followed Ethan out of the office. “That was some serious shade she was throwing,” I whispered to Wally.

“It was embarrassing,” Pete said softly, huddled next to me in sweats much too large.

“If you want what your station in life has promised, you must ask for it,” Orin said loftily. “Those at your level will expect it. The rest don’t matter, nor does what they think of you.”

“Wow. You sure know your way around being a dickhead,” I said. Wally laughed.

“I am a predator,” Orin returned. “I have a fondness for those who think they are better than me. I will one day enjoy waking them up to the realization that they are not at the top of the food chain.”

Ethan’s back stiffened.

The memory of Orin in the shower, talking about the vein in my neck, dried up all the spit in my mouth. I really hoped I didn’t end up on his bad side. I didn’t want to have to fight him off. If his current speed was any indication of what was to come for him, I knew I’d never beat a full-fledged vampire.

On the second floor, way in the back near a rear stairwell that would be really handy for sneaking in and out without being seen, the director’s assistant—Adam—stopped next to a door numbered 245. He didn’t gesture or make any sound, just waited expectantly for us to disappear from his life.

“Right then. Here we go.” I shooed everyone toward the door.

“Not her,” the assistant said, looking directly at me.

My blood ran cold and a warning crept up my spine. My cover was about to be blown sky high.

CHAPTER 8

T  he group of us stood there on the second floor, staring at Adam—the director’s assistant—as he stared right back at us. And the only thing I could think was that I was out—he knew I was a girl. I took a breath to defend myself, to beg if I had to.

“This floor is boys only,” the man continued, his hard gaze cutting right through me. “Girls may visit, but they may not stay. If a girl is caught in a boy’s room after dark, and vice versa, they will be kicked out of the program. Do you understand?”

“Pretty outdated,” Wally said, stepping around me. “I mean, it’s not like we’re underage or anything. I’m eighteen. I can bang a whole room full of guys, and it’s perfectly legal. Although, I have to own that more than half of the hopeful students in the Culling Trials have not yet turned eighteen. I suppose that could be an issue. I mean, it’s not like I would I.D. everyone in the room before I—”

“Oh my God, Wally, stop,” I said with a red face I couldn’t help. Did she have any idea what she was even saying?

She blinked at me for a moment, shrugged, and then waved goodbye. “All right, then. See ya. I’ll check back in tomorrow.”

“That chick is seriously off,” Ethan said as he disappeared into the room. Orin drifted in after him, much too close, with Gregory following at a normal distance.

Pete took a step toward the door and grabbed my arm. “Come on, buddy. Let’s head in with the rest of the guys.”

Adam’s dark gaze rooted me to the spot, daring me to lie. But given he hadn’t said anything direct thus far, I knew he wouldn’t. Maybe not until he had proof, at any rate. Proof I’d make sure he didn’t get.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, making my tone as masculine as possible, and slipped over the door’s threshold.

“Thanks again,” Pete said, pushing the door closed on a still-staring Adam. With the door shut, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Holy cats. That guy is intense.”

Unlike the hovel from the night before, this room was spacious with six separate beds, each wrapped in a canopy that could be closed for privacy. Each bed had its own nightstand, plus a trunk situated at the foot. I had a sneaking suspicion that we’d have perfectly fitting sweats in whichever setup we chose. A door between two of the beds led to a bathroom, and I barely stopped a sigh of relief when I realized it was a normal bathroom, with one toilet, no urinal, and one shower with a curtain. This setup would be much easier to navigate.

Without warning, Ethan rushed at me, grabbing my shirt at the chest, and slammed me against the wall. Without thinking, I lashed out, clipping his jaw with my right fist, following it up with a slam of my left fist into his stomach.

The breath gushed out of him and he bent double, ripping the neck of my shirt and tearing it down my side at the shoulder. He pushed forward, his thick shoulder hitting me center mass. I curled in on myself with the shock of pain before pushing through it. I drove three successive punches into his ribs, fast and furious, before angling my body, stepping into him, and throwing him over my hip, a move I’d learned from Rory.

Ethan grunted as his back hit the ground. I rammed a knee down on top of him, popped up, kicked his flailing hands out of the way, and rammed my knee down again, pounding his chest. That spot hurt, I knew from previous experience.

“Damn you,” he shouted, reaching for his wand. I kicked, connecting with his wrist, which sent his hand flying above his head.

“Dude, sh-he’s a Shade, you’re physically outmatched,” Pete hollered, dancing around us with his hands out. I couldn’t tell if it was nervousness, a desire to join in, or he just didn’t know how to break up a fight. “Just let it go, man.”

Ethan shoved at my leg as I was coming down a third time, knocking my body to the side. I went with it, bringing my elbow down instead and smacking him across the face. He thrust a knee up between my legs, and it hit my thighs and just barely my crotch—a dull pain at best.

“Low blow, dude,” Pete shouted. “That is a low blow.”

“He’s a coward. What did you expect?” Orin casually commented from the corner. “He’ll probably have daddy sue for damages.”

I flattened my forearm against Ethan’s jaw and pinned his arms to his sides with my knees, a move that had worked on my brother and Rory countless times—until Rory grew to the size of a horse and could buck me off, which wouldn’t be a problem here. Ethan was big, but not as big as Rory. With his upper body secured, I paused, waiting to see if he would use his lower half.

“Get the hell off of me,” Ethan spat, tense but immobile.

“Are you going to throw another punch?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything, so I held my position.

“Silence means no, usually,” Pete said out of the side of his mouth.

Guy speak. Oops.

I gave a last little shove and pushed up off of him. I backed away, pulling at my shirt to make sure it still mostly covered my chest, and picked the closest bed.

“What the hell did you do that for?” I asked, flipping open the trunk and snatching out a shirt at random. I needed something to fling over my shoulder to cover the strap of my sports bra.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed before his gaze drifted down my body. “What the hell do you think? You shoved me down at the end of that trial. That was a dick move, Johnson. But you…you don’t have a dick, do you?”

My stomach clenched, and I schooled my face into an incredulous expression. “And you have balls the size of raisins. You constantly skirt by the danger, didn’t do a damn thing yourself, and you thought I was going to let you claim our victory? You’ve lost your mind.”

“If someone kneed me in the balls, I would’ve reacted,” Ethan said with a glint to his eyes. “And you’re not wearing a wife beater, are you? No, the straps are too thick for that.” A grin curled his lips and he took a slinky step toward me, like he’d regained the role as predator even after getting his ass handed to him.

“Man boobs, thick strap, no dick—just look at that face. Awfully pretty, aren’t you, Johnson? Awfully pretty. I’d thought maybe you were just waiting for your balls to drop—you’re a big kid for fifteen, though that’s not unusual in the House of Shade. But you haven’t got any balls at all. What are you, a failure from a past year? A has-been who wants another chance?” He laughed. “Weird, choosing a young guy’s identity to steal, but whatever. Regardless, the jig is up. Say goodbye to your share of the gold.”

Fear ran through me. Possible options rolled through my head. But killing him and hiding the body wouldn’t work. Even if the school didn’t care—and that director might not—I knew his daddy would. He clearly had the power to call for a widespread investigation. I wouldn’t have a chance.

The best I could do was plead for mercy.

But before I could, Gregory stepped forward with a photo held high.

“You give her away, and I give you away, old lady lover,” he said, and chucked the picture onto the floor.

It fluttered to the ground, landing picture-side up. Ethan knelt beside an older woman, her hands cradling his face as their lips pressed together for what the angle indicated had been a deep kiss.

“Oh man, that is quite an age gap,” I said without meaning to, grimacing. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother. I’d make a lewd joke, but quite frankly, I don’t want the image it’ll bring.”

“Where the fu—” Ethan bent and snatched up the picture. “It was nothing.” His face turned bright red. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“You know that,” Gregory said in a dangerous hiss. “But will all your elitist buddies know that?”

“It’s my nana,” Ethan spat, his hands balled up. “It was her eightieth birthday. It’s just a bad angle.”

“It sure looks like a bad angle,” I said, doing what I could to hold back a snort.

Ethan scoffed. “That photo is, at best, embarrassing. I’ll get razzed about it for a minute, big deal.” He huffed out a laugh. “There’s not a chance you can make anything out of this. You’re a nobody goblin with nothing. After the next few trials, maybe you’ll be a nobody goblin who has been handed his hat. You can’t take any prize money if you don’t stay in the trials. If you leave, that’s a larger share for me. And let me assure you…I can make you leave.”

“He might be expendable,” Orin said, suddenly in the bathroom doorway.  I hadn’t noticed him move. “But the girl is not.”

Ethan startled, and I realized Orin had caught him by surprise too. Ethan backed up a pace so he could see everyone.

“Even cheating, you wouldn’t have finished the trials thus far,” Orin went on, his face slack and hands at his sides, showing no emotion. “Wild has used the assets at her disposal, including you, to make us win. She has played this group like a fiddle, making it stronger than the sum of its parts. She is what they are looking for when they hope magical factions will work together, not you. Without her, you will not win all five trials. With her…we all have a better chance.” He shrugged, unconcerned. “It would be in your best interest to help her keep her secret, to help her stay to the shadows, where her kind belong.”

I shifted in thankful anticipation. Even if he’d jumped the gun a couple of times—I didn’t belong in the shadows; that was where weirdos lurked—that was a really great argument. Better even than the blackmail photo.

Ethan hesitated, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “What’s it to you, vampire? Everyone knows you creatures don’t play well with others. You certainly never did in school.”

Orin’s eyes fluttered to half-mast while still pinning Ethan. “I need to join a faction, and if we win all the trials, I’ll likely be courted by the best. I will have my choice, an enviable position. It will set me up well.”

Ethan stared at Orin for a moment, and he was probably wondering what I was—if Orin felt that way, why had he been so blasé about the trials thus far? Still, the argument Orin had made for me stood.

“The vampires will eat you for lunch when you go through their house,” Pete said, edging closer. “They’re not fond of outsiders cheating in their domain, and trust me, they’ll know. You’ll need Orin, and he won’t give you the time of day without Wild. And me. We haven’t done my house trials yet, either. You don’t stand a chance without me. Not a chance. Think the unicorns they bring in will be the docile creatures you’ve practiced on? They won’t be.”

I felt my mouth drop open, and suddenly I couldn’t focus on anything beyond what Pete had just said. “Unicorns?” I turned toward him with palms out. “Unicorns are real?” Glee and stress made me giddy, and I had to fight to keep myself from clapping my hands together. “Oh my God, are you serious? Do we get to ride unicorns?”

“In the wild, they are ferocious beasts,” Gregory said with distaste. “Even the docile ones have intense attitude.”

I threw up my hands. “Do you honestly think I care? Unicorns, man!”

“If no one knew you were a girl before, you would’ve just outed yourself,” Orin said, his voice dry.

Ethan took a step back, the wheels in his head nearly visible as they cranked and worked over the problem at hand. He knew Pete and Orin were right. Maybe he could have made it through the Shade trial by himself, but without Gregory, no way would he have gotten the gold in the last trial. He wouldn’t have been able to find those gems, even with his maps and instructions.

“Face it, bro,” I said mockingly, in a deeper voice, “you need us. All of us, the dick-less ones included.”

He huffed out a breath, shaking his head, and pushed past me. He took the bed next to the window looking out at the rear grounds. The shoddy portables squatted across the large expanse of lawn, one of them housing a group of five liable to be in a very bad mood.

Thanks for the accommodations, guys.

“One wrong step, Johnson,” Ethan said, pushing open his trunk and rooting around. “One wrong step…”

“And what?” I grinned with all the bravado I had left, trying to ignore the warning crawling up my spine. “You’ll get rid of me and then start losing? Daddy won’t be pleased if his golden son doesn’t come home with the prize.”

He grabbed a set of clean clothes and crossed to the bathroom, clearly intending to take the first shower. No one stopped him.

“Thanks, guys,” I said as I grabbed my own set of clean clothes. Just like I’d figured, they were the right size. “I did not love the idea of begging for mercy from that guy.”

“He’s not capable of mercy,” Pete said, collapsing onto his chosen bed on the other side of the bathroom. “That was bred out of his family generations ago.”

I knew he was right, but I still would’ve tried. I had a way with words—most of my family did—I would’ve ridden that bicycle as hard as I could.

“How’d you get that picture?” I asked Gregory, who was looking out the window at the grounds. People milled around idly, probably to get away from their group mates. I could relate.

He didn’t glance back. “Found the place he hides his phone and wallet. It wasn’t hard. His magic is still rudimentary in many ways, and I’ve always had a gift for sniffing out secrets.”

“You need to watch your back, Wild,” Orin said, back in his corner. The guy was exceptionally weird. When he was older, he’d probably graduate to creepy. “Ethan won’t like admitting that he needs someone. You’re a threat, now.”

Another mark on my head. Awesome.

“Oh shoot.” Pete pushed up onto his elbows. “I probably am, too, then. Like you guys. Because we haven’t done my trial…”

“You are not an alpha, so you are not a threat.” Orin turned his attention to Gregory, ignoring Pete’s sputtering. “Gregory is, though. A threat, I mean. He drew the notice of his house and took the glory today. They have their eye on him now.”

“Yeah, but…” I scratched my nose. “It’s not like Ethan wants the notice of that house.”

“Ethan wants the notice of all houses, or else he wouldn’t be his father’s son.” Orin took a small step back, and shadow draped across his face. Exceptionally weird. “You two need to watch your backs before someone sticks a knife in them.”

CHAPTER 9

Sleep peeled away slowly, pulling me from a strange yet fantastic dream in which I was riding a sparkly unicorn within a herd of sparkly unicorns, running across the clouds and dodging massive spiked balls swinging at me.

It took me a moment to place what had stirred me. Everything seemed peaceful—stillness covered the room like a blanket, soft moonlight seeped through a crack in the curtains, and the only sound was soft, rhythmic breathing.

Then a prickle of warning ran down my spine.

Alertness chased away lingering sleep. My senses fired up, and I pushed up onto my elbows to take stock of the room. The lump that was Pete lay snugly within his blankets, curled up into a ball revealed by his open privacy curtains. Near the window, Ethan lay flat on his back, his face turned my way, his one visible eye closed. His privacy curtains were open, too, although they hadn’t been when he’d gone to sleep.

Another warning fluttered my stomach, and I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, bare feet on the cool hardwood floor. Orin lay on his back, too, his curtains open but his covers undisturbed. As if he weren’t creepy enough, his alignment was that of a body in a coffin—arms tucked over his chest, legs pressed together, body straight.

I shook my head, peering into the other corner of the room at Gregory’s setup. His curtains were still drawn. I tiptoed over, gritting my teeth against the cold floor on my bare feet. On the side of the bed facing the wall, his curtains had been pulled back. No head graced his pillow.

Darkness coated the open doorway of the bathroom, but on the off chance Gregory had dream-walked in to use the toilet, I peeked my head in and made a psst sound. “Girl needs to use the bathroom,” I whispered. “Anyone in there?”

No slide of fabric or swish of movement answered me. I stepped farther in to make sure, relying on my better-than-average night vision. Shadows draped the interior, grays and blacks, and while I was pretty good in the dark, I wasn’t nocturnal. I fumbled in and waved my arms around.

Nope, still empty.

Frowning, I backtracked and looked out the window at the empty expanse of grass, then the still portables beyond. Not a soul to be seen.

The alarm clock on Ethan’s nightstand said eleven fifty-five, five minutes before curfew.

We’d learned of the curfew earlier, at the fabulous buffet dinner in the main cafeteria, a place all the trial-goers could now use. You could stay up as late as you wanted within your room—as long as you were respectful to your roommates—but you were forbidden to traverse the mansion or grounds after midnight, unless it was an emergency. To get caught would mean immediate expulsion from the trials.

The feeling of warning wiggled through my middle, demanding I take notice. But what could I do? I had no idea where Gregory might’ve gone, and I couldn’t risk getting caught wandering around.

Then again, I could always say I was worried about Gregory. His disappearance had to count as an emergency.

Of course, if he was sneaking around, he wouldn’t appreciate me ratting him out.

I chewed on my bottom lip, antsy to get moving. To go looking. Something within me said he was in trouble. Orin’s earlier words seemed to echo in my ears.

Watch your backs before someone sticks a knife in them.

I spun, my eyes narrowing. Ethan had connections. If he wanted someone to disappear, I had no doubt that he could make it happen, and Gregory had pissed him off with that photo. Not to mention the fact that Ethan’s curtains were disturbed, too. Had he gotten up to do something—

No. Orin and Gregory could cross a floor without making a sound. Ethan thumped and tramped about, every move a call for attention. Stealth wasn’t his style.

I put my boots on, telling myself I still hadn’t decided. That maybe I was only putting them on for warmth. But by the time I finished, I knew better.

When it came down to it, Gregory had tried to save my ass. He’d fought to keep me in the game. It was my duty to do all I could to make sure he stayed in it too. I didn’t know what his deal was, but I knew better than to ignore my gut. He was in trouble.

I rooted around in my trunk until I found a black sweat set, equipped with a black beanie. They were basically encouraging us to create mischief. Ready to go, I gently grabbed the door handle, being as quiet as I could.

“Where are you going?”

I jumped at Orin’s whisper. He hadn’t risen from his bed.

“Did you see Gregory leave?” I asked quietly. Pete shifted, rolled over, and sucked in a snore.

“Yes. About an hour ago. He probably couldn’t sleep with your and Pete’s chorus of snores.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No, because I didn’t ask. I don’t have that mothering gene you appear to have. But he did have his phone with him.”

“I’m getting a bad feeling. It’s almost curfew. This place seems pretty intolerant of wandering around when you’re not supposed to.”

“You’re probably right in your bad feeling, but that was the chance he took. Now he is meat for the monsters.”

I clutched the handle. “What monsters? What’s out there?”

He chuckled softly and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Just a figure of speech. They aren’t monsters, they are simply highly-experienced authority figures who patrol the grounds looking for miscreants. I’m sure he’s fine, though I doubt we’ll ever see him again.”

“These trials have turned you crazy,” I said.

“No. I’m just now exposing this part of myself to you.”

“Fabulous,” I grumbled before taking a deep breath and turning the handle. Clearly Orin wasn’t going to help, and though Pete would absolutely go with me, steadfast and loyal as he was, I didn’t want to get him in trouble. No, I needed to do this alone or go down trying.

Sharp shadows sliced the hall. I drifted into it and hurried forward, using my intuition like I did when I went after predators on the farm. No sound of footsteps reached my ears, and no feeling of being watched tickled my shoulder blades. I was alone, for the moment.

I paused at the rear staircase, then turned to go down. Gregory wasn’t a people person—if he’d wandered away on his own free will, I suspected he’d stayed to the sidelines.

Voices drifted through the air as I reached the first-floor landing. I slipped to the side into a pool of shadow.

“He’s going to win every one, just you watch,” a woman said, somewhere down the corridor. “His father told my father that he was confident Ethan would break the school record. All five hasn’t been done before, you know.”

“Yes, it has,” another said, the voices not getting louder. They must’ve been stationary, somewhere down around the middle of the hall. “The Shadow Killer did it first, about twenty-five years ago.”

The first sucked in a breath. “Don’t talk about him here,” she said, her volume dropping. “You don’t know who could be listening.”

“Who cares? I’m just stating a fact. He was the first ever to claim all five house prizes.”

“That doesn’t count. He’s a…you know. Freak of nature. Ethan will be the first normal person to complete all five—”

I pushed off from the wall and hurried down the stairs. No way would Ethan be the first of anything. Somehow, I’d make sure of it.

The second my foot hit the ground floor, a huge gong reverberated through the floor and the walls, the sound pressurizing the air all around me. I paused, stricken, as the gong died away. Had I set off some alarm? The sound immediately repeated, and I realized it was issuing from the largest, loudest, most intense cuckoo clock I’d ever encountered. But no sooner had I realized that than I noticed a rhythmic tapping between each bong of the clock.

Footsteps.

I dashed behind a moving plant—though I wasn’t sure what had moved it—before slipping behind a couple chairs farther down the way. The footsteps drew closer, the sound distinguishable over the deafening chimes in a way I didn’t fully understand but greatly appreciated. The bottom half of a figure wearing tight black spandex came into view. A prominent hip suggested a female, and her wand stuck out from a cool leather holster with intricate stitching on it. Ethan needed to up his holster game.

The middle-aged woman who was clearly looking for delinquents started upstairs, footsteps increasing in speed. She’d probably heard the chatter of the other women in the hallway. Hopefully she had, at any rate.

As the lights around me dimmed, I popped out of my hiding place like a groundhog. Coast was clear, time to move.

Putting on speed and staying to the shadows, I turned a corner, intent on finding a back door. Loud shoe scuffling caught my attention as the hallway opened up. A muffled yell stopped my heart.

I slipped in beside a coat of arms that had clearly seen more polishing than an expensive car and peered around its arm.

Down the way, heading for a dimly lit double door leading out into the night, three figures dressed in dark clothes wrestled with a thin, bucking figure dressed in trial grays.

The expectation of danger flared up through me and adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. I couldn’t tell if that was Gregory from here, but whoever it was, they needed help.

Another muffled scream sent me out into the open.

“Help!” I yelled, sprinting down the corridor, hoping one of the security guards would hear me. If they cared so much about curfew, surely someone would be out enforcing it.

Two of the figures jerked, looking in my direction. One whipped out a wand as they neared the door. A blast of red zipped through the air, and I dove to the side, hitting one of those waving plants and sending it clattering across the floor.

“Wild! Help!”

My blood ran cold. I knew that voice. It was Gregory. They, whoever they were, were trying to take him.

“I’m coming,” I yelled, climbing quickly to my feet and dodging another blast of magic.

Hands slapped the long metal handles on the double-door, shoving them down and the door open. Gregory tried to rip his arms free and spin away, but he was too small and they were too many. They held him fast and marshaled him through, aiming another blast at me.

I jumped to the side, kicked the plant, and plowed into an armchair. The door swung shut, but I was up and running again.

A slip of black caught my notice up the way, like a shape ducking out of sight. I wished with everything in me that I had a wand to brandish and a spell to cast. As it was, I’d have to hope it was a trick of my eye and not another bad guy trying to stay out of sight.

I jumped over a fallen vase that couldn’t have been glass because it hadn’t so much as cracked—or, well, magic—and shoved at the door handles. Crisp night air greeted me. The cluster of people moved away right, struggling behind a grouping of trees. Disturbed branches waved as they passed.

Another burst of speed, using the span of my long legs, and I was hot on their tail.

“Wild!” I heard Gregory yell from beyond the trees.

“I’m coming. Someone, help!” I called, really needing a little backup. This was an emergency if ever there was one. “Help me!”

I was nearing the trees when more footfalls registered right behind me. I didn’t have time to look. I assumed someone had finally seen fit to answer me.

A solid, heavy mass hit me from behind. My front slammed into the ground and my face bounced off of the grass. The assailant landed on my left side, thankfully not center mass. Even still, the weight of solid muscle pushed the breath from my lungs. I gasped and threw an elbow back, hitting a hard slab of muscle. My attacker’s arms tightened around my chest, and suddenly he was up, deadlifting me as though I weighed absolutely nothing and running me over to another grouping of pine trees.

“No…way,” I ground out, and kicked behind me, trying to reach a shin. My foot sailed through dead air. I arched, punching back with my head, but barely managed to hit his shoulder. I spun and twisted, throwing my weight to loosen his grip. It did loosen, and I kicked again, but he’d already adjusted his hold, maneuvering me like a fussy baby, and handling me just as carefully.

His smell hit me like a Mack truck, even as branches thwapped my head. Warm spicy vanilla, pure comfort on a cold night.

My heart lodged in my throat, and I stilled for a moment. Sensing safety even though I’d just been tackled.

“Quiet now,” Rory said urgently, his lips to the shell of my ear. “Really quiet. This is a bad night for you to be out snooping.”

“But—”

His huge hand clamped down on my lips, muffling my protest.

“We have reason to suspect that the people being taken aren’t being killed,” he whispered, his hot breath dusting my face. “Your friend will be fine.”

I peeled his fingers away from my mouth. “Don’t you lie to me, Rory Wilson. What people?”

His sigh ruffled my hair. “Still able to see through my fibs, I see.”

“It’s not like it’s hard. You’re a horrible liar.”

“You’re the only one in the entire magical world who thinks so,” he murmured before scooting away from me, farther against the tree.

I leaned forward to resume my chase, but Rory was faster than I remembered, and he’d always been damned fast. He grabbed me around the middle and hauled me back before crossing his legs over my lap. He hugged me tightly with his arms, keeping me put.

“Wild, help!” Gregory’s shout was more distant, but the words were no less clear.

“Let. Go. Of. Me,” I said through clenched teeth. “So help me God—”

“Shhh!”

The sound, his tone, and the sudden tension in his body dried up my protest. A moment later, warning flared through me again, this one so brightly hot and blinding that I couldn’t think for wanting to run. Being stared down by a wolf, stalked by a mountain lion, kidnapped and tossed onto a magically enhanced chopper, even forced to endure the first two trials—nothing compared to the intense terror I felt in that moment.

Those other things had been dangerous, this was death incarnate. Someone was stalking us, and I knew this person was the reason I’d needed to take Billy’s place. He—somehow I knew it was a man—was the reason Tommy had died.

Now he was coming for me.

CHAPTER 10

Below me the ground was hard and cold, and around me were Rory’s arms—warm and solid, but neither of those helped ease the fear of knowing an assassin was only feet away and looking for me. “Easy, now,” Rory whispered, his words barely riding his breath like he was talking to a spooked horse. “Easy, Belle.”

Rory had made up his own nicknames for us when we were kids. I was Belle, the beautiful Maribel—his way of teasing me for the name I hated and for my appearance, which had never mattered to me. Tommy had been Tank, tough and stupid. Those names were Rory’s way of claiming us and pushing everyone else away. Only those he trusted implicitly got nicknames. Only Tommy and me.

History was a hard thing to eradicate. Rory had always been my shield when I needed one, my fist when my own wasn’t strong enough, and my tormentor when I wanted to get stronger. He’d been my rock through turbulent times, just as I’d been his. I’d always trusted him as hard as he’d trusted me.

No matter how angry I wanted to be, history made me trust him now.

I relaxed in his arms and let my head fall back against his shoulder, awaiting further instructions.

“Good,” he said, just as softly. I could feel the fear in his words and knew instinctively that it wasn’t fear for himself, but for me. “Now curl up your legs, real slow. Nice and quiet.”

He lifted his legs to free mine, letting his thighs and calves hover in the air, a Pilates instructor’s dream. I did as he said, closing my eyes in an attempt to regain focus. To ignore my pounding heart and my sweating palms. The desire to throw him off and sprint toward the mansion.

“Good, just like that.” His volume dipped until I struggled to define the deep rumbling in his chest.

He lowered his legs back on top of mine.

“I’m not going to try to get away,” I whispered, tilting my head back until my lips grazed the stubble along his jaw. He tensed, his hold on me tightening.

“You may have raw talent, but I have two years of training on you.” His voice was strained. “I’ll keep you alive. You’ll get you dead.”

“Taking vocabulary lessons from the Sandman, I see,” I said beneath my breath, facing front again.

He must’ve heard because I felt his body shake with silent laughter.

The sense of warning outside the enclave of the tree sharpened, erasing any mirth until sweat coated my forehead. A presence lingered beyond the tree branches. I could feel it moving slowly out there. It was absolutely silent, which somehow made it worse. There were no footsteps this time. No swish of fabric. No padding of paws. No more cries from Gregory.

The night around us held its breath.

“Breathe deeply,” Rory whispered. His arm shifted, a slow movement, and his fingertips touched down on the pulse in my neck, throbbing away as fast as a rabbit’s feet. A strange little shock of electricity rolled through me, there and then gone. “Easy, Belle. Nice and easy. In just a moment, I’ll need you to control your breathing. Feel my body. Do what I do.”

I closed my eyes and sank into the strength and comfort surrounding me, feeling the slow rise and fall of Rory’s hard chest. His smell tickled my senses, reminding me of home. Of safety, and a million close calls we’d braved together. His breaths were long and slow, as though we were napping in a meadow and not hunkered down next to some homicidal, magical maniac.

I can do this. Calm the eff down, you idiot!

The tiniest of sounds interrupted my focus. My eyes snapped open. I spotted it immediately.

Beyond the reach of the pine branches brushing the ground, movement cut through the static plane. A black boot stepped into view, polished to a high shine. Absolutely no sound accompanied the movement, though it was less than twenty feet away.

An explosion of fresh fear pounded through my body. No one had to tell me—the ultimate predator stood just outside our easily pregnable stronghold. His stealth was incredible, and I knew his strength and speed would match it.

House of Shade.

The thought bleeped into my mind, unbidden. This wasn’t a student, either—this was a graduate, an expert. A killer.

And I knew without a shadow of a doubt he was stalking me.

My heart ramped up. My breathing turned shallow. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to master the panic and return my focus to Rory’s breathing, but only a fool turned a blind eye on a killer. I snapped my eyes open again in time to see the second shoe silently hit the grass.

There he paused. Listening.

Rory didn’t whisper now, and thank God for that. He simply tapped my throbbing pulse and brushed his lips against the shell of my ear.

Memories washed over me, flushing away the worst of the panic. Hiding from shop owners. Causing trouble in the town green and then hiding in the shrubbery as the out-of-shape sheriff tramped around bellowing our names. Cowering in Rory’s closet when his dad was on a drunken rampage. Rory had always shushed me in the same way: his lips against the shell of my ear, willing me, the younger, inexperienced troublemaker with a crooked angel’s halo, not to give us away.

Shhhhh. Calm down.

I shut my eyes again, and this time I kept them shut, feeling the looseness of Rory’s muscles around me. Energy coiled in his body, ready to be called into action, but he remained relaxed. I bet his heart rate was nice and slow. I doubted his shirt stuck to his back like mine did.

His lips pulled away a little in silent approval and I focused on my deep but silent breaths. Rory had always been good at stealth. At hiding and fighting. And, apparently, lying. He, too, was House of Shade. He clearly knew what he was up against, and if he thought he could hide us from it, I’d let him.

Sometimes history could save your life.

My eyes fluttered open as one of those black boots lifted off of the ground and turned in the air. It came back down softly. The other followed, until both toes were pointed right at us.

My breath caught. My heart ramped up again. Raw talent, my ass. I wasn’t cut out for this.

Rory’s fingers tapped the vein on my throat again. I wanted to slap his hand away. I wanted to grab the knife I’d stupidly left in the room. I wanted to throw a pinecone, anything.

The boots didn’t move. They didn’t even shift from side to side. How the hell could anyone stay so damn still? My whole body trembled.

Rory’s fingers drummed on my neck, slower than my heartbeat. Strangely, with sweat pouring down my brow, I fell into that rhythm. Felt the comfort of it. When my heartrate eased, Rory’s fingers slowed a little more. And a little more.

One of the boots lifted and it stepped to the side. The other followed. After a beat, the stalker side-stepped again. Then one more time. Down the way a little, the boots creased, the stalker probably bending forward. A moment later, they moved on.

Still Rory stayed firm, his arms not relenting, his fingers continuing their soft beat against my pulse point. Minutes passed, then more, until I lost track of time altogether. All I knew was his comfortable smell, reminding me of home, and the tap of his fingers against my throat.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity had passed, his chest rose in a deep, silent breath.

“We’re good,” he said, and his arms came away. His legs straightened and then bent off to the sides, leaving me ample room to crawl away. Cold rushed in to replace his warmth and I shivered.

“That was close, too close. You can’t be wandering around alone. Not anywhere, and especially not at night, do you understand?”

His voice stayed even and calm, but I still heard the fear buried deep beneath the words. It set me on edge all over again. Which turned into an anger I couldn’t control.

History also had a way of dredging up old wounds.

I pushed up onto my knees and spun to face him, flinging out my hand and slapping him across the face.

I hadn’t meant to do that last bit.

His striking green eyes, the color just visible this close, surveyed me silently.

“I’m sorry for not telling you where I was going,” he finally said.

I pulled back my hand to slap him again, but at the last moment he reached out and caught my wrist.

“You got the one, and I’ll say I deserved it,” he said, his eyes twinkling now. A little grin pulled at his full lips. “You have to earn the second.”

Rory always could take me from spitting mad to giggling in a second, but I wrestled the smile off my face before it got very far. I couldn’t let my guard down until I got to the bottom of this. I needed a real friend here. Someone I knew I could trust. I had to know if he was still that guy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked

He shrugged with one broad shoulder, much more muscular than when I’d last seen him. “The letter I got said anyone I told would be in danger. My mom said that they were a brutal organization and were entirely serious. She went to the academy when she was younger, too, with your mom. When I got the envelope was the first I’d heard of it. I said she could have most of the money, and she was gone so fast out of the house I didn’t hear much more about her past.” He shrugged, and suddenly his mom taking off made all kinds of sense. “Your dad and Tank hadn’t told you about the academy, and my mom said it was probably safer for you if you didn’t know. I didn’t want you to get hurt, Belle, honest. I was thinking of you, otherwise I never would’ve lied about something like that.”

My heart squished but we still had unfinished business.

“Fine. Then what about Tommy? You must’ve been there for that.” Tears blinded me, the pain still so raw. It had never healed, not even with time. “You didn’t come home for his funeral.” The last was an accusation. A plea to help me forgive him.

He reached forward to touch my knee, then pulled back at the last moment. I couldn't have said why. He dropped both hands between his legs, hunching his shoulders, the picture of a man defeated.

“I wasn’t there when Tank died, no. I should’ve been. I didn’t want to go to this lousy school. Any lousy school. I’d always planned to stay in Texas with you guys and help out with the farm. But when the recruiter told me that Tank was here, I came for him. To watch his back. I figured, if I had this skill, I should use it to protect my family…my real family…” He lifted his hands for a moment, then dropped them again. “This magic I have, Tank had it, too. If he did, I knew you surely would. I figured you’d be here in no time, lighting the place up like you always do. But…” He shook his head. “Tank kept a lot to himself. I didn’t know what kind of trouble was dogging his steps until it was too late. I came here to get his back, but when he needed me the most, I wasn't there. I wasn’t there.” Those last three words were spoken so softly I wasn’t sure he even knew he’d said them aloud.

His voice quavered and my heart broke for him. He blamed himself. Tommy had intentionally kept him in the dark, probably to keep him safe, but Rory still hated himself for not figuring it all out. His loyalty was like an oak: solid, strong, and with deep roots.

I’d been wrong to doubt him.

I lowered to sit cross-legged and let my knees rest on his shins.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was at the funeral. Both of them—the one at school, and with you.”

“No, you—”

“I’m a Shade, Maribel. My life exists in the shadows.” His eyes pleaded with me. “I couldn’t bear to look your old man in the eye and tell him that I let you guys down. That Tank got hit under my watch. It was bad enough to see you crying.”

Despite what he’d said earlier, he let the slap land, and thankfully, he didn’t ask why I’d thrown it. I didn’t know myself. Raw grief ate at me, just as fresh as when I’d heard the news. I swiped my own tears away, but Rory let his fall, dripping from his strong jaw.

Needing more contact, I reached for him. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me into his arms, and held me tightly as he cried silently against my head. I clutched him, sharing his grief. Our grief.

“I miss him,” I said, choking on a sob. “So much. Even more now that I’m here.”

“I know.” He pushed me back, holding me by the upper arms like I was a doll. “You won’t be next. I’ve been training hard. I’m the best in my class. Nearly the best in my house. I’m ready this time, Belle. When he sends his minions, I’ll take them out one by one. I was up tonight because I knew one of them was coming. I’d planned to go after him, but you had to get it in your fool head to go play cops and robbers.”

Reality sobered me up and dried my eyes. “Gregory! Did the guy that came for us take Gregory?”

Rory stood and pulled me up beside him.

I really needed to lay down the law with this much stronger Rory, or I’d be manhandled the rest of my life.

Gesturing for me to follow him, he picked his way out of the tree before pausing at the tree line for a long moment. “No, the assassin doesn’t care about your friend.”

I choked on my spit. “Assassin?”

He started off toward the mansion, his black athletic sweats blending seamlessly with the shadows. A belt loaded with throwing knives circled his trim hips and a dagger was strapped to his broad back. A pouch of some sort hugged his ankle.

“Throwing stars,” he said, catching me looking. “They’re really common in my house—our house—and incredibly accurate. Anyway, a kid went missing at the first trial. No one can find her. Gregory is the second kid to disappear. Both outliers, so far. Loners. Easy pickings.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Not my problem.”

I frowned at him. Most things in life weren’t Rory’s problem, or so he’d always said–and yet he seemed to get tied up in them all the same.

“You’re lying,” I accused.

He huffed. “That’s going to be annoying.”

“Well, you should be used to it. I’ve been calling you out all your life, Rory Fenton Wilson.”

He grimaced when I used his middle name, ushering me toward the mansion. “I know. I thought I’d gotten good enough to get past your natural lie detector test.” He grinned down at me, and I could see the pride sparkling in his eyes. “You’re going to be the best this damn house has ever seen, just you watch.”

“Your cussing didn’t get any better either.”

“Not true. I’m much more colorful now. When I’m not worried about being slapped, that is. Anyway, listen. No one knows what’s going on with the missing kids. But we’re on it.”

“We? Meaning you and Mr. Sunshine?”

Rory choked and then chuckled. “Yes. We think they’re still alive, but we don’t know why they’re being taken. Or where they are being kept. I’m positive this is different than the assassin who’s after you. You need to watch yourself, Belle—”

“After being a boy for a few days, I hate that nickname even more.”

A grin tweaked his lips. “Like I said, you need to watch yourself, Belle.” He pulled the door to the mansion open, looking back at the grounds. Before he stepped out of the way for me to enter first, he placed his pointer finger against his lips. “I won’t help you if you get caught.”

He could help me but wouldn’t. I frowned at him.

A smile lit up his face, clearly thinking that was a hilarious joke, before dying within the reality we now faced together.

“You felt the caliber of what you’re up against. You cannot be caught alone. Ever. Do you hear what I am saying?” He lowered his gaze and leaned in, beating his stare into me. “Stay near the activity, always. Keep your classmates around. Do not go running around after curfew.”

I shook my head as he ushered me inside. “Why were they after Tank—I mean, Tommy—and now Billy? And who is the ‘he’ coming for me?”

His footfalls were deadly silent as he followed me down the hall. When I glanced back, his expression had completely closed down. It would take a crowbar to pry information out of him when he looked like this.

“Really?” I said quietly, stopping at the base of the stairs. The hush of my surroundings pressed down on me. “Still keeping secrets?”

Shadows draped across his high cheekbones and outlined his narrow nose, giving him a severe look. His eyes delved into me, piercing green. “Please trust me,” he said softly. “And watch yourself. If there is one person in your family that can make it through this, that can end this, it’s you. But the misconceptions about your magic won’t fool him. He’ll do everything he can to stop you. I know it in my blood. Trust no one, not even Rufus.”

“Who’s Rufus?” I asked.

“The Sandman. He’s not what he seems. I can feel it. His position in the school is a cover. I haven’t put all the pieces together yet, but you’re in an incredible amount of danger from all sides, Belle. These aren’t just trials for you. This isn’t a game. This is life and death. Tank is proof.”

Fear coursed through me, questions battered me, and all I could think to say was “His name is Rufus? No wonder he goes by Sandman.”

Rory’s grin was never far away, and I saw it now, even in the shadows. “Please take this seriously. Just this one thing—take this one thing seriously.”

I started up the stairs, trying to get my questions in a row. My whole personality was a crowbar, and I would get my answers from Rory one way or another. He was talking about sides, but I didn’t even know the players. He was talking about making it through this, but he obviously didn’t mean the trials. And for the love of all that was holy, who was this he? What misconception could there be about my magic? Even saying my magic made my head spin.

“Don’t get caught.”

I glanced back to see what he was talking about now, and empty air greeted me.

My stomach flipped, and I stumbled to a stop.

It wasn’t the speed with which he’d disappeared, which was beyond impressive. It was the speed…while silent. Moving that quietly should have made some noise. A scuff of his heavy boots. A swish of fabric. Something.

The House of Shade had clearly boosted Rory’s natural attributes. He was broader, faster, stronger, and had unreal stealth. The boy had been sculpted into a man who excelled at his craft after just two years of training. And right now, he was showing off.

I let a smile bud.

I’ll be better.

A little competition was good for the soul.

CHAPTER 11

“Why don’t you just admit it?” Pete said with spite in his voice as our crew climbed the stairs after breakfast.

I’d broken the news about Gregory to everyone this morning. Well, everyone except Orin, who I’d told last night, and who I was convinced never slept. The news hadn’t set well with Pete. Ethan didn’t seem to care overmuch, which only made Pete angrier.

“Admit what?” Ethan said.

“You ordered a hit on Gregory,” Pete replied. “You threatened him. We all heard you. You hated him.”

“If I’d wanted him gone, I would’ve gotten him expelled, genius. Hitmen and kidnappers cost money. Framing someone is free and much easier.”

“He’s got you there,” Orin said.

This discussion had been going on some time, and my mind drifted back to my near miss with the assassin. In the moment, I’d been incapable of anything but fear, but it had struck me after the fact that Rory and I should have been in plain sight of my stalker. Or as good as. . . Where else would we have gone but the trees? The guy had basically stopped right next to us too. He’d even turned our way! But then…nothing. He’d moved on as soon as my pulse had slowed. He hadn’t even stooped to peer into the shadows. It was like he’d been feeling out his prey—me—and lost the trail as soon as my panic faded. Almost as if Rory had somehow shielded our whereabouts.

“I know it was you,” Pete grumbled, cresting the stairs and turning toward our rooms.

“Awesome. Let me know how that works out for you trying to pin something on me that I didn’t do,” Ethan said sarcastically, pulling me out of the residual tremors of fear from the night before.

Wally waited in front of our room, staring at the ceiling as if she could see right through it.

“She’s like a bad smell,” Ethan said as he brushed by her and opened the door.

“Hello, everyone. Ready to get going?” Wally said, as chipper as I’d seen her. “Nicer room, huh? Where’s Gregory? I didn’t see him at breakfast.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t see you at breakfast,” Ethan said dryly, stopping by his bed and reaching for a note pinned to his pillow. A quick look around said we all had one, except Gregory.

“Oh, I thought it prudent to eat with my roommates like we’re supposed to.” Wally shadowed me to my bed. “You know, to ease the sting of leaving them high and dry for the trials. They could use my help.”

“Are you serious?” Ethan read the note.

“Not again,” Pete groaned. “I’m tired. When do we get a day off?”

I picked up my copy of the note.

You are hereby summoned. Your next trial awaits. You have one hours.

“Number one, there is a typo,” I said blandly, not able to summon up the effort to feel outraged. “Number two, there’s no time stamp. How are we supposed to know when the hour is up?”

My watch vibrated, and I glanced down at it. The face didn’t give me the actual time, but a countdown that said we had fifty minutes and thirteen seconds left. Awesome.

“You guys should’ve taken a trip to the healer for more energy.” Wally’s mouth stretched with a smile. “I feel great. Excited, even. Which trial do you guys want to do next? By the way, where’s Gregory? You didn’t answer me.”

“House of Claw,” Ethan said, digging through his trunk. He pulled out wads of sweats and threw them onto the ground. His movements turned frantic, crazed almost, until he stood up so fast, I wondered how he didn’t stagger with dizziness. “Where is it?” he demanded, his face red and his eyes ablaze. “What’d you jerk-offs do with it?”

I lifted my eyebrows and glanced at Pete, whose face was screwed up in confusion, nose wrinkled and lips tight. Orin stared out from a shadow in the corner that really shouldn’t have been possible with all the light pouring into the room.

“Where is it?” Ethan demanded again, rushing across the room toward me.

I stepped forward, ready to meet him head-on. I didn’t know why we were fighting, but that had never stopped me before. “Where is what?” I asked.

“You’ll feel really silly if you did make the goblin disappear,” Orin said with a small smile. “Since he was the one who took your…notes.”

Ethan rounded on Orin, but the gesture was somewhat undermined by his unwillingness to get closer to him. “What’d you say?”

“Gregory disappeared?” Wally asked.

“Gregory took your cheat sheets?” Pete said, a smile working up his face, dispelling the confusion.

“Goblins are surprisingly adept at finding hidden treasure,” Orin said, “whether it be gems…or personal items of interest. Such items might fetch a great price from the right bidder.”

The whole room stilled, all of us wondering if Gregory had gone out last night to sell the cheat sheets, and if so, which of our competitors had bought them.

“Let’s go,” Ethan said, grabbing his sweatshirt and heading for the door. “If someone has those notes, I’ll know it. And I’ll take them back.”

“Why would he sell those, though?” I asked, following along. “That puts him at a disadvantage. No, it makes more sense if he was keeping them for collateral. We should look to see if he hid them.”

“He’s a goblin,” Ethan said, as though that explained everything.

My dumb look had Orin explaining, “Unlike a wand waver who thinks he’s better than he is”—he pointedly looked at Ethan—“if a goblin hides something, you’d be hard pressed to find it. He’s a novice, so a good magic user could probably figure out his hiding spot, but none of us are good magic users. We’re all novices too. There’s no point in looking.”

“What happened to Gregory? Would one of you please fill me in?” Wally asked, trailing behind us. She shut the door as if taking ownership of the room.

I explained the situation to Wally as we joined other trial goers pouring out of the mansion. Buses waited for us in the same place as yesterday, and by the time we’d reached the boarding area, Wally was muttering to herself about statistics regarding abducted trial goers. “There have been a number of missing students over the years. First at the academy itself, but the security was improved as more Shades were used to guard the schools. After that, there is a 2 to 3 percent chance of being abducted at the Culling Trials based on past history.”

“How many were found?” I asked.

“None,” she said. “No one abducted was ever seen again.”

The odds weren’t good that we’d see Gregory again.

“Wait,” Ethan said, putting out his hand to stop my progress. Pete bumped into my back and stumbled to the side.

I followed Ethan’s gaze to a cluster of students to our right. A few stood in a huddle, peering at something between them.

“Anyone who has any sort of leg up will pick the House of Claw today, I think,” Ethan said, his gaze shrewd.

"How do you know that’s the right trial to go to?” I got in front of Ethan, stopping his forward momentum.

He lifted an arm to push me away. I glared down at him. “How do you know it’s that trial and not a different one?” I repeated the question, as if he were slow.

Wally once more took the lead. “There is no official route to take—the randomness and our choices of that randomness is part of the testing. To see where our instincts take us.”

Ethan glared up at me, one eyebrow raised. “The shifters announced they’ve upped their prize money today because two of the first trials were won. By upping their prize, they’re trying to lure in the top dogs.”

“Looks like they know their prey well,” Orin drawled. I had to agree.

Ethan’s gaze swept the rest of the crowd, all moving in a steady flow. Only that one group had hesitated for more than a moment, and they were on the move again. One of the guys slipped a square of white into his pocket.

Ethan started forward.

“I still don’t think Gregory would’ve sold the cheat sheet,” I mumbled, though I had to concede I didn’t know Gregory all that well, maybe he had planned on selling the sheets. Hell, I didn’t know any of them that well.

“If he had it on him when he was taken, then someone else could have sold it,” Wally said. “Given the size of the house prizes we’ve seen so far, any help would be worth a pretty penny.”

“Best argument I’ve heard so far,” Orin said.

I stepped up into the bus after Ethan, following the group of guys he was stalking.

“Did you hear?” a buck-toothed girl said to her seat mate. “Someone went missing last night. That goblin who won his house challenge.”

“Ethan Helix won the challenge,” her friend returned.

The buck-toothed girl rolled her eyes. “I meant his goblin teammate, obviously…” Her words drifted away, and her eyes rounded when she spotted the man of the hour walking past her.

A hush fell over the bus, though Ethan didn’t seem to notice, his eyes locked on the other guys. He passed the group of boys from earlier without glancing their way and stopped at a random block of kids farther back. They all looked up at him, one girl’s face reddening.

He jerked his head. “Get out.”

“Wh-what?” one of the guys said, slim-faced with dark circles under his eyes.

Ethan stared him down. “Do you want me to repeat myself?” The threat in his tone was evident.

“This is getting awkward,” I said quietly, inching backward a little as the kids he’d singled out pushed out of their seats.

“It’s not awkward for anyone else,” Orin said, although he’d made our situation awkward. He hadn’t taken a step back when I had, and now he stood a little too close for comfort. I stepped forward again. “They expect this behavior from a Helix.”

As Ethan waited, he nodded in a familiar way to a guy in the back.

The guy matched his nod, clearly douche-speak for what’s up, bro? He looked familiar and I realized I’d seen him before. One of the guys who’d fallen in the first trial. What was his name?

Close up, I was able to get a better look at Ethan’s friend. Given the stranger was smoking hot and had an air of confidence, I figured they were friendly because they were on a similar level. Pretty people always seemed to gravitate toward other pretty people.

“Why didn’t we sit near the possible offenders?” Wally whispered, leaning around the side of the seat and looking down the center of the bus.

“We’re sitting behind them,” Ethan said quietly, dropping into the seat, with tense shoulders. I sat next to him.

“Yes, I am spatially aware, but why didn’t we sit behind them, and also near them?” Wally pushed, sliding into the seat behind us with Orin. Pete, odd man out, shared with a red-headed girl behind them. “So we could hear their conversation. If I had a magic notebook, I’d want to talk about it with my friends.”

“Cool people sit in the back,” Orin said with a slight smile, looking out the window. “Social standing before stakeout. It is why the social elite don’t do grunt work.”

“No, it is because we can afford to hire people to do grunt work,” Ethan replied without turning around.

“Yes.” Orin’s smile grew. I had no idea what point he thought he’d made, but I didn’t care to dwell on it.

The bus traversed the usual path and came to a stop in front of the massive gates covered in the thorny ivy.

“Wait,” Ethan said when we’d all disembarked, watching the guys he’d noticed earlier. They’d grouped together again, looking down at something between them.

“Welcome again,” the usual stunning woman said, holding her wand high and smiling down at us from atop the stone and ivy wall. “Day three of the Culling Trials. Good luck to you and may it favor the trial you choose!”

“It almost seems like they are trying to rush us through all these,” Pete said as he jogged after Ethan, who’d surged to a start, following that same cluster of guys. “But what’s the hurry?”

“Oh…I don’t know,” Wally said, waving her hand. “Maybe all the political unrest in the magical world right now? They’re sparing their resources for this. They probably want them back.”

“Their resources are an elite school, and that school is on break,” Pete returned as we hurried through the open gate. “The people running this thing are from one of the other schools, and that school is on break. No one gives two hoots about us.”

A field spanned out in front of us, and when we stepped onto it, it morphed into a plain covered in tall yellow grasses waving in the light breeze. The scene was slightly familiar, although I wasn’t sure why—there wasn’t much to distinguish it from any other prairie, though for sure it wasn’t Texas.

Night slowly fell the farther in we got, and a large crescent moon rose in the star-studded sky. The group we were following veered right, and soon their target became obvious: a lone tree bent over a small glistening pond.

No, wait…not just a pond. A watering hole.

It struck me why our surroundings looked so familiar. They reminded me of a documentary my dad had watched about the Serengeti in Africa.

Africa. Africa was full of things that could eat you. And I could bet I knew which of the big five it would be coming for us.

“We shouldn’t go that way.” I grabbed Ethan’s arm. He flung me off. “Ethan, are you out of your mind? What better place to snatch prey if you’re an alpha predator than at a freaking waterhole! We shouldn’t go there.”

“Oh,” Pete said, like a tire losing air. He’d just honed in on our surroundings. “This is bad.”

A look around said no other trial goers had followed our path. Still, we should have been able to see them—there were some dips and rises in the terrain, but not many. The only other people out here looked to be the kids ahead of us.

Pete shook his head. “They won’t want us working with any other crews here. We’ll all be kept separate this time—I’m sure of it.”

“Well, that’s just awesome,” I muttered. It meant we wouldn’t be able to use other crews for bait…or help.

The House of Claw had challenged their prey with a dinner bell, and we’d been stupid enough to answer.

CHAPTER 12

“C ome on,” Ethan said, no doubt realizing we were going to lose the guys in front of us. He jogged forward, closing in on the group nearing the waterhole, refusing to let the magic sweep them away.

“Ethan, seriously, notes or no, this is a terrible idea. Do you have no survival skills? No internal warning system that is telling you this is the wrong way?” I hastened after him, honestly wondering if I should bother. We were still on thin ice, he and I, and this would be a good way to get rid of him. Let him go down with those other guys.

And yet Rory thought I was in extreme danger, more so than I had gauged. I needed a front man who no one wanted to kill, a front man who had a father with power and connections. I might not want Ethan, but I still needed him.

“Forget survival skills, haven’t you watched Discovery Kingdom?” Wally asked, looking behind her, those big eyes of hers wider than usual.

“Yes, that’s a good idea.” I pointed at her. “Watch our six. The big cats come out at night, and we’re in the big cat freaking house. Pete—” I moved my finger to him as Ethan closed in on the cluster of guys, standing around like idiots, clearly trying to pretend they weren’t about to do something wrong, like cheat. “You need to change, buddy. This is your world. We need that sniffer.”

“Not to mention your honey badger rage. They face down lions on a regular basis,” Orin said, facing out to our right. He didn’t want to get mauled any more than the rest of us. I lifted an eyebrow at him and he shrugged.

“I watch the Discovery Channel from time to time. Honey badgers are known to attack lions. They have a great deal of attitude.”

A vampire who liked animal shows. I shook my head and then nodded. “Yes, the rage will help.” The terrain was uneven under the long grass and it made for slow going. The last thing we needed was a twisted ankle. The grasses brushed at my waist, easily long enough to hide a crouching, stalking predator. Or maybe a whole pride of them. “Good God, this is terrible. This whole place is terrible. And it goes on forever.”

“It’s just magic,” Orin said. “Nothing is forever, not even magic.”

“Au contraire. Your weirdness will be. I guarantee it.” I caught up to Ethan on the sands of the watering hole, two paces from the cluster of guys.

“What do you have there?” Ethan asked, his snobby tone selling that line all wrong. He was not good at shakedowns, clearly.

Likely he was used to Daddy doing his dirty work for him.

“Wh-what?” The guy with an obvious secret took a step back, his eyes bugging out in an obvious tell.

Ethan jammed out his hand as Pete stripped. Wally and Orin stood with their backs to us, watching the gentle sway of the long grasses. A warning tickled the base of my spine—not like I needed it.

“Hand it over. It’s mine!” Ethan shook his hand as he took another step forward.

Confusion stole over the guy’s expression and he wiped at his pocket absentmindedly. “It’s not… What’s yours—”

“Oh, give me a break, this is taking forever.” I pushed Ethan out of the way, grabbed the smaller guy by the shirt, and yanked him closer until I could see the individual pores in his face. “I will skin you alive if you don’t pull that piece of paper out of your pocket right now and hand it over.”

The guy’s eyes were as big as the moon above us as he slapped and grabbed at himself. His pudgy hand finally made it to his pocket, and he pulled a creased page out with trembling fingers.

“Come on, man, hold it together,” I muttered, snatching the page. “You’re going to make me feel bad.”

“Hand it over.” Ethan took it from me and crinkled it open.

“My mom said everyone does it,” the guy babbled. The cluster around him drifted away, giving him more space than he probably wanted. “It’s not like I know exactly what’s coming—it’s just a little nudge—”

“This is garbage.” Ethan threw the paper on the ground.

“At least give it back.” I sighed, grabbing up the sheet. Slanted notes scrawled in a lazy hand covered the surface. Near the bottom was a hand-drawn picture of a unicorn head (third graders would be ashamed of the artistry) with an arrow to the tip of the horn, labeled “dangerous.”

“Oh no, guys,” I said, shaking my head. “This is… This isn’t going to help you. I mean, hopefully it doesn’t help you. If you need this to help you…” I was still shaking my head when I gave it back to the trembling kid. “Don’t worry about cheating. Cheat all day long with this. Snobby McSnobberton over there cheated way harder. He’s clearly got a more important daddy than you—”

“Damn it,” Ethan swore, putting his hands to his hips and looking around, probably wondering what to do now that he had to actually use his brain. Now that he was marooned on a level playing field with the rest of us.

The trickle of warning turned into a flash flood, running through my body and pumping my heart into overdrive. My stomach flipped and the feeling of ants running across my skin made me dance into the cluster of idiots.

“Take cover, something is coming!” I yelled, shoving the guys around me into a human shield. It wasn’t right, I knew that, but sometimes what wasn’t right didn’t line up with not being eaten by a lion.

“Movement,” Orin said, taking a step back.

Pete hissed and spat, waddling toward Orin with his nose in the sky.

“I think…” Wally took a step back. “I think…” She hesitantly pointed in front of her.

“How many?” I yelled, my hands working, keeping the knuckleheads around me at a safe distance—safe for me, that was. I was so going to hell for this. “Wally, get over here!”

“What’s…” Ethan’s voice trailed away as he finally figured out what was happening. He drew out his wand.

“It would sure be great if you’d actually use that this time,” I called.

A tiny crunch caught my attention on Wally’s side of the waterhole. Like a light footstep on dirt.

Wally must’ve heard the noise, too, because she slid back toward me with her arms raised overhead. “Make yourself look bigger. Make yourself more intimidating.”

“Bigger than a wild beast?” one of the knuckleheads asked. “How can we make ourselves—”

“Do not turn your back,” Wally went on. “Often, their first volley is a mock charge. If you turn your back, you’re done for. Ho!” Wally shouted, waving her arms. “Hey! Ho! Make loud sounds. Wave your hands. Hey! Ho!”

“They are freaking people, Wally, not real lions. They can understand everything you say.” I pushed my group of bait toward the water, wanting a larger viewing area. My insides danced with anticipation. “They’re close. They are right here.”

“Where?” one of the knuckleheads asked.

“I can’t see anything,” Wally yelled.

“Neither can I,” Orin said.

Five of them. Surrounding us.

“Five of them,” I repeated, really digging the connection to Pete, though I did wonder why it didn’t extend to the five shifters closing in on us. “All around. Get out your weapons.”

“I can make their dead limbs dance again, but I cannot send them to the dance floor,” Wally said in her Walter Cronkite voice.

“Why did I end up with the strangest people on the planet?” Ethan muttered, his arm shaking as he backed toward me.

“Good question, and get away from my shield,” I said.

“What’s going on?” one of the knuckleheads bleated, trying to drift toward the tree. I yanked him back into my shield formation.

“Five of what?” another asked.

The scene exploded before us. Sleek feline bodies leapt into the clearing, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. A massive lioness, larger than even those that were well fed in a zoo, sailed through the air straight for Wally.

She dodged to the side, but not fast enough. A body slammed into her at the last instant, rocketing her out of the way before the lioness’s paws sunk into her. Orin, who’d tackled her so quickly, his movement hadn’t registered, stood gracefully and looked my way.

One of the beasts launched at my cluster, followed by another. I shoved one of the knuckleheads at those reaching paws, a shameless act that would probably haunt me later. Or maybe not.

“Cheaters never prosper,” I said to ease the blow, if not my conscience, before dodging to the side as the other lioness plowed down two of my human shields. “You’ll thank me in the end,” I said, dancing away behind Pete, whose growl and complete lack of fear was making a fourth lioness review her life choices. She backed up as he charged at her.

Animal kingdom for the win. Orin was right about the honey badger trumping a lion.

Ethan muttered something and a stream of magic erupted from his wand. It smashed full-scale into the fifth lioness. She roared and curled back on herself as Orin zoomed behind me, claws extended, and gouged one of the lionesses attacking my human shield.

Pete rushed forward, snarling and growling, no match for the beasts in size or strength, but plenty tough enough in attitude. The lioness he faced shoved backward and tripped over her own feet, rolling. Still roaring, two of the creatures took off, Orin and Ethan more than they’d bargained for. The third followed, not about to mess with a pissed-off honey badger.

The other two stalked at the edge of the sand. One, the larger of the two, flicked the end of her tail. Her blazing amber eyes focused on me, and a strange feeling crawled through my body. Not warning, or danger. Something else—a promise of what was to come?

Then, without engaging us again, she turned away and loped through the grasses, disappearing into the night. Ethan shot off another spell, but the last lioness was already following, not ready to fight this crew of nutcases solo.

This was why they’d wanted distance between the crews. Not that the other crew had done much—the poor sots all lay bleeding and helpless in the sand—but we’d used them to help mitigate the attack. Instead of having to fight it all ourselves.

I heaved, trying to catch my breath from the rush and unpleasant exhilaration, but didn’t want to wait around for hyenas, or wild dogs, or whatever other large creatures wanted a taste of our hides.

“Let’s get on to the next challenge,” I said, taking off at a jog. “We’re flying blind.”

One knucklehead groaned, another cried out in pain.

I grimaced. “Sorry! The healer will be along soon. Good work, though! Thanks for the help!”

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Ethan said, catching up to me. By silent agreement, we ignored a pair of knuckleheads who popped up. They could follow if they liked—at a distance. We had enough weird in our crew, we didn’t need to add stupid to the mix.

CHAPTER 13

I  could feel Ethan staring at me as we walked away from the injured crew at the watering hole. “Please don’t tell me that was good work back there. It’s not a compliment coming from you.”

“Good work,” he said, and though I wouldn’t look at his stupid face, I could tell he was smiling, could hear it in his voice.

“I have one tiny knife and no experience with lion taming,” I muttered. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Sacrifice yourself?” He laughed outright this time.

“Stop talking to me.” I did not want to so much as twitch my mouth for fear he’d see the smile.

“Veer right,” Orin said, suddenly next to me.

I jumped. I couldn’t help it. “What do you know?”

“That the badger is headed that way, and he’s not overly impressed by your lack of attention.”

Pete was hard to see deep in the grasses, so when I stepped on him, I felt even worse than I had a moment before.

“Sorry,” I said.

Idiots. You’d think they’d follow me here, in my own damn house.

“I said I was sorry!” I snapped.

Pete shot me a dirty look, then took off running. Orin followed directly behind him, somehow able to keep a better eye on him than we were.

“Where are my notes, do you think? And who would’ve taken Gregory? Was it because he stepped forward in that last challenge?” Ethan asked.

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself, but I took it upon myself to answer.

“Honestly, Gregory probably hid the papers somewhere,” I said, feeling a prickle of warning that didn’t last long enough for me to pause. “Maybe he even hid them outside. I don’t know, but I really don’t think he would’ve traded them. Or sold them. To the group, they were worth more in your hands.” I didn’t answer the other question. I didn’t know who’d taken the missing kids—I only knew that Rory and Sideburns were on the case, and that I intended to look for Gregory the first chance I got.

Another trickle of warning ran the length of my spine, but this one faded just as quickly as the first. There were watchers out here, but for whatever reason, they were deciding not to engage. Maybe one ambush was all you had to survive in this part of the challenge.

The landscape changed suddenly, the grass-swept prairie morphing into rock and dirt right under our feet. Pine trees rose up around us, bursting out of the ground, and the sweet scent of fresh sap tickled my nose. A deep rumble in the ground ahead made us all slow, the lay of the land suddenly rising with an incline as though the mountain was literally being created under us. Which at this point in the game would not surprise me in the least.

I looked behind us; the savannah had disappeared without a trace.

Pete led the way into a small clearing. Fresh grass sprigs shot up around our feet and a tall table stood off to the right next to a long, half cut log. On the log, five little bells were lined up in a perfect row beside a sheet of paper.

Ethan marched over to the log and I let him. He’d get the booby trap in the face if there was one.

“The next challenge is tracking,” Ethan said with a sour expression, lifting the piece of paper.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked as Wally looked at her feet.

He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the log. “What’s wrong with that?” He gestured at Pete, standing next to me. “He’s not a tracking animal, and even if he were, we don’t know what we’re tracking. I don’t have any notes. We’re dead in the water.”

I frowned at him, then at the rest of them when they didn’t chuckle. “Are you guys serious? It’s tracking.” I lifted my hands, waiting for them to get a clue. “It’s just tracking. Haven’t you guys ever done that?”

“What would I track, pigeons? I live in New York City,” Ethan said dryly.

“You could try tracking a better attitude, how about that?” I huffed, pushing my annoyance away. “Look, I grew up on a farm, not to mention hunting with my older brother. I know how to track. In regards to what we’re tracking, well, let’s figure it out, I guess. That paper didn’t say anything else?”

I moved to fetch it but stalled near the bells. I still had ambushes and booby traps on the mind.

“What are the bells for?” I hovered my hand over the log setup.

Ethan snorted and turned away.

“The shifters are offering us a way out,” Wally said. “They’re taunting us.”

“How so?” I asked, my mouth settling into a frown. “They’re just a bunch of bells.”

Wally tilted her head at me, and Orin turned to stare.

“It was in your contract,” Wally said. “Didn’t you read it before you signed it? Because you should always read contracts before you sign them.”

“Or have your lawyer do it,” Ethan said.

It was my turn to snort. “They forced me to sign the contract after I’d been tagged and bagged.” The blank looks indicated they didn’t have fathers who watched a lot of military flicks. I elaborated. “After they zap-strapped my hands behind my back and shoved a bag over my head, someone pushed the contract to my pricked thumb.”

Orin’s brows lowered over his eyes, something I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t like him to show a reaction.

“That’s…not right,” Wally said. “They can’t make you—”

“I had the Sandman,” I said quickly, remembering Pete’s reaction to him. He was currently at the edge of the clearing, sniffing a tree. “He’s not very good at convincing. He’s very good at threatening, though.”

Wally still looked troubled, but Orin looked excited. Like I had more value to him than I’d had a few minutes before. The latter I really wasn’t digging.

“Who cares about contracts and the Sandman,” Ethan said, impatient. “There is a big bell at the front of the mansion grounds. When you ring the bell, you are removing yourself from the Culling Trials. You’re quitting. The same goes for the elite who live at the academy. Ring the bell, and you’re out. These bells are probably just for show. The shifters want to intimidate us. They think our submission will be funny.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of an animal’s thing,” I muttered, fetching the paper without disturbing the bells. “Dominance. Submission. Alphas and betas.”

I read the type-written note.

Follow your nose and see with your eyes. Get to the end, and you’ll be nearer the prize.

“Submission they’ve got—riddles, not so much.” I shoved the paper into my pocket as Pete’s fur and claws morphed into skin and a whole lotta Pete.

“I’ve got five smells around this clearing,” he said without preamble.

“Cover your junk, man. We don’t want to see it,” I called out, turning away.

“The cold affects more than the harvest,” Wally said, looking upward at the pale blue sky.

“Whoa, can’t call the man out like that,” Ethan said. “It isn’t cool.”

“You call out women for their breast size,” Wally retorted. “I fail to see the difference.”

“That’s because you are socially awkward,” Orin supplied. “There is a time and place. This is neither.”

“Right. Okay. Pete, what’d you find?” I said too loudly, still staring out into the trees.

“Five smells, like I said.” He pointed at five sections within the clearing. “Most of them are older scents, a day, maybe two since they were laid. One newer. A wolf, I think.”

“Great. And their trails?”

“The wolf is all over this place but doesn’t move past this clearing. Two of the other scents stay as well—a rabbit, I think, and something I can’t quite place. Of the last two, the bear goes off that way”—he pointed to the left side of the clearing, which was mostly flat land—“and something else went that way.” He pointed behind him, a graceful incline that might get treacherous later.

I snorted. A bunch of shifters intent on submission would not create a path through easy terrain. They’d say, “Follow this trail, I dare you.”

“Clearly shifters think with their teeth, claws, and balls,” I said to myself. “They don’t put as much effort into the finer strokes of a challenge.”

“Astute, and rather accurate,” Orin said.

“Yes, thank you, peanut gallery.” I shook my head, thinking back to the half-assed riddle. “So that’s the nose portion. Now. I expect we’ll see some or all of the tracks.”

“Here. A rabbit.” Wally pointed at a patch of cleared vegetation. “I’ve always loved rabbits. I used to stalk them through the fields behind our house, looking for their burrows. I wanted to trap one and take it home for a pet.”

“We’re looking at a future black widow here, folks,” Ethan said softly, his eyes pointed downward.

“Oh no. I could never love people that much,” Wally replied.

In a moment, we’d identified all five sets of prints, but none of the information matched. The rabbit’s tracks told us it had left the clearing, but its scent didn’t, and the bear’s tracks indicated it had stayed, but its scent said it had left. Only the wolf had neither its scent nor its tracks leading out.

I rolled my eyes and headed up the steep incline leading straight up the mountain. It didn’t take long to find a set of wolf tracks, clear as day.

“Here we go. This will be the trail we’re meant to follow.” I gestured everyone on. “If I’m wrong, I’ll give you my portion of the winnings.”

“If you’re wrong, we won’t get any winnings,” Ethan replied.

“Look at you, finally using your brain. How does it feel? Rusty?” My double thumbs up earned me a scowl. “Pete, back into shifter form if you can handle another change so quickly. The note said eyes and nose, so we might need both to finish out the trail.”

“Smaller animal forms can change faster and more frequently than the larger, deadlier forms,” Pete explained proudly.

“Awesome, buddy. Keep up the good work.” He did appreciate my thumbs up.

“Shifters are clearly no match for the House of Shade when it comes to mind teasers,” Orin said as Pete led the way, sniffing out the trail that I followed by sight. Tracking an animal was pretty easy once you picked up the footprints. Rocky terrain and water posed different challenges, of course, but more often than not, wolves didn’t spend too much time on those.

Then again, my experience was only with real wolves. Human wolves would change it up to confuse things, no doubt. I could only hope Pete’s nose could plug up the holes in my experience.

“The House of Shade is no match for the House of Claw when it comes to brawn and power,” Orin continued. “Shades hone their skills so as to become predators. Those of the claw are born predators, and they learn to hone their nature with their intellect.”

“In other words, we are really hoping that Ethan won’t crap himself in fear and freeze up when the wolves surround us later and try to tear us apart,” I said, watching the subtle differences in the tracks as they made a straight shot up a gradually more horrible incline. The shifters were challenging our stamina right now. Four-legged animals would have an easier time of this than bi-pedal kids. I already wanted to give up.

“Rabbits aren’t predators,” Wally said, out of breath.

“Correct,” Orin said, not out of breath.

“How do we even know we’re going the right way?” Ethan asked, pulling off his sweatshirt and tying it around his waist. A whiff of masculine musk and Old Spice blasted me. If we had to run and hide, it wouldn’t be hard to sniff us out. “We’re probably doing all this for nothing.”

“Are you always this much of a whiner when you’re not cheating?” I asked through my gasps of progressively thinning air.

“‘The cat’s in the cradle and the—’”

“Knock it off with that weird-ass voice,” Ethan said to Wally. “What is up with that?”

“Everyone needs a little charm in their lives,” Wally retorted.

“Not that kind of charm,” he bit back.

“Climbing a tower wasn’t easy,” I said as Pete slowed, and then stopped. “The fact that this is a similar level of difficulty should prove that we are going the right way. What is it, Pete?”

The scent is lost, I heard echo around my head. Disappeared.

I bent closer to the ground and waved my finger at the tracks, toes and claws indenting the dirt around pebbles and leaves. They’d become lighter as we climbed, more difficult to follow, but we hadn’t lost the trail. “We’re still good. See? It keeps on in the same direction, although no real wolf would weave this much. Someone had a little too much moonshine before they tackled this trail…”

“Moonshine, really?” Ethan tramped forward, leaning forward against the incline. “Country bumpkin much?”

“Moonshine, really,” I said, pushing him to the side and taking the lead. “Hard core, always. It would knock you flat on your ass just from sniffing it.”

“Like you would know.”

“Wow, you really are dumb.” I veered with the tracks, which became even lighter. In fairness, I’d only tried moonshine a few times, as all curious kids might, and only once, at the urging of my brother and Rory, did I push past the breathing fire stage and have enough to swirl my thoughts. We’d all thrown up quite a lot that time, and as far as I knew, none of us had touched it again.

The tracks cut right, went a ways, then stopped. Ahead, the mountain dropped away to a cliff face, that we’d have to navigate via a little tiny ledge that led to a thatch of trees and another upward slope on the other side.

Pete didn’t move in front of me, which meant the scent trail didn’t pick back up.

I braced my hands on my hips, looking back the way we’d come, thinking. Had we gone straight instead of cutting right at the last juncture, we would have hit a nearly solid patch of pines. The trees reached out to the path almost threateningly, as if daring someone to push their way into the shadows of their branches.

I pointed back that way. “Turn around and get going up. This is a test of our courage.”

Ethan stared at me, his brows set low over his eyes. Orin stared as well, his eyes sparkling harder in a way that clenched my stomach, though I couldn’t have said why.

“Don’t magical people teach their kids that it’s rude to stare?” I asked, stopping in front of them. “Move.”

“How the hell do you know all this?” Ethan said accusingly. “You said you didn’t know this world.”

“I don’t have your stupid notes, you turd.” I shoved him out of the way. “Which should be clear since I am not stopping to read anything. It’s common sense.” I pointed back at the ledge. “No wolf is going to run across that. Give me a break. And again, these aren’t real wolves. They are people, and this is a challenge. They’re testing our mettle in the same way they would test one of their shifters. Strength, stamina, courage, fighting prowess…”

“If it were common sense, everyone would be able to do it,” Orin said, his gaze boring into me as though he wanted to peel back my skull and have a look under the hood.

I shrugged and continued on, sensing the rightness of this decision. It felt…natural. Logical.

“If everyone would stay in their assigned groups, they probably would be able to do it.” I hunted for more tracks as we continued up the mountain.

“You are wrong about that. No one gets assigned a group,” Orin said. “Like choosing which trial to go to first, those you end up with in a group are randomly selected. We are very lucky to have one trial goer from every house.”

“Says you,” Ethan grumbled.

“It is a wonder they don’t better mix the groups, instead of allowing us to choose for ourselves,” Orin mused as Pete wobbled up in front of me and picked up the scent. Regardless of their rage, honey badgers were freaking cute. I wouldn’t tell Pete that though.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I really hadn’t wanted to be wrong.

“What do you mean?” I asked Orin as an impression in the soft dirt caught my eye. I found another paw mark, the nail indentations not as prominent as they’d be on a real wolf. That had to be because the shifter trimmed their fingernails.

“A mix of women and men, and not just houses. Often times, the different sexes bring something different to the table. Like a lion versus a lioness, for example. Same magical type, extremely different attributes.”

“Less mixing in the social classes would be a nice change,” Ethan said.

“For us, yeah,” I replied.

“I’m happy to bring a bit of feminine energy to the group,” Wally said, beaming. “And traditionally, the groups going through are not this well mixed. The school tried to enforce group selection a number of years ago, but the trial goers ended up fighting each other instead of completing the trials,” she paused and then nodded, as if to herself, “like Orin, I am beginning to believe that our odds are better together.”

Silence descended, everyone remembering she was the only one who didn’t know I was also a girl. Although, she wasn’t entirely wrong. I was hardly brimming with femininity.

The trees pressed in on us until we were forced into single file. Light filtered through the canopy in thin streams before diffusing into a soft glow. Shadows pooled in crevices and at the bases of trees, nearly thick enough to have substance. Cool air slid across my exposed skin and a warning skittered up my spine.

Here we go.

“Don’t stop to put on a sweatshirt,” I said in a hush. “That’ll give you a moment of weakness, and a moment will be all they need.” I reached down to flick Pete so he’d look back. Given his anatomy, he had to wiggle around so he could see. “You’re the lead,” I whispered, before falling back. “I’ll take the rear.”

“What’s happening?” Ethan asked, putting his hand over his wand like Doc Holliday in the Wild West.

“We’re coming up on the next battle,” I said, feeling a strange presence throbbing from within the trees. A threatening presence, one that felt familiar—just like the wolf I’d faced at home. The itch of watching eyes flared between my shoulder blades.

This wasn’t one wolf—it was a pack, and we were in their sights. Their strength was in their pack synchronicity. The pack would work in tandem, seamlessly.

Of all the times not to have a human shield.

CHAPTER 14

Branches shook and shapes charged toward us from all sides, graceful and deadly. Flashes of fur—gray, brown, black and even a brilliant white—cut between the pine trees on this mountain slope, silent in their attack.

Rocks flew, one hitting a wolf square in the head and making it stagger before falling. Another hit a body, eliciting a yelp. Wally had a great arm and aim.

A jet of magic zipped right past a wolf, followed by another blast, that one hitting home. The wolf yelped—and then yelped again as Orin rushed forward, raking four deep red scores into its furry side.

A large gray and white timber wolf lunged at me, snapping my attention from the others’ battles.

I yanked out my knife as I dodged to the side, fast and agile, fueled by adrenaline and experience. I swung my knife around and dug the business end of my short blade into the soft flank. I yanked it back, pivoting as the wolf fell, and delivered another puncture in its gut.

“I could gut you right now, but that would kill you,” I said as Orin zoomed around me and cut off another wolf running my way. “If you continue in this fight, I will. Bow out, and you’ll live.”

I spun, catching a brown wolf mid-leap, its jaws lined up with my face. A rock hit it square in the face, making it close its eyes and rip its head away at the last moment. Its body was already committed, though, and I ducked, braced, and brought my knife up into its soft underbelly.

It yelped, its own momentum driving my blade lengthwise as it fell. I bent with the butt of my knife, knocking the beast in the chest above the heart and spinning away. Hopefully, it would get the gist, because I couldn’t warn everyone.

Another stream of magic flew out, and a wolf sailed into the trees, blood dripping from a gash in its side. Honey badger snarls and spits toward the top of the line told me Pete was holding his own.

“Go,” I shoved Wally forward, knowing Orin would run up behind her. “Go! They’ll need to carry out some wounded. Orin, watch our six. Take down anyone that follows. Ethan, back them off our sides. Pete, lead the way!”

We made headway up the path as a unit, stepping over downed wolf bodies that were thankfully still breathing. I was immensely proud of our crew, and in the back of my mind, I took note of who was doing the most damage and how. I cataloged Ethan’s spells and what they did, Orin’s strength, speed, and fighting prowess, noticing how he moved and struck, and Wally’s complete ease with wounds and possible death. Of course, there was Pete’s determination and seeming lack of fear once he was in honey badger form. Most of all, I stored information about how the shifters had designed this trial, and what that said about their house.

I didn’t know if I would ever need this information, but old habits die hard in a country girl. These silent calculations had helped guide me on the farm, telling me how to best wrangle certain animals and how to sweet talk the people into giving me a good deal. It had taken me a few trials in this crazy magical world to get back to basics, but now that I was a little more comfortable, I was there again. “They aren’t following,” Orin said a few minutes later, as calm as a spring day. I really wasn’t looking forward to his house.

Without warning, for the second time, the scene changed dramatically. Trees dissolved and the slope of the mountain flattened out into a springtime field cut through by a sparkling stream. Breathing hard, still holding my now-bloody knife, I looked around and took stock of the new situation.

My stomach flipped in giddiness and a smile pressed up my cheeks.

“Yes!” I said, throwing a fist to the sky. I couldn’t help it. This was what I’d been secretly hoping for all along.

Not far away grazed a herd of actual freaking unicorns, robust and all but shimmering with muscle, built just like normal horses with one important exception. A long horn protruded from each of their foreheads, colored a tarnished gold, just like in the fables. Their brown or black manes seemed pretty standard, but when their tails swished in the sunshine, the light caught a glimmer of gold.

“Ah-mazing,” I said, excitement running through me.

“They fart rainbows,” Ethan said dryly as he pushed toward the herd.

“Shut up! They do?” I practically danced after him.

“No.”

“Your attitude is not going to ruin this for me,” I said.

“I’ve never seen a guy react this way,” Wally said, jogging after us. “It’s refreshing that you are so secure in your masculinity as to be giddy over a unicorn.”

“Wait, you guys.”

Pete stood in the buff, pointing to a second herd behind us. Similar to the first, this group had two large differences: size…and wings!

“Ohmygod, ohmygod!” I jumped in place and clapped, not caring who saw me. “I didn’t even know unicorns could have wings! This is such a great day. The best. I could die now and die happy!”

Wally’s head tilted to the side as she looked at me, as though she were sussing out a secret.

I tried to tone it down. I did, but I just couldn’t.

“Those are ten times harder to ride,” Pete said. “Especially for me and Orin, since we smell like predators. We’d have to ride those to get the gold.” He shrugged. “But we’ve already won two challenges. Just getting to the end, riding a plenty-hard-but-not-impossible unicorn will still be a win.”

Ethan was already walking toward the winged unicorns, his expression set. I followed him without a second thought. This wasn’t about the money. If I had a choice between riding and flying, it was flying all day long.

“Why ride a unicorn when you could ride a winged unicorn?” I said excitedly.

“Alicorn,” Wally said, jogging to catch up to me. “The winged variety are called alicorn.”

“Good to know.” I sidestepped a pile of poop much like horse poop, but for one crucial difference. “Their poop glitters?!”

“Yeah. It’s really annoying to clean up. If you get hit with it, the glitter sticks for days, then everyone knows you got hit with unicorn dung,” Pete said dourly, looking between us. “Who grabbed my clothes?”

Ethan slowed about fifty paces from the alicorn herd, his focus intense. The rest of us swapped identical oops expressions.

“No one grabbed my clothes?” Pete demanded. “Seriously?”

“Do you always expect people to pick up after you?” Wally asked, no remorse.

“It’s a fair question,” Orin said. “I think your mother did you a disservice there.”

Pete’s mouth dropped open. He looked at me imploringly, and I barely kept from audibly siding with Wally and making him feel like everyone was ganging up on him. Pete’s clothes had been the last thing on my mind when he’d changed, and he certainly hadn’t mentioned it, either before he changed, or when in animal form.

I shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? How the hell am I going to ride one of these without clothes?” Pete demanded. “I can barely ride a unicorn with clothes, and those were the tamed ones without wings!”

“This might be a little awkward for you, Pete, but I think you’re about to find out how to ride one without clothes,” I hurried forward. This time, the guilt was alive and well. He had handed me his sweats, but I’d dropped them back in the savannah.

“Approach slowly, but without fear,” Ethan said softly, and I got the impression he was talking himself through it. “If the one you approach tries to nip or bite, dodge, back away, and give it another moment to adjust. Keep your hands out and up, showing them you are not trying to hurt them. If it tries to gore you with its horn, you’ve lost its trust. Choose another. Assuming you don’t have a new hole in you.”

“Are they as smart as horses?” I asked, sinking down into my game face. It was not easy. Glee kept bubbling up in my gut.

“Smarter. They can reason, to an extent. They have the intelligence of a chimpanzee,” Wally said.

Chimps were smart enough to truly interact according to my education from the Animal Planet channel. “Do they know sign language?”

That question stumped Wally. “I don’t think so? But I suppose it’s possible.”

“What would it take to have one of these as a pet?” I wondered out loud. I could already see an alicorn in our back field, giving Whiskers a run for his money. I didn’t bother to suppress a grin.

“These aren’t pets,” Pete said, scratching his bare chest with one hand, his other hand covering his man bits. “Unicorns can be domesticated, but no one has ever domesticated an alicorn.”

“But they’ve been ridden?” I asked as the danger of the situation finally began to seep in, dulling the previous joy and excitement.

“Yes,” Ethan replied. “Rarely, but they have been ridden. It’s why they’re part of the trials.”

“Fair enough.” I pushed out a breath and shook out my hands. “If it’s possible, it’s worth a try.”

“I vote we let the farm boy go first, seeing as he is rather overconfident,” Orin said.

“You guys always vote that I go first, and it hasn’t had anything to do with the farm before,” I grumbled, not waiting for everyone to agree. They’d probably just shove me toward the herd, anyway.

Besides, this time, I wanted to go first. I wanted nothing more than to breathe in the smell of these fantastic creatures, to hop up and go for a ride.

Getting into the right mindset, I didn’t approach the herd as slowly as Ethan might’ve, and I didn’t keep my hands up and out like a teller in a bank robbery. Those two actions would’ve unconsciously relayed nervousness in the lines of my body, something an animal would pick up on immediately. Instead, I approached the fabulous horned creatures like I had Whiskers when I’d newly acquired him: with respect but no fear. The good news was, these creatures didn’t weigh as much as the two-ton bull, and they had half the number of horns. I was already ahead of the game.

I approached the nearest of the alicorns, a smaller beast a little removed from the rest of the herd. Its head shot up and its eyes pinned to me, its white wings tucked into its sides. They’d have a whole language with those wings, I just knew it. Pity I didn’t know the words that went with it.

“Easy now,” I said, not unlike Rory had said to me the night before. I slowed my advance. “Easy.”

It huffed through its nose and shook its head, its mane sparkling in the sun.

“Good lord, you are striking,” I said, unable to help it. “Congratulations on being the most awesome of beasts. You won the genetic lottery.”

It lowered its head minutely, tracking my advance as the other alicorns watched us.

“But I can tell you’re not amused. Maybe you don’t want to be here,” I said softly, changing my trajectory. “I get it. I’m a stranger. A stinky stranger with blood and sweat and wolf smell on me. I think you’re too low on the totem pole to take a chance on letting me ride you. I hear you.”

I backed up and did a slow perusal of the herd. This time I chose the largest, an alicorn stallion, with a proud bearing, jet black coat, and light red eyes. With his solid frame, robust chest, and muscular physique, this animal would fetch a pretty penny at the livestock auction. Stud fees on him would be enormous. He held his wings a little looser than the first alicorn I’d approached, their tips at a slant from his body.

You need to learn their body language, I noted to myself.

“Hey,” I said, and this time I did put out my hands, but not to demonstrate my lack of a weapon. In fact, I turned to show him the knife on my hip. An intelligent animal would know that humans were the top of the food chain. They wouldn’t trust us. It was better to show you knew that.

At least, I hoped it was. I’d be shipped off to the unicorns if not.

I bowed my head a little, submitting. He was the boss here, and I respected that.

“I’d like to ride you,” I said, knowing the intention of the words would color the positioning of my body. “My friends need a ride too. The shifters put you here. Hopefully with your blessing?” I paused, because that’s what you did when you asked a question to an animal that couldn’t understand you or answer, right?

My boot squished in sparkly poop as I continued my advance, and I wasn’t even sad. The glittery residue would be a good conversation starter.

“If you didn’t form some sort of peace treaty with them, you probably would’ve charged me already, I think.” Two steps closer and the fantastic beast lifted his head. A tremor ran through his wings, and he held them a little away from his body, bristling. Another step, ten feet away now, and he lowered his head, pointing the foot-long weapon in the center of his forehead at my face.

“Yeah, I hear ya. That would hurt.” I kept moving forward, moving through a small tingle of fear shaking my limbs. “But I’m not going to hurt you.”

He stamped his foot, ears pinning back, and blew a loud snort that cut the air like a bugle, sharp and shocking. Challenge accepted.

“Only the biggest, baddest, assholes try to ride you, right? Try to force you into submission?”

I stepped forward again. And again, only five feet away now. The air sizzled with the pent-up energy rolling off him. I ignored another stamp of his hoof. The pressure of anticipation wound up my insides.

“But you only allow the alphas to ride. Not the assholes who call themselves alphas because of their fragile egos, but the real alphas, right?” I swallowed, wondering if I should step forward again, or wait for the alicorn to make his move. I kept talking to stall and a drip of sweat ran between my breasts. “Real alphas wouldn’t force a creature like you to submit. Those guys garner respect through trust and level-headedness.

“They don’t strive to be the loudest in the room—they can sit quietly in the back, confident in themselves and their abilities. I’ve always wanted to date one of those guys, but they are surprisingly hard to find. So often, Mr. Alpha is a big dickhead who would throw you to the gargoyles while he escaped another way.”

“You’d salivate at the chance to be with me,” Ethan called out from a safe distance away.

“So he’s gay, then?” Wally asked. “That would explain the unicorn fetish.”

I smiled, a soft laugh escaping me as I kept my hands wide, feeling as though I were standing on a knife’s blade. One misstep, and I’d be dodging a horn thrust or a front kick.

“But that guy I described,” I said, “doesn’t have to be a guy.”

The alicorn’s wings snapped close to his body, and his head bobbed up, his mouth opening to expose some pearly white chompers. He reached forward, as I’d feared, intending to take a chunk out of my shoulder.

I reacted without thinking and dodged to the side. My right hook smashed into the sensitive if brutally hard-boned area just below his eye, a scary and painful spot on any creature who depended on sight for their safety and the safety of their herd. I grimaced and fought not to shake my hand. Damn it, that better have worked or I’d have a sore hand for nothing.

His head jerked up and he danced back. His eyes glowed crimson, and I nearly peed myself with fright. Two other alicorns bugled, the sound sharper and louder than the call of any natural horse. It resonated through the air, pushing against my chest and forcing me back a step. Another alicorn tossed its head, and a fourth pawed at the ground nervously. The whole herd’s wings were pressed tightly to their bodies, like a boxer with his hands pulled in.

I put out my hands in a well? Smiling and not sure why. “We’re even. Don’t try to bite, and I won’t punch you in the face.”

He whinnied and bucked once, then struck out at the air with his front hooves, one at a time. His wings snapped out to the sides with a sound like a loose sail taking a gust of wind. My heart leapt, but I didn’t so much as flinch. Instead of jogging backward and trying another approach like I would with a wild horse that needed to be gentled before it could be ridden, I stood my ground with grim determination. It took every ounce of courage I possessed.

The alicorn hopped, spun, and kicked out those two feet back again, the wind coming off them way too close for comfort. He pumped his wings, slapping me with a gust of air, and then rose and did it a second time.

I did not budge, but stood staring into his angry, glowing eyes, hoping I wasn’t about to die with glittering unicorn poop on my shoes.

CHAPTER 15

A nother of the creatures, at the far edge of the herd, whinnied and tossed its head before trotting our way. The alicorns parted way for the newcomer, almost reverently, as though this alicorn was something special. The male alicorn in front of me blew a loud snort but backed off a few feet, bobbing its head. One ear cocked forward, the other toward the newcomer, and his eyes no longer pinched at the edges with irritation.

I just barely kept myself from letting out a shaky sigh.

The smaller alicorn, a female, moved in beside the male, her movements lither than her counterpart’s. With a gray coat covered in huge dapples and a dark mane and tail that shimmered with sparkles, she was stunning. But her wings were what truly drew my notice. The sunlight moved across them like a living thing, highlighting either a golden sheen or the colors of a rainbow depending on how the light touched the feathers. It was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I moved to her without thinking. Without hesitation. No bravado needed. I paused beside her flank and waited until she bent a front leg, just a little, before hopping up and onto her back, using her mane to steady me.

“Holy cats—”

Pete’s words were lost in the snap of her wings spreading out, one side above the male. She pulled them back in and trotted a bit before turning, allowing me to be the passenger. I let her have all the control, not using my legs to steer like I would one of our old ponies back home. An expectant stillness rolled through the herd.

“She’s waiting for you guys to pick, I think,” I called out, totally guessing on that one. But why else would she be waiting? They must know why they were in these trials.

Ethan was the first to saunter forward with his shoulders swinging and his head high. As expected, he headed directly for the large male I’d just proven myself to. Not following his own advice from earlier, apparently thinking I had it all locked down and he could coast, like normal, he didn’t slow in his approach or put out his hands. He just waltzed over and reached out to the alicorn.

The male pushed forward, fast and powerful, jutting out his wings and swinging his head low. His horn cut through the air, inches from Ethan’s chest as Ethan backpedaled with comically rounded eyes. The alicorn tucked his wings back into his body, and the edge sliced across Ethan’s skin.

“Walk away,” I called out, fear churning low in my gut. My cockeyed grin didn’t match my tone. Part of me couldn’t help but cheer this creature for putting Ethan in his damn place. “He’s not meant for you.”

“I thought you said we could pick,” Ethan yelled out, his face red.

“I said I think you can pick, moron. I don’t speak their sign language, remember?”

Wally added, “Technically no one speaks sign language—”

“Just pick another,” I yelled at Ethan, cutting her off.

Wally and Orin left Pete standing on his own, cupping his junk and staring at the herd. They each chose the closest alicorn to them. Orin approached his quarry with his head and body slightly bowed, the perfect posture for submission. The alicorn tried to gore him, flapping its wings and swinging its daunting horn. Without hesitation, he approached the next alicorn, which accepted him, and gracefully hopped onto its back, not blustering once.

Wally was easily accepted by the first one she approached. Her issue came with trying to get on. She jumped over and fell off the other side. Grabbed the mane and tried to scramble up, only to slip again. I was pretty sure her alicorn was laughing at her, tossing its head up and down and flapping its lips.

Ten minutes later, after Wally had finally managed to mount with an assist from one of her alicorn’s wings, and Ethan had found an alicorn that would accept him, it was just Pete on his two feet in the field, staring at us with somber eyes.

“I’d be okay just calling it a day,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve passed two trials—and I helped to get us here through the first two legs of the course. That oughta be plenty to get accepted into the academy. It would be more gold for you guys.”

“Come on, Pete, this is your house. You need to finish strong,” I said. “We all need to finish this, including your bare butt.”

“Do you have any idea what it feels like to ride a horse bareback?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I replied.

“With your balls hanging out?”

I grimaced. “Got me there.”

“And horsehair up the crack of your ass?”

“Again, not a clue.”

“Do you?” Wally asked seriously.

“Of course, I don’t,” he retorted, his face screwed up in anger.

“Sorry, it was just the way you were asking. I assumed—”

“And I’d rather not know!” he finished.

“Come on, Pete. Take one for the team, buddy,” I called. “I got us in the door. You need to take us home.”

“Dang it.” He shook his head and shot a longing look at the unicorns.

“Those won’t feel any better on your bells and whistle,” I yelled. “Go big or go home, Pete!”

Grumbling the whole way, he walked into the alicorn herd and stopped by the first available alicorn. It pranced out of the way. The next did the same.

“Come on, buddy, put your best game face on,” I said, holding down giggles. It was pretty funny to watch Pete’s bare butt wiggle remarkably like it did in his honey badger form.

“Easy for you to say,” he groused. “You have pants.”

I barked out laughter, I couldn’t help it.

“No one ever said winning these challenges would be easy,” I called.

“No one ever said they’d be humiliating either,” he grumbled, and I got the impression it was to himself. “They keep shying away, Wild,” he said, louder, heading my way now.

I got the feeling Pete had stopped paying attention to which beast he was walking toward. That changed when he found himself standing in front of the large black stallion. His face went slack and his arms limp at his sides.

The stallion stared down at him with his red eyes, no longer glowing. He snorted, and I swear he might have winked.

Pete swallowed audibly. I could hear it even from several feet away. He lifted his hands, palms out. “I don’t like this any more than you do. But I’d be honored if you’d let me ride.”

The male blew through his nostrils and slightly lowered his head.

“I’m really starting to get the feeling they understand English,” I whispered under my breath. “Right, then. Now where do we go?” I asked as Pete swung his leg up and over, seamlessly hopping onto the stallion’s back. I barely stopped myself from considering the particulars of what would happen next.

My alicorn stretched out her wings and the rest followed suit, then all five of them pumped their wings in TANDEM, lifting us straight off the ground. No running leap, just straight up. The ground dropped away as we rose into the sky. Exhilaration such as I’d never known tore through me. My smile stretched across my face, growing even wider as the wind rushed around me and blew through the short ends of my hair.

“This is the best,” I yelled, leaning forward like we were running across open land. “Let’s show them all what it is to travel with speed!”

The large male was right on our heels, bigger and stronger but not sleeker. He also didn’t have a rider who’d grown up riding.

“Come on, let’s scare them senseless, Beauty,” I shouted, laughing with glee as I held on to her sparkling mane.

We sailed over the land before banking hard and diving. I realized I was gently steering her with my knees, just like I’d always done with our mare at home. She let me, responding easily, and adding her own embellishes with her wings.

We climbed again, slowing a little, allowing the screaming crew behind us to catch up. The stallion came up on us again, his head and neck stretched out, that bastard wanting to take the lead, Pete clinging to his back.

“No way,” I called out, urging her faster. She dove, almost a free fall, before tucking her wings in and spinning through the air three times in a perfect controlled maneuver.

“No!” I heard, high-pitched and terrified. “No! Not again. Never again. I don’t want to die—”

And we did it again. And again. Climbing, banking, diving, climbing again, and rolling. My stomach did so many flips, I lost count. I was drunk on the moment, giddy with exhilaration, and couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t even care if we were too late to get the prize—this was the highlight of my whole life, and I never wanted it to end.

Eventually, though, my alicorn leveled out, her wings stretched to the sides, gliding. The stallion finally caught up, his chest heaving, his coat glistening with sparkly sweat, and the look he shot us was pure pig-headedness. But he did give me a wink. Like he knew he’d been bested and almost admired us for it. I laughed again and leaned my head against my alicorn’s mane, connected to her in a way I’d never been connected with my own horse. I’d found a horse just as wild as I was, and it made my heart sing.

We dropped altitude slowly before touching down into a large ring of robust men and women, hard-faced and tight-bodied. There was no doubt in my mind they were shifters.

“What’s the deal here?” I said quietly to my alicorn, reluctant to slide to the ground. “Are they going to rush us? And if so, can we go at them as a unit?”

Her puff of air seemed like laughter, and that was good enough for me. I threw my leg over and hopped to the ground, walking to her head. After petting her nose and then up and around the base of her horn, I pressed my forehead to her nose.

“Good-bye. That was the best ride of my life, Beauty. Thank you.” I kissed her nose, because it felt like the right thing to do, and took my place among the others—a little behind a green-faced Ethan and beside a pale-faced Wally.

“I will never forgive you for that ride. I’m beyond nauseous,” Orin whispered from behind me.

It shouldn’t have been as funny as it was. It really shouldn’t have been. But I grinned, fighting the laughter. I mean, what wasn’t funny about an airsick vampire?

A stocky man with compact muscle and a chiseled jaw approached us, and for the first time, I noticed the chest behind him, piled high with gold. As he neared us, he angled his walk so that he was looking directly at me, his stare hard but his eyes glittering with respect.

“To win the gold, contestants had to ride an alicorn into this area,” he said, his voice raspy. “All of you accomplished that goal, despite the obstacles put in front of you.” His gaze flicked to Pete and a half grin lifted one side of his mouth. “Gives a new definition to saddle sore, doesn’t it?”

Pete reddened, and I didn’t know if it was because he was star-struck, staring at the shifter in awe like he’d been, or embarrassed. More likely, it was a combination of the two.

The man chuckled, a hearty sound that loosened the muscles across my shoulders. “Been there, done that.” His eyes came back to rest on me. “Amalthea, the matriarch of the herd, selects only exceptional individuals, ones with character above the rest. She doesn’t often allow riders, but she chose you. For that, your team will get a boon.”

My face turning red, I pointed at Pete. “His team. He’s the shifter.”

The man’s eyes rooted to me unflinchingly. “It will be delivered to your rooms. Well done.” He took a step back and lifted his arms. “My people will escort you out and see you back to campus. Good work, all of you. Your combined efforts are a model for every team in this school.”

As the others dispersed, each led away by someone different, the man who’d addressed us—the obvious alpha of the group—fell in beside me again, just for a moment.

“Amalthea has never, in all the time that I have known her, allowed someone to touch around her horn.” He looked at me with serious, deep blue eyes. “She is a judge unlike any other. You have a friend for life in that alicorn, something no one I know can boast, not even me. You are special…” He paused expectantly.

“Wild,” I supplied. “People call me Wild.”

He nodded once, a curt movement. “You are special, Wild. I’ll look out for you.” He nodded again, moving away, his eyes lingering on me for a moment more. “I’ll look out for you.”

In theory, it couldn’t be a bad thing to have a powerful alpha looking out for me. But it struck me that I wasn’t doing a very good job of avoiding notoriety.

CHAPTER 16

G etting back to the mansion should have been as simple as boarding a bus, sitting down, and letting the driver take us there with no stops along the way. Of course, we weren’t great at the simple way of doing things. Or maybe that was just me, maybe it was just my luck.

Ethan led us to the back of the bus, our usual station now that we were an unwilling part of the Helix cool crew. Ethan was on my left, head lolled back against the back of the seat, eyes at half-mast. Of course, he could totally relax. He didn’t have some trained assassin on his tail.

I, on the other hand, was a mess of nerves. The glow of the alicorn ride had faded, and the longer we sat there on the bus, the tighter my anxiety wove around me. This wasn’t a warning so much as a general realization that I was surrounded by people I wasn’t sure I could trust. I needed some alone time, some space to think, but alone time was exactly what Rory had told me I couldn’t have.

An all-male crew tromped in after us, covered in blood, busted lips, and some seriously wounded egos if their glowers were any indication. That drop-dead gorgeous guy—Colt, if I remembered his name right—was in the crew. He had a wand holster at his hip like Ethan and the other magic users carried. His dirty blond hair was just long enough to get messy, and he had a lean build like a swimmer or a runner, with a jaw line that begged to be touched. Not that I was that into pretty boys, but damn, he was the prettiest boy I’d seen in a long time. And I was far from blind.

Even if I was pretending to be a boy.

Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on that—pouch. His dark eyes turned my way almost like he could hear my thoughts, and the slightest smile curved those lips I’d pay good money to kiss. The smile widened, almost like…no, there was no way he knew…and then he winked at me. A simple wink, so subtle I almost thought I’d imagined it. Only I hadn’t.

Was he into dudes? I mean, it was possible, which was seriously a downer, much as it was another great win for the other team.

I leaned over to Ethan. “You know that guy there, right?”

He opened one eye. “Who? Colt? Yeah, we go way back.” He settled himself deeper into the lackluster seat. “Went to grade school together.”

“Is he into dudes?” I asked softly, not wanting to offend the hottest of hots.

Ethan burst into sudden loud laughter, but of course, he didn’t let it end there. “Colt! You into dudes and didn’t tell me?”

The bus erupted into immediate and intense howls from the guys who were with Colt, filling the small space even as the bus driver revved up the engine, normally loud enough to drown most noise. Apparently, we were abandoning the rest of the crews. Or maybe they hadn’t made it through the trial.

Colt grinned as he leaned over a seat and stared back at us, flashing perfect teeth to go with his perfect everything else. “Last I checked, nope.” And those eyes cut my way again. “I like my ladies with a bit of fire and a bit of badass, and a whole lotta legs.”

The heat in my face was about as intense as the mirth unleashed in the bus. I turned to look out the window, staring hard at the scenery even though I didn’t really see it.

Jesus Christ, he knew I was a girl! How did he know? And was he flirting with me?

Once the laughter settled, Ethan yawned and leaned back. “Why do you ask about his preference?” The way he posed the question, paired with the smug grin on his stupid donkey face, said it all.

The dirty tricksy bastard had spilled my secret to his friend. Any other time I’d welcome the attention from a guy like Colt, but not here, not now. Not when my siblings’ lives were on the line.

I couldn’t let Ethan stay so freaking smug. Sure, I didn’t have the picture of him smooching his nana or his precious magical CliffsNotes, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t leverage to be had. Like all other magic users, he had something precious on his person. Something I could use against him.

Namely that boom stick of his.

As soon as Ethan closed his eyes, I drove my elbow into his solar plexus, pinning him back to the seat. With the other hand, I went for his wand holster. His fingers wrapped around mine, trying to stop their waist-ward trajectory, and I jerked away, twisting my wrist with a sharp movement while still pinning him down. The point of the elbow is a right brute when used properly, and I was using it for all I was worth.

He tried to get out from under me, gasping for air, but I leaned in hard, putting all my weight into the point of my elbow. His face twisted in pain as I drove it into him, scrabbling to get at his pouch. He was about to get a lesson in keeping his mouth shut.

“What’s going on? Why are you two at it again?” Pete reached into the fray, then yelped as he caught the point of my other elbow as I jerked my action arm back before driving my fist into Ethan’s gut. Under me, Ethan thrashed and fought to get his legs between us even as the last of the air whooshed out of him.

“He. Won’t. Tell.” He breathed out as my hands wrapped around the pouch and yanked it free from his belt. I stumbled back, knowing I held his most prized possession.

My breath came in gulps. My sister and brother would only be safe if I managed to pull off this cover for at least the rest of the week, if not longer. I stared down at him, keeping him pinned with my eyes as I opened the pouch. I lowered my voice, dropping the register as deep as I could.

“Listen here, numb nuts, you’d better hear me loud and clear.”

From the front of the bus came a chorus of “oohs.”

I ignored them as I pulled the wand from its pouch and held it between my two hands as if I would snap it in half. The wand was warm, tingling under my skin, but not in an unpleasant way. Ethan’s eyes widened until I thought they’d fall out of his head. Part of me wished they would so I could kick them around the floor of the filthy bus.

I tightened my fingers around the wand. “I will snap this twig if you so much as breathe another word about me to anyone. Talk in your sleep? Snap. Spill under duress?  Snap. Whisper it to your girlfriend? Snap. Do you finally understand the importance of this to me?”

Ethan sat there, shaking. He held out his hand. “Give it back to me.”

This was not like him, but then I had just yanked his most precious item away from him and threatened to destroy it.

I narrowed my eyes. “Do you understand? Even with your skull as thick as a brick crap house? Do you get it?”

“I understand,” he said, his jaw ticking with barely suppressed anger. “Now give it back to me.”

I dropped the wand and he caught it midair and scooted over to the far side of the seat. I sat and faced the front only to see Colt watching us with eyes nearly as wide as Ethan’s.

I tugged my hat down and slumped in my seat as if I were sleeping too. I wasn’t.

Which meant I heard everything whispered between Pete and Wally.

“The odds of him being able to touch his wand without having a bad reaction are one in a thousand. More, actually, if you take into consideration the fact that he took it from him by force,” Wally said.

“You mean if he’d handed it to him—”

“Yes, wands are tied to their owners, and while you can get a new one, if you touch someone else’s, you’re likely to get a burn, shock, or worse.”

I swallowed hard and tried not to think about what that meant. That I was some sort of freakshow? Wally had said that you could have two abilities. Maybe I had more magic in me than even Dad and Mom thought. It was possible, I supposed.

I slowed my breathing. I’d absorbed the troll’s magic and sent it back to him. I’d felt the stones like Gregory had. I’d connected with alicorns with a rare ease. I could understand Pete in his honey badger form, even if no one else realized it.

The whole concept of magic was still foreign to me, but I was no fool. I couldn’t ignore what was happening in front of my face. Magic was what I’d been feeling all along. My ability to fight and track and all that came from growing up on the farm. From fighting with Rory and Tommy, living in a school of hard knocks and quick reflexes. Maybe I wasn’t a Shade at all… Because there was no explaining away the weird things I’d been able to do. The magical things. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. Even if I was some kind of magical freak, the stakes remained the same for me. I was here fighting for Billy and Sam and my dad. Keeping them safe was the only thing that mattered.

Orin’s voice tugged at my ears. “Sometimes when a wand doesn’t like its user, it will be more lenient about outsiders touching it in the hopes that someone else will take it away. Perhaps that is the case here.”

Pete sucked in a breath. “Really? You mean Wild could actually be a mage? Wow, that would be awesome.”

I should have been excited about the possibility of having magic—real, honest-to-God magic. Even a week ago, if you’d told me I could wave a wand and make things explode, or use it to save people, I would have been over-the-moon excited. But…I’d gotten used to the idea of being a Shade.

It fit me in a way I hadn’t expected.

So what would happen if I got stuck into another house, one with all the snobby highbrow bastards?

The bus jerked to a halt and everyone peeled out. Everyone but me, which meant that Ethan wasn’t moving either.

“Get out of my way, Johnson.” He growled, but there was very little heat in it. I lifted my head and tipped the brow of my hat up. The bus was empty—even the driver had left, and the two of us were completely alone.

I turned to Ethan, hating that I needed him to answer a question when I trusted him about as far as I could send him with a single kick to the butt.

“What are the chances that I’m being groomed for the wrong house?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed to the look of irritation he always bestowed on me. “What do you mean?”

“I held your wand,” I shook my head. “And keep your mind out of the gutter, you know what I mean. I didn’t explode. I didn’t get more than a tingle. Could it be…that I’m being groomed for the wrong house?”

For the first time in our short, fraught acquaintance, I saw Ethan really listen to me, really consider what I was asking. A minute ticked by. His hand drifted to his pouch, and then he shrugged. “It is possible. As much as a filthy farm hand like you wouldn’t deserve to be part of the House of Wonder…it is possible. A lot of what you’ve done so far—”

“Could be learned behavior,” I said softly. I swallowed hard, suddenly needing to figure this out. “Who would be able to tell me?”

Ethan laughed and shook his head. “That’s what you’re here for. To be tested. You won’t know for sure until you hit the final test, I guess. Until you face the House of Wonder.”

I stood and started down the center aisle, my head spinning. My nametag on that first day had identified me as a Shade. A master of shadows and death. A killer in the making.

Now here I was doubting, wondering if there was more to me than even my father knew.

More than he or my mom, or even I could ever dream.

And it terrified the crap right out of me.

CHAPTER 17

“I f you are still here, congratulations. You have survived the first three Culling Trials. You will now have a single day of rest. Be aware, curfew is now at ten p.m. If you see any of the following students, immediately contact one of the academy supervisors, or Director Frost.”

The booming voice cut through the really lovely, really hot and steamy shower I was having, and I stood there, water streaming off me, as the names were read through the PA system.

Heath Percival.

Gregory Goblin.

Lisa Danvers.

I towelled off quickly and pulled on my sports bra, wrestling the too tight material over my still damp body. I yanked my sweats on and all but tumbled out of the bathroom and into our dorm.

The three guys looked up, eyebrows raised. Pete shook his head. “Holy cats. I can’t believe you got by even one day without anyone guessing.”

“She didn’t,” Orin corrected him.

I shook my head, a plan already forming. “The names they called out. Do you guys know the others? I thought there were more missing the first day?”

Pete yawned and flopped into his bed. “Lisa was a shifter. A snake shifter to be exact. I think. I heard that the first kids ‘missing,’” he made air quotes with his hands, “had just taken off from the trials and the supervisors found them on the nearest road hitchhiking out of here.”

One shifter. One from the House of Unmentionables. “What do you want to bet that Heath was a future Shade?” All from the same house trials that we were doing at the time they went missing. My head was spinning with the possibilities. Someone was taking the kids, and Rory had said that as far as he knew, they weren’t being killed. So why were they being taken?

“What does that matter?” Orin climbed into bed.

The pieces clicked inside my head, realigning themselves, trying to make sense of what was still missing. “Because it means that whoever is taking the kids is using the trials specifically to weed out the ones they want. And specifically, out of the trials that we are in at the same time.”

I paced the room, thoughts whirling as fast as a hurricane, whipping up everything I’d learned so far. I could almost taste the answer. I clenched and unclenched my fingers as I walked.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Pete said. “And even if you’re right, what then?”

Before he could answer, the door swung open and Wally strolled in, pillow and bag in hand.

Pete jumped up. “Whoa, whoa, you can’t be in here!”

Her eyes were puffy and red and her chest rose and fell at a speed that I knew all too well. She swept toward me first, then stumbled to a stop. “Wild. Are you a girl?”

“No one knows.” I hurried past her to the door to make sure it was shut tight. “Please, my brother’s life is on the line.”

“You never asked me nicely,” Ethan muttered to himself.

“Because you’re a twat, and we only put up with you because we have to!” Wally snapped, shocking us all into silence, right before she burst into tears.

The guys all seemed to freeze, as if a girl’s tears were more terrifying than any of the challenges they’d yet faced. I moved first, having spent more than my fair share of nights comforting Sam.

Wally leaned into me. “Those girls are awful, just awful.”

I didn’t ask her what the girls she was rooming with had done. It didn’t really matter. That was the thing with mean girls; they were all the same, even if these mean girls were playing with a different bag of tricks.

“What did they do?” Pete asked.

“I smell blood,” Orin whispered.

I shot him a look, but it was too late. Wally sniffed and swiped at her tears with both hands.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned her head, and I saw the bruises on her neck. Finger marks tipped with claws.

“A vampire did that,” Orin said, and I whipped around to face him as a white-hot burst of rage shot through me. A vampire had done this to Wally? Choked her and cut her, scared her to the point of tears?

“Oh crap,” Pete said. “I see that look, Wild. That is not a good look. Do not take on a vampire. This is a very, very bad idea.”

“And letting them think they can hurt Wally is a good idea?” I grabbed my clothes off the trunk, still covered in mud and blood from the last trial. I didn’t even bother to go to the bathroom to change. I ripped off the sweats—wouldn’t want to get blood on them—muttering as I went, “Nobody messes with my crew. Nobody.”

And just like that, I claimed them as mine. My crew. Sure, Ethan was a bad apple, but he was our bad apple, and we never would have made it this far without his help.

“I’m coming with you.” Orin ghosted to my side.

“Me too,” Pete said, but I shook my head.

“Pete. You stay with Wally. I doubt Ethan has a sensitive bone in his body.” I shot a look at Wonder Bread.

“You are insane.” Ethan shook his head. “The next trial is the House of Night. We’re going to get our fill of vampires there. Going after one of them now is just stupid.”

I turned on him. “You want to look weak? Like our crew can’t hold up under pressure? They’re testing us, Ethan. Maybe this is even part of the next trial. Like the poisoned food that first night.” I pointed a finger at him. “Without your cheat sheets, you don’t know what this is, which means we deal with it.”

“You can stay here,” I said to Wally, “We have a spare bed with Gregory gone.”

She sniffed. “Thanks. But I don’t want to cause more trouble.”

“She can’t stay here. We’ll all get thrown out!” Ethan roared.

Orin was on him in a flash, a cloak of black spilling out and around him like a shroud of darkness.

I’ll admit it, I took a step back, dragging Wally with me. Ethan took several steps back. His face paling at a rate that made me think there would be no blood left in his head.

“She can stay here. She is part of our team. And if you haven’t noticed, we already have a female in our midst, so what’s one more?” His voice deepened with every word until the last was barely a growl.

“Fine, whatever.” Ethan snorted as if he hadn’t just about pissed his pants. Because as Orin ghosted backward, I was almost positive there was a wet spot at the front of his sweats. Ethan pushed past us and headed to the bathroom. “Idiots, my team is full of idiots and bleeding hearts.” The bathroom door slammed behind him.

I made sure my knife was strapped into its belt sheath and went to the door.

“You have fifteen minutes before curfew,” Pete said.

Wally shook her head. “Just let it go, Wild. They aren’t worth it.”

I shrugged. “Can’t let it go. Where’s your old room?”

She reluctantly told me.

This distraction was exactly what I needed. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to the missing kids. But I could stop Wally from being picked on again.

I stepped out the door, Orin drifting silently beside me as I jogged down the long hallway. Fatigue and body aches rolled through me. The lineups at the healer had been long, and I’d thought to go in the morning when it was quieter.

“I don’t understand you, Shade,” Orin said. “You are protective of us in a way that is not normal, not even for a Shade bound to guard someone.”

“Normal is boring.” We rounded a corner, and the sound of talking reached us loud and clear.

Orin put a hand out carefully and laid it on my shoulder. “They are talking about Wally.”

Shivers radiated out from his touch. My ears buzzed, the whispers becoming words.

“Who does she think she is? Telling us death stats like we need that?”

“Gods, she is so weird. I hate necromancers. Uppity bitch.”

“I could have drained her right there, no one would have noticed. With the other students missing, we could have hidden the body.”

Laughter flowed through my head, catty and cruel, and the anger it sparked in me was intense. Orin’s hand slid off my arm and he shook his head. “They wanted to kill her and hide the body.”

He could have downplayed the threat, pretending it was a joke, to protect the other vampire, but he hadn’t. He’d stood by Wally.

Warm fuzzies tingled up my spine. “For a vampire, you’re a pretty good guy, I think.”

He shot me a look, eyebrows raised. “For a Shade, you aren’t bad yourself. And I agree with you. This threat needs to be…handled…or they will come for her again.”

I wanted to ask him why, but there wasn’t a chance. A trio of girls hurried toward us, stepping out of the shadows. They weren’t dressed all in black like Orin. There were no obvious tells other than the upside-down, bedazzled pink crosses on their sweats. No doubt they’d decorated those themselves.

I stepped fully into the light, and Orin stepped with me. The girls slowed, noses wrinkling in perfect unison. They were pretty, their faces done up with perfect black eyeliner and deep red lipstick even this late at night.

The lead girl curled a lip. “Oh, gross. Awful Orin, what are you doing here? And with that dirty Shade?”

I let a slow smile slip across my lips. “Oh, we’re here to have a chat with you…bitches.”

Orin chuckled. “That’s so polite, Wild. I would have called them far worse. Rat drinkers. That’s what they are. Especially Lucia there.”

The trio of girls tensed and hissed as a unit. The lead girl, I was guessing Lucia, stepped forward. She could have given Ethan a run for his money with her ability to look down her nose at us. “Get out of our way. You aren’t worth messing my hair over.”

“You hurt our friend,” I rolled my shoulders, loosening them. “There’s a cost to that. A price you are going to pay.”

There was no moment of tension like there’d be in a movie, only a blur as she came for me. Orin had moved so fast, I couldn’t see him, but I had no trouble tracking her movements. I stepped back as she reached me, then grabbed her by the arms and jammed my foot into her gut. I flipped her over my head, and she sailed through the air, screeching as she plummeted over the stair rail and down into open space.

I didn’t wait—I jumped up, grabbed the rail, and leapt after her, shouting as I went down. “You got the other two?”

“That I do,” Orin shouted back as several screeches lit the air. I landed in a crouch two stories down, but the vampire was already up, her bedazzled pants catching the light. She sniffed the air, her eyes partially closing. Scenting me. Crap.

“You aren’t what you—”

I shot forward, driving my fist into her nose, shattering it before she could get a bead on the fact that I was no boy. Damn it, I hadn’t even thought of that before I’d decided to come after them.

It only meant I had to finish this fast for reasons other than our curfew.

She screeched and flailed backward, eyes rolling as the blood poured down her face. I blinked and stared as her eyes, which had been a light brown, darkened to a solid black, filling the entire orb. Like a cat seeing a Christmas tree for the first time.

Her fangs elongated.

Oh, crap on toast.

She shot forward, her extended claws coming straight for me as she lost control of her blood lust. I caught her by the wrists and stepped back, bracing against the force of her tackle. She snapped at me, hissing and spitting blood in my face.

“Gross.” I tightened my fingers around her wrists and snapped one forward, catching her in the jaw. “Stop hitting yourself.”

I drove her other fist up into an uppercut. She screeched, one fang piercing her tongue. “Stop hitting yourself.”

God, how many times had Rory done this to me, if not with such vehemence? How enraged had I been as I’d tried to stop him but couldn’t because he was so much bigger? Again and again, I drove her fists into her face until the rage slid from her, and the black of her eyes faded back to a light brown.

Not until she was on her knees and gasping for air did I stop.

My breath came in deep, slow takes. “You come near Wally, me, or any of my crew, and that threat you made? That will happen to you. Capiche, rat drinker?”

That sounded like something a guy would say, right? A quote from a movie. Maybe I should have said, “I’ll be back.”

Her head lolled.

“Say you understand.” I gritted the words out as I tightened my fingers even more.

“I…” she spat to the side, a gob of blood. Disgusting. “Understand.”

I let her go and took a step back, bumping into a body.

The smell of an open grave washed over my nose, and I knew in my belly it was a vampire. Orin had caught up to me.

Only it wasn’t Orin.

A hand dropped onto my neck, fingers tightening with a power I knew could snap my spine in a second if he chose.

“Come with me,” a male voice said,

He lifted me by my neck, and I could barely touch the floor with the tips of my toes. Panic sliced through me. He was behind me and I couldn’t reach him with fists or boots. “Orin!”

“Coming!” he yelled back. There was no sound of him hurrying. But I could feel him getting closer, like a sense of pressure. And then it faded. “I...Wild…” He breathed the words. “I can’t.”

“I am his master,” the voice said, and it struck me that I’d heard it before. This was the smiling vampire who’d escorted us out of the first trial.

“Jared.” My head swam with the lack of oxygenated blood getting through, but at least I’d remembered his name. “They tried to kill—”

“Save it for Director Frost…girl,” he said. There was no emotion behind his words, no anger, no nothing. And he knew. Knew I was a girl.

I was done.

The double doors of the director’s office swam into view as the last of my vision faded. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor in the room, heaving for air on my hands and knees.

“Caught this one fighting in the halls,” Jared said. “What do you want to do with her?”

Crap, had the director heard that last word?

“The same as the others,” Director Frost said. I couldn’t see her. I was still hanging on my hands and knees, knowing I was about to be kicked out.

The vampire’s hand clamped on my neck again, and I was lifted as the doors burst open behind us. I was dropped to the floor for a second time. I rolled on my back to see Orin, Pete, Wally, and…Ethan sweep into the room. Mind you, Ethan looked like he’d just swallowed a shot of sour puss, but he was there.

“They threatened my life, Director,” Wally said, turning her neck to show off the wounds. “And Orin heard them saying they should have killed me and used the missing students as a way to hide the body.”

“I did hear that. Wild was protecting our team, making sure that no one tried to hurt Wally again,” Orin said. “That is the sign of a true leader.”

Pete nodded. My eyes went to Ethan. He was the one with the pull here, not us.

He grimaced. “Wild is part of our team. My father…would be very disappointed should we lose his help.”

I rolled onto my belly and pushed onto my knees so that I could see the director’s face. I expected her to look as pissed as a cat thrown into the bathtub. But her eyes crinkled at the edges as if she were holding back a smile.

“You make a fair point, young Helix, even though it surprises me that you would stick your neck out for someone else.” She tapped the desk with a single finger. “Fine. But seeing as you have decided that you are a crew, you will all room together. Jared, make sure your student understands that should there be any trouble between the girl and her male roommates, he will be the one to bear the cost.”

The cost. As in being kicked out. I can’t say how, but I felt Orin straighten. “I accept that charge.”

“Everyone, out.” She clapped her hands together, ending what could have been a very bad scene for all of us. “Except you, Mr. Johnson. You and I are going to have a chat.”

The others filed out of the room, eyes down. Jared paused at the door. “Do you wish me to stay?”

She smiled at him, but it was sharp, and predatory, and downright pissed. “Get out, Jared. I may be old, but I’m not dead.”

He bowed at the waist and flashed her a big smile, going so far as to wink at her. “Not yet, you aren’t.” Damn, he was a mean flirt. Would Orin develop that wicked charm when he got his full fangs? Somehow, I doubted it.

I swallowed and faced the director, realizing that I’d lost my hat again. Damn it.

I lowered my eyes.

“We have a problem, you and I,” she said.

“No problem, Director. It won’t happen again.” Keeping my voice low wasn’t hard seeing as it was raspy from being partially choked.

She huffed a laugh. “Oh, I doubt that you will be able to keep that promise at all, Ms. Johnson.”

CHAPTER 18

Director Frost didn’t move from behind her massive desk, and I didn’t move from my spot in front of her on my knees. She knew I was a girl. I’d hoped her old lady ears would miss Jared’s slip. But maybe she’d just looked past the sweat and blood splatter on my face and had known. Whatever the case, my secret was out, and Billy would pay the price.

“Please, my brother’s life is on the line. I couldn’t let him come, not when he’s so young. He’s not cut out for a place like this. He doesn’t have any survival instinct. Please, please don’t send for him.” I was not above begging, not for Billy.

Her face didn’t so much as twitch to telegraph her thoughts. “You have inspired loyalty in those I would never have put together in any sense of the word. Underdogs. Outcasts. The fact that the Helix boy spoke for you is truly amazing.”

I blinked a couple of times. “Are you going to throw me out?”

She smiled then. “If a sharp tool is not in the right drawer, do you cast it into the garbage? Of course not. I have seen the reports on you, Ms. Johnson. I know very well who is leading your ragtag crew in the trials. And it is not the Helix boy.” She leaned back in her chair. Yes, she was definitely not as old as I’d first thought. Her movements and face pegged her under fifty, not in her seventies like I’d first believed.

“We’re working together,” I said. “It’s not just me doing all this. Isn’t that what you want?”

“That is not normal for our world, even if it is what we strive for.” She let out a sigh and spread out the papers on her desk. “I will not spill your secret, Ms. Johnson. Though I will tell you this, there will be no hiding behind a hat and a boy’s name by the end of the Culling Trials. And the other directors will not be as lenient should you give them a reason to cast you out. Such as fighting in the halls. Or being out past curfew.”

I stared down at my boots, a ridiculous urge to cry sweeping over me. A question burned its way to the tip of my tongue. “Why would they get rid of me when you can see I have value to this place?” I had to find a way to stay. For my family. And maybe a little bit for me too.

“Your family is well known, Ms. Johnson, and not, shall we say, well loved. Your father is a null. Your mother dropped out of the academy right before her fourth and last year. The time and expense put into her training was never recouped. So, any excuse to evict you early in the game…well, they will take it.” She sighed again. “But…I will do what I can to protect you.”

My head snapped up. “Why?”

Her smile was soft, genuine, and it soothed away some of my fears. “Because I have been on that side of the desk. In my day, women were not trained alongside the men, and we were seen as lesser because we had breasts instead of balls. You are strong, stronger than many of the men here, and that will make you a target and a threat.”

Her words echoed the Sandman’s, and a trickle of a warning slid down my spine.

She reached out and touched the black box on her desk that had drawn my attention on my first visit to her office. “Strength can be broken, Ms. Johnson. Even those who believe they are untouchable can be cast out.” Her fingers flipped open the box, and I craned my neck to see inside it.

“Wands?” A stack of them lay in the box, at least a half dozen.

“Most of the students who have been kicked out of the academy under my watch were affiliated with the House of Wonder. Not the House of Shade as you might think. Arrogance was their downfall. Which is why I believe you will be safe. You’re confident, yes, but arrogant you are not.” She snapped the box shut and smiled at me again.

She scribbled something on a piece of paper then pushed it aside next to another stack. My eyes tracked it, latching onto the words even upside down on the further stack of papers.

Heath Percival.

Gregory Goblin.

Lisa Danvers.

Mason Whitehall.

Another kid had gone missing? I couldn’t stop myself from saying something. She would know if there were any updates, and there had to be a reason she was working on sensitive information in front of me.

“Is there any word on Gregory? On any of the missing kids?”

Her eyes closed, and she leaned back in her chair, rubbed at her gray temples with her fingertips. “You need to go now, Ms. Johnson. That bastard Jared will escort you back to your room.”

The door opened, and the handsome vampire held it wide for me, having obviously listened in to our whole conversation. He glared at the director but spoke to me. “Let’s go, Johnson.”

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be escorted by a vampire who could hold me up by one hand, but seeing as I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I went along with him.

We had almost reached my dorm room before he spoke. “That was incredibly foolish what you did there with the girls. They could have killed you and been within their rights.”

I looked him right in the eye. “And if I’d killed them?”

His lips twitched. “Should you have managed, yes, you would have been within your rights as well. They attacked your friend. You protected her.”

“Then you can remind them of that fact,”—I put my hand on the doorknob—“because if it happens again, I’ll bring a wooden stake with me.”

He should have been pissed off at me for threatening his future students. But he smiled and laughed. “I’ll do that. You are stronger than you look. That is excellent.”

I opened the door and shut it behind me, leaning against it. I only had a second to take a deep breath before a blur of arms went around me. “They didn’t kick you out?” Wally asked.

I pushed her off, gently. “Not today. But the director knows about me.” I made eye contact with each of them in turn. “She let me stay because you all stood up for me. Because we’re working together as a team.”

Ethan grunted. “You mean because I stood up for you.”

“That too.” I nodded. “But I learned something while I was in there. I think another kid has gone missing.”

There was a collective intake of air. “Who?” Pete asked.

“Someone named Mason Whitehall? Does that name ring a bell?” I asked. Wally answered slowly.

“He’s a necromancer. Like me.” Fear tracked across her features. I couldn’t blame her. What if she’d been caught out on her own when she’d been on her way to our room? Would she have been taken instead?

I forced myself to look at Ethan. “Thanks. For what you said in there.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t lying. My dad would be pissed if we lost you now. He’s not stupid, and neither am I.”

“Well, isn’t that just a bucket full of love,” Pete said.

I grabbed my clean sweats and made my way to the bathroom for a second shower to wash off the vampire blood.

The room was quiet as I tiptoed back to my bed only to find Wally in it. “I’m scared,” she said.

God, I could already see how this was going. With a grimace, I climbed into the bed on the other side and turned my back to her. “Go to sleep.”

She rolled over and threw an arm around me, spooning me. “Fifty percent of people who die in the night die in their sleep.”

“Crap, not this all night,” Ethan grumbled.

I patted Wally’s hand. Just like Sam and her nightmares. How many times had she crawled into my bed in the middle of the night? Too many to count. I sighed. “Go to sleep, Wally.”

I fell into a doze, but it was light. My eyes popped open at the soft thud of a mattress hitting the floor, followed by the shush of it being pushed across the floor. Pete positioned it next to my bed and flopped onto it. He held a hand up, and I took it without thought.

“They could take any one of us,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong.

I squeezed his hand. “No more losses from our group. Tomorrow, we find Gregory.” I yawned and settled deeper into the mattress, my back warm from Wally and my hand tight in Pete’s.

Home. I was home.

The next morning, I woke with an elbow in my neck and a heavy weight on my legs. I tried to sit up.

“What the hell?” I managed to prop myself up on my elbows enough to see the honey badger splayed across my legs on his back, pinning me and the sheets down. Orin lay on the mattress that Pete had pushed over, his head at my feet. Upside-down, Orin was not the way to wake up. His eyes locked on mine. “You did not wake up when something came by our door. It scared Pete.”

The honey badger rolled over, still asleep, let out a fart that I swear lifted a green cloud around his butt, and kicked at the sheets with one foot.

“Jesus, Pete! That’s awful!” I couldn’t help the gag as I fell out of bed and onto the mattress beside us, scrambling over Orin to get away from the stench.

I crawled across the floor and finally stood ten feet away where the air wasn’t so heavy.

Orin was already out of bed, as if he’d never been there. “How are we going to find Gregory?”

“Breakfast and healers first,” I said, feeling the previous day’s aches and pains come roaring back. I was not going to turn down the healers today. I’d aim to find Mara seeing as she likely already knew I was a girl and hadn’t said anything. The last thing I needed was more people knowing my secret.

Ethan rolled onto his side. “And what if we find him and he’s dead and they think we did it because we’re standing over the body?”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “That’s where you come in.”

He arched an eyebrow right back at me. “You want me to use my pull if we get caught?”

“Bingo.”

I was dressed in no time flat, my mind already working toward the goal of finding Gregory, where to start, who to talk to. Because even though Rory and Sideburns were on the case, I could no more leave this problem to someone else than I could leave Wally to have her ass kicked by a bunch of mean girls. Even if those mean girls were vampires.

The five of us ate breakfast by ourselves, and I was not the only one to notice. No one interacted with us, but to be fair, none of the other trial goers interacted with anyone outside their team, so it wasn’t just us. Not even smoking hot Colt came over to chat with Ethan, though he did look my way more than once. I kept my head down and pretended not to notice him.

“The lines have been drawn,” Orin said.

“Good.” I swiped a hand across my mouth. “I’m going back to the room. Wally, come with me.” Rory’s warning pinged inside my head. “From here on out, we go out in groups of two. Even you, Ethan.” I pointed at him as he opened his mouth, no doubt to protest. “No one gets left behind.”

Pete grumbled something about being stuck with the dick of the group. Ethan shot him a look, and I snapped my fingers at both of them.

“We need to find out if anyone knows about this latest missing kid,” I said. “Ask around, see if you can find any details. They may not have announced it yet, but someone has to know something.”

I hurried away from the mess room, Wally at my side. The weight of many pairs of eyes was no small thing, but I did my best to ignore it.

“What are we going back to the room for?” Wally asked as we headed up the flight of stairs that led to the second-floor dorms.

“Gregory knew something was up. Whether it was because of the cheat sheets or something else, he knew.”

She lowered her voice. “And you think he left a clue behind?”

“Maybe. It’s worth checking out.” The others had told me it was impossible to find what a goblin had hidden, but something had occurred to me between that bus ride yesterday and being called to task in the director’s office. I had felt those gems in the House of Unmentionables challenge. Maybe I could use that same ability, whatever it was, to find a clue about Gregory’s disappearance.

I reached the room first, and as soon as I lowered my hand to the handle, the slightest warning tingle cut across my palm. I put a finger to my lips and motioned for Wally to stay outside.

Someone was in our room.

There was no noise, but I felt it in my gut, alongside the warning that I was about to surprise someone who didn’t want to be surprised.

I twisted the doorknob as slowly as I could, then slid through the narrowest opening I could manage.

A figure had his back to me, hunched at the window as he slipped out. I recognized that hair.

I slammed the door behind me, startling Rory.

He spun around, throwing stars in hand, and threw one on reflex. I ducked to the side and the star embedded in the door with a thud.

I glared at him and he glared back. What the hell? I mouthed the words.

“Everything okay?” Wally asked from outside.

“Fine, just bumped into the…door. Give me five minutes,” I said.

“And they say I’m weird,” she said.

Rory stalked across the room, silent even in his anger. He moved to grab my arm, but I was done being dragged around. I batted his hand away and pointed to the bathroom. Not the most glamorous place to chat, but it would work and give us a semblance of privacy.

I shut the door behind us and he rounded on me, not wasting a second. “What the hell indeed, Wild? Rumors are flying that you’re a girl! And someone said you took on a trio of vamps last night and broke curfew? How in the hell is that flying under the radar?”

His words were like a bucket of ice, and I hated that part of me agreed with him. He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right either. “They attacked Wally.”

“Not your problem,” he growled. “None of them are your problem. You look out for you, that’s it in this world.”

I lifted my chin. “No, not anymore. Director Frost knows. You’re right about that. And she’s backing me. So, no, I’m going to follow my gut.”

He got right in my face, looming over me. “And what about Billy? What happens to him and Sam if you get booted out or killed? You think they won’t come here the same way you did, looking for answers?” His words shot an arrow into my heart. He knew me enough to know how to hurt me. But that went both ways.

I curled my lip. “I see you have the same intimidation tactics your father taught you.”

Rory grunted as if I’d booted him in the gut. Low blow, but I was done playing fair. No one else was, so why should I?

“I asked you to trust me.” He stepped back, jaw muscles ticking.

“I do.” I looked him straight in the eye. “Trust isn’t the issue, Rory. You can’t be here every second. Which means you have to trust me too. I’m doing what I need to do to survive. And my crew is part of that. They’ve helped me get this far.”

He blew out a breath and closed his eyes, then shook his head and went for the bathroom door. “Stay clear of the vamps. They’re in on this, on the missing kids. I don’t know how yet, but…”

I grabbed his arm, stopping him. I knew already that someone from the House of Wonder was in on the kidnapping—I’d seen the wand myself in one of the kidnapper’s hands. “What do you know?”

“Scent dogs were brought in. Cadaver dogs. They picked up on a vampire who shouldn’t have been snooping around the mansion. It’s all they’ve got so far, and I shouldn’t have even told you that much.” He put his hand over mine and leaned in closer, this time with none of the aggression. “Please be careful. I know you, Wild. A day off is the worst thing you could have right now.”

“Why?”

“Because when you aren’t kept busy, trouble finds you like a lemming finds a cliff.” He grinned and then was gone, out of the bathroom and out of the window before I could ask him anything else.

“Okay, Wally, come on in,” I said.

She opened the door, eyebrows lifted. “Did I hear you talking?”

“Um. Yeah. To myself.”

“Oh, I do that all the time.” She smiled and then did a slow circle. “So, you think Gregory hid something?”

I nodded. “Just a gut feeling.” I thought about Gregory’s connection to treasure, to gold and gems. A tiny pulse started in the tips of the fingers of my left hand. Quick experimentation indicated that the tingle dulled when I clenched them and deepened when I spread them wide. I followed the pull of that pulse to Gregory’s bed.

“It seems too obvious,” Wally said. “Statistics clearly show that goblins excel at hiding things. To put it near his sleeping area would be ridiculous.”

I ran my fingers over the mattress, the sheets and the pillow, the pulse deepening as I got closer to the foot of the bed. “But he had nowhere else to hide anything. And if he left the room on his own, he might have thought he’d be coming back.”

There was nothing in the sheets, but that pulse was still there. I pulled the mattress up—nothing. As I pulled my hand out from under it, my fingers slid against something like a flap. No, a slit had been cut into the underside of the mattress, almost imperceptible. “Bingo.”

I reached in, felt paper, and pulled out a small bundle of pages, fanning them over the bed. “These are Ethan’s cheat sheets!”

“We could use them,” she whispered, as though someone might be listening in. Which I supposed was a distinct possibility.

I frowned. “But if Gregory wasn’t taking these to sell them or turn Ethan in, what was he doing out the night he went missing?”

A booming announcement cut through the air, sudden enough that we both jumped.

“Mason Whitehall, report to Director Frost immediately.”

I grabbed Wally’s arm. “That’s the missing kid. How can he be called to her office if he’s missing?”

She frowned. “Could you have made a mistake?”

I’d been so sure his name was on the list of missing kids, but it struck me that there was a simple way of checking. We could watch her office, see if he showed up.

I tucked the cheat sheets back to where they’d been and let the mattress fall into place.

“Come on, we can see her doors from a spot down the hall.”

I bolted from the room, Wally rushing to try and keep up with me, but I didn’t slow, not for a second.

We covered the short distance in under a minute, skidding to a stop at the top of the stairs. The double door was shut and the director’s thug, Adam, stood outside it, hidden in the shadows.

“Hey, did Mason show up?” I asked before I thought better of it.

Adam lifted his head, eyes narrowing as he looked our way. “No.”

I nodded and slid down to sit at the top of the stairs, feet on the first step, watching the door.

“Wild?” Wally crouched down beside me.

“Why would they call him to the office if he’s on the list of missing kids?” I asked again. Then a new possibility struck me. “Or are they worried about him being taken?”

My blood ran cold. The kidnappings seemed to take place after the trials. What if the director knew who was at risk?

We needed to see that paper with the list of kids on it. There could be more names added.

Which meant we were going to break into the director’s office.

CHAPTER 19

We waited for over an hour, sitting at the top of the stairs watching the director’s door for the boy to make an appearance. Mason was called twice more over the PA system, but he never showed. My skin prickled each time he was called. Every part of me knew he wasn’t going to show, but I still waited. Just in case I was wrong. Finally, I turned away from the doors, Adam gave us a pointed glare from his spot in front of the director’s door, and we headed back to our room.

Only Pete and Orin were there.

“Where’s Ethan?” I asked as I shut the door.

“Where have you been?” Pete asked from the bed. “Did you go to the healers?”

I hadn’t but felt remarkably okay. I’d take it as a win.

“Where is he?” I asked again, and Orin shook his head.

“He didn’t want to wait for you. Said he had things to do.”

I retrieved the sheets from Gregory’s mattress and held them out to the others. “First thing’s first. Wally and I found the cheat sheets.”

Pete jumped up and I held them above his head. “Hey, let me see!”

When Orin took a step toward me, I pointed a finger at him. “Hear me out. If we got caught with these, what would happen?”

“Expelled,” Wally said, her voice solemn. “It would be instant, there would be no recourse.”

I took the papers and shoved them under Ethan’s mattress. “He might be part of our crew, but if anyone is getting expelled, it can be him.”

Pete grinned and spread his hands wide. “But can’t we just look?”

“You want Ethan to—” I cut off as the door opened and Wonder Bread himself walked in. And he was not alone.

“You want Ethan to what?” Ethan put his hands on his hips. Colt stood to his left, a loose ease to his body. He was fit like Ethan, only not so bulky. Colt’s body was leaner as if he’d actually trained for the physical strain of the trials and not just lifted weight to gain mass.

He held a hand up in a half wave. “Hey.”

“What’s he doing here?” Pete spluttered. “He’s not part of our crew.”

“Relax, he’s here to help us find Gregory. Seeing as Wild here is afraid to be alone.” The flash of heat that coursed through my cheeks was surely visible. The way that Colt was watching me was so not helping.

Pete nudged me. “Hey, does he know—”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Wonder Bread told him.”

Pete let out a snarl. “What the hell, man? How are you going to pass the final tests if you can’t keep a secret?”

It was Ethan’s turn to flush. “Look, people are talking. You aren’t hiding it as well as you think, Wild. I mean, look at you. You’re huge for a ‘fifteen-year-old boy.’”

I took a step, fists clenched, and Ethan took a step back. “Not my fault you can’t keep it under your hat.”

A strained silence hung in the room for a few beats before Ethan broke it.

“We have half a day.” He shrugged. “If there is any chance of finding the goblin or the others, we need more help. Colt will help. I trust him.”

He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either.

It struck me that Ethan shouldn’t care enough to bring in outside help. He didn’t even like Gregory. Orin ghosted up behind me, just the slightest change in air pressure tipping me off. Low and quiet, he whispered in my ear, “He thinks Gregory has the cheat sheets.”

Bingo. Then we’d use Ethan, just like he planned to use us.

I made myself smile. “Well, let’s get going then. Wally, you and Pete find out about the girl, Lisa the snake shifter. Ethan, you go with Colt—”

“No,” Orin said, “I will go with Ethan.”

Ethan spluttered, obviously not thrilled with that prospect.

I shot a look at Orin. “We need to keep an eye on him,” he whispered, his mouth barely moving.

Again, a good point. But for good or for ill, that left me with Colt. “Fine. Check out the House of Shade. Colt and I will see what we can discover about Mason.”

When we left the room, Colt quickly fell into step beside me, a few inches taller, broader across the shoulders. Next to a big guy, I didn’t look so masculine, even I could see that. Damn it. A few more days, that was all I needed.

“Mason was roomed down this way, with another guy I know,” Colt said, pointing to the third floor.

I nodded and let him lead.

“Where are you from?” Colt led the way through the mansion toward where Mason had roomed.

“Texas,” I said. Was he flirting with me? How would I know? Me and flirting were no bueno. He blew out a big breath, drew another in, but said nothing else.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one not sure what to say.

We reached Mason’s room and I knocked on the door. A young guy with shockingly bright red hair opened the door. He wasn’t much of a looker, but his eyes were as green as spring grass, and something about him, his stature and the way he held himself, reminded me of Gregory.

“Goblin?” I blurted out. His face fell into a snarl.

Colt snickered. “Jesus, that was badly done.”

“I am,” the red head snapped, long fingers curling around the door.

I held up both hands, palms out. “Sorry. Gregory is a friend of mine. Do you know him?”

“I thought we were here for Mason?” Colt asked.

“Mason is missing,” the goblin snapped, showing sharp teeth. “And Gregory got what was coming to him.”

A chill zipped down my spine. “Why would you say that?”

The door slammed in my face. Or would have had I not stuck my foot into the opening. I pushed my way into the room while Colt said something behind me along the lines of “this is not a good idea.”

But he followed me in. I booted the door shut and grabbed the red-headed goblin by one arm. “What do you mean Gregory got what was coming to him?”

“He thought he was better than us. Because he looks so human. His mom was half human.” He spat the words at me. “He’s a damn pretty boy.”

I frowned. “You could pass for an ugly human. You know that, right?”

“Don’t flatter him,” Colt said. “It won’t work.”

“I wasn’t,” I growled. “Tell me what you know about Gregory.”

The goblin tried to pull away from me, but I tightened my hold on him and locked eyes with him. There was darkness in me, I knew that, and I felt it uncoil like a beast coming awake. It surged up slowly, spreading through my limbs, spilling up into my eyes until everything around me grew still, right down to the pulse of my heart.

The goblin’s eyes widened and he gulped. “I overheard one of the vamps say that they needed to speak to Gregory. That he was doing so well, he wouldn’t have to finish the trials. That he could just skip the rest. Lucky bastard.”

I frowned and the darkness I’d felt leeched out of me like a puff of smoke on the wind. I let go of the goblin and stepped back, shaken by what I’d felt as much as what I’d heard. Like I was a stranger to myself.

Colt gave a low whistle. “I’ve heard about Shades being able to pull the truth from someone, but I’ve never seen it. That is seriously badass.”

The goblin curled around himself. “Get out of my room, Shade.”

I made myself ask one more question. “Was it the same way with Mason? He was told that he was able to skip ahead?”

He bobbed his head once. “Yes.”

“You just follow people around? Creepy, dude, seriously creepy,” Colt said, and the goblin took a swipe at him. Colt was fast, I’d give him that. He danced back and pulled his wand in the space of a heartbeat, pointing the weapon at the goblin.

“I think not. This isn’t my first time facing one of your kind.”

I headed to the door. “We’re done here,” I said letting myself out. Colt could follow or not. My mind was whirling.

Someone—no, not just someone, a vampire—had offered Gregory and Mason a way to skip ahead. Because they were doing so well in the trials. Gregory I could believe. Despite the bind he’d been in when I met him, he was smart, wily. “Did you know Mason?”

Colt hurried to catch up to me as I strode through the mansion, heading outside. I needed to breathe the fresh air. I needed to be out of this place so I could think straight.

“I knew him a little. Are you asking me if he was good enough to be called up?”

“Called up, that’s what it is?”

Colt shrugged as we pushed the main doors open and walked across the wide lawn. “If you’re good enough, you might get asked to skip. Or at least that’s the rumor. I’ve never actually known anyone who was pulled out and given a pass.”

“So it’s a valid thing. Something the kids might believe?” I drew a breath of the air and let it out slowly.

“Valid, but unlikely. Mason was not the top of his class. Middle or lower would be my guess based on who he hung with. The status of your friends usually indicates where you lie within your group.” We’d reached the edge of the trees and I stepped under the cover and kept walking, taking us deeper into the forest.

“He’d go with someone he trusted, someone he thought was actually able to enforce a rule like that. At least in the beginning. Gregory was fighting to get away when I found him,” I said, more to myself than to Colt. “He was smart. He figured out pretty quickly that something was wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Colt asked.

“I saw him being taken. I tried to stop the people who had him, and he called to me for help.” It was only then I realized that was why I’d headed out this way. To look for clues. “They dragged him out here.”

I pointed at a small spot at the center of three trees. To the right was a bigger tree and I laid my hand on the wide trunk. This was where Rory had dragged me down and hidden me from the assassin.

A slow turn and the heel of my boot dug into the soil, leaving a distinct mark. There had to be tracks. And tracks never lied.

I crouched by the tree and tried to put my body into the same position it had been in that night. Colt crouched with me, close enough that I could smell the cologne he wore. I couldn’t help it, I took a deep breath. Spicy and a little bit sweet.

“What do you smell?” he asked.

I laughed. “Just your perfume.”

He laughed right back at me. “Gotta keep the ladies happy.”

I rolled my eyes and focused on what was in front of me. This was where I’d seen the tip of the assassin’s boot. I had to work to suppress the fear that rose in me. Not a warning, just a true fear of how close I’d come to biting it that night.

I closed my eyes, recalling the direction of Gregory’s final shout. Opening them, I pointed in that general direction. “Gregory and his captors, they were out there.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” I wasn’t about to tell him all my secrets.

He grabbed my arm as we stood, and then he wobbled and fell against me. I caught him, and he slowly stood, far, far too close. “And here I thought you didn’t like me.”

Part of me wanted to pull away, the other part thought oh hell, why not? For all I knew, I could die tomorrow in the next trial.

The “oh hell” part won. Colt cupped my face, bent his head and brushed his lips against mine. Nice, sweet…safe. He tasted like his cologne, a little bit spicy, a little bit sweet, maybe even a little bit magical.

“What the hell is going on here?”

The words cut through the air like a blade as sharp as the one I carried. Worse, Rory was the one who yelled them.

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SHADOWSPELL ACADEMY: THE CULLING TRIALS, BOOK 3

The story continues in Book 3

Chapter 1

Being caught kissing a boy in a forest by Rory shouldn’t have bothered me. After all, I’d seen him kissing Missy—a bleach blonde I know for a fact stuffed her bra with her socks—behind the five and dime—twice. The first time, I’d run back the way I’d come, embarrassed and not sure why. The second time, he’d seen me before I could react. Rather than stop, he’d turned so his back was to me, then continued to kiss pretty, girly, hair always perfect, makeup always on straight, stuffed boobs Missy.

I pulled back from Colt, just enough so that I could turn and arch an eyebrow at Rory even though my face was about to combust if the heat rushing to my cheeks was any indication. Before I could form an answer with my tingling, kiss-stung lips, Colt did a very dumb, very male thing.

He stepped between me and Rory.

“Who the hell do you think—”

And that’s where the question ended.

I stepped to the side to avoid the sharp right hook I saw coming about three miles off, in time to see Rory’s fist connect with the side of Colt’s head. Colt’s eyes rolled back, and his body went limp like Rory had pulled every pin in every joint of a marionette.

“I told you to stay safe.” Rory stepped around the still falling Colt and clamped a hand on my wrist.

My jaw dropped, and heat snapped through me again, although this time it was purely anger. “I am safe, you idiot. You said to stay in groups. Two is a group. Or was, until you knocked him out. What’s wrong with you?”

I yanked my arm, but his strength topped mine and then some. His fingers didn’t budge and the dark glower in his eyes deepened until I wasn’t sure if I was looking at the boy I’d grown up with, or a man I didn’t know at all.

Excited anticipation fluttered in my stomach and electricity sizzled across my skin, but I didn’t have time to wonder at the strange reaction.

He leaned closer and lowered his voice, rough with a warning. “You’ve never been a stupid girl, Belle, don’t start now. He’s not the sort that’ll keep you safe from what’s hunting you. You know that.”

A memory of the other night flashed through my head. Uncomfortable heat wormed under my collar.

I shook it off. Sure, it would have been dangerous to be out here alone, or with Colt, in the middle of the night. But it was broad daylight, and Rory was just being an overprotective douche. The man needed to be reminded of boundaries.

I drove my forehead forward, intent on a headbutt. He jerked to the side, missing it. I twisted my arm and yanked at the weak part of his grip, the break between his fingers and thumb. My arm slipped, but he bore down, keeping hold of me. I used his distraction to quickly step to the side and upper cut with my other hand, connecting with his jaw, hard.

He grunted and his head snapped back. His weight followed, forcing him to stagger backward. His hand tightened on my arm for a moment, as if he planned to use me to brace himself. It surely would’ve worked, dragging me with him, but I was banking on the fact that he didn’t want to hurt me. Sure enough, he released his grip, putting him at the mercy of his momentum. First one heel caught on the grass, then the other. He couldn’t get his footing and went down hard, his butt slamming into the grass.

I didn’t hide my grin, standing over both downed guys. Rory’s eyes came up, slowly, and a sparkle of fire lit in their depths. The strange surge and sizzle from a moment ago blasted through me again.

Not surprisingly, given our history, a smile flitted across Rory’s full lips. “I see you haven’t changed one bit. Same old fire. Same hard head.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Like you can talk.” I stalked past him, leaving Colt alone in the grass. He could take care of himself and he was already groaning, sitting up, as I took off.

I hit the double door of the mansion hard enough that both sides flung open and banged against the back wall, startling several of the kids, making them leap back, raise their hands and wands lifted in defense. I ignored them, taking the stairs to my dorm.

Wally and Pete startled when I pushed inside, Pete sitting on his bed and Wally leaning against the wall. Her dark brown hair spilled over her shoulder as she tilted her head to the side. “Where are the others? Did you find out anything?”

I pushed past her, out of breath from the stairs, and headed into the bathroom.

“Well, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,” Wally said. “You know, your chances of damaging your kidneys and colon go up by one-point-five percent every time you hold it in.”

“Gross,” Pete said.

Their voices droned on, blending together as I leaned over the sink and splashed water over my face. I felt bad about Colt. He’d had no chance against Rory’s fist— I didn’t know anyone who could stay standing after a full-on punch from Rory. But that strange surge of excitement I’d felt with Rory had my heart pounding. I felt ready to run full speed into trouble. Or sneak into danger and work out a way to get back out again.

Ready to pick up right where we’d left off.

But this wasn’t the farm. This game had life-and-death stakes. Which meant I needed to rein in this sensation, no matter how good it felt.

A few splashes of water on my face, and I headed out the door. “I’ll be back, you two. I’m going to grab some food,” I called over my shoulder, “then you can tell me what you learned.”

Wally gave me a salute, and Pete nodded as I strode out of the room. I loaded up two to-go containers of food in the mess hall, barely looking at what I was piling on, only knowing I was starving and needed fuel.

Back in the room, Wally and Pete filled me in on what they’d learned about the missing snake shifter.

“Lisa told her friends that someone higher up suggested she’d get to skip the rest of the trials because she was doing so well.” Wally said and shot Pete a look. I stuffed a chunk of potato slathered in cream cheese, bacon, and chives into my mouth.

“Lemme guess,” I swallowed my mouthful and jammed in a roast beef chaser. “She wasn’t, was she?”

Pete shook his head. “Her friends felt bad talking about her, but they said she was middle of the pack at best. Not even an alpha personality. They weren’t surprised that she’d accepted an offer like that. They figured it was the only guarantee she’d get.”

A moment later, Ethan and Orin stepped into the room, eyes shooting daggers at one another. Or maybe wands and fangs.

Ethan puffed out his chest. “We got some good info. The ones we talked to thought—”

“That he was going to be moved through the trial?” I offered as I stuck my fork into another potato chunk, this one covered in some sort of gravy and hunks of cheese. If nothing else, the food here was spectacular.

Ethan frowned, and we filled him and Orin in on our findings.

“Where is Colt?” Ethan looked around as if the other boy could be hiding under one of the beds.

“We went our separate ways,” I mumbled. I’d cleaned off both plates and a nice food lethargy was stealing over me. “Orin, you want to come with me to get that paper from the director’s desk tonight? We can do it at midnight.” I yawned and crawled into my bed. It was not quite noon, but I was exhausted and my body was shutting down. “Wake me up when it’s time to go.”

I’m not even sure that he answered me. My head hit the pillow and I was out like a light. But my sleep was far from restful.

My dreams were disjointed and laced with panic. Shadows chased me, and when I turned to fight them, they engulfed me—my arms and legs went numb, my body slid to the ground. Helpless. I was helpless, and I hated it.

Blink.

I stood at the edge of our old farmhouse, watching it burn. Animals lay dead all around me, their limbs twisted, and the smell of death filled my lungs, tightening them more than the smoke. These animals had been mine to care for, mine to protect. And I’d failed them. Waves of fire rushed straight toward me, faster than I could even turn away from. I threw my hands up—

Blink.

Sam screamed for me on the edge of a cliff, high above me, high above the river of rushing water beyond me. “Wild! Help me!” Her voice cut into me, drove me forward even though there was no way to get to her. I threw myself at the sheer rock face, my fingers digging into it, sliding. “I’m coming!” The rock pulled away in pieces like shale. Her screams filled the air around me, pitching higher and higher, charged with panic and pain, and I couldn’t get to her, I couldn’t save her—

Blink.

A figure cloaked in darkness stood across from me, less than ten feet away, and yet I couldn’t see his face. Everything around him was hidden in shadows. Something about him rang familiar to me. The way he moved, like liquid night, the gesture of one hand as he pointed to me. “I know you, Wild. And I will come for you.”

Blink.

I was against that tree in the woods, Rory’s arms and legs around me, his finger tapping the pulse point in my throat. Dangerous, he was dangerous. But he was home too. His arms tightened around me, and I relaxed, breathing in his scent. “You shouldn’t trust me,” he whispered as his arms tightened further, crushing me, snapping the bones in my chest until they pressed into my lungs, my body gasping for air—

“Wake up,” the voice growled in my ear. Not Rory, someone else.

I opened my eyes to see Orin’s face inches from mine. I slapped him away and rolled out of bed, that last piece of the dream sticking with me. I shook my head once and stood, still in my clothes.

We crept to the door to see Wally and Pete waiting on the other side and, shock of shocks, Ethan.

“Can’t let you have all the fun,” he said.

I glanced at Orin and Pete. The other two guys shrugged.

Whatever they’d done or said, he’d obviously agreed to join our expedition—or been forced into it, though I rather doubted the forced part. He’d agreed to this for some reason or another, no doubt because he thought it would work for him somehow. I made a motion with one hand for them to follow me, and they fell into a line, spaced out, behind me. We headed down the hall a ways before a warning tingle hit my spine. Orin shot forward and grabbed my arm.

Vampire, he mouthed.

We peeled off, nearly to the stairwell. I motioned for everyone to hide, and we all ducked back, hiding in the shadows as best we could. Orin, of course, blended in completely, and the others…well, if you didn’t look too closely you could pass by them. Assuming you weren’t a vampire sniffing for scents and listening for heartbeats.

Voices drifted up to us from the stairwell, the footsteps silent.

“Watch them closely. It feels like the night is holding its breath.” That was…Sunshine’s voice. Crap!

Pete had tucked in beside me and he shivered, recognizing the Sandman too. I clamped a hand over his mouth. I could almost feel a squeak ready to sneak out past his traitorous lips.

“I was just about to check their room. Wild likes to wander. I’ll keep her put.”

My belly dropped to the floor. Rory? Rory was checking on me for the Sandman? That last dream with him came crashing back in a sickening flood. My stomach rolled, and I had to fight the nausea that crept up my throat.

“Good. Alert me if anything is amiss,” the Sandman growled, his words barely audible.

I held my breath, waiting for Rory to mount the stairs. Waiting for Sunshine to walk with him. They’d notice us for sure. Rory would, at any rate. I’d never been able to hide from him.

Except no one skulked past us. No one crested the stairs. How was Rory planning to check up on me?

Orin stiffened, sharpening my focus.

A familiar vampire materialized out of thin air as he worked his way down the stairs to the second floor. If he’d stepped foot on our landing, not far away, I hadn’t seen it. It almost seemed like he was following Rory and Sunshine, wherever they’d gone. Who was hunting whom?

I counted another thirty seconds. “Now,” I whispered.

Our group hurried to the director’s outer office. I reached for the door to her inner sanctum, but Ethan stopped me, putting an arm across the top of my chest.

He lifted his wand, twirled it once, and light blue sparks sprang from it, like the sparklers I’d made with the twins the year before on the Fourth of July.

Ethan waited for the sparks to absorb into the metal knob, then opened it, and the five of us slid through into the dark of the room. The click of the door shutting behind us was loud to my ears, even though I knew it was barely above a whisper.

“All clear,” Pete whispered, and he was clearly talking about the assistant. Even the most dedicated employees didn’t work around the clock.

“Hurry,” Orin said, gesturing toward the door. “If there are any wards, it won’t be long before someone shows up to check it out.”

Ethan led the way, hurrying to the director’s big desk. I raced in after him, knowing wards meant an alarm of some kind.

“Where were the papers?” Ethan asked.

“She had it right on top,” I said. “A piece of paper on top of a pale green folder. The paper was a list of the missing kids. There had to be more information than that on it too.” At least, that was what I was banking on.

Ethan held his wand up, the tip glowing with light.  “Well, unless she’s a complete fool, it won’t still be there.”

I did my best not to put my fingers on anything, using the edge of my sleeve to open the drawers and peek inside. Most were strangely empty, as if the desk were just a prop on a stage.

Wally had dived into the books on the shelves, trailing her fingers across the spines. Pete and Orin stood at the door, ears pressed to the wood.

On top of the desk was a single file folder, this one dark red, not the pale green I remembered. I leaned in, grabbing Ethan’s hand so as to direct the light from the wand. I read the words on that folder, and then read them again, thinking I’d made a mistake. “That’s my name,” I said at last. “My real name.”

Maribel “Wild” Johnson.

My heart pounded out a wicked drumbeat as I put a single finger to the edge of the folder and flipped it open. Stamped in red across my file was a single word.

Missing.

Get Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3 here.

ALSO BY THE AUTHORS

Also by K.F. Breene

DEMON DAYS VAMPIRE NIGHTS WORLD

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Raised in Fire

Fused in Fire

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Natural Mage

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DESERT CURSED SERIES

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www.shannonmayer.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

K.F. Breene is a USA Today Bestselling and Top 10 Kindle All-Star author of paranormal romance, urban fantasy and fantasy novels. With two million books sold, when she’s not penning stories about magic and what goes bump in the night, she’s sipping wine and planning shenanigans. She lives in Northern California with her husband, two children and out of work treadmill.

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Shannon Mayer is a lot of things, and most of these are true. She’s an author, mom, rider of horses, farm girl, heathen, softie, badass, Canadian. Juxtaposition incarnate.

She is the USA Today Bestselling author of the The Rylee Adamson Novels, The Elemental Series, The Nevermore Trilogy, A Celtic Legacy series, and the Venom Trilogy. Please visit her website for more information on her novels.

To learn more about Shannon and her books, go to:

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shannonmayerauthor@gmail.com

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3

Also by the Authors

About the Authors