Shadowspell Academy

The Culling Trials, Book 3

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

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Also by the Authors

About the Authors

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.

Chapter 2

The next morning came far too fast as far as I was concerned. We’d gotten back to the room without a problem, and everyone had gone to bed, silent. Because what was there to say, really? The file folder said I was missing.

Only I wasn’t.

What the hell was going on? Was I the next target of whoever had stolen the other missing kids? The vampires Rory had warned me about, and whatever mages they’d roped into their scheme? Or did this have something to do with the assassin who was after me?

I tossed and turned, my mind unable to shut off until the light in the room began to shift. My eyes drifted shut as the sun rose, and then, seconds later, it seemed, someone shook my shoulder.

“Wild,” Wally said. “Wake up, something is happening.”

I sat up, blinking, unable to see anything it was so dark. “Open the curtains.”

“They are open. It’s after nine in the morning,” she said. “And the moon is still high.”

I rolled out of bed as Pete flicked on a light. Everyone squinted against the glow, and I waved at him. “Turn it off, Pete.”

Orin slid to the door. “Someone is here.”

The door opened, and Jared stood there holding a flickering torch in one hand, his eyes unreadable in the dancing light. “Are you ready to face the House of Night?”

This was new. I thought this was supposed to be about randomness? “Why aren’t we going to choose for ourselves?” I challenged him.

He smiled. “Because the House of Night is about accepting what is, and what you cannot change.”

I didn’t like the pattern the trials were suddenly taking. And I wasn’t sure about Jared. He, himself, didn’t bother me, but the fact that he was a vampire did. The same vampire, in fact, we’d seen roaming the halls last night. “Long as none of us go missing, I think we’ll be fine.”

He jerked as if I’d slapped him, although he caught himself quickly. “Follow me.”

Orin fell in behind him first, then Ethan, Pete, and Wally. I paused in the threshold. A warning instantly throbbed through me, tingling across my skin. Something had changed in the mansion overnight, increasing the danger fourfold. I told myself it had nothing to do with our midnight break in. We’d taken nothing from the director’s office, and we’d kept our hands off anything that would have left prints.

But I was nobody’s fool and wasn’t going to lie to myself. We’d tripped something the night before, only we hadn’t realized it at the time. I was sure of it.

I jogged to catch up to the others, stepping beside Wally. She glanced at me.

“The House of Night will be interesting,” she said.

I made myself grin at her even while my body and mind churned with worry like they were trying to make butter. “You looking forward to it? This will be your house.”

“No, I am not,” she said softly. “They treat necromancers poorly. The vampires, that is. So, while it is the best fit for me, I am not looking forward to the schooling.”

I frowned. “Just like those three girls.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “If I could slide into one of the other houses, that would be ideal. But you will see soon enough what I am capable of. No other house would have me. My magic can’t be anything but what it is. No matter that it is weak.”

Before I could respond, Jared led us out through a back door of the mansion and into a courtyard where two buses waited, idling in the darkness.

“You sure that’s enough buses?” Pete asked.

“Do not question your betters, boy,” Jared said. His eyes landed on each of us in turn, as if daring us to go on. I straightened up and so did Wally. Orin and Pete froze, and Ethan looked away. So be it, the girls would lead the way.

Again. My lips twitched a little at that. It amused me that the guys in our group were so willing to let the girls lead.

We loaded up as two more troops of kids arrived—one of them the trio of girls who’d beaten Wally up two nights previously.

I saw them coming and walked to the front of the bus, waiting for them to take the first step in. “Bus is full. Use the other one.”

One of them hissed at me—full on viper hissed—but they did as I said, backing down and moving to the other bus.

The driver shivered. “Thanks, they give me the fecking willies. Shoot! Sorry, fudging. Not supposed to swear in front of you kids and your delicate freaking ears. Likely never heard a word like that before. Am I right or am I right?” He grinned, and the smile stretched from ear to ear, his eyes bugging out a little. Goblin then. His voice had a lilt to it that tugged at me.

I grinned back. “Yeah, never heard a bad word in my life. Surely would never use one. Do you think adults really believe that if they don’t swear in front of us, we won’t ever use them ourselves?”

He shrugged, grabbed the door handle and pulled the folding doors shut. “Who knows what adults think? I’m just paid to drive the bus.”

I crouched down beside him as he pulled out of the mansion’s grounds, watching where we were going as he droned on about the different kids he’d seen come through in all his years of driving for the academy.

“The only one that ever done impressed me was a tall kid, Shade, I think he was, but really he ended up being something else.” He gave a low whistle and my attention shifted fully to him.

“What do you mean he ended up being something else?”

“Nah, not supposed to talk about it. Like talking about the boogeyman before you put the kiddies to bed.” He grinned and winked again. “But if you come back on my bus, I’ll tell you all about him.” We’d begun to slow, and I could see the gates ahead of us, lit up in unnatural night. Our driver cranked the wheel to the left, taking us to a gate that I would have known was the House of Night even if I’d not been told. Massive wrought iron, solid black, partially covered in the thorny ivy, the gates were right out of a horror movie. Right down to the skulls set up on the spikes at the top. A lovely touch to be sure.

I stuck out my hand. “My name is Wild.”

I hadn’t thought his grin could get wider, but I’d been wrong. He clasped my hand. “Mighty fine to meet you, Wild. My friends call me Gory.” He braked smoothly, rolling the bus to a stop.

Pete pushed up behind me, waiting for me to step down. “Gory goblin? You related to Gregory? I heard all the clans named their people alphabetically. Like if your dad is a Luke, then all the kids have to start with an L.”

Gory laughed. “True, that be true. And often the women who marry in change their names to the same letter. So yup, I am related to Greggy. Where is he anyway? His mam asked me to let her know should I see him. Bit on the pretty side that one, but a right smart head he has on his shoulders.”

I shot a look at Pete, whose eyes popped open wide. I grabbed him by the shoulder and all but pushed him down the stairs.

“Thanks for the ride!” I called over my shoulder.

“Say hi to Greggy if you see him! Tell him to keep on keeping on!” Gory called back.

Sweet baby Jesus in a manger of spoiled straw, Gregory’s family hadn’t been told that he was missing? Just like we hadn’t been told anything about Tommy’s death. The blood in my veins turned sluggish, not something I needed only moments before stepping into the next trial. One that was bound to be worse than the others we’d faced. How could it not be when it was run by vampires and necromancers and who knew what else?

“We gotta go.” I kept moving, forcing my way through the funk. “Come on guys. Let’s get this done.”

Ethan tried to push to the front of our group, but Orin blocked him.

“This is not your house, Ethan.”

Wally bobbed her head. “Exactly.”

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice, drawing us all in close. “I remember some of my…paperwork.”

My eyebrows went up, but I motioned him forward. Fair enough—if he thought he could lead, let him lead. Orin and Wally let him pass, but I could see Orin, especially, was reluctant to do so.

“And?” I asked Ethan, “what exactly do you remember?” Part of me wondered if he’d actually tell us anything. Other than taking note that the cheat papers were exactly that, I hadn’t actually looked at them. To be fair, if I’d not slept the previous day away, I would have.

I had never claimed to be a saint. I needed to survive this to keep my siblings alive and well, and for them I’d break all the rules.

Ethan went for his wand holder, pulled out his wand, and lowered his voice further. “Necromancers first. Then ghost walkers. Vampires last. That’s the order.”

“Then let Wally lead up there with you,” I said. “You really want to be the first to get hit by a— Wally, what will the necromancers send after us?”

“Zombies,” she said without hesitation. “Lots and lots of zombies. You can take their heads, that will slow them down, but it won’t kill them like in the movies. You have to knock out or kill the necromancer to stop them completely. Otherwise, the body parts of the dead things will just keep on coming. I mean, if Ethan wants to try and go first, that’s fine by me.”

That slowed Ethan and he tipped his head. “Fine. You’re right, this is your house, after all.”

This morning, no beautiful woman greeted us atop the gates. In fact, no one else was around. Had all the other kids slipped ahead of us? Or had they left? I turned around, realizing that there was no other bus. We were here alone.

A warning shot down my spine. Something was off.

The gate creaked open on its own, and we stepped through, the air around us tensing and cooling rapidly as if we’d stepped not only through the gate but from summer into autumn. I blinked and took in what awaited us.

It looked like a pastoral scene straight out of some fairy tale villain’s playbook. A stone wall well over twelve feet high in some places wrapped around what could only be a graveyard, a huge metal gate locked at the front, skulls and crosses welded to it.

“The graves of the five houses,” Wally whispered. “It’s protected so the dead who served our world can rest.”

“That can’t be right,” Ethan said. “Because we know they’re going to raise the dead to challenge us. They would never stick us here.”

That warning tingle intensified.

“Could it be an illusion?” Pete asked.

Ethan lifted his wand and did a swooping swirl, whispering a word under his breath. Sparks spat and fizzled. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “it’s not an illusion.”

“These zombies…they will be stronger than anything any necromancer could ever raise in the real world,” Wally said. “Their strengths when they were alive will be available to them in death. Which is why they are kept here. They are supposed to be kept safe from being raised. They would only send us here if they want to test whether we can rise to an impossible challenge...or if they want us to fail.”

Slowly, the four members of my crew turned and looked at me. Ethan actually looked upset. Pete horrified. And Wally had tears in her eyes. What the hell?

I shook my head. “What? Why are you all looking at me?”

Orin smiled, slow and sad. “You’re supposed to be missing,” he said with more than a tinge of sorrow to his voice. “What better way to have it happen than for you to go missing in the middle of the House of Night’s trial?”

I shook my head harder. “No, no, no. That makes no sense. The other kids that went missing, they were all asked.”

“And what would you say if you were asked?” Orin countered.

“No. She’d say no and we all know it. Anyone who’s spoken to her once would know it,” Wally answered for me. She wasn’t wrong.

Especially now that I knew what had happened to the kids who’d taken up the offer to skip ahead. Or sort of knew what had happened to them.

“Fine, so this is my fault? You want me to go first?” I took a few steps and Wally sighed.

“I want you to walk with me at the front, not Ethan. Your warning system is going to help us get through this. Our odds increase incrementally with you in our group, even if this is a set up.” She turned away from me and headed toward the locked gates. They swung open, welcoming us in.

“My warning system?” I stepped up next to her and slowly pulled my knife from my belt. A flicker from that very warning system cut down my spine like tiny little needle jabs. Not enough to hurt but enough to make sure I was aware of what was about to happen.

Wally plucked at a long stalk of grass as her eyes roved the space ahead of us. “I’ve been reading up on Shades. You have a built-in warning system, better than any of the other houses, as you are meant to survive attacks from many different quarters. You are meant to be aware of the world in a way the rest of us are not. Of course, not all Shades have it. About fifteen percent of Shades have a faulty warning system. Less than five percent have a heightened warning system, one that provides a wider range.”

I didn’t tell her she was wrong. That warning system, as she called it, had been saving my butt most of my life and since I’d arrived here, it had kicked into high gear.

She stepped to the right, her hand trailing over the tops of the gravestones closest to her, a sigh slipping from her lips. “The dead are so quiet, so simple. So much easier to talk to than the living.”

“How big is this magical graveyard?” I asked.

“Acres and acres,” she said. “Miles upon miles.”

Pete let out a groan. “I’m shifting. If we’re going to be running for long distances, I’d prefer to do it as a honey badger.”

I didn’t disagree with him—he was much more agile in his animal form, and far more aggressive, which wasn’t a bad thing in the least. The fact that he said nothing about his clothes told me just how worried he was. He just stripped, tossed his clothes to the side and shifted to his four-legged form.

I reached out and put a hand on Wally, slowing her. “Just take it easy. We don’t want to fight or run until we have to.”

“Agreed,” she whispered. “There is another necromancer here. He is starting to call the dead to life. I’ve only ever tried to handle two or three at a time. Zombies that is.”

“Crap,” Ethan whispered, his fear all but tangible. I glanced back at him. He and Orin were side by side, Pete waddling along between them and us, sniffing at the graves. Orin’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and for the first time I was worried about him.

Not that he wouldn’t make it.

But that he might have been setting us up. According to Rory, vampires were in on this, maybe even behind it. Mason’s roommate also thought a vampire was involved with his disappearance. Could Orin have been playing us all along? Vampires hated necromancers, so why had he defended Wally? Thoughts and questions rolled through me like tiny bolts of lightning.

A slow grin spread across Orin’s face, and my heart picked up, adrenaline lacing each beat.

What if the vampire Rory had warned me about wasn’t Jared, or some nameless blood sucker?

What if it was Orin?

Chapter 3

I didn’t have time to consider just how deep a game Orin was playing, if he was friend or foe, or whether he would stand by us now that we were here in his house. The graveyard we stood in trembled beneath our feet, the ground rumbling and rocking. A roll of earth rippled toward us like a wave in the ocean, and with it came a warning that was so thick it seemed to smother my lungs, freezing the air in them.

We were in serious trouble.

“Jump!” I said as the wave in the ground got close, and we all leapt into the air. Well, with the exception of Pete, who was tossed up by the rolling earth, flipped like an oversized pancake. His paws scrabbled outward as he twisted, reaching in four separate directions, his teeth bared and his tail jutting straight up before he fell back down. I landed in a crouch, fist to the ground.

The ground gave beneath me, like it had turned into a pile of quicksand. I quickly rolled away, but there wasn’t far to go. All around us the ground sunk and dropped around the different markers. “The graves.”

“The dead are being wakened!” Wally stood in the center of our group, her head thrown back, her hands outstretched. “The necromancer…oh God, he’s so strong! How can he do this? This isn’t supposed to be possible!”

“You said two or three zombies at best, that’s what you can handle?” I spun in a slow circle, counting the graves coming to life. Five, six, seven… ten, twelve, fifteen.

I stopped counting when I realized every single grave was stirring.

Every. Single. One.

Hands, elbows, tops of heads and shoulders pulled themselves free of the now softened ground, clawing their way toward us. Most hands were partially decomposed, others were straight up skeletal with tattered rags hanging off them. Only a few were solid, still holding muscle and bone together with actual flesh—even if that flesh was more than a little decomposed. The smell that wafted up with the emerging bodies sent us all stumbling back, Ethan gagging, and Orin pulling a face. I tried to breathe just through my mouth, but I could taste the rotting flesh which was far worse than just smelling them.

Time to move. “Wally, tell me you can slow them down!” I grabbed her arm and dragged her through the middle of the graveyard, assuming the others would follow, picking up speed as I searched for the best path between the dead, grasping bodies. The three guys stuck close, Orin falling to the back as I tried to find us a way out that didn’t involve going over graves.

A hand shot out toward my ankle and I kicked it away, snapping it off at the wrist.

Fore! Pete’s voice reverberated through my head as his honey badger form chittered.

“Not playing golf, Pete!” I sidestepped a pair of hands that came at us, closer to knee height. “Keep your wand out, Ethan!” I hollered.

“Really, Sherlock? I thought I’d let them take us.” He snapped back then yelped and a burst of light shot up behind us. The darkness and fog faded for the space of two strides, and in that brief moment I could see, we were in far bigger trouble than I’d realized.

Acres of graveyard was an understatement. There was no end to it that I could see, no wall at the far side. And every grave was moving, every occupant climbing out.

We’d been running before. But now… “As fast as you can. Orin, take the lead!”

The vampire shot ahead of us, Wally falling way behind him, Pete at her side.

“Ethan. You and me at the back.”

We ran, dodging hands and snapping teeth, and my adrenaline ping-ponged inside me. Because I was severely out of my element. I didn’t know how to stop the dead.

“Wally, what do we do?” I shouted, and she slowed and looked over her shoulder.

“We have to fight.” Her eyes were wide, shell-shocked. “We have to fight our way out. Running will only make this go on and on. In that it is an illusion, like a hamster’s wheel that keeps going and going. The only way to make it stop is to face them.”

A howl went up behind us, gurgling and wet. I dared to look back in time to see shapes bounding across the graves. Clumsy, limping, but bounding.

“Werewolves. Dead werewolves,” Ethan snarled.

“Real wolves are afraid of fire,” I said. “Can you do anything with that?”

“No problem.” He waved his wand with a quick flick of his wrist, and three fireballs popped out of his wand like a roman candle, growing in size as they flew toward their targets.

The first fireball hit the lead wolf square in the chest, knocking it to the ground, lighting it up like a Christmas tree.

“See? This is easy.” I could hear the smirk in Ethan’s voice.

But I kept my eyes on the burning wolf. It shook itself and slowly got back to its feet, its fur singed in patches and still burning in others. The undead beast bared broken teeth before charging toward us once more. Now we had a werewolf on fire coming at us.

Brilliant.

We backed up until we bumped into Wally, Pete at our feet. “Orin?”

“You told him to run. He ran,” Wally said. I turned around to face her.

So much for staying together.

“Best case scenario, what are our odds?”

She closed her eyes for a brief second, squeezing them shut, and then looked at me once more. “The odds are not in our favor. We can fight, but they will keep coming until we are overrun. Thousand to one. Maybe worse.”

“You’re the necromancer,” Ethan snarled. “Shouldn’t you be doing something other than giving us cruddy odds?”

For the first time in these trials, he was right. This was Wally’s world and we needed her to pull it together. “We’ll protect you while you figure this out.” I put my back to her. “We’ll stand our ground.”

“That’s suicide!”

I grabbed Ethan by the arm and gave him a shake. “And Wally’s right. Running will get us nowhere. Orin is out there by himself figuring that out right now. We stand together, we fall alone.”

“Or he’s made it to the exit.” Ethan turned and squared himself. “Damn vampire. They can’t be trusted.” We faced the wolves together, the pack of three moving faster than the other undead. As they drew closer, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t help it. They looked to be not fully wolf, but not fully human either. Like the wolfman out of the old horror movies we’d watch on Saturday nights. Only they were hunched forward, not running on two legs but four.

“Are they only partially shifted?”

Ethan nodded. “Stuck between shapes in death.”

There was no more time for words as the weirdly shaped animals launched at us, snarling and snapping. They were not acting like normal wolves, or even the shifter wolves we’d faced in the previous trial.

These just came straight at us with no effort at stealth or subterfuge. All three of them came for Ethan, ignoring me.

Mistake number one on their part.

He went down under the weight of them with a shout. I grabbed the one closest to me by the scruff of its neck and heaved with everything I had in me. The skin stretched and pulled, tearing as I yanked the dead wolf off Ethan, flinging it to one side and taking down two more zombies with its thick body.

A burst of light cut through the air, sending one of the wolves straight up into the air in pieces that scattered like a burst piñata at the worst kind of party. Ethan rolled from the third, and I went in with my knife, driving it down and into the thing’s neck.

The wolf tried to turn his head, and I yanked the handle hard to the side, tearing the blade through the bone and rotting tissue, popping its head off like a daisy.

The dead wolf wobbled, fell to its all-too-human knees, and rolled over as its head tumbled away from its body.

Ethan and I backed up.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it.” I swung my blade to the right, catching a zombie that had risen partially from a grave. “We need to get our backs against something. Stuck in the center like this, we have no chance at all.”

“There’s a mausoleum in the center of the graveyard,” Orin said. “We can climb on top of it.”

Ethan and I whipped around at the same time.

“You came back?”

I couldn’t help the question. Orin tipped his head, looking like nothing more than an oversized black bird, right down to the flat black eyes.

“We’re a team. We’ve established that. Frankly, I’m surprised at your surprise.”

“You’re a vampire,” Ethan said, “Don’t be surprised that we’re surprised that you didn’t just leave us here.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Orin threw back.

“Not the time, boys!” I said as I pushed another zombie back, shoving it with my boot. My foot sunk into its chest, trapped for a second by the partially shattered ribcage. I snarled and shook my foot harder until it was free, although covered in slimy substances I didn’t want to identify.

I grabbed Wally by the arm and we bolted for the mausoleum. Part of me still worried Orin would turn on us, that he was potentially leading us into a trap, but I didn’t see any other choice.

Orin led the way, cutting through the zombies with his elongated creepy claw fingers. The zombies fell under his hands better than any other weapon we’d used so far. A quick glance down at Pete showed that while his fur was covered in zombie guts, he’d suffered no bites.

“No bites?” I asked the others as we jogged along, Wally in the center of us. She was strangely silent, and I knew why without asking.

This was really her test, and so far she’d done nothing but give us crappy odds. She seemed to have frozen.

Orin made getting to the mausoleum seem easy. I should have been happy, but the very fact that it seemed easy felt wrong.

“Slow down.” I said. “Something’s off.”

“If we slow down, we aren’t going to make it,” Ethan pointed his wand up into the air and shot a burst of light that spread out around us, showing me just what we were facing. Easily a thousand zombies moved in on us. I could see them under the fan of light. Goblins, gargoyles, shifters, and men and women who held splintered wands in their gnarled and rotting hands.

Except...I didn’t see any vampires.

Or any obvious Shades.

“Once we’re up on the building, what then?” I asked. “We’ll be surrounded and there will be no way out.”

“We have no choice,” Ethan yelled. “We can’t outrun them!”

A zombie goblin launched itself at Ethan as if to help make his point. Pete shot forward, taking the shambling undead out by the legs, but it wasn’t down for good. It rolled over and pushed itself toward us again.

Like a swarm of ants. I’d seen red army ants devour a downed bird. You’d think the bird could escape, but after a thousand tiny bites, it gave up.

And the ants had their prize.

I wanted to vomit. This was not an enemy that could be killed or outrun.

But I also knew that pinning ourselves down without an out could—no, would—get us killed.

Because there was no doubt in my mind that Wally was right. This was no normal trial. It was meant to do one thing and one thing only.

Eliminate me.

Chapter 4

“We have no choice but to go to the mausoleum. Maybe I can blast them from there,” Ethan repeated. The graveyard was full of moving parts, along with the constant groaning and shuffling of the undead as they came for us en masse. I looked to Wally.

“Wally, talk to us. Talk to me.”

“We need high ground,” she said, her eyes closed. “Then maybe…maybe I could do something.”

Ethan shook his head and muttered “useless” under his breath.

“Then we go.” We started out again, this time without hesitation.

Orin reached the building first, climbed up and then waited, watching with his flat black eyes as we drew close.

The mausoleum was a perfect square building with a few ornate edges, a flat roof, and no visible ladder to the top. I hurried forward, driving Wally and Pete ahead of me.

I bent and grabbed Pete around the middle and threw him up onto the building.

Damn it, I hate it when you do that! his voice echoed in my head.

I grinned. “You just wish you had wings.”

“Give me a boost!” Ethan shouted.

“I am right beside you, idiot.” I crouched beside him, cupping my hands, and then hoisted him up.

“Come on, Wally, you’re next.” I turned to see her standing behind me, her eyes despondent, arms wrapped around herself as if she wished she could shrink right where she stood.

“You should just leave me here,” she said. “He’s right, I’m useless to the group. I know stats, I know numbers, but I’ve never been trained as a necromancer. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to help our group. I can feel the dead, but I don’t know how to stop them. I can’t…. I can’t, Wild. I’m not good like the rest of you.” Her eyes flooded with tears.

“Look—” I waved a hand at the oncoming horde. “We don’t have time for you to doubt yourself. We need you to be the necromancer of this group. We need you to be a badass raiser of the dead.” I crouched beside her, and she reluctantly put her foot in the cup of my fingers.

I stood, boosting her high into the air. She scrambled over the edge, and I turned to see the zombies coming for me.

A semi-circle of the undead reached for me as a unit, smiles on their rotting faces. Those smiles sent chills of warning through me, and not the “hey, zombies are coming to eat you” kind of warning. This was more like “hey, whoever is running these zombies is coming for you,” which was infinitely worse in my opinion. Like the necromancer controlling them could see through their eyes and knew his prey was right in front of him.

I lashed out, shoving them back, breaking off bits and pieces as fast as I could. Strike, lunge, rinse, repeat. A bite landed on my forearm, and I howled as the zombie’s teeth dug into me, tearing flesh. The teeth were jagged, and they clamped on with a ferocity that would give any wolf a run for its money.

I brought my knife down hard on the biter’s head, driving the blade all the way into the hilt, but it didn’t let go. It shook its head and its broken body began to shift into something else—

House of Claw. Get out of there, Wild! Pete’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Yeah, trying!” I yelled as I pulled the knife out and tried a different angle, jamming the blade into the zombie’s head sideways, through the jaw bone. The mouth went slack on the one side, and I yanked free, blood running down my arm, my fingers numb on that side.

I backed up and reached up with my good hand. I opened my mouth to ask for help when a zombie shuffling toward me stopped me in my tracks. Instead of trying to get away, I took a step forward.

“No.” I struggled to breathe around what I was seeing, the world dipping and curving like I’d held my breath for too long and was about to pass out.

My brother stepped through the crowd, his body not as rotted as the others, as if he’d only just been killed, as if he’d died protecting me as he’d promised to do if it was asked of him. The line of his jaw, the brush of his hair, the hands that had boosted me into the apple trees how many times? It was all so familiar, so unmistakably him.

This could not be happening. This had to be an illusion.

Didn’t it?

“Tommy.” I could barely say his name as he pushed his way through the crowd, and then he was rushing me, pushing me back against the mausoleum with so much force he knocked the wind out of me. I tried to grab at him, to see his face. I had to see his eyes. I couldn’t believe this was where he’d been kept. And now he was fighting me.

“Tommy!” I bellowed his name, pain wrapping around my heart as I fought him.

The necromancer had done this to Tommy, had set my own brother against me. I drove my fist into his side, felt the ribs crack, but it didn’t slow him. Not for a damn second.

His hand came up lightning fast, his fingers wrapping around my neck, squeezing.

I kicked as he lifted me, stronger than he’d ever been. Weirdly, I could only wonder if he’d been this strong as a living Shade, or if this was the strength of the undead. My brother was undead.

And he was going to kill me.

“Tommy.” I whispered his name, choked on tears. I didn’t want to die. But I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy him.

I tried pulling his fingers off my neck, snapped one of them backward and he didn’t so much as blink. Staring into his face, his rheumy eyes, I knew then there was nothing left of my brother in this body. This was not the boy that I’d adored, the one I’d looked up to and wanted to be like. Not the brother who’d shown me how to wrangle cows, ride horses. Not the brother who’d taught me how to track and survive out in the woods.

It was only his body, not his spirit.

“I’m sorry.” I mouthed the words rather than spoke them as I lifted a foot and kicked him in the hip, throwing him off balance. We went to the ground and I rolled, driving my elbow into his, snapping the bone. His fingers still clung to me, but I pried them off, one broken finger at a time, gasping for breath.

Orin, Ethan, and Wally were shouting at me to get up, to hurry, but it all seemed so far away. Even the other undead seemed to be waiting to see how this played out between me and Tommy. No, not Tommy. This was not my brother, not anymore.

I spun as another body rushed through the horde. Green eyes, dark hair, and the scent of home. The other half of my childhood, this one alive and desperate. Desperate to watch my back, at all costs.

“Rory—” No words, there were no words, just his name, as Rory thrust himself into peril and rushed over to me. He dragged me back to the mausoleum. He bent and cupped his hands to give me a boost, same as I’d done for Wally and Ethan.

“What about—”

“Go. I’ll be fine!” he yelled over the din, fear heavy in his voice.

Like in the trees, I knew it wasn’t fear for himself, but fear for me. Fear he’d lose me as he’d lost my brother. Maybe fear that I’d end up like Tommy—

I choked back a sob and took the boost, balancing a hand on his muscular shoulder. I scrambled to hold onto the edge, Ethan helping me up the rest of the way.

I spun on my belly in time to see Rory disappear under a wave of the undead.

“Who was that?” Orin leaned over the edge.

“NO!” My scream echoed through my head. Through my heart. My middle had already been ripped open by seeing Tommy as one of them, by having to fight my own brother. To lose Rory too…that was beyond unfair.

A flash of his dark clothes was all I could see as he was rolled under the zombies, like an undercurrent in an ocean of the undead had taken hold of him and swept him away from me. I stood and bolted to the other side of the roof, looking for him, searching the masses with my eyes, frantic to see him one more time.

“RORY!” His name ripped out of me as I frantically searched for him.

Gone, he was gone. This time, I couldn’t even see a shred of fabric.

I was no fool. There would be no diving in after him, no saving him from these creatures. He wouldn’t want me to throw my own life away when we both knew he was done. That he couldn’t be saved.

He’d put his life on the line for me, just like he’d said he would.

I bent at the waist, my entire body shaking. Memories and images cascaded through my head—the first time we’d gone skinny dipping in the river as kids, the two of us grinning at each other as we hid from Tommy, that cheeky ass smile of his, the feeling of his strength pooling around me and protecting me the night he’d hidden me from the assassin.

I couldn’t stop the shaking, couldn’t stop the tears as they bubbled up. The others were all talking at once—I could hear them in the background discussing what to do, how to get out of here. How to escape.

And all I could think about was Rory.

The way I’d talked to him. My last words to him had been spoken in anger, pushing him away. A wave of nausea rammed its way up my throat, and I threw up over the edge of the roof, right onto a zombie’s head. It blinked up at me with a bemused look.

Nice shot, Pete said from beside me. But what’s got you all riled up?

“Stop it, just stop it!” Wally yelled and I turned to see Ethan pushing her across the roof, toward the edge.

Ethan kept shoving her. “Do something to help. If you can’t be useful, then you can be the bait this time. You can draw them away.”

Orin just watched.

And the grief in my belly turned to an instant white-hot rage. I would not lose another friend to the army of undead.

I didn’t even recall moving across the space between us, I was just there on Ethan, driving him back, my hand wrapped around his throat the way Tommy’s had been wrapped around mine. I held him out over the edge of the roof, balancing him on the backs of his heels, his face red from the lack of oxygen. “You don’t touch her. You don’t hurt her. Got it?”

“Wild, it wasn’t that bad,” Wally said. “Honestly, this is too far, even for you. Don’t drop him. We need him. We need all of us to get through this.”

Ethan watched me with wide eyes, his entire body leaning out over the grasping, broken, and rotting hands that reached for him.

I swallowed hard and drew him back onto the roof. He fell to his knees and coughed, shaking his head and looking up at me. “What does it matter? You might as well have dropped me there? We aren’t going to make it out of this. None of us are.”

We all stared at him.

“What are you talking about?” Orin said. “You want to die now?”

Ethan shook his head. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t normal.” He swept his hand over the dizzying scene. “This isn’t a test for the Culling Trials. I was trained in all the variations on the challenges, going back generations. This was never mentioned. Never. No, this is meant to kill us. Wally was right about that much. Because even if it was meant for one of us”—he shot a glare at me—“they can’t have witnesses. That’s how this world works and you all know it. You can’t allow witnesses to a death that was an assassination.”

While I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that we would make it out of this too, I truly believed our lives hung in the balance.

I would grieve for Rory later, but right now I needed to figure this out. I had to find a way for us to escape this trial.

Wally’s hand slid down to my palm and she linked her fingers with my good hand. A burst of awareness flooded over me, and I slowly turned, hanging onto her as I looked down at the sea of dead.

Glowing lights lit up inside each and every one of the bodies, throbbing with a deep green pulse that I knew without understanding belonged to the necromancer controlling them. “Do you see that?” I whispered to her.

She tightened her hold on my hand. “The light? Yes, but I don’t know how to stop it.”

I nodded and dragged her to the edge of the roof for a better vantage point. The zombies didn’t look as rotted. The longer I stared at them, the more they looked…alive. “You see them as they were, not as they are.”

Wally blew out a slow breath. “You shouldn’t be able to see them like I do, Wild. There is only one—”

“If we can pinpoint where the light’s coming from, we can stop the necromancer.” I looked at her. Really looked. She was as terrified as I’d ever seen her, and I didn’t think it was just the fact that we were facing death. “Wally, why does this scare you?”

“The same reason Gregory was afraid during his trial, the same reason Pete was afraid in his,” Ethan said. “If she fails her own challenge, her memory will be wiped. She will be cast out of the only world that would have her and her skills.”

Her face paled. “He’s right. I’m terrified to blow this, not just for me but for all of us. The undead here, they are going to make a push to kill us. I can feel it growing. I don’t know why the necromancer is waiting, but he is.”

Out in the graveyard the light pulsed and danced, stronger to what I would guess was the north of us. A steady glow of green curled round a bigger clump of stationary zombies.

I watched that group for a beat, and not one of them took a step in our direction. I pointed. “There. That’s where the necromancer is.”

Wally nodded. “I know, but what good does it do? The odds of me being able to beat a necromancer of this calibre…well, they’re not good.”

“At a loss for stats. Finally,” Ethan grumbled.

I stared out at that green glow and the light that radiated from the individual who had done this to us. “We kill that necromancer, and the dead go back to their graves?”

“Yes, in theory. But we only really need to knock the necromancer out,” she said.

Orin had been quiet until that moment. “And just who is going to run the gauntlet and knock him out? If someone can get to him, they’ll still have to fight the zombies around him, no doubt some of the strongest undead.”

Slowly, they all turned to me.

I closed my eyes, taking stock of my body. My arm throbbed, aching deep to the bone where the zombie had chewed on me, and my fingers still tingled as though there had been some nerve damage. Other than that, my body wasn’t in bad shape. I wasn’t even exhausted. I just felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest.

Just like when Tommy had died.

It took all my strength to push the grief down, to stuff it to the back of my heart where it wouldn’t interfere with what had to happen. My survival wasn’t the only thing on the line here. The others were depending on me too.

“Ethan, what kind of range do you have with that wand of yours?” When I opened my eyes, he was looking out over the milling mass. A few of the zombies were climbing on top of each other, trying to get to us. Eventually they would. They’d be just like those red army ants on the bird that should have flown away but couldn’t.

There would be no waiting this out. “I’m not sure if I can reach the necromancer,” he said.

“Try,” I said.

He took a few steps and stood on the edge of the roof, held his wand up and then flicked his hand forward.

Hope he doesn’t drop his wand, Pete muttered.

Another time I would have laughed. Another time I would have poked fun at Ethan too. But Wally was right—we needed him, we needed all of us.

A flare of light shot out from Ethan’s wand, lighting up the sky with a tail like a comet. It fell about three quarters of the way to the necromancer.

Laughter boomed all around us, the zombies laughing with their master. Pete snarled, and Orin gave a low growl.

I just nodded. “So we know how far you can help us.”

“Us?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to leave me here by myself?”

I shook my head as I ripped a strip of my shirt off and wrapped it around my arm, pulling the ends with my teeth to tie it off. “No. Pete will stay with you. I’ll take Orin and Wally with me, seeing as this is their house and they have the best chance of surviving.”

Wally stood a little straighter. Orin rolled his eyes. “Vampires are far superior to any necromancer.”

“Right, fine.” I was going into battle mode. We had little chance of winning this game, but I intended to give us a chance. “Ethan, can you blast a space clear on this side so we can jump over?”

“Why not ask Wally to do it? Or can’t she control even one zombie?”

His words seemed to spark something in her. She stepped forward, and I saw in her a tiny spark, a flare of pink light deep in her center.

“I’ll clear the way, Wild.” She looked down on the zombies at our feet, and I watched with fascination as she reached a hand out over them. The pink light in her bubbled up and trickled down her arm to drip off her fingers. Like rain drops.

“We need a thunderstorm, not a sprinkler,” I said.

Her eyes whipped up to mine. “I can’t. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

You should get Orin to throw you guys down there, see how you like being chucked around, Pete said.

I glanced down at him and he stared up at me with a wide honey badger grin.

He wasn’t wrong. There was an opening about twenty feet out from the mausoleum edge.

“I’m going to regret this,” I muttered. “Orin, can you throw me and Wally out there?”

Orin grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

He took hold of me by my forearms and spun. Like he was going to throw a hammer in the Olympics. My bitten arm did not like his grip, but there was nothing for it, I had to go through with this.

Sweet baby Jesus, this was a bad idea.

I swallowed hard with the first rotation, and then he let me go and I was flying through the air, seeing the dead flash below me, their arms raised like I was at a rave and about to crowd surf. It wasn’t so bad, not really.

That’s the last thought that rolled through me right before I smashed into a grave stone.

Head first.

Chapter 5

My first thought as I came to was that I didn’t have a dog, so how could a dog be pulling on my leg and my hand at the same time?

My second thought was that the dog would need to have two mouths.

My third was much clearer as I remembered my flight via Orin’s throw over the zombies’ heads as they reached for me right before I hit the gravestone. “You did that on purpose, Orin!” I managed to open my eyes just as Wally and Orin landed beside me, her cradled in the curve of one of his arms.

I was dragged backward, a low growl reaching my ears. Maybe it was a dog. The pounding in my head told me just how hard I’d hit that rock.

Gravestone. We were in a graveyard with zombies and a necromancer set on killing us.

“Kill our best chance at survival? I think not,” Orin said. “You are more solid than I realized. I couldn’t throw you as far as I thought. And I carried Wally so as not to break her.”

I lifted my head to see a hunched-over zombie with my foot and boot in its mouth, its clawed fingers digging into the leather sole. I jerked my knee toward me, yanking the zombie closer, then got my foot free and booted the undead thing in the head. It fell onto its back and let out a low groan that sounded suspiciously like “Shiiiiiiiiiiit.”

Orin slashed at the zombie attached to my right hand. Its head rolled off, but the hands still reached for us.

I pushed to my feet, Wally helping to steady me. The second she touched my skin, the zombies lit up like fireflies. A steady pulse of green was all around us, the source drawing closer.

“Go, go! He’s making his move!” I yelled at Orin.

He ran ahead of us, and Wally and I followed, her right hand in my left.

A sharp warning spun me to the left as a zombie launched straight at Wally, teeth first, eyes missing from its skull, long stringy hair in patches, then more solid, the skin healing as I saw the person as they were before they died.

Even though I saw it differently hanging onto Wally, the thick stench of rotting flesh tickled the back of my throat. Keeping Wally behind me, I gritted my teeth and pinched my lips against the stench, then swung my blade. The knife cut directly across the zombie’s neck, through the soft flesh and partially decomposed bone with an ease that surprised me. The head rolled from the shoulders and plopped to the ground, teeth and jaws still snapping.

The arms of the zombie reached for me and I shoved it back, knocking it to the ground.

I pushed another zombie back. We couldn’t slow down, not if we were going to make it to the necromancer. Not if we were going to take even a portion of the chance Wally’s sight gave us.

The air around us tingled, the smell of ozone cutting it just before a flash of lightning touched down to our right, sending the zombies back a good forty feet. I glanced back over my shoulder to see Ethan waving that boom stick of his around, lightning snapping down with each wave.

Another burst of lightning to our left, and one right in front of us, and the path was as clear as we were going to get it. I grabbed Wally and swung her up onto my back. My arm burned where I’d been bitten, and I could feel an infection growing there, spreading up and down in pulses.

Not good. We had to end this as fast as we could.

I tucked in close to Orin and let him clear the remaining zombies in front of us.

“We’re here.” He slowed. “I—” He swallowed hard. “I think it was a bad idea to bring me.”

Wally let out a low groan. “No, oh no!”

“Oh no what?” I yelled. “What are you two not telling me?”

Wally slid from my back as Orin turned to face us. His eyes were still dark, but through my connection to Wally, I could see the green glow blooming in their depths. The other necromancer had him in his grasp. “Oh crap, are you kidding me? Tell me this is a really bad joke!”

Orin lunged at me and then stopped and shook his head. “I’m trying, I’m trying to fight him.”

“Wally, you’ve got to push back!” I said as I shoved Orin back. “You’ve got to!”

“I know,” she said. “But the odds of me being able to beat him—”

“The odds are bull!” I snapped. “You have to beat him, Wally. No more odds, no more statistics. Embrace what you are, or we are all going to die! You are stronger than you know. You have to believe that!”

I danced away from Orin, trying to keep the zombies shambling our way in sight at the same time. It struck me, not for the first time, that none of the zombies had been using the abilities they’d had in life.

Almost on cue, the air echoed with a boom, a rumble of rocks and stone. I whipped around to see the mausoleum going down, magic circling around it that wasn’t Ethan’s.

“Wally, now!” I put all the command I could into my voice, and she cried out as if I’d hit her.

Orin jumped on me and we went to the ground. I rolled with him until I was on top, pinning him down, my knees on his arms and my hands free.

Wally stood in front of the necromancer, her arms spread wide. “I can’t let you hurt my friends.”

The necromancer let out a long, low laugh, and I couldn’t help but stare. He was wearing a dark gray robe, and his long beard and hair were the same gray. His mouth and eyes had lines that suggested not laughter, but cruelty. There would be no begging or bargaining with this one. He arched both brows at Wally. “You are a child from a blood line that is known for being weak. For letting your heart rule your power. I see it in you, a soft color. Weak. Dilute. You cannot stop me.”

Orin tried to buck me off, and I punched him in the side of the head, knocking him out. “Sorry.”

His eyes rolled and I leapt off him, heading for Wally. But my back had been to the zombies, and several of them grabbed me from behind. Before I knew it, my limbs had been stretched out like I was on a drying rack.

Wally’s head dropped and a soft sob tore out of her that I could just barely hear. This was it, she would either beat him or I’d be torn apart. We’d all die.

“He’s wrong, Wally! He’s so wrong! I’m here for my family—I’ve only fought like I have because of love! We’re a family now, too, Wally, and you damn well know it! We need you to dig deep like you’ve never dug before.”

Her shoulders shook and she slowly turned her face to me, tears streaking her cheeks. “I’m so afraid. I don’t want to be like him.”

The zombies pulled, and the muscles and tendons in my limbs shrieked. I tipped my head back and screamed.

There was a clatter and the zombies released me as a snarl rent the air. I’d never been so happy to see a honey badger in my life. Pete ripped through the zombies’ legs, sending them flying, and I hit the ground, my joints feeling loose. Wobbly.

Pete slammed into Wally’s legs. Tell her she can do this, I believe in her!

“Pete believes in you, Wally. You can do this!”

Ethan fell next to me, shooting backward. “Wally, even I believe you can do this. Your family isn’t weak, or I wouldn’t have let you stay on this team!”

Orin groaned. “Me too.”

Wally lifted her hands, her breath coming in huge gulps, her chest heaving, and I watched as the pink glow suffused her body and jumped from Pete, to me, to Orin, and even Ethan.

“I won’t let you hurt my friends,” she said. The green energy from the other necromancer pulsed as he laughed.

“You are untrained. You can’t beat me.”

“You don’t need training to have heart,” I said. “To have the grit to see this through. You just do it.”

Nice, now we’re a Nike commercial? Pete said.

Wally smiled, as if she’d heard him too. “Yeah. I can beat you. For my friends.”

There was a moment of complete and utter silence and then light erupted from her, blasting into the zombies and knocking the other necromancer off his feet.

I wasn’t sure what the others saw, but to me, Wally looked like she was on fire, the magic flickering up around her, protecting her as she walked toward the other necromancer. Each zombie she touched sighed and slid down into the ground.

“Thaaaank youuuuuu.”

Wally stood over the necromancer. “Nobody hurts my friends. Nobody hurts my family.”

“This is impossible.” His eyes were wide. “Impossible.”

I stood and made my way to Wally’s side. “Not a word we know.” With a swift move, I bent and slammed the butt of my knife into his skull.

His eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the ground.

The remainder of the zombies sunk back into the earth, one by one.

I took a few steps back. “Well done, Wally, well done.”

Her eyes were shining, and a grin trembled on her lips. “I’m not useless.”

“Nope.” I grinned back, my own eyes stupidly full. “Not for a second did I ever believe that.”

Knew what you were made of all along, Pete said.

Wally bent and scooped him into her arms, squeezing him. “Thank you. All of you.”

Ethan grunted something and stood, holding a hand out to Orin. The vampire blew out a breath as he rose, his eyes his own. He gave a full-body shudder. “That’s not allowed, you know. Necromancers taking over vampires.”

Wally nodded. “I know. He was not a good necromancer.”

“What do we do with him?” Ethan asked. “I mean, we can’t kill him.”

I arched an eyebrow, still breathing hard, my body shaking from the beating it had taken. “What do you think he was going to do to us? Take us out shopping for new clothes and lunch at Mickey D’s?”

They all looked at me. Of course, they did—I was the killer. And I didn’t particularly feel bad about killing someone who’d been set on us. But he was knocked out.

“We’re going to see vampires at some point, right?” I let the idea tumble out of my mouth. “What if we hand him over, like an offering of sorts? They’d believe you, Orin, right? If you told them what he’d done?”

Orin’s face slowly transformed into a wide grin that flashed his fangs. “Oh, they would love that. Yes, let’s take him along.”

And just like that our five turned into six, although number six was, to be fair, bound and gagged with Ethan’s magic. He kept the necromancer in front of him, kind of a human shield as we made our way out of the graveyard. With the necromancer muzzled, we could see the exit clear as day.

“He had a spell with him,” Ethan said. “To cloak the exit.”

Wally shook her head, a frown creasing her eyebrows. “That means this was more than just a necromancer trying to kill us. Someone from the House of Wonder must have given him that spell.”

“They weren’t really out to kill us, to be fair,” Orin pointed out. “Just Wild. We were collateral damage.”

I looked back once we reached the gate. The graves were silent, quiet…and a figure stood among them. My heart picked up speed as I watched Tommy staring at us. His arm was twisted where I’d broken it, but his eyes…his eyes were his own.

He tipped his head to me, and when he lifted it, he mouthed two words. Keep fighting.

My heart beat so hard, I thought it would leap out of my chest. I glanced at Wally, to ask her if she was holding him up, and then back to Tommy, only he was gone. Back into the grave he’d been assigned.

And what about Rory? I knew that he was gone—there was no surviving the way the zombies had taken him down—but there was no sign of a body.

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep the sob back. I was not a crier. I usually didn’t give myself over to my emotions, but seeing Tommy and losing Rory…it wasn’t just losing him. It was losing Tommy all over again. Losing my mom.

Three of the most important people in my life were gone, their lives blown out like candles. I drew a slow breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”

This trial wasn’t done, and if the first test was any indication, I needed to keep my crap together. When we were out, when I was in the shower washing away the dirt and blood, then I could let the tears fall, then I would sob my heart out. But not before. Not while we still had dangers to face.

The moment we stepped out of the graveyard, the moon broke through the clouds, illuminating what we faced next.

I held my arm where the bite throbbed. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a quick glance at the wound told me what I’d already known. Red lines raced across my skin, angry and deep. A serious infection from the zombie bite, one that was growing at a speed that was far from normal.

“We need to hurry,” I said, and even to my own ears the words were sloppy, as if I’d gotten into Dad’s moonshine.

“Oh, crap, she’s got an infection from the bite!” Ethan growled. He grabbed my face with his hands and peered into my eyes, pulling my lids up with his thumbs. “It’s moving fast. I can’t even believe I’m going to say this. We need to pick her up and carry her.”

“I’ve got her,” Orin said.

“Thought I was too big.” I mumbled as he flipped me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“You are too big to throw a hundred feet. Not too big to pack around,” he grumbled back.

The world spun as he stepped, my head bobbing, their voices fading in and out.

We walked through a fog that swirled all around us, the whispers of unfamiliar voices crawling inside my ears like bugs, like mosquitoes trapped in my skull. I swatted with my one hand, heat rushing through me even though I was no longer walking.

Distantly, I knew it was fever. Maybe the zombie’s mouths had been deliberately infected with something? Possible. No matter how I looked at it, someone had done this on purpose. No one else had been bitten, just me. Did they really want me dead? Or was it still possible they only wanted to kidnap me? The questions rolled through me, and I fought to stay awake. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep, to rest.

“Her heart is slowing!” Orin said, and then we were bouncing along. Running. They were running. That couldn’t be good.

My crew was trying to save me. Something warm and fuzzy flowed through me. They really were family. No matter that none of us seemed to fit.

You’ve got to hang in there, Wild! Pete’s voice burst through the static, and then the other voices were back. The whispering voices.

I could almost make out words through the static. The harder I listened, the more I could pick up.

Orin lowered me to the ground, and I somehow found my legs strong enough to stand. We were in front of a castle, the drawbridge closed, and fog rolled all around us. No, not fog. Ghosts. We were surrounded by ghosts.

“You see them?” I held a hand out and one of the ghosts reached for me. A woman.

“See what? We can’t see anything in this fog. Stay close!” Ethan snapped, fear thick in his voice.

The woman in front of me smiled, her features slowly coming into focus.

“Mom?”

“We’re losing her!” Orin yelled. “Her heart rate just dropped!”

Only they weren’t losing me. I was with my mom and my mom was here and I was…

“Oh, my sweet Wild girl, it isn’t your time,” Mom said, her smile gentle and sad at the same time. “You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s so hard, Mom. This place is so hard. And the people are assholess.” I drew a breath and reached for her, and miracle of miracles, she was solid under my hands. She grabbed me and pulled me tight to her chest and the smell of lilacs and baby powder surrounded me. Safe, home, love, family. This was all I needed.

“I know it’s hard, and yes, people are always going to be assholes.” She laughed, her chest shaking lightly. “You’ll have your days too, my girl, where you’ll be the asshole. The one to get the job done. Because you are the only one who can protect them all, Wild. Do you understand? You are the best of me. The best of your father. The best of our family.” She pressed her lips against my forehead and I clung to her, already feeling her pushing away. A burst of energy flowed from her into me, pushing back the infection, pushing back the fatigue. “Go, my girl. Go and don’t forget. You must get up now. Get up.”

“Get up!” Pete screamed in my face, his breath smelling vaguely of death. Was it from biting the zombies? Gross, that’s exactly what it was from, I was sure of it. “You have to get up!”

He was back on two legs, his freckles bright from the strain of his yelling in my face. I rolled onto my belly and lifted my head. Across the drawbridge stood Ethan, Orin, and Wally. The captured necromancer sat behind them on his knees.

Pete grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me hard. Something had happened while I’d been out cold. Apparently. We’d passed through the ghosts like they were actual mist.

Or maybe they’d had to face the ghosts on their own?

“If you don’t cross the bridge under your own power, it doesn’t count,” he said. “You have to get up, Wild. You have to. I won’t finish this trial without you, not after everything we’ve been through together.”

I pushed to my hands and knees. My guts rolled, my bad arm shaking and buckling under me, but I sat back on my knees and then slowly got to my feet, Pete hovering like an old lady the whole time. He had sweat pants on, thank God. That was about all I took note of besides the planks under my feet as I took step after step toward the others. Though I did wonder where he’d gotten them from.

This was the worst time to be at my worst. The vampires came last, Ethan had said so, and I was pretty much useless. With my good arm, I went for my knife and pulled it out, fingers trembling. If I was going to have to fight, I needed to be ready.

My footsteps echoed loudly on the wooden planks, and as soon as my boots reached cobblestone, I stopped. The world around me swam, sweat dribbling off my face and onto the stone.

“Is this real?” I asked, my words still thick and slurred. The castle around us was massive, and even in my very addled state I could appreciate the scope of it. My heart skipped a beat.

“How are you even standing?” Wally asked softly. “A few minutes ago, your heart was faltering, even Orin felt it.”

“The ghosts,” Ethan said. “They can give energy. She must have known one of them. That’s why they let us through. Damn it, even when she’s out of it she’s getting us through this.” He shook his head, and I just kind of rolled with it.

“My mom,” I said. “She gave me energy.”

“Yes,” Orin said. “This part, this castle is real. This is where the council of the undead oversee their portion of the magical world.” He paused. “They allow us to use it for the purpose of the Culling Trials as they want a chance to view the contestants in person.”

Pete grumbled under his breath and hitched at his sweatpants. “Contestants or new play toys?”

Orin didn’t so much as miss a beat. “Either. You, though, they’d likely put on a spit and slow roast for their next gathering.”

I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not and didn’t have the energy to tell him not to be a dick.

Apparently, Pete wasn’t sure if it was a joke either. He dropped back next to Wally, grumbling, “What a jerk. He’s lucky I don’t mind him so much now.”

“Statistically speaking, he’s not wrong,” she said. “Four to six percent of the trial entrants fall under the spell of one of the vampires and chose to stay here as servants. They aren’t strong enough to live in the magical world anyway if they can be taken that easily, but the statistics don’t lie.”

“Wish they would once in a while,” Pete said.

Orin and Ethan led the way, and warning tingles danced up and down my spine with each step. I let out a low groan as my stomach rolled with nausea. The vampires had better hurry the hell up, or I was going to be flat on my back again before I could be of any help to my crew.

The two guys approached the center of the courtyard, Ethan with his wand raised and Orin with his hands clasped at his back as he float-walked along. One day he’d make a fine Dracula. I grinned at the thought, feeling the crazy that came with a high fever and infection. Then another warning blared through all that crazy, demanding my attention.

I pushed Wally and Pete ahead of me, still trying to guard the rear. “Eyes open.”

“As if I’d close them now,” Pete muttered.

“It’s a saying, Pete,” Wally said, “and as she is our resident Shade, we should listen to her. As I mentioned before, she has a highly tuned inner warning system.” Wally continued on in that thread, giving stats about how many Shades made it through the trials versus the rest of the blood lines.

That warning system was ringing a thousand bells at once, my adrenaline pulsing so fast, it pushed back the fog of the infection, clearing my mind. I struggled to keep my breathing normal, slow and even. Ethan and Orin stopped in the center of the courtyard.

“Which way?” Ethan did a slow turn, pointing at each of the four doors leading out of the castle. Four doors, none of which we needed to go through.

This was the wrong way.

“Stop!” I whisper-yelled the word.

Ethan and Orin slowed, and I motioned for them to come back to us. Ethan took a step, but Orin didn’t.

“I think I would know my own house,” he said, turning away from us.

Ethan looked between me and Orin. “Yeah, he should.”

Wally and Pete backed up until they were beside me. “Listen to her,” Wally said. “If she’s picking up on something, then we need to—”

The slightest creak of hinges squeaked through the air, and four figures emerged from the four doors.

I grabbed Wally and Pete and dragged them farther back. Maybe it was because I had missing stamped on my file. Maybe it was because of Rory’s warning about the vampires. Maybe it was because I was so close to death. But this was bad, beyond bad.

“This will be worse than dealing with the necromancer,” I said.

Please, God, let me be wrong for once.

Chapter 6

The four vampires rushed out at us from the doorways in the castle, their speed blinding. There was no way I could fight, no way any of us could physically best them. We had to outsmart them instead.

“PARLAY!” I screamed the word and the vampires came to a dead stop.

“We are vampires, not pirates, you stupid girl.” The one to the left of us laughed, and the other three joined in, their laughter rolling around us, amplified by the stone walls until it felt like a hundred vampires were laughing at us.

“And if we have a necromancer who can control vampires? How much would that be worth to you?” Ethan asked, taking over.

“Necromancers can’t control vampires,” one of them said. “That is an old myth to scare the young ones into being obedient.”

Orin shrunk where he stood, just a little, but I saw it. “It is true.” He shook the necromancer at his feet and the vampires seemed to really see him for the first time. With his heavily lined face and thick beard, he was for sure no kid.

“I can do no such thing,” the necromancer purred.

“Then how did I learn it from you?” Wally held out a hand and her necromancer power crawled down her arm and latched onto the vampire closest to us.

“I would never have figured it out if I hadn’t seen you control Orin.”

Orin nodded. “He made me attack my crew. He was inside my head and I couldn’t stop him.”

Three of the vampires laughed. The fourth tried to join them, but Wally made a fist. The laugh strangled, and she pointed at the other vampires. “Protect us from them.”

Pride suffused me as my crew closed ranks. I only wished Gregory were here, that he could be a part of this moment. Ethan and Orin went shoulder to shoulder, keeping the necromancer on the ground in front of them. Pete stayed near me, and Wally was to our left, directing the vampire she’d taken hold of.

“Damn it, she’s in my head!” He stepped forward, claws extended at his fellow blood suckers. He put his back to us and let out a snarl. “This should not be possible!”

A moment of tension, and then the world seemed to explode in a flurry of movement, shouts and emotion.

People burst through the doorways, not all of them vamps. One was Director Frost, and another was Ethan’s dad, his wand out as he blasted one of the vampires away from our group, flipping him end over end.

Behind them strolled the Sandman, his eyes on me. He gave me a slow nod, and I knew who’d sounded the alarm that something was wrong with our trial. The only question was, why?

Why had Sunshine helped me? Was it because Rory had died?

I went to my knees, the chaos around me white noise buzzing along my skin. Yelling, flares of magic, vampires hissing...it all unrolled around me as I stayed there on my knees.

Pete grabbed one arm, and Wally the other. “We’ve got to get you to the healer,” Pete said.

I closed my eyes and let them carry me.

“She dropped her knife,” Ethan called from behind us, slipping the blade back into its sheath. Only he’d said the wrong thing.

She. He’d said she.

A new burst of excitement whipped up behind us, but I couldn’t bring myself to care as I was hauled through a doorway, out of the House of Night, and into the bright sunshine of upstate New York, as if everything behind us had been a dream.

“Nightmare more like it,” Pete said. “Holy cats. Wild, that was…do you really think they were trying to kill us all?”

They laid me on a table and the healer shushed him, the same healer as that first day. What was her name again? Was I mumbling?

“It’s the infection,” the healer smiled down at me. “It’s almost to your brain. They got you out just in time.”

“What would happen if it reached her brain?” Pete asked.

“Zombie,” Wally said.

The healer—Mara, that was her name—tsked. “Don’t go upsetting her. She’s here and that’s that.”

Of course, she knew I was a girl too. She had from the beginning but hadn’t said anything. But every other thought scattered as her hands pressed against the bite wound. I arched my back as pain rippled outward from her touch.

“This will not be pleasant,” Mara said, her voice grim.

Fire and ice, knives and snapping teeth, tearing flesh and broken limbs, I couldn’t think past the pain that erupted through my veins. “Bite down.”

Something was shoved between my teeth and I bit down hard, snapping it in half.

“Holy cats, are we sure she isn’t a shifter?”

A chunk of leather was shoved in next and I bit into it, my teeth almost touching through the thick material as I screamed.

For a moment, I thought about just letting it go, because the pain was surely not worth the prize. We still had one more trial to go through, one more chance at being killed. Because I was sure that this botched attempt wouldn’t be the last. Whoever was doing it would try again, and again, until they had what they wanted–our deaths, a kidnapping, it didn’t matter. They would not give up.

Was that why the Sandman had been there? Was he after me? The pain receded and my mind went into overdrive with theories and questions. Had the Sandman killed Rory for looking out for me?

Had my friend died trying to protect me, or had he been just thrown under the bus to throw me off the track?

The shakes took me, starting in my legs and working all the way up through my middle to my chest and arms. A heavy blanket was tossed over me, and then Orin and Ethan swept into the tent, followed by…Colt.

His eyes shot to me, one still bruised from his encounter with Rory in the forest. It felt like a lifetime ago even though it had been less than a day.

“She can stay here,” Mara said, dusting her hands. “She needs rest and food. And I fixed her nose while I was at it, seeing as…” As everyone knew I wasn’t a boy. That thought tripped through my brain.

Ethan shook his head. “No, she comes with us. Colt, can you pick her up?”

Orin took a step, but Colt beat him to it. “Yeah, of course.” He scooped me up, blanket and all, as if I weighed nothing.

“I can walk.” I moved to push him away, but my arms were weighted lead and I couldn’t so much as lift them.

Colt held me tightly to his chest as he walked out of the tent, the others falling in around us. All the way to a bus that took us back to the mansion. I dozed, unable to keep my eyes open.

I was warm, safe. I fell asleep in Colt’s arms.

When I came to, we were back in the room, and I was tucked into my bed. My crew was there, talking softly.

“What are we going to do?” Wally asked. “We know someone’s after her, the whole school knows she’s a girl now, but they haven’t kicked her out. Why? That makes no sense.”

“You want her to be kicked out?” Orin countered.

“No, of course not.” Wally huffed. “But they are acting like they don’t know. Why? What do they want with her?”

“She’s strong,” Ethan said. “It’s possible they want her for a specific job. That’s…” he cleared his throat, “that’s what my dad said. That maybe someone wants her specifically. That’s why she’s being tested so hard. Maybe it wasn’t a trial meant to kill her after all.”

Pete paced beside my bed, identifiable by his footsteps. “But for what?”

They were all quiet at that, and I sat up. Colt was there too, surprising me. He gave me a smile and I tried to smile back.

Except that when I looked at him, all I could see was Rory.

I swallowed hard. “I need to shower. Can…I get some privacy?”

“I’ll be just outside,” Wally said. “Pete and I will guard the door.”

Colt grabbed Ethan. “And we’ll get some food.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “I should never have told you she was a girl.”

They filed out, all of them, except Orin. I looked up at him. “What?”

“We all passed that trial. But we shouldn’t have. You tie us together in a way that is not normal.” He frowned. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. I do not think these ties will be easily broken. I should be bothered by it. Vampires are by nature loners, but…now I don’t want that.”

I stood, hanging on to the bed to make sure I didn’t fall over. I wasn’t hurting anymore, but I felt like I’d been sick for weeks. “That your way of saying we’re friends?”

He tipped his head to the side. “I suppose it is. I’ve never had friends before. Is it normal to want to protect them?”

I wanted to laugh at him, but he was serious. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“I see.” He sighed. “Well, I will guard the door with Wally and Pete then. Because you are my friend.”

He did his float-walk to the door and closed it quietly behind him. Call me crazy, but the doubts that had ghosted through me about Orin slid away with the last of our conversation. He might be weird. He might be bloodthirsty, but I didn’t think he’d turn on us. I headed to the bathroom, peeling off my clothes as I went. The smell of the undead, of sweat and blood and fear, clung to them and I just needed them off.

The water was scalding hot as I stepped into it, but I didn’t care. It rolled off my face and shoulders, mingling with my tears. My body was healed. I could feel every inch of it coming up to full speed even while I stood there, right down to my nose. But I wasn’t sure that the rest of me would ever come back from this. From fighting Tommy. From watching Rory disappear under that wave of zombies.

As angry as I’d been with him, I’d never thought I’d truly lose him. Not Rory.

He’d dodged death so many times even when we were kids. How could this have happened? Sobs ripped out of me and I let them. I wouldn’t get another chance to grieve, not until we made it through the final trial.

I stood there, crying and smacking my hand against the wall, until the water began to cool. I forced myself to scrub off the dirt at that point and wash my hair.

When I stepped out of the shower, a single pulse of warning cut through me. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

Wrapped in a towel, angrier than a hen tossed in the pond, I snatched my knife from my belt and stormed to the bathroom door.  Done. I was so damn done with this crap, with the constant warnings and danger.

But that didn’t mean I was going to be stupid. I turned the knob slowly and peeked out.

Colt stood there, his hands under Ethan’s mattress. Looking for the cheat sheets? “Really?”

He spun on his heels, but there was no shame on his face. “He left me behind in that first trial. I broke my leg and he left me.”

I remembered that. The House of Shade challenge had seemed so hard, so treacherous, but now I would have paid to go back to it instead of facing the last house. “And you want to get back at him?”

He shrugged as he stood, the papers in his hands. Rather than pocket the cheat sheets, he took his wand out and waved it over them. Then he pulled a blank sheet out of his pocket and waved his wand over it. The words reappeared on the previously blank sheet, as perfect as a photocopy. He tucked away the copy, then stuffed the originals back in place. “Maybe. Maybe I just want to take what he thinks is his for once.”

His blue eyes were locked on mine and I stared back, forgetting that I was standing there soaking wet in nothing more than a towel.

Colt took two steps, cupped my face and kissed me, gently, as if I would break. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve the best, Wild.”

I put a hand on his chest, pushing him and the confusion away. One thing at a time.

“Ethan is what he is. But you promised me food, and I’m starving. Also, how did you get in past the others?”

Colt turned and headed to the window. “I have more skills than most.” He winked at me over his shoulder and slid out, gone without a sound.

As quiet as any Shade. I had more questions for him, for this place, for this world. My stomach growled angrily, and I nodded. Food first.

Questions later.

Chapter 7

“Okay.” I clapped my hands as my crew walked down the hall, using the noise to chase away the lingering fatigue from the night before. It felt like I’d woken up every five minutes last night, drowning in a never-ending loop of zombies, assassins, claws, and gleaming knives. To top it off, Rory’s face kept drifting up out of the abyss, pulling at my heart. Reminding me of all I’d lost to be here.

I took a big, shuddering breath, willing away tears. A huge, gaping hole that felt like a wind tunnel cut through my middle. Memories of Rory kept shoving their way into my thoughts. I kept remembering how it had felt to be near him—dangerous, edgy, raw, exhilarating, and yet safe. Protected. Those feelings had only amplified over time, becoming a thousand times stronger.

And now he was gone.

My childhood was being ripped from me, piece by piece. I could barely think under the weight of grief. But I had to survive. He hadn’t given away his life so I could throw away mine.

“Okay,” I said again, hurrying down the steps to the cafeteria for breakfast. “Here’s what we have. The missing kids are being offered a leg up, so to speak. Then they disappear. Fine. The director seems to be on the case, but she’s obviously too slow to catch up with whomever is doing this. Whatever intel she is getting is old. Not abnormal, since the people in charge are usually clueless. I—we’re being hunted,” I amended, “but that seems like a different situation than the kidnappings. We were meant to be killed last night, not taken. No matter what Ethan’s dad thinks.”

“Um, ya think?” Pete asked with wide eyes.

“I have been thinking on it, and I don’t think Gregory would’ve taken an easy out,” Orin said thoughtfully. “His family isn’t rich—he’d want the gold. It would improve his standing going into the academy.”

I nodded, chewing my lip as we pushed through the doors into the cafeteria. The promise of bacon made my mouth salivate, competing with the smell of burnt toast, steaming sausages, scrambled eggs, and fluffy pancakes. I loved eating at this place, especially since I didn’t have to cook any of the meals myself.

“I found the sheets you stuffed under my mattress,” Ethan said in a low hum.

“Like a princess with a pea,” Wally murmured.

“So obviously he wasn’t going to sell those,” Ethan finished, nodding at a group of guys seated in the back corner. Colt stood from among them, fresh and clean, with stylishly tousled hair. Those entrancing eyes found me and stuck, and a smile quirked up one side of his mouth, sending a rush of heat through me. Ethan went on. “But what was he doing outside?”

“Being hauled away.” I grabbed a plate and started heaping it with food from the buffet. “They, whoever they are, got him when he was still inside. For all we know they tried to convince him to go and he initially agreed.”

“Right, right,” Ethan whispered to himself.

“They weren’t taking the fastest route to the parking lot,” Orin said, following too closely behind me. I had the distinct feeling he was staring at my neck.

I rolled my shoulders without meaning to. “That’s true. They would have had to circle around through the trees.” My mind spun. “Do you think they’re keeping the missing kids on campus somewhere? That seems risky.”

“We have a day to look around and find out,” Wally said. “The odds of someone going missing in the woods around here—”

“He didn’t go missing; he was taken,” Ethan corrected dryly, heaping eggs onto his plate.

“The odds of someone being kidnapped and hauled into the woods—”

I let Wally’s statistics drift into the background as I quickly went over the events of the last free day. One thing I hadn’t really paid attention to jogged to the front of my mind.

“Where is the director’s assistant?” I asked, following Ethan to a middle table, front and center so all his adoring fans could see him. Colt met us there, giving me a small smile as he sat. I hadn’t told the others about him copying Ethan’s notes. Mostly because I had a feeling my crew would be facing a different trial than the one described in Ethan’s papers. “That guy seemed more than competent when we met him, yet he wasn’t there when Jared hauled us up to the director’s office the other night. Where could he have been, rather than in the office, doing his job?” Adam hadn’t been there when we’d broken into the office either, but that had happened late at night, and I didn’t think it wise to mention our criminal activities in front of Colt.

“Maybe he was finding out more info for the director?” Pete asked, holding up his fork with a half-eaten sausage skewered on the end.

“More info that didn’t reach her in time to actually help?” I frowned and pushed the hash browns around my plate. “When I first met him, it felt like he could read right through me with a single glance.” I shivered. “He doesn’t seem like a guy who is satisfied with second-rate intelligence.”

“I forgot about that,” Pete murmured. “Yeah, Adam is a creepy dude.”

“I didn’t see anything wrong with him,” Orin said.

“Not surprising,” Ethan returned.

“If he’s not the type to settle for second-rate info, that would explain why he was out, trying to find answers. Maybe that’s what he’s been doing all along?” Wally said.

Ethan pushed food into his cheek so he could talk around it. “Maybe he was just getting coffee.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Pete said.

Ethan rolled his eyes and went back to his plate. “Okay, Mom.”

“Besides him,” I cut in, “there is Jared to think about, who was hanging around, despite the fact that he and the director clearly don’t like each other.”

“He thinks she’s soft,” Orin said. “That’s no secret. He wants the job, so whenever she slips up, he lets everyone know. He wants her out. Gone. She’s old.”

“I’ve seen that guy Adam around.” Colt leaned forward, looking between Ethan and me, ignoring everyone else. “The assistant? I saw him yesterday after the trials, walking from the portables to the mansion. He looked pissed.”

“I’m sure he always looks like he’s pissed.” I dropped my napkin onto my plate and stood. “I say we check in on him, see what he’s up to. If he is trying to find out info for the director, great. If not, we might learn something by tailing him.”

“What about Jared?” Wally asked, standing with me. The others followed suit, except for Ethan, who clearly wasn’t going to leave until he’d eaten every scrap off of his plate. “I say we tail him.”

Orin nodded. “Vampires like to have their fingers in everything even though they don’t get involved in much of it. He might know something, even if he hasn’t acted on it.”

“Sounds good. I’ll take Adam. Who’s going with me?” I asked.

“I will.”

“Me.”

“I’ll go.”

“Might as well.”

The chorus died down and everyone exchanged looks.

I stared down at Ethan, the only one who hadn’t piped up. He surely didn’t want to be in my proximity any more than I wanted to be in his, but he also liked to be the center of attention, meaning he could keep eyes off me, and if we got caught, he could also keep me in the school. He’d proven that he would.

“Orin, you take the lead on tailing the vampire,” I said, picking up my plate. “Direct the others on how not to get caught. Keep your eyes open for anything that looks suspicious. Ethan and Colt, you come with me.”

An hour later, I paced the dorm room, anticipation firing through my limbs and impatience dragging down my features. Colt sat on Ethan’s bed, gazing out the window at the grounds below. The others had already taken off to find their mark and hopefully tail him without getting caught. I didn’t have high hopes for either expedition, but at least it was daylight. Following someone around wasn’t against school policy, just social norms.

“Honestly, Ethan, what is taking you so long?” I barked, turning toward the bathroom door for the umpteenth time.

He emerged in a halo of fragrance, with his sweats clinging to his solid frame, his shoulders swaying with his casual yet calculated saunter, and his hair styled just so.

“Are you under the impression we are going to a garden party?” My voice carried a distinct bite to it. “We’re trying not to stand out.”

He flicked his gaze my way, taking in my overall appearance. “You’re still trying to look like a boy even though anyone who matters knows you’re a girl, your sweats have a stain on them from breakfast, and you’re an Amazon woman. We’re going to stand out regardless of what I look like.”

It was annoying that he was probably right.

“Fine. Whatever. Come on, the day is wasting.” I gestured them both toward the door.

Colt stood, just as unhurried as Ethan. I rolled my eyes and pulled the door open. I already regretted bringing them along. But Rory had said not to go alone, and that had been his last piece of advice for me.

“Okay,” I started as we trekked down the hall.

“Your strategic vocabulary is limited,” Ethan said as he kept pace, his demeanor blasé. It was a real skill to move quickly and look slow, I had to hand it to him. He and Colt both had mastered cool.

“I like a good jumping off point. Okay.” I exited into the stairwell. “Let’s see if Adam is at the director’s office where he belongs.”

“He isn’t,” Colt said, slowing my progress. “I saw him walk across the grounds twenty minutes ago.”

I stopped and turned to him with an incredulous expression. “What?”

“I saw him—”

“Yes, I know what you said. Why didn’t you mention it?”

Colt gestured at Ethan. “He wasn’t ready to get going.”

“But you could’ve—” I breathed through my nose, willing patience. “Right. Fine. Okay. Lead the way.”

“You’ll never get accepted into the House of Shade with that attitude,” Ethan said as we turned on the stairs, heading down. “You need to work on being cool and collected.”

“I need to work on better decision-making when choosing my partners.”

At the bottom of the stairs, we turned toward the back of the mansion, retracing my steps the night I’d seen Gregory taken. Flashes of the scene rolled through my head. I tried to summon up information about the men who’d taken him—their stature, the bulge of their lean muscle as they struggled to contain him, the plain shoes they wore. Images rose of possible body types, what they might’ve looked like, what their magical talents might’ve been. Not vampires, surely. They’d been much too coarse in their movements. Yes, I’d seen a wand, but only in the hands of one of them. Not Shades, either, unless they were lower on the scale. They’d looked too human to be goblins or trolls. Shifters would be stronger, well able to handle a half-pint goblin like Gregory. But a necromancer or someone who didn’t use strength and speed in their craft might fit the bill.

My eyes cut sideways as we reached the back door, noticing Colt’s lean muscle against Ethan’s more robust body.

“Do you work out, Ethan?” I asked, following the curve of his bicep with my gaze before eyeing the size of his thighs.

His bored amusement spoke volumes.

“It’s just that,” I hurried to say, ready to die if he thought I was interested in any way, “spell workers don’t physically fight, right? Where’d you get all the muscle?”

His chest puffed up slightly, preening at the notice. “I lift.”

“Right.” I drew the word out. “But why bother? You do all your defensive fighting with a wand. I haven’t seen you throw so much as a single punch.”

A smirk graced his lips. “Don’t you like your men fit? Or are you more the dominatrix type?”

My face annoyingly flamed red. “So that’s why, then? Body image issues?”

His smirk broadened into a knowing smile, his ego of steel deflecting my light jab.

I glanced toward the trees where I’d last seen Gregory. Memories flooded me, of Rory’s lips pressed against the shell of my ear, quieting me, of fingers tapping against the pulse in my neck. I remembered the feel of his solid strength as we cried against each other about Tommy.

I blinked away the tears and gritted my teeth. I had surviving to do.

“There,” Colt said in a hush, grabbing my elbow and jerking his head to the left. “Near the portables. See him?”

Even with the distance, I could recognize him moving with the grace of a predator, his hair cropped short and his posture straight and strong. No suit adorned his muscular physique. Instead, he wore the sweats we all did, larger to fit his heartier frame.

Adam. And he was far, far away from his desk.

Chapter 8

“Is he trying to blend in?” I asked, an incredulous giggle escaping me. Adam was huge next to the students, both in stature and in presence. How could he not be noticed near the rundown portables? “He’s like a wolf wandering around a pack of poodles and trying to act like he’s tame.”

“Poodles are actually very intelligent dogs,” Ethan said, still sauntering for all he was worth, but a little less gracefully, now. A little more on edge.

Good. He was taking this seriously.

“Intelligent, sure. Trainable, definitely.” I let Colt lead me, his instincts right on. If we veered from our path, we’d get noticed, especially since Adam had just looked around to see if anyone was near. He was up to something, clear as day. “But adept at stalking prey and then ripping their throats out? Probably not.”

Adam went up the steps and stopped at one of the portable doors. His hands pulled up in front of him and his head was lowered as he worked at the knob. It had to be locked. It wouldn’t be for long.

“Whose portable is that?” Colt asked, quickening our pace as we reached the line of portables in front of us. “Ethel Wiseman?”

“No idea,” Ethan replied. “We didn’t get friendly with the neighbors the night we stayed.”

No, we just stole their food.

“Who’s Ethel Wiseman?” I asked.

Colt slipped in between the buildings with incredibly light feet. He sped up to a jog, staying close to the buildings so he could duck into the small alleys between at a moment’s notice. It’s exactly what I would’ve done had I been leading. Just like the way he’d slipped in and out of my bedroom window without any of my guard dogs noticing. “Are you sure you’re not a Shade?”

“His mother is a Shade,” Ethan said with condescension ringing through his voice.

“I didn’t get any of her magic,” Colt said, his step faltering. “But I noticed how she went about certain things. It’s common sense, if you think about it. How to sneak up on someone.”

“It’s lower class,” Ethan murmured.

I rolled my eyes, so many arguments springing to mind that my tongue locked. Now wasn’t the time, anyway.

“I heard Ethel was approached after the trial yesterday,” Colt said, slowing before looking back the way we’d come. His eyebrows lowered, and it occurred to me that he didn’t know how many portables separated us from Adam.

I stepped around him, taking over, and resumed the jog, albeit slower. We didn’t have far to go.

“I thought you guys must’ve heard about that,” he continued. “The guys in my dorm were talking about it last night. Robby’s girlfriend heard it from her friend Sarah, who heard it from Ethel first hand. She got asked to skip the rest of the trials and asked everyone’s advice.”

“Is she daft?” I frowned as a slight tingle of warning washed through my blood. Here we go.

I lowered my voice to a whisper, working on those light steps that Colt had seemed to master. Why was I so far behind on that? “People who get asked to skip disappear. Surely one of her friends would’ve told her that.”

“That’s the thing about being mediocre,” Ethan whispered. “You take any hand up you can get. You’re happy just to get noticed. At least, that’s what I assume, anyway. You’d know best, Wild.”

“I wasn’t the one using my daddy to cheat, Einstein. But keep throwing rocks in that glass house.”

Colt muffled a laugh. “I don’t think anyone else has put it together, that the missing kids were all offered a leg up.”

I held up my hand for quiet as I peered around the corner of the portable, not feeling the pressure of danger thickening the air. Not yet. Adam had to be inside.

Soft laughter floated by, along with a female voice, gay and light. Another voice joined the first, two people up the way probably headed out to enjoy the soft sunshine in this rare break between trials.

Tightly drawn curtains shielded the back window of the portable, so I led the others down the narrow gap between portables to the front, racking my brain for a plan.

A thought occurred to me. Out of all the portables in this row, of which there were tons, why would Colt assume that Adam was choosing Ethel’s? Did he already know, or was it a blind assumption?

Metal jingled, a handle being grabbed. I paused, breath trapped in my lungs. A warning signal prickled down my spine.

Colt clutched my shoulder, but neither of the guys made a sound. I nodded to show I’d heard it. A tiny squeak was the only indication that the door had swung open. Boots tapped against the wood of the porch, soft sounds but not up to par for a Shade. He wasn’t an assassin—at least not a good one. The door clicked into place a moment later.

If he took off across the lawn toward the mansion and glanced back, there was a good chance he’d see us, three people stooped in stalker mode between the portables. His suspicion would likely compel him to take a closer look...unless what he saw embarrassed or disgusted him.

Moving quickly, I pushed in between the guys. Colt’s hand came out to steady me, low on my hip. Ethan grunted and tried to move away, but I stopped him with a hand on his pec. The muscle popped against my palm and he froze, his eyes widening.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a release of breath, his gaze heating and dipping to my lips. Maybe he hated me, but it was clear his brain had just shut off.

“Pretending, you moron,” I ground out, leaning heavily against Colt and feeling his hand slide across my stomach. “Play the part in case he looks. Only a voyeur will stop to gawk, and it won’t be out of criminal suspicion.”

A shape passed by with a swing of a large arm. I recognized his crew cut and caught something in his opposite hand that I couldn’t make out. His face turned, and I caught a glimpse of nose before his figure disappeared. Steamy versus stalky—if he saw three people stuffed in the gap, he would take a second to look if he thought they were making out. It worked, he didn’t. That had to be a good sign.

“Come on,” I said as Ethan’s large hand touched down on my hip and Colt’s hand headed south to my butt. Heavy breathing and shifting bodies said I was the only one pretending, and I was suddenly encompassed in a circle of muscle and handsomeness most women would dream of.

I wasn’t most women.

“All right, show’s over.” I flicked Ethan’s crotch, jerking a little at the hardness but immediately gratified when he jolted away. He thunked his head against the portable wall and scowled, reality seeping through the burning gaze from a moment before. “Really? You hate me, but you’d do me, anyway?”

He shrugged, wiping the edge of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why not? Not like I’d call you in the morning.”

I shook my head and turned to elbow Colt in the stomach, but he was already moving away.

“Sorry. I was caught off guard. Stopped thinking.” Colt gave me a mouth-watering smile. “I’d definitely call.”

I couldn’t hold a grudge against his disarming wink.

“Whatever,” I said, “come on. He’s getting away.”

At the edge of the portable, I caught the figure again, standing in the middle of the grass, facing the mansion. Sticking out like a sore thumb. Eyes found him, stuck for a moment, then darted away, no one wanting to spend too long gawking at an authority figure.

He stared down into his hands for a moment in what seemed like contemplation, then dropped them again and looked around.

“Can you see what he’s holding?” I asked, no idea why I was whispering.

“No,” Ethan said, pushing in close so he could see around the corner, and jabbing me with a part of his body that would’ve been strapped down by the right underwear.

This time I did throw an elbow, forcing him back. “We need to see if it really is Ethel’s room, and maybe figure out what he took. Or at least where he took it from.” I dragged my teeth over my lip. “But if we do that, we’ll lose him.”

Even as I said it, Adam pivoted and pushed forward, walking in the opposite direction of where Gregory had been taken. If he was looking for the lost kids, he was either on the wrong track or going the roundabout way.

“I’ll look,” Colt said, slipping by me. “I know what she looks like, and I’ve rooted around in other people’s things a few times in my life.” He smirked, and I knew we were both thinking of Ethan’s cheat sheets. “I’ll meet you guys back at the dorm.”

“Okay, sounds good. Let’s go.” I plucked at Ethan’s sleeve and hurried forward before he could, without shame, poke me with his anatomy again. Too much confidence clearly wasn’t always a good thing.

“What are we going to do when we catch him?” Ethan asked. The heat had thankfully cooled from his voice, but it was obvious the blood hadn’t yet made it back to his brain.

“We’re not going to catch him. He’d bash our heads together. We’re going to stalk him. See where he goes, and what he does with whatever he grabbed.”

Adam cut another diagonal, this time to the corner of the mansion, clearly intending to go around. Something was still clutched tightly in the hand swinging at his side. A small black object. He wasn’t doing anything to hide its presence.

“I didn’t hear any names announced this morning, did you?” I asked Ethan, ignoring the pull to follow Gregory’s trail off toward the trees. I’d been interrupted twice so far. I needed to follow it through. The answers lay that way. I felt it in my gut.

But Adam looked like a concrete lead at this point. It would be foolish to ignore him.

“No. I was listening for them too,” Ethan replied.

“So if Ethel got asked, she didn’t get taken.”

“Not yet, unless they just didn’t announce it.”

Intuition churned my gut now, and my feet slowed without my direction.

“Hurry up, what are you doing?” Ethan grabbed my arm and hurried me forward.

“Maybe we can stop her from getting taken.”

He yanked me harder, and I couldn’t help but go with him, logic telling me this was right. That Adam knew something, had something, and was going somewhere we needed to know. But my intuition…

“Maybe she was already taken, and they want some info before they make the announcement.”

“If Colt’s roommate’s girlfriend is such a gossip, wouldn’t he know all that and have told us?”

“If Colt didn’t have such a jonesing hard on for you, he might have waited around for his roommate to invite his girl over. Then maybe he would, yes.”

At the corner of the mansion, Ethan pushed me against the wall, flattened, and peeked around. A hand came out of nowhere. Thick fingers wrapped around Ethan’s neck. Muscles pulled, and Ethan went airborne.

Chapter 9

“Holy sh—” I stepped forward before launching myself without thought, punching out and connecting with a cheek, then wrapping my arms around the assailant’s neck and using my momentum to rip him around.

He had no choice but to go, his grip slipping from Ethan’s neck. Ethan’s feet hit the ground and he dropped, gasping and coughing.

I twisted and ripped again before letting go, forcefully directing the falling body to the grass. The ground came up too fast and my foot hit it wrong, sending me rolling. Ethan was already up, his wand out and pointed.

“What the hell are you kids doing?” Adam rose from the ground like a cage fighter ready to get even, juiced up with power and strength and grisly know-how. Whatever type of magical he was, he’d gotten those muscles from violence and experience.

Tingles of terror blazed out through my bloodstream, giving me the jitters like a triple espresso. I either needed to run or throw another punch— standing there chatting was not in my wheelhouse at the moment. Thankfully, Ethan had a better weapon at his disposal. Entitlement.

“You’d better have a damn good explanation for grabbing me,” he berated, his wand hand steady and his shoulders squared, an elite member of the magical society talking down to a lesser one, no matter their relative size. “We were walking around the building on our day off, perfectly within the rules.”

Adam’s weight shifted, a small movement. Almost imperceptible. It spoke volumes.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed Ethan’s arm urgently and tugged him back the way we’d come. Adam didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d bow down to arrogant pricks, no matter how influential. This pause was the best we’d get.

“No.” Ethan dug in his heels, his chin raised and his indignation firing on all cylinders. “I want to hear an explanation.”

Adam stared him down, fire glimmering in his eyes.

“Come on.” I yanked Ethan again. “We can go to that other spot.”

“Your superiors will be hearing about this,” Ethan said, finally allowing me to pull him away.

“Best watch yourself,” I heard, low and rough and spreading shivers up my spine. Adam’s gaze had shifted to me, piercing, locking me in so that I couldn’t look away. “Your number is up, and your protection is dead. Best thing you can do is run. Get out of the trials and don’t come back. Run.”

Pain welled up at his mention of Rory’s death. Tears clouded my vision. A laugh bubbled up, out of nowhere.

“Then what?” I asked, rage quickly replacing the sorrow. I shook with it. “Run and hide? Cower in the shadows?” I spat, something I despised, but it really got the point across. “That’s not my style.”

I turned and shoved Ethan in front of me.

“Heed my warning,” Adam said, the words trailing after me like tin cans.

“Make yourself useful, and catch whoever is stealing kids and threatening my life, or do your reflexes only work when teenagers are sneaking after you?”

Silence stretched as we distanced ourselves from Adam. I didn’t look back.

Finally, faintly, delivered directly to my ear, I heard, “I’m working on the kidnapping. There’s nothing I can do about the other. It’s beyond me, now.”

I stopped and spun, taken aback. Emptiness greeted me.

“I hate this place. Everyone always disappears,” I said, wanting to run back. To chase Adam around the corner and beg for answers.

“Come on.” Ethan plucked at my sleeve. “We have to let him go for now and pick him up somewhere else. He probably smelled your arousal earlier. That’s how he knew we were around.”

“Gross. I don’t even have a comeback, I’m too busy trying not to gag.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Nice way to step up back there. Perfect. I couldn’t have coached you better. You might not be completely useless, for a Shade.”

“Way to step up?”

“Pulling me away before I had to threaten something I might not be able to deliver. I can let the director know what he did, easy. Getting him fired, on the other hand…”

It dawned on me what he was saying, and surprise flitted through me. “You were playing a part,” I said with a grin. “I wondered how one person could be so entitled. I was thinking about getting you a cape.”

“I’m always playing a part. How do you think my family maintains status? But I might have overdone it a bit that time. That guy…”

Another shiver crawled up my spine. I nodded, unable to form words. That guy was more of a feeling than something to be explained.

“What is he?” I asked, still feeling the intuition tugging at me.

“Shade, obviously.”

“No, couldn’t be. There’s no way he could be an assassin. He’s much too loud.” I pointed toward the trees, feeling the need to head back there. To follow the trail I should’ve followed the other day instead of dallying with Colt and getting caught by Rory. To sit down and cry until I couldn’t breathe.

“It’s not just assassins in the House of Shade.” He huffed. “All of them are low-level grunts, as far as magical society goes, but still highly useful in situations the civilized world doesn’t like to speak of. Some of them specialize in getting information out of people the hard way, some of them are poison masters, some excellent thieves, and some, like him, are adept bodyguards, able to read people and threats. The good ones can mask their whereabouts, like a shadow. The great ones can mask themselves and others. Often, a Shade is brought in to protect someone against a fellow Shade.”

I slowed as we neared the trees I’d hidden in the other night. My mind shifted to Rory. To the way he’d covered me with his body, slowed my heart rate, and masked us from danger. Saved us. Me.

“Why would a Shade go against their own people?”

He shrugged. “Why would a magical person go against another magical person? A human against a human? The world is complex, the magical world more complex.”

“Still, why do you think Adam’s playing detective? Is he actually working for the director or himself?” I walked around the trees and surveyed the direction in which Gregory had been carried off.

“No way to know for sure. But did you see what he had with him?” Ethan asked. “He’d set it next to the fence. A memory ball.”

“What’s that?”

He scoffed. “Under what crusty rock were you living before you came here?”

And just like that, helpful Ethan vanished, and douche Ethan resurfaced. An act, my butt.

“A memory ball is a magical photo album, but instead of pictures, it records feelings, sounds, smells, images… It’s the whole memory, not just a flat version of it.”

“He’s probably planning to go through it for clues. If she’s gone, maybe she took a…memory selfie right before it happened.”

“Do you realize how dumb you sound?” He shook his head, waiting while I took in the landscape. “Besides, if she has disappeared, he’ll never get it open.”

This side of the mansion had more trees with the woods creeping up within fifty yards of the building. A few benches dotted the way, a couple horseshoe pits sat off to the side, and a green wooden shed with the door closed pushed up against the wall down the way.

Ethan’s last words filtered in through my head, taking a second to register.

“How do they open?”

“With a matching retina. Memory balls are connected to the user. He’d need her eyeball.”

I turned to him slowly, my own eyes widening. “Can you magically bypass it?”

“Only if she died, and only then if you were the registered next of kin. Memory balls are personal. Like phones.”

I clutched his arm. “Maybe he has her eyeball.”

“I thought about that. We can work back around to him. Finding him again shouldn’t be a problem. He’s a blunt instrument. No wonder the director is always one or more steps behind.”

Once again, I had to ask, “Why? What do you mean?”

“He’s a bodyguard, not a detective. It’s like giving a garbage man a chemistry set and saying, ‘here, make…’” His example tapered off.

“Do you know how dumb you sound right now?” I asked.

He scowled.

I started forward, not really knowing where I was going, just feeling things out. I wasn’t a detective, either, but when the fox got into the henhouse, you found the threat, or you went hungry. I’d spent my whole life rooting out threats, large and small. That wasn’t about to change now.

Windows lined this side of the mansion, all four floors of it.

“Screaming would draw people to the windows.” I pointed up at them, imagining the darkness pressing in from all sides as the guys jogged the kicking and yelling Gregory through the lane of grass. Sound would bounce off those glass panes, and it hadn’t been quite late enough for the attack to go unnoticed.

But then, I’d only heard the two shouts. Was that because Rory had knocked me down and dragged me into the trees? Or maybe they’d knocked Gregory out?

I scanned the tree line across the expanse of small clearing.

Or could it be because they were nearly at their destination?

“Come on,” I said, jogging left.

Trees welcomed us into their shade, the air cooling immediately and the sun’s potency reducing down to a warm glow.

“Why not have a place near campus?” I said to myself, feeling excitement unfurl in my gut. I was close, I could tell. My intuition was practically vibrating through me. “You can take kids at your leisure. Draw them out to chat, then snatch them when everyone else is headed back to their dorms. If all went to plan, no one would be the wiser.”

“Do you need me here for this conversation?” Ethan asked, trailing behind me with his wand out. I was thankful he was still taking this seriously.

“No. You’re no detective, either. Not without your cheat sheets, at any rate.” I scanned the shaded ground, rocks pounded into the soft earth. I held up a finger and backtracked, hitting the tree line again and hooking my arm into his.

“It’s back on, then?” Ethan asked, but I knew he didn’t really mean it. His grip was too tight on his wand. His body too tense. He might ignore it, but he had intuition, too, and it was telling him exactly what mine was telling me.

Here. Somewhere here!

“Lovers’ stroll,” I murmured, scanning the ground as we walked, trying not to make it obvious. Three guys running through, struggling, carrying a load of any kind, would leave prints, and since there was no rain, those prints weren’t getting naturally erased. Would they think to erase them themselves? Or were they too cocky for that? “Bingo.”

Boot prints, their tread obvious. Deep marks scored the soft dirt on the side of one print, indicating the person who’d left it had held something heavy. Then on the other side, the same thing, the weight shifting. Four times they would have brought someone here. Heath. Gregory. Lisa. Mason.

I let Ethan go and followed, pointing at a disturbance in the leaves, a small drag mark, and then the continuing tracks. “They dropped him, picked him up, and kept running. Slower, though. See how the tracks change?”

“You sure you don’t change into an animal?”

“Only a she-devil in the throes of passion.” I frowned at myself. “Stop putting dirty thoughts in my head.”

Broken twigs littered the ground in one place and the tracks lightened before disappearing totally.

So someone did care enough to try and conceal where they’d gone.

“They turned through here. Through these…” A broken branch led the way. Then another. At a dead end, I looked around, momentarily lost. It was Ethan who spotted it.

“Is that stone?” He pointed through a narrow gap between two huge trunks, each fighting for space in the crowded forest.

A surge of adrenaline flooded me. My breathing sped up.

“Yup.” I jogged around the tree, feeling no warning and therefore not being as careful as I should have been.

My breath left me as I fell. Blackness enveloped me. Ethan’s fingers curled around my wrist, halting my descent with a jerk, popping my back. His strong hand pinched the skin of my wrist, and my feet dangled in the empty air.

“Help.” It was barely more than a whisper. Blackness pulsed all around me.

Chapter 10

“This is a glamour, you idiot,” he said through the strain of holding me. A second hand joined the first. All that working out served a purpose after all—he hauled me up out of the black nothingness I’d fallen into.

I clutched at the forest floor as soon as I could reach it, breathing heavily, my toes tingling. I hadn’t gotten one flare of warning. Not a twinge of uncertainty. Was it only living things that alerted my internal warning system?

“There are stairs.” Ethan, out of breath, grabbed me by the waistband of my sweats and yanked me the rest of the way up.

I slid onto my stomach and face, reaching back to shove his hand away from my half-exposed butt cheeks, but he’d already let go, stood, and flicked his wand. A few words and the ground cover cleared away, revealing a large hole in a solid mass of black stone. On the side, stairs descended into the cavern of unnatural darkness below.

“That’s dangerous,” I said, out of breath. “Someone could just fall down that.”

“Yeah. Maybe one of the missing students did.” Ethan jerked his head to get me moving. His tone suggested he didn’t believe his own words any more than I did. He descended the stairs, wand out. Clearly, he wasn’t going to make me go first, this time.

Halfway down, the darkness clung to his legs, then crawled up his body, so thick it looked like a physical thing. When it reached his waist, he lifted his arms, as though inching into cold water. He shivered, completing the image.

“Can’t you dispel that darkness?” I whispered, following him down.

“I don’t know how. I’ve had tutors to give me an edge for the academy, but I’m still freshman level, maybe sophomore at best. This is beyond me. I don’t know how they did it.”

“You need to talk to your dad about cheating a little more thoroughly,” I said as I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his shoulder. If this murky shadow blinded us, I didn’t want to get separated.

“Apparently so,” he said, and I didn’t think he was kidding.

The inky fingers reached his chest, then inched onto his neck. Right behind him, it slid over my breasts, dousing me with a chill that couldn’t be explained by a mere change in altitude.

“Here we go,” Ethan said softly as the darkness slid over his full lips. “Gregory better be worth—”

The shadow cut off his volume, or maybe stole his words. I dug my fingers into his muscled shoulder and pushed up close, my front glued to his back. Black slid up my nose and then stole my sight.

“Oh God,” I said, clutching Ethan with two hands now, both of us stopped dead still, the warmth between us the only thing grounding me. I didn’t hear the words I’d just uttered. I was either deaf or mute, and we were both trapped in our fear of the unknown.

I came to first, fighting through the paralysis. Fingers relaxing on one hand, I shoved him with the other, forcing him to move forward. He staggered, clearly missed a step, and fell, yanked from my grip. My heel hit the step I’d been steering him toward, and I careened forward.

His body hard but thankfully not bony, a prone Ethan caught my fall.

“Oomph,” I grunted, and thankfully heard the noise. He groaned and I rolled off, allowing him to sit up. Blood dripped from his nose. The ground wasn’t as forgiving as the backside of his body had been.

We’d reached the bottom.

Darkness pressed in around us, but it was the kind caused by an absence of sunlight, brightened only by a small glow from a distant torch flickering from its bracket on the stone wall. A narrow corridor into the earth led away from us and a funky smell tickled my nose—stagnant water, mildew, and gym socks, if I had to guess. I leaned closer to Ethan to inhale his pleasant-smelling cologne and dispel the stink of the place.

“Whatever this place is, it isn’t open to students,” Ethan whispered, wiping his nose and standing slowly. “They wouldn’t have hidden it so well if it were.”

“Thank you, Professor, for your fantastic insight.” I moved around him, peering down the long corridor and spying three more flickering torches perched against the wall, two on the left, and one on the right. Green lined the cracks of the old stone, pock-marked and dingy, which looked like it predated the mansion. Who’d built this place, and why? “Shall we?”

“I don’t think winning the trials is worth all this,” Ethan murmured under his breath, but he started forward anyway, his wand slightly shaking. Entitlement wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good down here and we both knew it.

“The director must know this place exists,” I said. “It’s old—really old—and it wasn’t hard to find.”

“It wasn’t hard to find for you,” he replied as we inched down the long corridor. The dank surroundings seeped into my bones, sending a chill down my spine. “You’ve already set a record at the school. You’re the first female to win three trials, and the second person to do so in history.”

“We all won.”

“You’re the driving force. I won’t admit it in public because—”

“Your reputation, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.

“What everyone has said is true—you’ve brought us together as a unit. Even with my cheat sheets, I wouldn’t have been able to get through some of those challenges. And you would’ve knocked out four, not three, if it wasn’t for that ambush yesterday, which was...”

His words died away.

“What did your father really say about it? Not what you told everyone in public, but what he really thinks?” I finally asked as a gap in the stone came into view on the right, draped in fuzzy lines of deep shadow. A familiar warning vibrated through my body, slowing my forward progress.

“He’s looking into it. No one knows who is behind it, which usually points to one person.”

“Who?”

He made an exasperated sound. “You really don’t know anything about this world, do you? We’ll just say, a very bad dude.”

“A very. Bad. Dude.” I nodded sarcastically, which was probably lost in the dim light, as I pulled my knife from its sheath, not having done so before now because Ethan had been leading and I hadn’t wanted to accidentally stab him. Which would’ve happened when I’d fallen.

“The Shadowkiller.” He breathed the name and it ghosted down my spine like cold fingers. Shivers ran through me, and I had to work to force my body to stop.

“Regardless.” The word barely made a sound. My shoulder blades itched, like someone was watching from the many shadows. “The director at this school should know of this place.”

“The director of the elite graduate academy probably does. But if it is top secret, or a school secret, he wouldn’t pass that info on to a bunch of low hanging fruit, like Director Frost or the staff for the trials.”

Derision dripped off of every word. Clearly, he thought the trials were run by a bunch of lackeys. That didn’t make me feel any safer.

Your number is up, and your protection is dead. Best thing you can do is run. Get out of the trials and don’t come back. Run.

I pushed Adam’s voice out of my head.

“Well then, wouldn’t the elite director check it out if he heard about the disappearances?” I asked.

Ethan snorted. “The graduate director is on vacation. He takes one every year during the Culling Trials.”

I pressed my lips closed. There was no point in arguing further. It wasn’t going to get us anywhere.

At the end of the corridor, more shadows cut across stone, almost making another corridor. Warning blared at me from all around. I clutched Ethan’s sleeve. Gregory was down here somewhere, I could feel it, like a direct connection to him.

“Get ready for defensive spells,” I murmured, steeling my courage and stepping forward. “Maybe strap on Captain Entitlement’s cape too. Couldn’t hurt.”

A glint made my heart lurch, and I was twisting and then bending to the side before it registered as a throwing star. The metal flashed as it sailed past my face and clinked against stone at my back. A flurry of movement caught my attention from the way we’d just come. A man running at us.

“Move!” Ethan shoved me aside and blasted a stream of red from his wand.

The man, dressed in black and blending with the shadows, turned his shoulders just enough that the flare of magic zipped harmlessly by. His movements, lithe and graceful, barely hitched as he righted himself and kept on coming.

In the gap we’d been facing, light bent and pulled away as a face inched into view. Sweat glistened within overgrown sideburns. My heart lodged in my throat.

“The Sandman,” I uttered through numb lips. His hand came up, another throwing star between his fingers.

Adrenaline flooded me as Ethan got off another shot at the guy creeping at us. New Guy dove gracefully to the side, Ethan barely missing him that time.

“Come on!” I yanked Ethan toward me, bent, and snatched up the throwing star that had tinkled to a stop five feet away. I spun and threw it at the Sandman. The weapon flew through the air, smoothly as though I’d been doing it all my life.

The Sandman batted it away lazily, close enough now that I could see the two pricks of blood welling up against his skin. He stepped out of the gap.

Ethan zapped off two more spells, one for each man. Both men moved like they were on liquid joints, making me feel like a rusty tin man in comparison. New Guy pulled a knife out of nowhere and sent it flying from his gloved hand.

The Sandman—crap, when had he reached us, I hadn’t even seen him move—shoved at Ethan to further expose me. Thankfully, it also cut me off from the airborne knife. Unfortunately for Ethan, the knife dug into his shoulder.

He cried out, clutching at it. A throwing star zipped by my head, slicing my earlobe.

I gritted my teeth and spun away, pain flaring from the wound. A touch said my ear was still there, so I ignored the throbbing as another knife appeared between New Guy’s fingers. The Sandman pivoted, throwing star in hand one moment, launched the next. The man moved like a striking cobra. The star caught the light as it flew at New Guy, who pivoted on a dime to twist away.

New Guy’s next knife wasn’t aimed at us.

They probably both wanted me dead, but it seemed they weren’t on the same side. I’d take it as a win.

“Come on, Ethan.” He grunted when I grabbed him, his fist around the knife hilt, ready to pull it out. “No.” I stopped him. “Leave it in. It’s plugging up the hole—”

The stranger reached the Sandman and warning prickled every inch of my body, raising the small hairs on my arms and back of my neck. I couldn’t move, I had to watch the two masters meet. The Sandman threw a punch he didn’t seem to think would land, because he was prepared when it didn’t—the second the stranger blocked him, the Sandman jabbed forward with a knife in his other hand. The stranger blocked that with two arms before flourishing a knife he seemed to have grabbed from empty air. He struck to the side, but the Sandman was already moving, their dance as beautiful as it was lethal. These guys were unbelievably skilled.

I snapped out of it. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I dragged Ethan to the end of the corridor, ignoring his pained protests. Flickering light played across the cracked and scarred ground, as though centuries of moving heavy things through here had taken its toll on the stone. Or maybe it had been a lifetime of duels like the one behind us. Warning still bled through my body, but it felt nothing like what was going on behind me, so I pressed on, eyes peeled.

“Did your dad teach you to cheat while injured?” I asked in a hush, turning right with the corridor.

“No,” he ground out, his voice soaked with pain.

“And now we know the limits of entitlement, eh?”

“Stop. Saying. That. Word.”

I chuckled, giddy in my terror, as I saw a gap in the stone away to the left.

“Light.” Ethan struggled to point ahead of us, to a soft glow that chased away most of shadows. It wasn’t daylight, though. Logic pointed to a guard’s station or office for whoever came down here. We didn’t need to run into any more magical people if we could help it. Or get stuck in a dead end.

“Here.” I yanked him with me, his forward movement greatly hampered by the pain in his shoulder. “You need to work on your pain tolerance.”

Only one torch lit this corridor, and in a dozen or so feet, I saw why. Bars lined the right side, separated by columns of stone blocks. Benches were pushed up against the opposite wall, as though for viewing.

We inched closer and movement caught my eye, someone stirring from behind the bars. A girl, my age, with an oval face, large blue eyes, and scabbed-over bite marks on her neck.

“Hello?” she asked in a small voice.

A foot scraped against stone. Fingers wrapped around the bars, just visible down the way. A longish nose pushed out and my heart leapt.

“Gregory?”

“Wild?”

My heart swelling with excitement, I started down the line of occupied cells, but didn’t get far. Gregory was in the first one. A smile took over his face, big and broad and so relieved.

“You came! You found me! How’d you find me?” he asked, words tumbling over each other.

A strangled sound dragged my focus back the way I’d come. There, filling the gap posing as a doorway, short and compact and sporting those hideous sideburns, was the victor of the battle of masters. The Sandman. And now, nothing stood in his way.

Well, nothing except a wounded mage in training.

“Ethan—”

I didn’t get to finish the command to move.

The Sandman charged so fast, I lost track of his limbs. Ethan cried out and an axe went flying, revolving end over end until the gleaming edge crashed against the only torch lighting the area. The blade sliced off the flaming top, sending it fluttering to the floor. Once there, it dulled before going out.

Darkness washed through the room—the only light coming from somewhere deeper in the tunnel—and the last thing I saw was Ethan sprawled across the floor, curling around his hurt shoulder. A spear of pain drove through my thigh, a knife blade. Another embedded in my upper arm, shallow but no less painful for it. My knife clattered to the ground, having fallen from suddenly relaxed fingers.

“No, Wild!” Gregory yelled, his voice weak. Shouts and screams echoed off the walls and chased each other around the room. A blur of movement made me flinch, the pain throbbing, dulling my reactions. A fist came around, aiming for my cheek.

I pulled back at the last second. The fist smashed into the wall beside me. The Sandman cursed, but he didn’t stop. His leg whipped out, unreal fast, clipping my ankles. My legs went out from under me, my balance already in jeopardy from my wounded leg. I struck out with my good arm as I went down, hitting the second crotch that day. This time, I put a lot more strength behind the punch.

The breath gushed out of the Sandman and he doubled over. I snatched my knife from the ground even as my hip crashed into the stone. Pain rolled through my other side, vibrating through my body now, hard to ignore. I did my best, lashing out with my knife and catching his shin.

The Sandman swore, his voice rough, and pulled his foot back. Adrenaline blasted me one moment before the boot hit my face and darkness stole my consciousness.

Chapter 11

Sleep peeled away slowly, and soft warmth greeted me, cushioning me on all sides. I blinked my eyes open into an unfamiliar room. The beds were arranged in rows, all of them empty except for the one I lay in. Etched into the wall across from me were the words:

Strength is Life. Honor is Life. Loyalty is Life. Death is Life.

I knew without understanding how that I was for the first time seeing the creed of Shadowspell Academy.

A wave of pain washed through my head that drew a groan out of me. I must be in the medic rooms inside the mansion, or at least that was my best guess based on the ache in my head and the astringent smell that curled up my nose.

Darkness pressed against the windows. What had happened to the day? Had the zombie poisoning somehow returned? I remembered the trial, remembered coming out of it, and then…nothing.

I winced, curling my fingers around my forehead, and struggled to remember what had landed me in with the healers.

Adam. Ethan and I had been following Adam, and he’d caught us. He’d grabbed Ethan around the neck and I’d rushed in to help. Had Adam done this to me?

A familiar face approached the bed as a fuzzy recollection took shape of dark eyes staring at me through a mess of long brunette curls.

“Are you okay?” Wally asked, her face somber. “The nurse said she healed what she could of the concussion so you could sleep, but your head will likely be sore for a while. Is it sore?”

I squinted, letting Wally’s words drift around me, trying to remember beyond that encounter with Adam. I’d grabbed his neck and whipped him around. I’d…

I dug my fingertips into my skin, willing the throbbing pain to cease. My memories frayed at the edges and drifted away. There was still half a day unaccounted for.

“What happened?” I asked, dropping my head back onto the pillow. Some pain relief would sure be great. Where was a bottle of Tylenol when you needed it?

“You got into a fight with Ethan,” Wally said, anger lighting up her eyes. “He dragged you in here, unconscious, with a broken nose and two knives sticking out of you.”

I frowned up at her and shook my head, the movement sending waves of agony pinging through my skull. “Ethan? No, that can’t be right. Knives? He doesn’t even carry knives.”

“He got the drop on you, didn’t he?” she asked, searching my eyes for answers to questions that didn’t make any sense. “Why did he slash your ear? Was he actually trying to kill you? I mean, you stabbed him, so all wasn’t lost, but Pete said—”

“So.” A slick voice filled the room, velvety and decadent. Jared drifted closer, his attractive face hard and eyes glimmering with suspicion. He didn’t glance at Wally when he stopped next to my bed. “It seems you provoked another student of reputable standing. It is becoming clear that your goal is to get kicked out of this establishment. Luckily for you, Master Helix has decided not to press charges. I cannot think as to why.”

“Probably because I wasn’t fighting with him. I was following—”

The words died on my lips. Adam stood behind and a little to the side of Jared, the sound of his approach hidden by the pounding of my cranium. His eyes shot sparks of warning at me. Tingles of it stopped my tongue.

“You were following Ethan, yes, he mentioned that,” Jared said, his mouth twisted in distaste. He turned slightly, glancing over his shoulder at Adam, before his expression darkened. “Ah. Lovely. I see the director’s minion has arrived. Another reason to leave the office unattended, Adam?”

“Thank you, Jared, you can go,” Adam said, his eyes not leaving mine, his voice steel.

Jared made a frustrated sound. “Surely Madam Director sees that this…creature should be kicked out. Her presence waters down the prestige of the whole school. Attacking a fellow student? A Helix, no less? She amused me in the beginning—thinking to take on three vampires—but that has faded. It is clear she is a danger to everyone here.”

“I didn’t attack him,” I said, pounding my stare into Adam as hard as the pain pounded into me.

“How many more will she attack before your office actually does something?” Jared said.

“Thank you, Jared,” Adam said again, his tone icy and his gaze spitting fire. He chewed off each word. “You. May. Go.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed as they surveyed me. “I will get to the bottom of this. Something isn’t adding up. A full report should be made, regardless of the Helix boy’s decision not to press charges. If it were up to me—”

Adam leaned forward, a small movement. Pressure increased in the room. He didn’t have to say a word.

Jared’s body tensed, and he drew himself up straighter and lifted his chin. “Very well.” He glided out, indignation covering him like a cloak. “This is not forgotten. You can rest assured of that.”

A hard look from Adam sent Wally scurrying from the room, as well. “I’ll just be outside,” she said over her shoulder, clearly not wanting to leave.

“What do you remember?” Adam said, his voice deep and low, sending tremors over my limbs.

“Everything,” I bluffed, looking at him through narrowed eyes.

“That right?” He studied me. “Ethan did this to you, then?”

“There is no way Ethan could stab me. Twice. He’s not fast enough, and you know it.”

“Then who did?” His blank face didn’t give anything away.

I hesitated in naming him, suddenly unsure of my own hazy memories. Besides, at the moment, I had no proof.

“Where’s Ethan?” I asked.

“In your dorm, healed up and preening over his victory against a woman with the potential to be the best Shade the house has seen in years.” Adam’s face gave nothing away.

I shook my head slowly, the effort costing me. What was the point in arguing when I didn’t have the knowledge to do it successfully?

He must’ve realized that from my silence.

“You can’t be the best Shade dead, Wild,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I’d really think about your options if I were you. I’d think about leaving.” Without another word, Adam took a step back, turned, and stalked from the room.

A memory flitted through my mind: Your number is up, and your protection is dead. Best thing you can do is run. Get out of the trials and don’t come back. Run.

I’d been walking away from Adam, I remembered that now. We’d fought, but we’d walked away. He hadn’t done this to me. But then who had? Not Ethan. I was sure of it.

I took a deep breath and palmed my head again. “Healer! I need aspirin! Or a lobotomy.”

I also needed to get to Ethan and compare stories. I needed this gap in my memory filled.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear I wouldn’t get that opportunity. The director’s office had reached a compromise with Jared, who wanted me gone now seeing as I was such a danger. I wondered though what had turned him suddenly against me, because before he had seemed more amused than anything. What had changed? Was it because he’d noticed the others following him? Or was it more than that?

The healer, Mara, mentioned she’d keep me under surveillance, monitoring the concussion to make sure it really had healed. If I was in good enough health by morning, I could continue on in the trials. If she deemed it a health risk, I’d be kicked out with a standing invitation to return next year.

No way in hell was I getting kicked out. I doubted they’d have me back. And what would happen to Billy in that case? Would he be forced to come with me? The idea of going through the trials, trying to protect Billy at the same time, made my skin crawl and my stomach roll.

The next morning came slowly between fits of pain and nightmares I couldn’t escape no matter how far I ran in my dreams.

Shaky and determined, I boarded the last bus in the row, the one I’d been told my crew would be riding. There in the back, where Ethan normally claimed space for us, sat a hard-faced crew behind a douche who had either lied or kicked me when I was down. Because there was no way in hell he’d beat me fair and square. If he had, I’d never forgive myself.

Smirks and snickers followed me down the aisle, and if not for my headache and Jared’s threat, I would’ve distributed a dozen knuckle sandwiches.

Ethan glanced up as I made my approach, the seat next to him vacant, and a shadow crossed his deep blue eyes. His gaze hit my arm, then my thigh, before he glanced out the window.

“Well. Hello, master-at-arms,” I sat down beside him.

“Wild!” Pete pushed up in the seat behind me, concerned. “Are you okay? What really happened? Because no way could—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Great question, Pete. Because the last memory I have is jumping to Ethan’s aid.”

It was a small lie, but I was going to roll with it.

Ethan’s face swung around, confusion marring his features.

“Jumping to my aid?” he said. “He wasn’t after me, he—” That shadow passed over his eyes again, something unsettled moving in their depths, before he turned away. “You shouldn’t try to pick fights with your betters, Wild. Now you know why.”

“Them’s fightin’ words,” Wally said in her deep Walter Cronkite voice.

I clenched my fist and leaned into him, so angry I could spit, no matter how disgusting it was. “You just corroborated my story in one sentence, then changed it to a bullcrap story in the next. Which is it?”

Ethan’s jaw clenched and he waved his hand, annoyed and frustrated. That made two of us.

“Just forget anything happened, Wild,” he said softly, for my ears alone. “Forget it, okay? This is bigger than us. Some people you just can’t mess with. I believe that. Just forget it, and we’ll get through the trials. That’s all we need to do right now. Everything else will work itself out.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” The bus shimmied to a start and the chatter around us raised in volume to compete with the motor. Our crew leaned in closer to hear Ethan and me arguing. “Those kids are still missing, and we were—are clearly on the right track. We can free them, I know it. Or at least find out who’s responsible for their disappearance.” Free them? Why had I said that? My head throbbed and I pinched the bridge of my nose, breathing through the pain.

Ethan’s face closed down again. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I told him slowly, clutching at the foggy memories like a man with arthritis would a small gold coin. When I hit the part where Adam had told me to run, Wally sucked in a breath.

“That’s a threat, right?” she asked. “Is he behind all of this? We got nothing by following Jared, literally not a single clue. He just sat in the cafeteria reading a book.”

Ethan’s lips tightened and he minutely shook his head, looking away again. “Adam had Ethel’s memory ball. That’s it.”

More flutters of memory surfaced, about a conversation I’d had with Ethan. Something about an eyeball to open it… Next of kin…

“What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked him, the black hole in my memory scaring me a little, but more than the fear, it frustrated me to the point of tears. I had the key to unlock all of these mysteries, I could feel it, only it was lost in the swamp of blackness that was a time lapse.

…swamp of blackness crawling up his legs…

Ethan spoke over the flutter of memory, crushing it.

“I remember kicking your ass and stabbing you with Shade knives I could never have acquired on my own,” he murmured, so softly I wondered if I was half making up the words. The bus came to a stop and he shoved me out of the seat, something he could only do because I’d grabbed my head to stop the dull pounding. It didn’t work. “Let it go, Wild. Keep your eyes open and your ass down, or you’ll get everyone killed. That’s a warning from a friend.”

“Oh yeah, a friend?” I jabbed him in the ribs, following close behind him. “Since when are we friends?”

“Since never.” He hopped off the bus and walked toward the fifth and final gate. The House of Wonder. The magical house. Just like the House of Night, this gate clearly belonged to the House of Wonder. The metal was a brilliant silver accented with gold down long curving spindles that resembled a climbing rose that had been set in with cut red glass or rubies. I was suspecting those of his house wouldn’t allow mere glass to be used. But even the beauty and craftsmanship of the gate couldn’t detract from the situation at hand. Namely my memory loss.

“What’s going on with you two?” Orin said as he drifted to my side. “Things aren’t adding up. And Ethan is lying. I can smell it all over him.” Pete nodded and added a me too.

“I know. But I can’t…” I gritted my teeth. “There is a hole in my memory.”

“But he knows? Ethan knows you can’t remember?”

“Yeah. He knows, but he’s not talking.”

Orin stared at the ornate gate in front of us. He nodded silently as Pete dropped in on my other side, and Wally stepped up beside him. “We’ll just have to get the truth out of him.”

“Yes,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “We will.”

“But after the trial. We’ll need him for this trial,” Pete said. Orin and Wally bobbed their heads in agreement. They weren’t wrong.

I took a deep breath, calming the frustration and the anger and the fear of what had happened in that black space in my memory. “Right. After this trial.” I palmed my head as we caught up with Ethan. “We need to check with Colt, too. See if there was anything else missing from Ethel’s room.” I glanced around, looking for his crew.

The others exchanged pointed looks. It was Ethan who broke it to me.

“He’s gone. Missing. He never met us in our dorm, and he didn’t show up to his.” He didn’t look at me as he said it. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We need to get through this trial and get on with our lives.”

Chapter 12

I wondered if I’d have a stress fracture in my jaw from clenching my teeth so hard. Something was seriously wrong with Ethan. He seemed...defeated, somehow. Like the wind had been stolen from his sails. His pompous arrogance was gone, replaced with hollow indifference. Whatever had him spooked, he didn’t plan to fight back. And that dug into me almost more than the missing memories. It wasn’t like him.

“What happened?” I asked softly, needing more info so I could fight back for him. I wasn’t the type to say die, even when I was obviously being thrown into the deep end with weights around my ankles. “And why would Colt get taken while we ended up in the infirmary with knives sticking out of us? Shade knives, did you say?”

The beautiful woman strode along the top of the gates, just as she’d done with the first three trials. I wondered if her failure to appear the other day had anything to do with how badly our trip through the House of Night had gone. She waved a hand forward as she stood to the side of the gates. “Good luck to you all. Have fun.”

Fun.

We walked through the gates, Ethan leading the way, and a shiver cascaded over me as a magical wall slid behind us, closing us off from turning around and running for the exit. The timing was not surprising. A roar boomed through the air as soon as the wall descended, the sound vibrating through my body. I remembered it from that first day, when Wally had spouted off T-rex statistics, and everyone around us shifted and practically danced in fearful anticipation.

Thoughts of the day before fled. I was sure blood left my face in a rapid flood, if the numbing of my lips was any indication.

“Is there a reason the only magical worker among us waited to do this trial last?” My boot crunched against the brittle grass one moment and thudded against the rustic wooden floor of a saloon the next. Wooden walls had sprung up around us. An old-timey piano played in the corner, the keys pressing down and lifting again in a creepy mime without fingers to propel them. A long bar sat in front of us with a bartender behind it, one hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle of whiskey, and the other resting behind five shot glasses.

The man grinned from under his long gray mustache that curled up at the corners in twin perfect swoops. His leather vest hung flat on his stomach and his long, pointed wizard hat indicated he wasn’t great at putting together a costume.

“Welcome,” the man said, his voice gruff, like I’d expect, but with a lilting sort of accent that spoke of posh England, which I wouldn’t expect. “Pick your poison, my young friends.”

“Should be pick yer poison, if you’re going for the Old West vibe,” I glanced around at the establishment we’d found ourselves in. Card tables filled the space, each partially occupied. Men hunched over their cards with drinks by their elbows and ladies in fancy dresses and corsets by their sides. The dealers opposite them wore pointed wizard hats, like the bartender, and each had a little chest of gold by his stack of cards.

We were the only crew present.

“This is the most important trial for him,” Orin said, at my elbow, looking around as I was doing. “He’ll need to impress daddy and all his peers to make it in his world. A failure here could mean his entire future comes crashing down. Society gives guys like him a lot of leeway, except when it comes to living up to expectations. I would go so far as to say that he will have the hardest trial of all of us. For us, there were no expectations, per se. For him…all of them.”

“Shut up,” Ethan said, the truth of what Orin was saying evident in the tightness of his voice.

“That’s good.” I blew out a breath, trying to ignore the throbbing of my head and the warning shivers coating my body. “I was worried it would be harder, somehow.”

“That, too,” Orin said.

A shadow zipped by in my peripheral vision and I swung my gaze that way. My vision dizzied for a moment before I saw a group of women in the corner, their breasts heaving out of the tops of their gowns to the point where I struggled to understand how their nipples stayed covered. Poofy skirts flared out from their corseted waists. They stared at me, one and all, some with knowing looks, others with expectant expressions. One laughed suggestively.

“What is the deal with this trial?” I asked as Ethan chose a table to his right and sat in the single empty chair. A distant roar permeated the walls and shook the bottles against the mirror behind the bar. That creature did not belong in the Old West. I knew that much.

“Pick a table, and best the dealer, who’ll use magic to try and confuse you,” Ethan said, determination in his voice. “They use mind tricks. Persuasion. It’s a test of your strength of mind. You need to be able to throw off the magic. Or you can choose the bar. See if you can do the same with the potion you ingest.”

Orin drifted to the bar. “It is rare the House of Wonder can concoct a poison that can befuddle a vampire. That ability is usually limited to the House of Shade, poisoners of the highest calibre.”

“It really doesn’t make sense that two houses would rely on the same craft when the House of Wonder thinks so little of Shades,” I said, wandering through the tables.

“Two sides of the same coin,” Orin said. “The same result, but different methods. Anyone from the House of Wonder would consider it an insult to create a potion without magic.”

“Snobs,” I said.

Something else was at work here. I could feel it. Something...not right. Much as I wanted to believe this trial wouldn’t be rigged after the last disaster, I didn’t trust it.

“It is the same craft, but with different intentions,” Orin said.

“One has no morals,” Ethan added, but without any heat, placing his elbows on the green velvet of the card table.

“So, then…” Wally pulled out an empty chair, but the players at the table weren’t looking at her. They were all looking at me.

My head pounded. My heart thudded. My sense of warning, slower to develop than usual, flared, so intense it nearly made me scream.

The man in the wizarding hat jumped up from behind the bar, wand out, and blasted me before I could dive to the side. The spell wrapped around my body, holding me in place as Pete shed his clothes and changed shape.

Orin turned from the bar with a sour face, an empty glass held between his fingers, his eyes on the bare bottom. “Shade,” he said in a strangled release. The glass fell from his suddenly lifeless fingers. He grabbed at his throat, eyes bulging, and took two staggering steps. “The Shade…infiltrated….”

“What’s he saying?” Wally yelled.

The Shade had infiltrated the House of Wonder. They were coming for me. Sideburns was finally making his move.

Almost as the thought formed, a man in black burst from behind the group of women in the corner. Limbs and skirts went flying.

Anxiety riding me like an unbroken horse, I forced myself to calm down and focus. The throb in my head drifted into the background. My intense desire to break free surged, firing hot through my blood.

The spell holding me cracked like an egg.

I snapped my eyes open and yanked out my knife. A split second later the man was on me, his own knife already slashing for my face.

I dodged to the side and slapped at his hand, using his momentum to knock him off balance. My blade parted black fabric. He turned and thrust, slower than I would expect, clearly not the best of his House. I knocked my forearm against his before ripping it down, following with my blade. It slashed against his wrist and over the top of his gloved hand. Red welled up in the cut and he jerked back.

People jumped up from chairs, wands or weapons raised. Wally grabbed the edge of the table and flung it, overturning everything. Money and cards rained down as she charged forward, a little alley cat of power. I could see the pink of her magic lighting her up. I wasn’t sure what good it would do against the living, but she was embracing it.

Honey badger Pete snarled and dove under the heavy green skirt of a woman with a hard expression and a poised throwing knife. Another dagger thudded to the ground from under her skirts, followed by a small hand-gun—her hidden weapons. She gasped and kicked out before staggering to the side in an effort to dislodge the honey badger latched onto her legs.

“We gotta get out of here,” I called as a glint of metal flew through the air, end over end. There was too much going on, too fast. I couldn’t keep up with it all.

A knife, the blade gleaming in the saloon light, sped toward my chest. I dropped and rolled before popping up again and grabbing a shocked trial worker who clearly hadn’t gotten the memo regarding the change in plans, and shoved him in front of me as a human shield.

“Ethan, shrug it off,” I yelled, seeing him frozen in his seat, his eyes dodging all around but his body still. “Don’t let the panic rule you. You rule you. Shrug it off. We need you!”

“Raaaaahhhhh,” I heard before a body went flying. Wally straightened, a strange glowing sheen around her, and I took a moment to marvel that a little chick like her had just thrown a grown man across the room. Something in me said that the spells they were trying to use on her were being deflected by her magic.

A spell tore at me from the bar. I swung my human shield around, and he raised his wand to deflect the assault.

“Good choice in shields,” I murmured, marching him forward.

Another spell hit his legs from the side. His legs stopped moving, frozen stiff. I continued pushing him forward anyway, his heels skidding along the wooden floor, hoping his brain and muscle memory would override the spell.

They didn’t.

Timber. Pete said.

“Crap.” I threw aside my now useless shield and reached Orin as Pete, growling and spitting, chased a wand waver out of the swinging saloon door.

Orin’s eyes stared up at the ceiling from his position flat on his back. Tex, the English Wizard with his stupid hat, smirked from behind the bar.

“Didn’t expect that, now did he?” Tex said, leaning against the counter.

“Wally, get my back,” I yelled as I reached over, grabbed Tex’s shirt, and yanked him toward me. His eyes widened then narrowed and his hands flew out to protect himself. I was one step ahead. I rested the blade of my knife against his throat and dug in, drawing blood.

Tex’s hands lifted into the air.

“Is he dead?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Is the vampire dead?”

“Not eternally, no. The vamps want him after all this is over. The necromancer too. The wizard and the weird raccoon thing got placements as well already. All this is for you. Don’t you feel special? Let them take you, and your friends go free.”

A beam of red blasted him in the face, ripping him from my hands and sending him flying. His back hit the shelves of bottles and his eyes rolled back in his head. He sank to the ground, bottles tumbling down after him, breaking against the ground or thunking on him.

Ethan stood behind me, his wand held in a steady hand and his eyes alight. “That was the strongest persuasion spell I’ve ever pushed off,” he said, taking two quick steps to me, his expression triumphant. “I broke it, thanks to you.” He grabbed me around the middle and pulled me toward him, his soft lips a contrast to his hard body.

Electricity sizzled through me, but not from him—from the sense of victory. Two combatants sharing a win.

He broke away. “No way in hell are you going to turn yourself over in this trial,” he said. “We’ll beat this like we beat all the others. I have a reputation to uphold.” He winked. “So let’s go. Hurry.”

I liked this new Ethan better. The confidence was real. Whoever’d beaten him down had lost their hold on him. I grinned. “Let’s.”

He spun and cast a spell, slamming a woman dressed in black center mass and dropping her. Clearly, he had been thoroughly tutored on attack spells.

“Leave Orin,” Wally said, shoving a frozen woman out of the way and heading toward the door. “He’ll understand, and we can’t carry him.” Her voice dropped. “Always question your drink of choice when there is danger afoot.”

“That voice… It doesn’t get any less weird,” Ethan mumbled, running at my side.

We shoved out of the door, and Pete looked back at us as a woman took off running for a stand of horses. The scene melted into a dusky prairie, not unlike the savannah scene from the shifter trial, before changing yet again with a flicker, like a computer screen glitching. The Old West town flickered back to life.

“This trial is being tampered with,” Ethan said, slowing and looking at the sky. He brought out his cheat sheet, running his finger down the page.

“How was it?” Wally asked me quietly, standing very close. Her eyes roved my face as she waited for me to answer.

I palmed my head as the pounding returned, feeling a vague sort of danger but nothing imminent. Not yet. That last trial probably hadn’t gone the way they’d expected. We were a helluva lot stronger and quicker than most other trial goers. Working together made us shine.

“How was what?” I asked, smelling lilac on the air, a strange fragrance for the Old West town.

“Kissing a Helix. I mean, he’s the worst, don’t get me wrong, but he’s hot. Can’t say I’m not curious…” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

I ignored her, focusing on Ethan and his notes. “Let’s concentrate on getting out of this trial. Not winning it, but just getting out of it with all of us alive.”

Ethan looked up at me, and for a wonder, I didn’t see disappointment in his eyes. “Are you sure about that?” he asked.

All eyes turned my way, and I hated that Orin wasn’t there to lend us another strategic brain. I hated that we’d have to leave him behind. It went against everything in me. Just like Rory, though, I couldn’t fix this. He would live. We might not.

“Nothing we encounter is going to go how your cheat sheet tells you, Ethan,” I said, feeling the urgency to get moving. “It won’t do us any good, and I doubt we’ll be able to beat any of the challenges. We didn’t even get to do the last one.”

“You did.” Wally pointed at me. “And he did.” Her finger swung to Ethan. “Orin failed at it, but they cheated—”

“The best course of action is getting out of here and getting to safety,” I said. “No amount of gold or glory is worth our lives.”

Ethan nodded and looked down at his sheet. “We can stick to the easier challenges, then. After what just happened, my father will understand the rationale behind that. He can push for a retesting if necessary. I can all but fast track us through the next one, but we’ll all have to do the final one.”

“What’s the final—”

As if on cue, an enormous roar ripped through the air, sparking fear in my heart.

“T-rex,” Wally said, suddenly out of breath. I knew how she felt. “We’re going to take on the T-rex.”

“How the hell is that magical?” I asked as Ethan started jogging, heading northwest. “And do you know where you’re going?”

“The scenery isn’t how it should be.” He picked up his pace. “I don’t know who you pissed off, Wild, but you sure don’t have many friends in the magical world. My father won’t be impressed that the security is so lax. Going after you is one thing, but dragging me into it isn’t a good look. Not when he’s on the board.”

“Sometimes you’re a good guy, Ethan, and sometimes I want to bitch slap you.” I increased my speed, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the next attack came.

The scenery around us changed again, turning rocky with surprise dips and falls dug into the landscaping. Mountains rose on one side and waves crashed away on the other. It was like the engineers had gotten into a fight about what they wanted the scene to look like, and settled it by drawing a line and each doing their own thing.

“This isn’t an easy one, Ethan,” Wally said, frustration ringing loud and clear. “You’re the only one that can do it.”

“What?” I asked as white lines appeared near our feet, rolling to a stop ten yards away. Sand filled in between the lines. Four people, two men and two women in robes of all shades, decorated with stitched moons and stars and a dusting of glitter, stood at the end of the white lines, facing our way. Like a weird bowling alley...and we were the pins. “What can’t we do?”

“He’s planning to leave us behind again,” Wally accused, grabbing his arm and getting in his face. “You low-life, cheating—”

“We’re a group,” Ethan yelled over her comments, shaking her off. “As long as one member can defeat the enemy, the group can continue on.”

“Then why do we each get our own lane?” Wally demanded amid Pete’s growling.

Ethan gestured everyone toward the lines. “Trust me. Just keep yourself from being taken down until I deal with this guy. You’ll see.”

“We’ll see? Trust you? What kind of a stupid idea is that?” Wally screeched, closer to losing it than I’d thought possible. “We trusted you on that tower. We trusted you when we faced that troll. We trusted—”

“Okay, okay.” I put out my hands, eyeing the people on the other end of the lines. Their robes hid their bodies, but these were mages—trained to attack with magic, not their bodies.

They expected to face off and trade spells. That was it.

“Whoever is messing with these trials probably expected us to go for gold. They planned for the wrong contingency. So this is just a simple challenge, like Ethan said.” I wished I felt as confident as I sounded.

“There’s nothing simple about this, Wild. Do you know the type of spells they hit people with in these—”

I put up my hand to quiet Wally. She’d clearly reached the end of her rope. I couldn’t blame her, but I also couldn’t let her give in to it.

“This is fine,” I said, walking along the end of the lines, reading our opponents. I silently noted their stance and balance, judging how they’d react to a charge and, more importantly, their general stance on violence. All the information I needed was right there in front of me—in the way they held themselves, in the way they sized us up or didn’t.

“In poker, they say play the player, not the hand. This is the same.” I pointed at the line leading to a man in a black robe with more glitter than was really necessary. “Wally, you here. Act like a damsel in distress. He’ll take it easier on you. Deflect his spells like you did back at the saloon. Ethan…” I pointed at a woman with a bob and a pink robe. “She’s the meanest. You’d better take her.”

“No.” Ethan pointed at the man across from him, with a drab brown robe and impatience written all over his face. “I’ll take him. He’s the highest magical worker.”

“He’s bored, look at him. He won’t try as hard as—”

Ethan didn’t wait for my assessment. He stepped up to the lane, aligning each foot with the lines on either side of it. With a snap, he, the lane, and the man on the end disappeared.

“Damn it,” I whispered, shoving Wally to her lane. “I’ll take the pink robe then. Pete, you’re the last. The woman in purple. Charge her, move fast, lots of snarling.”

“Watch yourself, Wild,” Wally said, her eyes solemn. “If you fail this challenge, you don’t come back to the trial. They’ll have you alone. We won’t be able to get to you.”

Wally’s words sunk in slowly, casting a new light on Ethan’s sudden interest in being a team player. He was passing up an opportunity for gold. He was taking an easy challenge.

He was not acting like he’d always acted, and I’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

You’ll see. Trust me.

Chapter 13

“I’ll be fine.” I put a hand on Wally’s shoulder. “You watch you, okay? Use your power. Charge him. Dodge his attacks and throw him around. Knock his wand away—anything you can. Try to beat him, or hold out until Ethan finishes and saves us.” Maybe he was playing us, maybe he wasn’t. All we could do now was hope for the best. Orin wasn’t even there to point out a logical solution.

She gave me a dry look, as though asking, He kissed you and now you believe in him?

I was thankful she didn’t ask me outright. It seemed shallow to blame my lack of judgement on my continuously pounding headache.

Pete snarled, snorted, and trotted to his lane, kicking at the dirt with his back feet as though prepping for a race. Wally gave me a slow wave before doing the same, minus the dirt kicking.

I faced off against the woman in soft pink before purposely placing my feet on either side of the lane. The scene around me dizzied, but I ignored it.

Play the player.

“You love that color, don’t you?” I asked in an easy tone, my feet magically stuck to the ground. I didn’t know if it was a preliminary measure, keeping everyone put as the challenge got underway, or I’d have to leave my boots behind when I charged her. “Not because of the actual color, but because that color tells people certain things about the wearer. It makes you seem more feminine, which people read as softer, gentler, more eager to please.” The woman’s expression didn’t change. “But I bet you’re an old battle-axe under that godawful robe, aren’t you?”

Her lips pressed together and her eyes tightened at the edges.

A farm spread out around us, and with a start, I realized it was my farm back home, my house hunkering in the distance and the barn not far away. No cows grazed in the fields, though, and no horses flicked their tails in their pens.

“Ah. Trying to make me homesick?” I guessed. It was working. At least the place wasn’t burning like in my dream.

“More comfortable, actually,” she responded in a flat, dry voice. “But Shades are always comfortable, are they not?”

“No, but it’s interesting that you think so.”

“You must make contact with me with three spells,” she went on as though reading from a rule book. “The types of spells do not matter. They simply must get past my defenses. In addition, you will need to counteract my attacks. Any questions?”

“Yeah. What happens when your opponent doesn’t have a wand and can’t hit you with a spell?”

“You lose.”

“Right.”

“And…”

A small chime sounded. My feet came unstuck. She brandished her wand like a quick draw and flicked her wrist at me.

But I was already off and running.

I dove under the beam of magic, rolled, nearly stood, and realized she’d already gotten off another shot. I flung myself to the side, hit an invisible wall, and rolled the other way as a flare of green dug into the ground at my side.

“How many spells have to hit me before I lose?” I grunted out, popping up and ripping out my knife. I sliced at the invisible wall, throwing up sparks. It didn’t help. I was stuck in this ten-foot-wide space that was part of the game. .

“As many as you can stand.” She flicked her wrist and the stream of yellow turned into a blob of yellow, spreading out to catch me.

“Good call with that spell.” I ran and jumped at the wall, hit it high with my toes, pushed off, and attempted a really cool backflip. I landed on my stomach and the air pushed out of me. “Ouch,” I wheezed.

“Spirited, this shall be enjoyable,” she murmured.

I leapt up and zagged right, drawing her fire, before pivoting. She moved her wand, expecting me to run left. Instead, I dashed right again, scraped against the wall, barely missed by the spell, and sprinted straight at her. Her eyes widened and her wand hand jerked, a muscle memory reaction, no doubt. I rolled under it, but not fast enough. The spell screamed across my shoulder, ripping away my shirt and slashing my skin.

“Ouch,” I said again. But at least it took my mind off my headache.

I bounced up, five feet away, as she swept her wand from one side to the other. A spell materialized, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge it.

So I didn’t try.

Knife held out, teeth gritted, I sprinted at her and launched myself through the spell. It parted around my knife, but the sides clung to my body. It didn’t stop my forward progress.

I slammed into the mage as heat flared across my skin. It seeped down into my blood, burning so hot, I had to glance down to make sure they weren’t real flames. She landed with an oomph, then grunted when I smashed down on top of her, taller and stronger.

Without thinking, body burning, I went for her weapon, knowing that if I could get it from her, we’d be at an impasse. Or, at least, she couldn’t magically light me on fire again.

Screaming with the pain, I grabbed her wand hand and jammed my other elbow across her face. Her lips curled and her fingers loosened. I elbowed her again. And again, forcing out a whimper. As expected, she wasn’t used to physical violence.

“Let…go,” I said, banging her wand hand against the ground.

“It’ll…kill…you!”

Too late. Another elbowing made her cry out, and her fingers released their grip. The wand was in my hand before her words had properly sunk in.

The agony of the magical fire cut off, but a sharp blast of pain shot up through my hand, my arm, and into my chest. My middle turned to ice, spreading out before sinking into my limbs. I sucked in a breath, trying to let go of the wand, but I couldn’t. Like a wave pulling back to the sea, the cold dimmed before leaving my body all together.

Shaking, confused, I pushed back to standing, holding the small stick that now sent vibrations through my body. It felt…wrong, somehow. Off. Not as natural as Ethan’s wand had. But it didn’t kill me.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“Give me that back!” She flopped, trying to turn over and stand, but wasn’t able to push through the pain. “That’s mine!” Her voice was weak.

I frowned at the vehemence of her reaction. It struck me, again, that this was the second wand I’d handled without any serious injury. Maybe the danger of stealing someone’s wand was a myth magic users drummed up to deter theft.

“I need to get out of here. What’s a spell I can do on you?” I asked, flicking the wand like she’d done. Red sparkles flew from the end and cracked all around us.

“No! How?” Her eyes widened as she looked at me. “How are you doing that?”

“Presto change-o,” I said, flicking the wand again. This time blue sparks curled into the air. “What if I just…” I did the same again, but right next to her leg so the sparks would hit her.

“Ah!” Surprise lit her features and she scooted away. Mud spread across her light pink robe.

“I bet you hope that’s mud, at any rate,” I said, remembering how I’d wrestled with Bluebell the day before I left the farm. Not allowing myself to dwell, I bent and did the swooping move again. Then a third time.

The scene wobbled. She disappeared. My farm melted around me. Ethan, his wand freshly stowed in his stupid holster, pulled out his sheet of paper ten feet away, back on the open plains that we’d started with.

There was no sign of the others.

I walked over and punched him in the face.

“You lying piece of crap!” I yelled, waiting for him to sprawl out before kicking him in the side. “You were setting us up the whole time!” I bent over and blasted some wand sparks at him.

“What in the—” His hand shot out and he gripped my wrist, his eyes pinned to the wand.

I grabbed his wrist with my other hand, twisted so he’d have to turn onto his belly, then pushed up, keeping him in place. “Not wise,” I ground out.

“Whose wand is that?” he asked, his voice high pitched in pain.

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” I dropped the wand since the sparks didn’t seem to have an effect, then punched him in the ribs. He grunted and tried to move away. I did it again, but his thick slab of muscle shielded him from my blows.

“Stop,” he said, his body tensed. “Stop!”

I picked up the wand again. The annoying vibrating feeling ran up my arm, so I stuffed it into my back pocket.

“Trust me, huh?” I said, my hands on my hips. “We’ll see?” It was my turn for high pitched. “Now the other two are lost in limbo!”

“All they had to do was hang on, like I said,” Ethan shouted back at me, his face red and dirt smeared across his cheek. “Who do you think got you out?”

“I did.” I pulled out the wand for emphasis. “With this.”

“With what, a few sparks? That wasn’t a spell! It wouldn’t trigger your win.” He jabbed his chest. “I won. I shut everything down.”

Breathing heavily, I stowed my stolen wand. The timing was close enough that he could be right, especially since he hadn’t reacted to the sparks I’d made with the wand. They’d surprised the wand owner, but they hadn’t really hurt her. Still, it was possible the bit of magic I’d done had been enough. Either way, Wally and Pete hadn’t been so lucky.

“This challenge would be impossible for anyone but a wand wielder.” I stalled, waiting just a bit longer to make sure Wally or Pete wouldn’t materialize near us. “It’s not fair.”

Ethan painfully rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “Everyone is supposed to be in groups. All a group needs is one wielder.”

“Well, clearly that isn’t the case, since the one wielder was the only one to make it through. Where are Pete and Wally? They should be here too if you’re right.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t count. I cheated.”

He made a disgusted sound and snatched his fallen paper up off the ground. “I don’t get you, Wild. You didn’t know anything about magic, yet you made it through to the gold on the Shade trial. It’s in your nature, so okay, I guess. But you practically led the Claw and Unmentionables trials, and you saved our asses in the Night trial by speaking to ghosts. Now here you are, probably the first trial goer in history to steal an instructor’s wand, and you’re yelling about the fairness of things. No one should be this good at everything. No one. And that’s coming from someone who is expected to be this good at everything.” He shook his head and took off walking. “Something isn’t right with you. I mean, you’ve got people trying to kill you for Christ’s sake. You! A girl!”

“Girls aren’t good enough to be targeted, is that what you’re saying?”

He shot me a narrowed-eyed glare. “You’re supposed to be a fifteen-year-old boy, aren’t you? Well, that cover has been blown, and yet people are still after you. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

My step hitched, because I’d never thought of it like that. Yes, as a matter of fact, it kind of did.

He threw up his hands. “This whole thing is messed up. All of it. And I hate that I’ve been dragged into it. I don’t want anything to do with the Sandman. My father can rein in most people, but the Sandman isn’t one of them. I’ve got no protection from him. None of us do. I don’t need any part of—”

“Wait, the Sandman? What do you mean?” Memories fluttered my awareness, so close, I could practically grab them. Darkness lining a face. Sweat dripping from sideburns. A twinkle of light on something metallic. The missing day was right there on the edge of my mind.

A sudden ground-shaking roar blotted out my thoughts. My feet nearly started dancing, ready to run without my body attached if need be. The scene around us dissolved, replaced with a big open area, a cave to one side, a cropping of rocks to the other, and an enormous beast out of the past directly in front of us. Green and black mottled skin, flesh hanging from its jagged bottom teeth, and too-small eyes zeroing in on us.

A freaking T-Rex, so big that our heads wouldn’t even touch the bottom of its belly.

“We’re gonna die.”

Chapter 14

Wally’s voice drifted into my mind from the first day of the trials, which felt so damn long ago.

“To date, in this century, there has never been a death by mauling as pertains to the T-Rex.”

Regardless of the strongholds in place, and there didn’t look to be any, a real T-Rex was liable to kill people.

…in this century…

…never been a death…

“It’s an illusion,” I said, clutching Ethan’s sleeve as he stared up at the monster, slack mouthed. “It has to be an illusion. It’s magic, like everything else. Wally said no one’s died from one of these in this century.”

“It is magic, yes. We’re in the House of Wonder.” Ethan shook himself into movement and straightened the sheet of paper he’d fearfully clutched in his hand moments before. “Of course, it’s magic. We might not die, but we’ll fail.”

“I’m less concerned with failing than dying, though that first challenge might’ve amounted to the same thing.”

“Failing is not an option. We have to make it through. That’s the plan, right?” Ethan turned and ran for the cave while stuffing the sheet of paper into his pocket.

“I’m sensing daddy issues.” I ran right beside him, holding the uncomfortably vibrating wand in a shaking hand. Another roar rumbled through the space, squashing all other sound and making my heart flutter.

“I’ve prepared for this.” Ethan was muttering, and I got the distinct impression he was trying to bolster his confidence. “I’ve studied. I’ve practiced.”

“There is no preparing for the size of this beast,” I said, my heart stopping dead when the huge head swung our way. The T-Rex regarded us from its small eyes, before bending forward and slamming us with a blood-freezing roar. “Its teeth are the size of a human foot.”

“Yeah. I learned that in grade school.” He put on a burst of speed.

I ran faster still, passing him, and made a beeline for that cave. “There’s a difference…between learning it…and living it.”

The ground shook with the imprint of one massive foot carrying a whole lot of tonnage.

“A big…difference.” Another foot. The beast was coming after us. “Every man…for himself!”

I slid into the cave, feet first, as another footfall shook the ground, this one faster than the previous two. The fourth thud was faster still, the beast chasing its prey.

I rolled, finishing the slide on my belly. The T-Rex swung its head down, faster than a creature that size should have been capable of moving, and chomped at Ethan. The enormous teeth just missed him. Screaming, Ethan ducked into the cave so fast, he slammed his head against the rock roof. He staggered and fell into me.

He clutched his head and curled up, but I was already pulling him farther back into the recesses, a space too small for the huge reptile to reach. Frantic breathing filled the hollow silence left by the dinosaur.

“Failing is not an option,” I said, replaying the memory of those huge teeth stained with blood and bits of flesh, snapping shut. “We might not die, but it’ll hurt like hell. Failing is definitely not an option. How do we bring it down?”

“My head is pounding. You’ll have to do it.”

“Nice try, gorgeous. My head has been pounding since this morning. How do we bring it down?”

He fumbled for his pocket, whatever he’d read before running to the cave clearly forgotten.

“I got it.” I dug my hand into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper. Organized, typed directions filled the sheet, ending with “Notes.” In that space, various spells and details had been added in a surprisingly delicate hand. “Did your sister help you with this?”

“I am literate,” he said dryly. “The best spells to use are at the bottom.”

I was literate, too, but my handwriting looked like it had been scrawled out by a five-year-old with an attention problem.

I muttered a few of the handwritten words—some foreign, like “Olumpah,” and some I understood, like “Levitate.” The wand spat sparks of blue, and I pointed it toward the wall.

“So spells can just be common words?” A monstrous foot slammed down outside the cave, followed by a roar that filled our small space to bursting.

Both of us grabbed our heads.

“It’s not just anything. The words, intention, and wand movement work together, driven by your inner strength and power.” He pushed up a little and touched the bump forming on the side of his head. He looked at his fingertips, didn’t see blood, and glanced out of the cave. “Countless hours are spent learning spell work, and only the best can ever master it. Most people are merely proficient.”

“Awesome. Well, I would like to be proficient enough to cause havoc. What do I say?”

He sniffed and shook his head before taking a deep breath. “I’ve trained for this. I can do it in my sleep.”

He lightly touched his head. He hadn’t trained for this when at anything other than a hundred percent. Welcome to real life, Wonder Bread.

“Right.” I nodded in determination. Clearly, he wasn’t going to teach me to use magic without a little prodding. “Then jog on out there and start throwing some spells. I’ll be right behind you, with this tiny knife.”

His gaze cut my way, and he watched me grab for my knife. He sighed. “Look, we can’t really practice in here or the spells will bounce off the walls and hit us.” I grimaced and directed the boom part of the wand toward the cave opening, where the T-Rex waited.

I doubted the predators of old would’ve been so patient. Or tolerant.

“You’re better at overall combat,” he went on. “I’m obviously better with the actual spells. So we’ll have to work together—”

“That’s what some of us have been doing all along…”

His blue eyes flared. “Do you want to win this, or not?”

“Sorry, sorry.”

Outside the cave, the T-rex shifted and lifted a foot. This one landed farther away, back toward its initial position. Its default setting, I guessed.

“What we can do is this…” He licked his lips and crawled nearer the opening. “Use your—the wand. React with it how you would normally react with a knife. If you’d go for the eyes, or belly, aim and shoot the sparks. I’ll then follow it up with an actual spell.”

“The eyes are much too small and far away for a target,” I said, my brain whirling, shedding off the panic of fighting a huge predator that had terrorized prehistoric earth. “The belly is covered in that thick skin. Are your spells more potent than foot-long teeth?”

Ethan blinked and looked down at his wand. He hadn’t thought of that.

“Who the hell is training you that you don’t already have a strategy?” I berated. “And what important branch of the government is he or she making a mockery of?”

“It was my weapons instructor,” he replied.

“Ever heard the saying, those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach?” I shook my head and crawled toward the mouth of the cave on hands and knees until the roof allowed me to stand, hunched over. I eyed the T-Rex, looking around the empty space, waiting for us to bring the fight to it.

Whiskers, my pissed off bull, had nothing on this situation.

“So, it’s either bring down the beast or get eaten?” I asked.

“Or let time run out.” He braced a scratched hand against a rock, leaning heavily and squinting. I looked at my watch to see a timer ticking down. We had less than thirty minutes left to deal with the T-Rex. Ethan’s head was probably throbbing to the same beat as mine. “But I got the impression that time running out would be worse than losing to the beast. Something about lava…”

My jaw dropped, and I spluttered before I managed to actually speak words. “Oh my God, what is wrong with magical people?”

He took a deep breath. “Are you ready?”

“No. You?”

He released a shaky laugh. “Nope.”

“But what choice do we have, right? We need to impress your daddy, right? We need to finish this and hope that Orin, Wally, and Pete are okay.”

He sobered. “Yes,” he said softly. His pink tongue left a wet trail across his bottom lip. “Look,” he said, not looking over at me. “Between us, I’m glad it worked out this way. I’m glad we ended up in a crew. You’re insane, but you have a way about you. You make all this…bearable.”

“Same,” I said, and it wasn’t a complete lie. Sometimes he was actually pretty okay.

His grin said he heard everything I didn’t say in my voice. “We can’t all be team players, Wild. What fun is there in that? Some of us have been groomed to be separate, whether we like it or not.”

And with those words, he pushed out of the cave and ran right. I surged after him a moment later, really wishing he’d given me a heads up.

As expected, the T-Rex’s head swung around, tracking our movements. It roared as it stepped forward, on the chase once more. Ethan pivoted and headed back toward it at an angle.

“Go,” he said, yelling at me. “Go, go!”

“Go where?” The T-Rex gained speed, each step cutting the distance between us by a quarter.

“I hate this,” I muttered, letting intuition kick in and changing my angle. “This is terrible. Why did I decide to come?” Not that I could have let Billy come instead, but I found myself wishing we’d cut and run like my dad had suggested.

The T-Rex either didn’t catch my change in direction or wanted Ethan more, because it kept moving straight for him.

“Levitate!” I heard, imagining him using a lovely little wand flick while standing stationary, like that woman in the last challenge.

“It’s too heavy,” I said, changing my direction again and running back at him. He couldn’t get eaten yet. If he did, I’d have no chance. The T-Rex didn’t have a wand I could steal, and it wouldn’t care about my punches. “Use an attack spell!”

“Surl-ah-age!”

The word was garbled. I couldn’t see the accompanying flick. I had no idea what he was going for.

The beast roared, a surprised, pain-filled sound. Its feet stomped and shuffled. Whatever that spell was supposed to do had worked.

“Surlahage,” I shouted, aiming for an ankle, the easiest thing to hit, and flicking my wand in a clumsy fist. The movement was more a whip crack than a flick.

A jet of white flew, arcing through the air and pinging into the dinosaur’s knee area. It blistered the tough skin. The T-Rex roared, though it didn’t sound as pained this time, and bent its opened mouth toward the ground. Toward Ethan.

I swung the wand again, wanting to really explode that knee. “Surlage!”

The second try was wrong, I could feel it. Everything felt wrong, from the movement to the instrument to the word itself.

Gray-black light erupted from the wand this time, in a straight shot, flung with some vigor. It hit the beast’s ankle, as hoped, slashing a line of red.

“Yes, yes!” I shouted, giddy from my accomplishment.

The T-Rex roared, almost a howl of pain, before whipping its big head around to me. Its tiny yellow eye took me in. Oops.

“Oh no! Oh no!”

I turned and ran, unable to quell the instinct to flee something that big. The ground shook as the predator changed direction and charged.

“Throw another spell. Throw another spell!” I shouted over my shoulder, probably not heard over all the commotion. “Take out its feet!” I flicked the wand over my shoulder, following my words. “Surblage. No, surfledge. Surlahedge!”

Various streams of color zipped out. An explosion took me off my feet and flung me forward. I twisted in the air and landed on my side in time to see the last spell splat way up onto the dinosaur’s chest. The beast rocked back and forth, waving its little arms and roaring at the sky, teeth snapping together over and over.

Another stream of light came at it from the other side. “Gar-gant-rain-ium.”

“Gar-gant-rainium,” I said quickly, trying for the proper word flow and attempting an artful flick. It looked like something was stuck on the end of the wand and I was trying to flick it off. “Garg…antum. Dang it, I forgot the rain. Gargant-rain-ium!”

I wasn’t great at remembering the words, they were too damn weird.

The wand vibrated like a broken washing machine, and I nearly dropped it in discomfort. The beast roared as a spell hit it from behind. It turned, in time for my streams of brown and murky green to hit it broadside.

“Those colors aren’t right,” I said, hopping up as a splash of red washed across the T-Rex’s side.

It roared, worse than before, and shook its great head. Red gushed down its body, and I realized I’d opened that wound with one of those garbled spells.

“Which one?” I murmured through my teeth, not running back to Ethan. Hitting it from both sides was better, as long as each of us could keep it from chomping down on the other. “Gargant-ium!” I slapped the wand at the air and more horrible vibrations ran up my arm. “Rain! Damn it. Gargantrainium!”

Pus-yellow light flew out this time, hitting the creature’s hip. Blisters preceded smoke and then flame, curling up the T-Rex’s skin. A clear, vibrant green light flew toward it from the opposite side, exploding.

The beast’s little arms clawed at the air as it shook its head again, its mighty mouth open and its body sagging a little. I could just barely see Ethan behind the thick leg, advancing with swagger, wand held out confidently, slipping into striking range to deliver his killing shot.

“No, no, no!” I ran at him, all my senses firing. Fear driving my legs faster than they’d normally go. “Not so close—”

Ethan shot out, his wand flicking gracefully, his body broad and powerful. His instructor had obviously been a complete idiot. He was making himself a perfect target.

“Entitlement doesn’t work on a beast,” I yelled, readying my wand again. “Back away, Ethan! Get out of the striking range! It’s not ready to die!”

A beautiful deep crimson stream flew through the air, slicing into the creature as it bent toward its target, its mouth open wide.

“No! Surpledge!”—wand slash—“Geranium!”—wand slap—“Gargant-rain-um!” I was basically waving my wand like it was a whip now, something I actually knew how to do. It was helping...but not enough. The scene spilled out in front of me, a horror show I couldn’t escape.

The beast moved faster than ever before as it shot toward a wide-eyed Ethan. The T-Rex’s teeth snapped closed on his middle with a sickening crunch.

I sucked in a horrified breath as my murky, hideous spells slapped and slashed at the beast, one ripping a hunk of skin off its back, another peeling all the skin from its leg, and the third exploding against it. A tiny arm was flung off.

The beast staggered, opening its mouth to roar. Ethan fell out to the side, stiff from fear-driven paralysis or the first death in this challenge. I was hoping for the former.

I ran toward him, throwing up more spells haphazardly as I moved, dodging the clumsy feet of the agonized T-Rex. My spells hit home without the damage of the previous few.

My wand waving. I was too panicked for Ethan. I hadn’t waved it as forcefully the last few times.

“Help,” Ethan moaned as I got close. The T-Rex’s clawed foot slammed down, forty feet away, the creature howling in pain as it spun and clawed uselessly at itself.

“You’re alive,” I said as I reached him, my relief short-lived. Four puncture marks in all, two in his front and two in his back, each round as a coffee mug. They almost met in the middle, and he was seeping blood and…other parts. He didn’t have long.

This death was meant for me. I was sure of it.

And Ethan had taken the blow.

“We need to win,” I said, terror fueling me. “We need to win this so we can get you to a healer.”

“I can’t feel my legs.” His eyes widened as he looked down. His arms pushed against the ground, as though he didn’t realize what he was seeing was a part of him and he wanted to get away from it.

The tail swung overhead, enough to take me out had I been standing.

“We gotta go.” I grabbed him under the arms and dragged him behind me to put distance between us and the creature. I didn’t know what else to do. “Give me a nasty spell. Nastiest you know.”

“You can’t—”

“Give me a spell!”

“Darn-at-re. A. Dis-a-trium.”

“What happened to the spells with actual words?” The T-Rex’s tail whipped the other way and it roared, sounding like it was so through with this crap. I knew how it felt. “Here we go. Give me your wand. It felt better than this one…”

“Wands…intimate.”

“Well then, we’re about to get intimate.” I snatched his wand out of his hand, looked at the stolen one in my other hand, and decided screw it.

The creature came at me, its mouth open and hell in its eyes.

“Darn-a-trium. Ah. Dis-a…trum.” That wasn’t right, but I flicked both wands, anyway.

A stream of poo-colored brown magic came out of the instructor’s wand, and baby puke green magic came out of Ethan’s. Both hit the T-Rex on its right leg, a little higher than I’d intended, but nearly at the knee. Red holes opened up in its scaly hide before an explosion of fire shot out. Heat and light and propulsive energy slapped me, pushing me off my feet for the second time and flinging me back. My head knocked the ground and black spots swam within my vision.

The T-Rex’s roar was soaked through with horrible pain. I pushed to my elbows as its body hit the ground. Half of its leg had been blown off, blood spray coating the dirt.

My stomach pinched and bile rose in my throat. These challenges weren’t for the faint of heart.

“Terrible spell work,” I heard, a pain-filled, wet, gargled whisper. A smile covered Ethan’s face, and he coughed up a wet laugh.

“Oh no.” I crawled to him, my head pounding, my body aching, the wands clutched in my hands shooting sparks with each movement. “How do I end this, Ethan? How do I end the challenge?” I dropped the wands and clutched his bloody hand in my own. “Ethan!”

His blue eyes found me lazily, the light within them dimming. “You know…” Wet coughs racked his body. “You’re pretty…hot when you…clean yourself up. I…like ’em tall.” He laughed again, as though that was a merry joke. “Good work, Johnson.” His eyes swung the other way, as though he didn’t have control over them anymore. “You win.”

A breath released from his mouth, and his body went slack in the pool of blood under us. His eyes were sightless.

“No.” I grabbed his chin with my fingers and turned his face my way. “Hold on, Ethan. Please. Please, don’t die on me! The dinosaur is down!” I looked around us, wide-eyed. The T-Rex kicked the foot that was still intact, weakly waving the one tiny arm it had left, and then stilled. “The T-Rex is down! Why is this not ending?”

Tears clouded my vision as a boot crunched against the dirt behind me. I pushed up and swung around, grabbing my knife and protecting Ethan’s body with my own.

The Sandman stopped ten feet from me, his expression unreadable. “That was meant to be you.” He jerked his head, and I knew he meant Ethan. “You were meant to die in here. You’re a Shade, or so they thought. You shouldn’t be able to use a wand.” His eyes flicked to the two wands next to me, lying deserted. “But you chose a different path than they expected. An impossible path. You should’ve been captured twice over. Or killed. And yet, here you are, with the man who was supposed to win it all…lying dead at your side. I was right, and they were wrong.”

Anger seethed through me, burning away the grief and fear, the guilt from letting Ethan and my crew down and reaching the end alone. I grabbed Ethan’s wand and stood on wobbly legs. “What do you want from me?” I hollered.

His dark, dangerous eyes beheld me. “Everything.”

Chapter 15

That last word reverberated in the air between the Sandman and I. Everything. He wanted everything from me? What the hell did that mean?

“What, you want to marry me?” I blurted out, my brain muddled from the concussion, from the unrelenting terror and the horror of Ethan’s lifeless body at my feet. “Aren’t you supposed to get on one knee for that?”

There was a split second where I thought the Sandman would laugh in my face. I mean, it was ridiculous, but so was everything else.

“Perhaps not everything,” he said.

The Sandman took a step back, his eyes locking on something or someone coming up from behind on my left. I tensed, but no warning tingles raced through my body. Friend, not foe.

“We are not done here.” The Sandman turned and strode away, and I thought about shooting him in the back with the wand.

Well, screw it. I’d never second-guessed myself before—why start now? I whipped the wand in a circle, then pointed it at the Sandman’s back. The sparks that shot out were a mix of black and red, and for a moment—just a split second—I could see my rage in the magic, my anger and strength propelling it forward to slam into the Sandman’s back, spinning him around. He fell back and through something, like an invisible fence that was keeping us in. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.

“Wild!” Pete was all but on top of me when he yelled my name, and I startled. “Holy cats, what…is Ethan…dead?”

I dropped to my knees, tucked the wand down the back of my pants and put my fingers to Ethan’s neck. The blood that had pooled out from his puncture wounds seeped through the knees of my jeans. Warm, his blood was still warm. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was part of my crew, because I’d already lost so much, or because of that tiny spark that had jumped so unexpectedly between us.

A single pulse of his heart thumped under my fingers. That was enough for me. “Help me get him up, Pete!” I got my arms under Ethan’s and Pete grabbed his feet. “We need to get him over there.” I pointed at the place I’d seen the Sandman fall through.

Wally came running, bursting out of seemingly nowhere. Her face was scratched and her clothes sizzled, but she was intact. “Oh my God!”

That was all she said as she caught up to us, and her silence scared me more than if she’d spewed off all the numbers, all the reasons why Ethan wouldn’t make it. She took one of his hands and just held it.

We reached the place where the Sandman had fallen out of the test…and nothing happened. We kept on running across the open plain with Ethan bouncing between us.

“We do not have time for this!” I snapped.

“Where are we going?” Pete struggled to speak as we ran. “Why isn’t this over?”

I didn’t have an answer. What I had was a dying boy and…a couple of wands in my back pocket. One of which would work for me, even if I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

“Wally, come grab Ethan.”

“I can help.” Orin slid in from the right, out of shadows that hadn’t been there a moment before, his face beyond pale and green in spots.

“Why can you all get in, but we can’t get out?” I raged as Orin took Ethan’s arms from me. I grabbed the wand from my back pocket. Ethan’s wand. I pointed it in front of us at nothing. But there had to be something there. Something holding us in.

“I need a word, a trigger word, something!” I yelled and the others startled.

“Bascilium-oroco,” Wally whispered. “It can break another person’s spell.”

I didn’t hesitate, trusting her. Trusting my crew. Hell, I didn’t even stumble over the word for once. “Bascilium-oroco!” The word tasted like copper pennies on my tongue as I pointed Ethan’s wand at the landscape.

The tip glowed like a lighter, heating brighter and brighter until it was like a mini sun in both light and heat. I couldn’t look at it, but felt it drawing strength from me to make this spell, whatever it was, work.

“Say it again!” Wally yelled. “Three times, you have to say it three times with a pause in between!”

“Bascilium-oroco!” I shouted the word and the light grew impossibly brighter until I was on my knees and the others were yelling. The wand began to heat in my hand, burning into my flesh. It smelled of charred meat, and still I hung on.

My friends were depending on me.

Billy and Sam were depending on me.

Ethan’s life depended on me.

If there was a chance this would work, that it would break the spell of this place, then I had to hang on.

“Bascilium-oroco!” I put everything I had into that final scream, every ounce of energy and then some. The world around us shattered into a thousand colors, the light from the wand bursting through everything around us, splintering images and throwing them back in broken reflections. When I opened my eyes, the plains and the T-Rex were gone, and we were sitting on a chunk of land that looked very normal.

Other groups of kids huddled at various points around us.

I hadn’t just shattered our test, but everyone’s test. Someone was going to be pissed.

But that was the least of my worries. “We need a medic! A healer!” I yelled, stumbling to my feet. I would have dropped the wand, but it was seared to my palm. Orin was running, carrying Ethan in his arms easily despite whatever poison he’d ingested in the first challenge.

The teachers and testers were like an ant nest that had been kicked repeatedly. I wanted to believe it was because Ethan was a Helix and Helixes were important. But the number of eyes that went to my hand, still glued to the wand, told me otherwise.

I didn’t care. I ran after Orin, Wally, and Pete right with me. We hit the medic station at full speed, and the woman who’d cared for us each time was there. Inside the tent was hushed, for all the world like we were alone.

Mara had her hands on Ethan in a flash, her eyes closed and eyes moving rapidly under her eyelids. “Bad, this is bad.”

Someone poked their head in. Jared. The vampire’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a glare.

“Jared, get his father!” Mara said.

I went to my knees beside the cot and found Ethan’s hand with the one not seared to his wand. Wally went to her knees beside me. Pete and Orin were behind us, and we waited like that—a united crew—as Mara worked her magic on Ethan. The punctures in his side closed, the wounds on his face closed, and the pallor of his skin improved. But his chest didn’t lift and lower.

Mara stumbled back, breathing hard after maybe thirty seconds, sweat rolling from her face. “There is nothing more I can do. He was too deep into death for me to pull him back.” Her eyes opened wide with unshed tears, but she tipped her head at Ethan and then looked hard at me. What was she trying to tell me? “I’m sorry about your friend.”

Too deep into death. What did she mean by that? Now that we were out of the trial, my head was pounding once more, all the adrenaline that had kept the worst of it at bay had burned off.

I was shaking my head before she even finished. “No, that can’t be. He can’t die.”

But she was already walking away, pausing only to look back at me. The tent was empty except for the five of us. Five. I refused for it to be four.

I looked at Wally. “Tell me you can do something, Wally. She said too deep into death, that means he’s in your realm now. There has to be—”

Orin sucked in a breath. “Once death has taken—”

I waved my wand hand at him. “Too far into death is not dead. Am I right?”

Wally’s eyes were as wide as Mara’s had been. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do what you’re asking.”

“Try,” I whispered. “Please try.” I kept my hand on Ethan’s. Still warm, he was still warm. I had to believe that we could save him yet.

Wally put her hands on Ethan’s chest and bowed her head. The magic I’d seen around her in the graveyard spilled out of her body, pink and soft and gentle, and for a moment, I thought I saw a darkness around Ethan. Like his body was engulfed in shadows even though I knew for a fact that it wasn’t.

Noise erupted outside the tent—angry shouts, the wail of a woman, the bellow of a voice that likely belonged to the elder Helix. I understood that cry of grief and could easily guess who’d made it. Ethan’s mother.

“Hurry, Wally, hurry,” I said.

Pete slipped up beside Wally and put a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

Orin put his hand on my shoulder, too, and the circle was complete, our crew linked together in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Wally blew out a breath and the magic she carried pushed the darkness clinging to Ethan back, lighting it up.

“It is not his time,” she said, and her voice radiated power that rippled outward, flapping the edges of the tent. Everyone outside went silent for a moment, then a hand pushed on the flap but didn’t make it in. They were trying to get in, but something held them back. I didn’t know if it was Wally’s power, or the presence of death.

A voice that was anything but human chimed back, answering Wally. “He is in my grasp. You cannot take him from me.”

Pete and Orin gave identical gasps. But Wally just shook her head, her hands clenching against Ethan’s chest, digging into his shirt. “But he is not fully with you, and so I command you to release your hold on him. You obey me. I rule you, Bani.”  Wally’s Conkrite voice was in full effect and the power it radiated was anything but funny.

The darkness around Ethan surged, wisps wrapping around him, but Wally pushed it back again, her shoulders tightening, the pale pink light glowing hotter, brighter. “I will not be ignored. No longer!” There was a snap of power to her words, like a whip being cracked, and the shadows slid back from Ethan, slowly, and then faster until there was nothing left but Wally’s glowing pink power.

“Death is held at bay, for a minute or two at best,” Wally whispered, slumping, Pete catching her.

I leaned forward. “Ethan?”

His chest still didn’t rise.

Orin slapped Ethan’s chest. “CPR, we need to restart his heart.”

He started compressions, and I just stared at him in shock for a moment. Who the hell would think a vampire would know CPR? It hit me in a flash. A vampire who didn’t want to kill his human victims would need to have at least basic CPR and medical knowledge.

“You need to breathe for him.” Orin said. “Now, two breaths.”

I leaned over Ethan, pinching his nose, and breathed into his mouth, forcing his chest to rise and fall. Two puffs. Orin did another round of compressions. “Again, two more.”

I held my mouth to Ethan’s and closed my eyes, putting more than my own air into him—trying to give him my energy too, if that were even possible.

Orin pressed long pale fingers to Ethan’s neck. “There’s a pulse. Very weak. Breathe for him again. We keep breathing for him until he takes one on his own.”

I didn’t question Orin, just put my lips over Ethan’s and breathed into him.

One. Open your eyes, don’t give up!

Two. Come back, Wonder Bread. We aren’t done, you and I.

I pulled back a little, enough that I could look straight into Ethan’s face, watching for any sign that he was alive. Any sign at all.

His left eyelid flickered and then the right, and those blue eyes opened and stared right into mine. Had he heard me calling him back?

“Wild.” His voice was hoarse, a mere croak of my name.

“Yeah?”

“Personal space, it’s a real thing.”

Chapter 16

I stared into Ethan’s eyes a beat longer as his words sunk in, the air in the tent lightening up as I realized we’d done it, we’d saved him. “Personal space might be a thing when you aren’t dying,” I said as I pulled back. “You get no say when your heart isn’t beating, Wonder Bread.”

His eyes widened, and he took a slow breath. “Was I dead?”

I nodded, not able to say we’d brought him back. Because even in my head the truth sounded like a lie. If we could bring Ethan back, why hadn’t someone tried to bring Tommy back? Why hadn’t I found Rory and brought him back?

The entrance to the tent flapped again, and this time it opened. An older man with an air of power and prestige strode into the room. Ethan’s father. A woman of similar age hurried in behind him, worry etching her eyes. His mother.

“No, not my boy,” she said, makeup making tracks down her face. It was probably the only time she’d ever present herself like that. She was beautiful, like Ethan, and put together.

Grief, thicker than over-floured gravy filled the room, sucking the air out of it.

Wally put a hand on my shoulder and the four of us stepped back, giving Ethan’s parents space.

“Time to leave,” Pete said. I nodded my agreement and we slipped out of the tent as Ethan’s mother fell on him, sobbing and kissing his face.

Outside the tent, I took a deep breath. Crazy, this whole place was crazy, but it was sinking in that we’d done it. We’d finished all the trials.

And we were still alive. All of us.

A flash of Gregory’s face, his hands grabbing at mine through bars that held him back, cut through the haze of the concussion. Had I seen him? I lifted a hand to my head, but it was still stuck to the wand as if glued.

“You’ve got to get that looked at.” Orin grabbed my hand. No, not glued, scorched.

“I can’t even feel it,” I said, turning my hand to get a good look it, the crackled skin, the black char in places. Part of me knew it was shock, the other part was morbidly fascinated that this burned up hand was mine. Orin and Wally shook their heads in unison.

“That’s because your hand is nearly dead,” Wally said. “We’ve got to get you to a healer right away.”

I followed her toward another medic tent, empty except for a healer I didn’t know. A guy with messy brown hair, glasses, and a pair of light green scrubs. He took one look at my hand and sat me down on the edge of a bed, his hands cradling mine. “How did you do this?”

“The trial?” I offered.

He shook his head and pushed his glasses up with a finger. “No, what spell?”

“Bascilium—”

He cut me off, slapping his hand over my mouth, his eyes wide. “You used that spell?”

I shot a look to Wally and she nodded for me. “It was the only chance we had.”

The healer blew out a shaky breath. “The director is going to want me to report this.”

“Will it get me kicked out?” I asked.

“No. Not if you can handle a spell like that.” He readjusted his hands on mine and began to mumble words under his breath. His magic was immediate, the glow of it lighting up the small space between us with a faint green light.

I sucked in a breath as the healing started, the pain sharp as the burn wounds were reversed, the skin reforming with each second. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed.

To block the pain, I focused on what was going on around us, outside the tent.

“You said he was dead,” Mr. Helix roared.

“Then you should be happy he isn’t!” Mara yelled back. “When I left him in the tent, there was no heartbeat. He was dead! You felt that magic holding us back, we all know—”

“That is impossible. Bringing people back from the shadow of death…”

“Not impossible. Forbidden.” The director’s voice cut through all the yelling. “And if I am correct, his teammates were the ones who did it.”

My eyes flew open and I stared at Wally, Orin, and Pete. “Go, get out of here!” I growled at them, a sharp stab in my hand making me grimace.

Wally shook her head, fatigue heavy in her words. “They will know it wasn’t you alone. There is no point in running. The odds of us escaping…very low. I don’t know what they would be exactly but very low indeed.”

The two guys stood up a little straighter as the tent flapped open and Mr. Helix strode in, followed by the director. She looked damn good for late seventies—closer to her early fifties at best, maybe even a rough forty something.

Mr. Helix was a big guy, though not as muscular as his son. “You four…saved him?”

The healer let go of my hand and I flexed my fingers, opening and closing them on the wand. I held it out to his father. “We did what we had to do. He is part of our crew.”

He stared at the wand in my hand. “I do not like being in others’ debts.”

I stood slowly. “Would you rather we had let him die?”

The fact that he paused before answering said it all. His son’s life was of value to him. But that value only went so far—he seemed more interested in his family legacy than in Ethan’s life. Damn it, I really didn’t want to feel bad for Ethan.

There was no stopping my mouth from curling into a sneer. I turned my back on him, but the director had moved to stand in front of me. “To my office with the four of you. Now.”

And just like that we went from the frying pan into the fire.

The director sat across from us in her office, her fingers laced together in front of her full lips. Seriously, she looked like she’d knocked off another fifteen years at least. I wanted to ask her how she’d done it. Likely just an illusion, like so much of this place was. Vanity at its best.

“What am I to do with you four? You’ve broken one of the most sacred laws of our world. We do not bring the dead back to life!”

“We didn’t know.” I crossed my arms and frowned at her. How the hell did they expect us to know their rules? We were just students—no, future students.

The other three shifted beside me, their furtive movement saying it all. Crap, they had known. I straightened up a little more and deepened my frown. “I didn’t know, and I pushed them to it.”

“I see.” Director Frost’s eyes stayed locked on me, the edges of them definitely smoother than the last time I’d seen her. Those icy blues were weighing my worth, and I had a niggling feeling that perhaps she saw me the way Mr. Helix saw Ethan. A tool, and if that tool was broken, she’d find another. Or maybe she’d finally realized my troublesome ways weren’t worth the possible gain.

“If the heads of your soon-to-be houses were not so damn ecstatic to welcome you four in, I’d have all of you removed from the trials and sent home with wiped memories. As it is…” She tapped her fingers on a thin stack of papers. “You have made too much of an impression to just disappear.”

She was silent as she stared down at the papers. “All of you have passed the trials and will be welcomed into your respective houses,” she said softly. “But let me make this crystal clear. You will speak of this event to no one. As far as anyone is concerned, you came through the trial of Wonder because of Ethan Helix and his final spells. He was injured gravely, but a healer fixed him up.” Her eyes locked on each of us, one at a time, as if she could force us to agree. The other three lowered their eyes, cowed by her.

“Why?” The single-word question popped out of me. “I get that we broke a rule, but why the rest? Because you don’t want people to know that someone’s infiltrating the trials? Someone who’s stealing kids? Trying to kill us?” With each of my questions, my friends tensed further until I thought they would spring forward and slap their hands over my mouth. But I couldn’t stop. Not now, not after everything we’d been through. “We did better than survive those damn trials. We survived when we should have died, and you damn well know it!”

Director Frost smiled at me, the gesture as cold as her name. “Again, let me be clear, since you seem to be thick as most Shades when it comes to understanding the why of things. Those who did indeed infiltrate the trials were not trying to kill all of you. Just one of you. And they nearly succeeded.”

My head spun. “Ethan? They were trying to kill Ethan?”

“His father has many enemies. Powerful enemies that wanted to destroy his family legacy. He is the last of his bloodline,” Director Frost said. “You didn’t seriously think they would be here to kill you, a Shade impersonating her brother? As much as you thought you were hiding, everyone knew by the second day who you were. The shifters were the first to sniff you out, then the vampires, and those vampires are nothing if not gossips. We let you stay because it was too much bother to send you back and take your brother instead. You are a tool, Wild. Nothing more than a blunt instrument.”

Orin stiffened at the gossip comment.

Anger flashed through me like a bolt of lightning, there and gone, leaving behind the residue. They’d all known. And they’d let me keep trying to hide it? I opened my mouth to give her my thoughts on that matter, but she cut me off. But what about Sideburns? And Rory? They’d said nothing about Ethan being in danger.

Her eyes never flicked to the others, not once. “You are all dismissed for the remainder of the day. The advancement ball will begin at ten p.m. While I’d rather you four weren’t there, again, your heads of houses will expect your presence.”

Just like that, we were done, out of the room and headed to the dorm. We walked in silence all the way to our room, but as soon as the door was shut, Pete let out a whoop that set my heart racing.

Talk about PTSD—I reached for my blade without even feeling a warning tingle. Pete grabbed Wally and spun her around, then grabbed Orin and attempted to spin him about too. Orin was stiff as a board, and the spin was beyond awkward, falling into comical.

“We did it! We all did it!” Pete shouted.

His excitement was contagious, and laughter bubbled out of me. We had done it. Despite the odds that Wally had insisted on spewing, despite the fact that we were the underdogs, the outcasts, we’d done it.

I grabbed Pete and hugged him, then Orin and Wally.

The door opened and we all turned to see Ethan standing there, pale but upright. His father behind him, gripping his shoulder just this side of too hard.

There was an uncomfortable silence. For about two seconds.

“Wonder Bread. We weren’t sure you had it in you to make it up the stairs.” I grinned at him.

Ethan’s lips twitched. “Well, I couldn’t let you have all the glory considering I did save you all back there.”

Wally, Pete, and Orin tensed, but I could see the truth in Ethan’s eyes—he’d been fed the same cover story we had. “Sure, sure. But let’s be honest. You screamed like a girl when that T-Rex was coming at us, and I’m pretty sure you peed your pants. Even if you did save us in the end.”

The hand on Ethan’s shoulder relaxed and Mr. Helix nodded. “I see that you all understand then. Even so, I’d like to speak to Ms. Johnson alone.”

The others didn’t hesitate. They just filed out of the room quickly, and even Ethan turned to leave.

Mr. Helix shut the door behind them. “I know what really happened, Ms. Johnson. You saved my son, and for that you have my gratitude.”

That was not what I’d expected. “He’s part of my crew, like I said. I couldn’t leave him there.”

He tipped his chin up. “As grateful as I am to you for saving him, I want to be sure that we understand one another. He is not of your kind, Ms. Johnson—an untrained, unkempt, wild thing that has no concept of decorum or her place in this world.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, do you think I saved him because I like him?”

He frowned, and I could see that was exactly what he thought. I started to laugh, and then I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. He waited me out.

“Helix, let me be clear. Your son is an ass. I wouldn’t be interested in him for all the money in the world.” I held up both hands as if surrendering.

“I see. Perhaps I misread him then.” He turned and walked out the door, shutting it with a soft click.

He’d misread Ethan? What could he have possibly misread?

Chapter 17

Wally and I were no longer allowed to room with the guys now that “everyone knew” I was a girl.

I was disappointed to leave the guys, especially after the experience we’d just been through together, but the new digs we’d been given were totally worth it. Two queen-sized beds and two full bathrooms all to ourselves, complete with oversized clawfoot bathtubs. Manna from heaven couldn’t have been more welcome. The healer had worked on my hand, but he hadn’t done anything for the rest of my aching body.

A booming announcement rippled through the mansion as we stood in our bedroom.

“The advancement ball will begin at 10 p.m. sharp. Bring your pieces of five, along with your watch for your final sorting.”

Wally, seeing my face, picked up a tiny black jewelry bag out of her pile of clothes. “We got them at the beginning, remember?”

The five tokens. I pulled my own out from the original envelope the Sandman had brought me, and took them with me into the bathroom.

I soaked in the bathtub a long time, letting the Epsom salts and hot water pull the last of the tension from me. My head throbbed, but a double dose of pain killers had numbed the worst of it. It struck me that while Mara had healed Ethan’s puncture wounds when he was near death, the healers hadn’t been able to cure my concussion. Why? I let that question sit for a moment, swirling it around as I swirled the water in the tub with one finger.

“They were after Ethan,” I said to myself and sunk lower into the water, sticking a foot out on the edge. “Not you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Statistically speaking,” Wally called out from the bedroom. “People who talk to themselves are 58 percent more likely to find themselves in a mental institute.”

“You made that one up!” I yelled back, smiling.

She laughed. “Maybe, but you can’t be sure.”

The banter with Wally and the heat of the water helped release some of the tension in my muscles.

I told myself that as soon as I got out, I’d start looking for Gregory and the other missing kids again. Only that thought kept slipping away from me like a bar of wet soap in the tub.

This wasn’t like me. I wanted to find them. Didn’t I?

On the edge of the tub, I placed the five trinkets I’d been given in the first envelope from the Sandman. Like the tokens for a game of monopoly, I understood them now. The knife represented the House of Shade. The wand the House of Wonder. The gravestone the House of Night. The paw the House of Claw. The plain blank silver coin the House of Unmentionables. Five houses, five trinkets. As I touched each, a flare of recognition rolled through me, and I wondered just where I would be placed. I would have assumed in the House of Shade, but after handling wands…I wasn’t so sure.

Wally knocked on the door then stuck her head in, hair wrapped up in a big white towel that made her skin look even paler than usual. She flapped an envelope at me. “This just came for you. Someone slid it under the door.”

She flipped the thick envelope to me and I caught it easily with the hand that had been fused to the wand, still amazed at how the magic here could heal so many injuries. Now that the trials were over, what harm could come from an envelope?

The material was thick, not unlike that first envelope that had shown up with the Sandman what felt like months ago. A week, it had barely been a week since he'd come to the ranch.

“Thanks,” I said, and Wally backed out.

I held the envelope up to the light to see if there was any indication of what was in it, but the material was too thick. I ran my hands over it, squeezing it. Not much in it, a couple sheets of paper at most, and no warning tingle to indicate it might be something like poison or a spell. I grabbed my knife from the counter closest to me, put the tip of the blade into the top of the envelope and cut it open.

I peered inside, seeing a single piece of paper folded in half. What the hell was this?

Putting my knife on the side counter again, I reached into the envelope and pulled the note out, flipping it open with my thumb.

It’s not over. Watch yourself.

R.

R. Rory had always signed his name with the same swirly R.

My heart kicked up a notch and a tear slid down my cheek. He must have arranged for this note to be delivered before the House of Night trial.

I folded the note and slid it into the envelope and set it next to my blade. Then I dunked under the water and blew out a stream of bubbles, letting the water hide my tears.

I forced myself into autopilot, once more shoving my grief away to be dealt with—or not—at a later date. We had a freaking advancement ball to go to, and apparently, we were not to miss it. Wrapped in a towel, I stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom in time to see Wally accept two boxes from someone at the door.

“What is this?”

“Something from Mrs. Helix,” she said, handing me one of the long boxes and pushing the door shut with her hip. I was surprised by the weight of it, lighter than I’d expected given the size.

Wally squealed from her side of the room as she pulled out a stunning burgundy gown with more taffeta and crinoline than I had thought possible on a single dress. “Look, Mrs. Helix sent us gowns!”

Holding my towel with one hand, I opened my box with the other—slowly, as if I were half expecting a snake to leap out and bite me. Inside was a bundle of dark material covered in tissue paper, with a note pinned to the front.

With all my thanks.

M. Helix.

“What is it with notes today?” I mumbled under my breath. I pulled the dress out, gasping as the jet black material slithered from the box. Black, but covered in iridescent flecks that once more made me think of a snake. With a twist of my wrist, the material caught the light and those flecks danced.

“Wow.”

There was no taffeta or crinoline on my dress. I saw lace, but other than that it was hard to really make out the shape.

Mrs. Helix had sent shoes along with the dresses, heels that fit perfectly. Wally’s heels were higher than mine, though the style was almost dainty. Mine were a solid three inches with a thicker heel, a scale design that complemented the dress, and straps that wrapped up and over my ankle.

“What is she trying to say?” I asked. Wally looked at me from across from the room, where she sat doing her hair.

“Each house has at least one sigil attached to it. The serpent is one of them for the House of Shade. She’s saying you’re a Shade and everyone had better believe it.”

I didn’t want Mr. or Mrs. Helix to be nice to me and the thought that had been put into the clothes and shoes was no small thing. I held up the black dress, still not quite ready to put it on. “How did she find something so perfect for us?”

“She had these made with magic, obviously. She has a team of fashion designers at her beck and call. Everyone jumps to dress a Helix.” Wally ran a comb through a thin strand of hair before attempting to curl it with an old school curling iron. “She is very fashion forward. We’re going to be the best dressed, just you watch. Oh my God, I’m freaking out a little.”

I sighed and pulled the dress on over my head, the material cool and smooth against my skin. I slid on the heels and turned to look in the mirror.

The bodice top was off the shoulder and made of lace. A subtle design of blades and various other weapons was woven through the curling vines. If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t have seen the details. You’d just think it was pretty lace.

The lower half of the dress was a slippery material that I wanted to call satin, only it was heavier and definitely not any material I’d come into contact with before.

“So…magic.” I plucked at the iridescent black skirt that clung to my legs, noting the slit up one side, and Wally grinned.

“Yes. Very expensive magic.”

Wally slipped in behind me and pulled the zipper up, and I realized there were corset bones hidden in the dress. Once pulled tight, my waistline and minimal chest were accentuated. I touched the boyish cut of my hair. Wally frowned.

I laughed and brushed it, but left it hanging. Sam had cut it for me, and I’d be damned if I was going to change it now. Besides, my sister had been right—the longer front gave me an edgy look as a girl.

I dusted on some makeup I’d borrowed from Wally with serious difficulty, managing to finally pull off mascara and a bit of lip gloss. That would have to do. I grimaced.

Someone knocked at the door and Wally flounced over to open it. Pete stood there in a full suit and tie, his mouth dropping open as he stared at the burgundy fluff that was Wally. “You want to go to the dance with me?” he blurted out.

She laughed. “Well, yeah, we’re all going with you, silly.”

I rolled my eyes and gave her a push from behind. “Go on with Pete. I’ll catch up.”

With them both gone, the room felt too quiet and a soft warning trickled up my spine. Not an immediate danger, more like there was something coming. Like maybe the note from Rory had arrived right when I needed it. I grabbed my five trinkets off the edge of the tub and tossed them lightly in my hand. These had to come with me. I held them loosely in one hand, then went to the bedside table and opened the drawer. My knife was resting there in its sheath. “Supposed to be a night off for you.” I pulled my skirt up, baring one thigh. With a few adjustments, I got the strap to hold to my upper thigh. I’d have to flash people to get to it, but at least I’d have it with me.

“Too bad I don’t have pockets,” I said. A tingle spread through me wherever the dress touched. I slid my hands down the skirt of the dress, finding a pocket on either side that opened to my bare skin underneath. “No way.”

Sure enough, I could easily grasp my knife handle through the opening on the right. I hurried to the bathroom and pulled out one of the long ribbons we’d found from the previous occupants of the room. I lifted the skirt and bared my left leg, tying the ribbon around as tightly as I dared, making a loop in it that would be perfect for another weapon.

A wand.

Where could I find a wand that no one would notice missing? What had the director said? That when someone was booted out or chose to leave, they had to give up their gifts to the school.

Shades gave up their weapons.

Shifters their ability to change form.

Vampires their speed and need for blood.

Necromancers their power over the dead.

Mages their magic and their wands.

Wands. Plural.

I was moving before I thought better of it. Maybe it was stupid, but I didn’t think so. My instincts were saying I would need a wand of my own, so that’s what I was going to get. A grin slid over my lips. One more rule to break, and I’d be done.

Honest.

Chapter 18

My plan consisted of very few details. Go right into the director’s office, ask her a few questions about what I could do to keep my brother and sister out of this place, see if I could distract her enough to lift a wand. She’d been so proud of how many of them she’d collected in that mahogany box. There was no way she’d miss one.

I should have been nervous. But all I could feel was excitement. I was getting me a wand, dang it, one way or another. Maybe Ethan could help me learn how to use it? Train me on the side?

That conjured up an image I hadn’t been expecting. Ethan smiling at me as he faded. I like ’em tall.

A hot flush spread through me, but I pushed past it. Nope, a whole lot of nope on that one. Ethan was a very bad, if very hot, idea. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told his father it would never happen between us.

There was no sign of Adam, so I walked right up to the director’s door, knocked once, and then turned the handle as if I belonged there. “Director, I need to speak to you.”

Because let’s be honest, with my track record so far, anyone who saw me walk into the director’s office would assume I’d been summoned.

Shockingly, the door was unlocked and the room was empty.

“Well, hot damn,” I whispered, shutting the door behind me.

I went right to the box on the desk, flipping it open, and looked down at a dozen or so wands. Which one did I take?

The door clicked behind me and I spun, my hand going for my right pocket.

Ethan stood in the doorway. His suit jacket, pants, and vest were a deep midnight blue, and his collared shirt was white as fresh-fallen snow. Hair slicked back, he was…damn it, he was gorgeous. He raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

I wasn’t sure I trusted him, even now, and that hesitation seemed to bother him. “What are you doing?” I countered.

“I figured you might be in trouble again. Thought you could use a hand.” He walked toward me, and I thought about closing the box. But if I wanted him to teach me to use a wand, I’d have to tell him about said wand.

“No. I’m here for a wand.” I swept my hand over the box and stepped back. His eyebrows shot all the way up to his hairline, his eyes darting from the box to me.

“It’s not a bad idea. It would be smart to have a wand of your own, to train yourself with it. Even if there’s no real reason you should have such an ability with magic.” He leaned over the box and I caught a whiff of his cologne. Expensive was my first thought. My second was that I wanted a closer sniff.

No. Bad, bad, Wild.

“How do I choose one? Yours felt…better in my hands than the tester’s. Her wand was clunky and uncomfortable,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.

“You pick them up. See what feels good.” He didn’t touch any of them.

I stared into the box, dipped one finger into it, and soaked in the energy of the different wands. When I reached the bottom, it felt like a tiny spark of electricity shot through me.

Voices came from the other side of the door.

“Hurry!” Ethan whispered.

I grabbed the wand that was calling to me, yanked it out and shoved my hand into my left pocket. The wand slid into the loop I’d created, fitting against my leg more securely than it should have, as though it wanted to ensure it stayed put. For just a moment, I thought I’d end up with another burn mark on my leg, but there was nothing like that. Just the reassuring warmth of the wand’s presence.

I flipped the box top down and sat in one of the visitors’ chairs. Ethan sat next to me and we both turned as the door opened and the director stepped in, annoyance written across her very young face.

Her eyes flew to us. “What are you two doing here?” And then she caught herself. “You broke into my office?”

We both shook our heads. “No, I came to speak to you about my siblings,” I said. “I knocked and thought I heard you say come in. The door was open.”

Her eyes narrowed and her full lips pinched. “And you, Mr. Helix?”

Ethan smiled. “Just keeping my graduation date company.”

Well, hell, there was no way I’d get out of dancing with him now. The smug look on his lips said it all. He’d planned that last little bit. Because if I denied him, it would be obvious he’d just followed me in.

He was good, I’d give him that.

Ethan stood and offered me his arm. “We’re going to be late. We waited too long for the director.”

Just like that, he swept us out of the room, past the frowning director, and into the hall. I hung onto his arm with my right hand. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“Confidence usually works, especially when you’re bluffing.”

“Ah, so you have a date already.” I let go of his arm, but he caught my hand and returned it to the crook of his elbow.

“No, I’d planned to ask you. The least I could do since you broke the rules to bring me back from the dead.” His calm tone caught me off guard.

“No, Wally brought you back.”

Ethan glanced at me. “No, she wouldn’t have even tried if you hadn’t made it happen. Everyone knows that. She’s strong enough, we know that now, but it’s forbidden. The only reason we aren’t all being kicked out is your obvious lack of education when it comes to our world.”

The usual condescension that dripped from his voice was gone. This was fact to him, pure and simple. Maybe almost dying had changed him. Maybe he realized he wasn’t invulnerable after all.

“Besides, you wouldn’t have survived that challenge without me coaching you through the spells.”

And there he was, teaching “How to Look Down Your Nose at Someone 101.”

I rolled my eyes. In my heels, I was a good three inches taller than him at least and could give him a solid downward glare I’d been wanting to blast him with all week. “Please. You were too busy getting eaten by a T-Rex to coach me. I guessed at the words.”

We walked by a girl in a bright red dress as I said that. She gasped, tears gathering in her eyes. “How can you talk to him like that? He almost died!”

I scrunched up my nose at her and Ethan laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Wild. You don’t pull punches, not ever. Not even when society dictates that you probably shouldn’t talk about someone’s near death experience mere hours after it happened.”

“I do what I can to keep it real,” I said as we turned the corner at the end of the hall. A wide set of double doors loomed ahead of us. They were closed, and from behind them came the steady thump of bass, music playing loud enough that it rumbled through my head, setting off the ache of the concussion.

“Shall we?” He gave me a mocking half bow. I would have curtseyed if I’d known how.

“Attitude before skill.” I waved him forward. And again he laughed.

Damn it, I’d taken a pot shot at him and he’d just laughed it off. Ethan went to the door first, pushing both sides wide open. Music spilled out around us as the kids who’d survived the culling trials danced, grateful to have survived, to have made it this far.

The mass of bodies sent an instant wave of paranoia through me. I hesitated and Ethan came back for me and leaned in close.

“Are you getting any warnings?”

I wasn’t sure I liked this new Ethan. Laughing with me. Listening to me. I certainly didn’t know what to make of him. “No, nothing.”

“Come on then.” He tugged me forward, taking me by the hand like we were really on a date. Maybe I should have pulled away, but he was my lifeline in this crowd of people I didn’t know. People I didn’t trust. At least I knew where I stood with him.

Standing on my tiptoes, I searched the crowd for Wally, Pete, and Orin. They were all the way across the floor, near the food. Even at that distance, I could see Wally’s mouth moving, Pete’s head bobbing, and Orin’s trademark bored expression.

I lifted a hand to them. Orin put two fingers to his head and saluted me. “I’m going over there,” I said.

Ethan held my hand fast. “Stay here, with me and my friends.”

I turned to see his friends were all magic users, of course. Within seconds, they were patting him on the shoulder, congratulating him on winning so many of the trials. Telling him how strong and amazing he was because he’d survived when everyone had thought he was dead. The girls batted their eyelashes, and the guys weren’t much better. Colt was missing though.

Colt was missing.

My brain tried to get me to care, and I struggled around the throbbing in my head to want to go find him.

Ethan lapped all the love and attention up. I shook my head. Yeah, he was an ass, although of the good-looking, smelled so good I wanted to stick my nose against his neck and breathe him in variety.

I turned away and started through the crowd toward Wally and the two guys. There were far more people here than those of us who’d finished trials. Distantly, I recalled someone saying that the academy students had been invited so they could meet the new kids.

I let the music pull my feet forward, let it call to me, and though I was no dancer, it moved through me.

It felt no different than fighting. I sidestepped the other bodies with ease, my magic skirt trailing around me. The shadows seemed to cling to me and the dress, and it was like people weren’t even seeing me. I spun around an entangled couple and found myself face to face with a ghost. My feet slammed to a stop, and I’m not entirely sure my heart didn’t follow suit.

“I warned you to be careful, and you’re on the goddamn dance floor in a dress at a party full of people who could kill you at the drop of a hat?” Rory snarled the words at me. Like he wasn’t supposed to be dead. Like I hadn’t seen him go under a mass of zombies. Like he hadn’t broken my heart into a thousand pieces.

He’d survived, and he hadn’t told me. He’d let me suffer.

Just like he hadn’t told me he’d come to this school.

“Son of a bitch!”

I snapped a fist out so hard and fast there wasn’t even time for his face to register shock. In my haste, I landed the blow on his cheek, rather than his nose.

He stumbled back and a few people laughed and made way for us. The music didn’t slow. I turned away from him and pushed through the crowd, knowing without a shadow of a doubt he’d follow. I wanted to hug him tight, to cry and kiss his face and tell him I was glad he was alive.

But I was damned pissed that he’d let me believe—again—that he was gone forever.

I passed Ethan, who arched a brow, but I shook my head. I didn’t need help for this. A side hall opened up and I turned down it, heading deep into the shadows. There was the softest of footsteps behind me, and I spun. “You should have told me!”

Only it wasn’t Rory behind me. Jared stared at me and I stared back, shocked by how dishevelled he looked. His normally immaculate clothes were torn in places and there was a smudge of dirt across his one cheek.

“You need to come with me, now. I was wrong about you.” He grabbed me by the arm and propelled me forward.

“Why, what happened?” I tried to put on the brakes, but between his strength and my heels, it wasn’t happening.

“Your sister is here. They have her.”

All the wind in me left in a whoosh that made me lightheaded. Sam is here?

“The ones who took the other kids, they snagged her too.” Jared loosened his hold on me but didn’t let go.

I wasn’t fighting him, mostly because my mind had gone into a tailspin. I slowed my feet as the sound of a loudspeaker squealing came through the sound system.

“Everyone, please line up, we will now commence the cauldron ceremony where you will have your final House chosen.”

The announcers words distantly registered, barely, through the shock. “How did they get Sam? She’s back in Texas!”

Jared paused. “Look, I know that you and I have not seen eye to eye. I’ve done what I’ve done to protect those whose job it is of mine to protect. You, a Shade, would understand that, I think.”

Damn it. I didn’t want to trust him, but the sincerity rolling off him was just that—completely sincere. And I did understand that need to protect your own, maybe better than he realized.

“Barry Darkson…House of Shade. Killian Irish…House of Shade….Farley Whitehall House of Wonder…” The names rattled off, one after another.

Jared ran a hand through his hair and started forward again. “Your sister came looking for you. Apparently, your father needs to be reminded of how to keep secrets,” he pushed open a door and led me outside. The distant music thumped along until the door shut behind us.

Jared let my arm go. “Are you able to run?”

I kicked off the heels. “Yes.”

He led the way across the lawn and to the east side of the mansion. Adrenaline snapped and zinged through me. If the kidnappers thought they were going to take Sam, I was about to show them how very wrong they were. Nobody messed with my family.

Nobody.

Chapter 19

The grass was cool and damp against the soles of my bare feet as Jared led me away from the mansion. Away from my friends. Away from Rory.

I slowed a split second before the warning tingle whipped through me. Jared turned. “You are picking up on the danger?”

I nodded, feeling the memories start to surge inside me. I’d been here before. With Ethan. I tried to piece the broken memories together. There was something dangerous here, of that I had no doubt.

But where...and what?

Jared kept moving, forcing me to either keep up with him or fall too far behind. A cry cut the air, a girl’s cry.

Sam.

I bolted forward. Screw the danger.

The ground ahead of us glowed, as if lit from within.

My breathing kicked up several notches. Even if my memories were sketchy, my body knew this place.

And it didn’t like it.

Another cry cut off as though forcefully smashed…Jared was already down the stairs and I followed, ignoring the screaming of my instincts. I needed to get to Sam, danger be damned.

Jared lifted his hand and I took it. There was darkness ahead, creeping and pooling, and it swallowed us whole. A spell.

One I’d been through before, only last time I’d been with Ethan. We stepped out of the other side of the darkness. Moved down a hall, past torchlight and a room that looked to be a guard’s room. Jared shifted to the side and I kept moving forward. Hands reached out of the cells on my right, and I found myself reaching back.

“Gregory?”

“Wild, you shouldn’t have come back.” His voice was weak.

Come back. “I was here before?”

“You were,” said a voice I knew and shouldn’t have been surprised to find at the bottom of a dungeon. Adam stepped out of the shadows. “And you should not have come back.”

Jared snarled. “I’ll take care of him. You get the other kids. There’s a way out if you keep following the tunnels.” He tossed me a ring of keys.

Adam shook his head. “Jared, you should know better by now. You can’t beat me.”

Jared grinned. “Maybe not, but you can’t beat us both. We have you now, Adam.”

Both? If I was getting the kids out, who was he referring to? Footsteps approached us from behind, and I couldn’t help but turn and look. Director Frost stepped out of the same darkness from which Jared and I had emerged. It was unmistakeably her, but her skin was unlined. An illusion?

She smiled at Adam. “Indeed. He cannot beat us both.”

Jared launched at Adam and the director looked at me as the two men tumbled down a tunnel to our right, the sounds of their blows and grunts fading quickly. “Get the others out. We will deal with Adam.”

All along. Adam had been orchestrating this all along.

I nodded and hurried to the first cell. Gregory was so eager to leave, he fell out when I opened the door. I caught him with one hand and dragged him with me to the other cells. All the missing kids were there, including Colt.

“Thought you could avoid dancing with me at the graduation, did you?” I asked.

His eyes were haggard, but he smiled at me. “Never. I’d never run away from you.”

“Sweet, really, but can we get out of here before they take us all?” Gregory snapped his long fingers up in my face. Same old Gregory.

“There should be one more kid. They brought my sister in.” I spun around, counting the cells, but there was no one left.

“Maybe they already got her out? They kept everything dark, we couldn’t see who took us, or who was in here if they were quiet,” Colt winced as he spoke, the bruises on his jaw a testament to Adam’s violence.

A bellow followed by a wall-shaking boom stopped us in our tracks.

“You all go.” I paused and then shook my head. “Look, go out the way I came in. Through the darkness and up the stairs. It’ll be faster. Get to the mansion, tell Ethan and the rest of the crew that I’m here.” I pushed the missing kids back through the darkness. Not the way the director wanted them to go. But I knew for sure it was a way out. I didn’t want them to get stuck.

And I wasn’t leaving until I found Sam.

I waited until the kids—more of them than I’d expected— disappeared into the darkness, led by the one vampire in the crew.

A burst of warning cut through me and I spun, pulling my blade out through the pocket of my skirt as I turned. I stopped the blade only a breath away from Jared’s heart.

“Good stop. You sent the others out?” He tipped his head toward the tunnel Director Frost had pointed out, away from the stairs. I nodded, lying, though I didn’t know why.

“What about Adam?” I looked past the vampire in time to see Director Frost drag Adam out by the scruff of his neck.

Her face wasn’t the only thing that had changed—her body was lithe, young and fit. She smiled at me. “I see the confusion. Put your blade away, and let me explain just what has happened here.”

Rory’s note flashed in front of my eyes.

I didn’t put my knife away. Adam rolled his head toward me, blood dripping from his face in a continuous flow. Frost dropped him on the ground. “He’s no good without his wand, like most from the House of Wonder.” House of Wonder? I’d thought he was a Shade. And then it hit me.

He was like Colt, one of the rare people who straddled two houses.

Adam lifted his head. “Run. Get out.”

He was telling me to go.

Oh crap.

Jared’s hand shot out and clamped on my wrist. “Don’t even think about fighting me, Wild. You’ll lose. And my love over there needs you intact.”

Frost laughed. “Oh, the look on your face, Wild. You are trying to put the pieces together, but you can’t, can you?”

I jerked my hand, trying to free it from the vampire’s iron-clad grip. He grinned at me. “You aren’t going anywhere. You and the other kids are going to go permanently missing. But the cause is good, great even.”

The urge to fight, to slash at him with everything I had, was overwhelming and it took a great deal of effort to hold it down. I needed answers before I cut his lying tongue out of his face. “You don’t have my sister here, do you?”

He shook his head. “No, but it was an easy way to make you ignore your natural instincts, wasn’t it? You are a child yet, untrained if strong.”

Normally I wasn’t at a loss for words, but I didn’t want to admit that Sam and Billy and my dad were weak spots for me. That I would always come for them if they called. So instead I clamped my mouth shut and smoothed my face.

“So is there no fight left in you, Wild? To be sure, let me show you just how serious I am about this situation.” Frost bent over Adam and, with a quick slicing motion, opened his throat up from ear to ear.

He gurgled and grabbed at his throat, blood spurting out through his fingers as he tried to keep it in. I watched the fear and shock in his eyes as his life bled out of him, as he bent slowly to the ground and then went still.

“Are we clear?” Frost said quietly.

I nodded once. “What are you?”

Frost smiled, and again I was struck by the difference in her appearance. She had to be a shifter of some sort to appear as an old lady when we’d first met, and now as a woman not much older than me. “You’ve noticed, have you? You see through the glamor I had on me, seeing my true age, while others saw me as you see me now—as young and beautiful. Most people don’t, but that is because they are not like you and me. Of course, this is no longer a glamor. But I’ll explain that later.”

“I am nothing like you.” I wanted to spit at her, disgusting though it was, but wasn’t sure she wouldn’t slit my throat. “You kidnapped all those kids? Locked them up?”

“Yes, and I drank them up.” She licked her lips.

Vampire was my first thought. But if Adam and Colt both possessed two gifts, it couldn’t be as rare as Wally had indicated. “You’re a shifter and a vampire, aren’t you? Like Adam was a magic user and a Shade.”

“Oh, she’s getting closer, Jared. I knew she was smart.” She walked up and linked our arms together. “Should I tell her?”

He laughed. “It’s rather fun watching her guess.”

“True. We have a few minutes before we reach the other end.” His hand tightened on my wrist. I was pinned between them as they began to march me down the tunnel Director Frost had pointed out earlier. But despite the blaring warning going off in my body, I knew it wasn’t time to act.

My moment would come—I just had to wait.

Director Frost sighed. “You understand that there are some people who carry more than one line of magical ability? Like your friend Colt. Mage and Shade blended together deliciously, equally strong in both. He’s an oops, you know? His father strayed.” She smiled and winked at me as if we were at a slumber party playing truth or dare. “That’s rather uncommon though. Perhaps five out of every hundred gain multiple abilities and most often they are pushed toward one or another in their training, allowing the secondary ability to wither on the vine.”

My jaw ticked, and I struggled not to pull away from them. “So?”

“Well, rarer yet is someone who carries three abilities. Perhaps one in a hundred. Your friend Drexia would know the exact stats.” She made a motion with her hand and the tunnel brightened ahead of us, lit up along the edges with flickering torches. Drexia? Oh right, she meant Wally.

“Let me guess. You have a trio of abilities?”

“Not quite. You see, you and I are very special, Maribel Johnson. One for every generation. According to the records, our abilities are never bestowed on a woman. I had a hand in that, to help hide myself. To help hide others like me.”

Chills swept through me, and they had nothing to do with the cold stone beneath my bare feet.

“What do you mean?”

“You are a Chameleon, Wild. A child who carries the ability to tap into all five gifts that the gods of the north bestowed upon supernaturals. All five. As you’ve seen in the trials, you are proficient in them all.”

Her words might as well have been a blow to my head I was so stunned.

And yet it made sense. This explained my raw ability with magic, my connection to the others in my crew.

“Yes, that is why you excelled in the trials. And why it was so difficult to capture you.” She leaned into me. “But better that I should be the one to catch you. He hunts for you too, Wild, and he will not be so gentle.”

The tunnel was narrowing, and I could see my chance coming up. I slowed my feet, forcing them to slow too. “Wait, who do you mean, him?”

“The one that everyone fears. The one whose blood you share. The Shadowkiller.” Director Frost looked at me. “You mean your mother never told you about him? She never warned you that he tried to kill her too? He was the reason she ran, the reason she hid you and your siblings away.”

Her words hammered into my skull. Bits and pieces of partially overheard conversations between my parents trembled at the edge of my mind.

Whispered fears heard through the floorboard.

The click of a gun being chambered.

Shouts in the yard.

Jared’s voice was silken. “Her mother sheltered them far more than I’d have thought. Stupid of Lexi.”

Director Frost snorted delicately, and the corner of her right eye drooped, wrinkles appearing even as I watched.  “She was a fool who thought she could outrun death, and look where it got her. Dead. Just like her oldest son.”

My jaw ticked, the urge to defend my mother rising sharp and fast. “Your Botox is wearing off.”

She gasped and lifted a hand to her face as the skin began to loosen, wrinkling in front of my eyes. “What did you do?”

We were at the end of the tunnel exit. The moon was bright overhead, and I’d barely noticed that Frost had released my arm so that she could step out ahead of us.

“Where are the others?”

I smiled at her, not fully understanding but knowing I’d ruined her plans. “I sent them back.”

Director Frost turned on me, her eyes glittering. “Just like your mother. Weak. And alone.”

As if her words sparked the memory, my mother’s voice whispered to me: “No matter what, you fight to the end. You never give up. You never give in. You give them hellfire and brimstone, my wild girl.”

I glared at the director. “She was not weak. And neither am I.”

Hellfire and brimstone, here we come.

Chapter 20

Director Frost lifted a shaking hand to me and dug her nails into my chin. A light pulsed through her fingers and into me, quick as a rattlesnake’s strike, and her venom was as sure. My knees went weak as I slumped under her hands. She threw her head back and laughed, her face smoothing and her hair growing longer, thicker right in front of me. Blonde, loose curls wove over her shoulders.

“Rich, I won’t need the others anyway. Wild will fill me for years.” When Director Frost tipped her head back, the lines in her face were gone. “What do you think, Jared?”

“As beautiful as ever,” he murmured, lifting her one hand to his mouth, pressing his lips hard against her skin.

I wobbled in place, on my knees in my prom dress, my heart racing and my muscles weak.

“You—”

“Sucked the life right out of you.” She smiled and snapped her fingers at Jared. “Get her in the van.”

Jared bent to lift me, and I swung up with my left hand with everything I had left, landing a punch perfectly under his jaw. His head snapped back, teeth clicking, and I stumbled forward. We were surrounded by forest, but that didn’t bother me.

“Get her!” Frost yelled, and I knew I had only seconds before he was on me.

I fumbled for the wand on my left side, pulled it out and pointed it behind me. I needed light. Blinding light.

“Stroblightus!” I yelled, hoping a made-up word, powered by all the intent in the world, would work for me. Please God, let it work for me.

The wand shook, warmed, and then brilliant light blasted out of it, illuminating the forest in a blinding flash.

Jared yelled and the sound of him skidding to a stop was music to my ears. I bolted forward, diving deep into the trees. The light behind me faded, but not before I saw people I recognized. People I hadn’t thought would be there to save me this time.

Two dark figures shot through the shadows ahead of me, one catching me around the arms.

“Rory.” He’d come for me.

He gave me a light shake. “Where is she? Where is Frost?”

“Back there,” I said.

“I’ll end this. Use your crew. You’ve got this.” He dropped me, and he and the other dark figure ran back the way I’d come. The Sandman. So much for coming to rescue me.

I stumbled back a few more steps, so tired it was as if I’d run the whole set of trials without a single visit to a healer’s tent.

Jared gave a low laugh and I spun, trying to see him. But he wasn’t the only one whose vision had been damaged by the flash of light.

That is when I saw them. My crew, their dark shadows creeping forward from between the trees. “Guys, I could use some help!”

Jared laughed, but the sound slid away as my friends emerged from the trees, stepping up beside me, all still wearing their high-end grad clothes. All except for Pete, who was already in his honey badger suit.

I faced Jared. “I’m not alone. And we are not weak.”

He snarled and shot forward, and Orin met him with his claws extended, shocking the older vampire.

“You cannot fight me!” Jared yelled.

“I’m not yours to command anymore!” Orin yelled back and I knew that it was because he was with us. He’d switched allegiances. The two vampires collided, hissing and snarling like wild animals. Pete shot into the fray, grabbing at Jared’s ankles, tearing the flesh and then finally clamping on like some living version of a parking boot. Jared swung and stepped, trying to shake him off, but Pete was on good and tight.

“Coming, Pete!” Wally yelled. She lifted her hands and the ground softened around us, turning into quicksand. But it wasn’t the ground she was controlling. “The dead are everywhere. Statistically speaking, there is not one place on the planet’s surface that doesn’t contain dead material of some sort or another.”

The ground beneath Jared’s feet began to give way and Pete jumped back. Orin landed several blows, one right after the other.

Ethan pointed his wand. “Orin!”

Orin stepped back and turned his face as Ethan shot Jared in the face with a blast of light that was stronger than the one I’d produced, and far more direct. Jared went down howling. The smell of burning flesh wafted over to me. I tucked the wand back into my pocket and pulled my knife. As much as the wand was good, the knife was real.

The knife was my home.

Jared shook, his knees embedded in the softened ground. “Fools, you are all fools!”

“Stay where you are,” I said. “Ethan, is someone else coming?”

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “That guy Rory told me to get your crew and head to the dungeon without telling anyone else. I assumed he’d handle the rest.”

He’d gotten the Sandman. He’d more than handled it.

Ethan had known where to come.

The memory banks that had been locked for the last two days finally opened, and I saw it all over again. The first time Ethan and I had found the hidden dungeon.

The Sandman sneaking up on us.

The other assassin attempting to kill us—only to be stopped by the Sandman.

Gregory reaching for me.

The Sandman had saved my life, only to boot me in the head and somehow take my memory. To effectively make me butt out of his operation while the kids stayed locked in the cells. To use them all as bait. To use me as bait.

And Ethan had helped him do it.

I stared hard at Ethan, feeling the distinct urge to strangle him. “You and I are going to have a chat about lying to each other after this is done. And it will involve me kicking you in the balls to make sure you get my point.”

Ethan’s face was flat, emotionless. “No one goes against the Sandman.”

“Except me.”

We spun as Director Frost stepped from the shadows, wand in hand. With a flick of it, she threw the five of us up and back, pummelling us against the various trees.

I slid down the tree I’d been tossed into, tumbling through the branches, the rough bark tearing at my dress. I wished I were wearing jeans and a shirt instead, but I might as well have wished the ground wasn’t going to hurt when I landed.

The ground came up fast and was as hard as I’d thought it was going to be. But that didn’t stop me from picking myself up and charging the director. Her eyes widened and she smiled as she pointed her wand at me, the tip glowing deep red. I dove to the right, rolled, and came up as she sent another shot my way. One after another, she kept on firing away.

I was doing what I could to pull her eyes to me, to give the others a chance. But they weren’t getting up.

“Waiting for your friends? You’re drawing from them, taking their energy and abilities.” She laughed. “So much natural talent, so raw.”

Part of me knew she was trying to distract me, but I still tried to shut down whatever it was that I was drawing off my crew. Only she was right, I had no idea what I was doing and there was no way I could stop It.

Jared was on his knees still, holding his hands over his face, moaning. “My eyes, my eyes are gone.”

An idea formed, and before I could question it, I acted. I bolted for Jared, spinning him around to use him as a shield as I put my knife to his throat. “You want him back?”

The shadows behind her moved. She’d notice them if I didn’t do something. The fact that she’d bested both the Sandman and Rory spoke volumes.

She was better than them, which meant they would need my help to take her down.

Her eyes hardened and then she laughed, tinkling and light. “You don’t have it in you.”

Only I did. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill to protect those I loved.

I tightened my hold on Jared. “I’ll kill any wolf that comes for my family. No matter what clothing they wear.” I slid my blade across his throat, cutting through to the spine. Just like they’d done with Adam. The blood flowed down over my hands, impossibly cold for fresh blood, as if it had been dead for a long time.

He gurgled and slumped in my arms as the director screamed. “NO!”

With her focus broken, she didn’t see them coming for her.

The Sandman burst out from the shadows on her right side and took her down, wrenched her arms behind her and wrapped them in a gold ribbon of all things, faster than a cowboy hogtying a calf. Then he pulled a golden clamp from under his jacket and snapped it around her neck.

“That will keep you, Frost. You’re done.”

Rory limped out of the shadows, holding his side. Injured, but alive.

I thought for sure she’d keep on screaming, but her silence was almost worse. Cold, deadly silence that spoke volumes. Her eyes locked on mine, and I knew a promise of death when I saw one.

She would not forget what I’d done. That I’d killed her love, Jared, that I’d helped them take her down.

Moments later, the forest was alive with lights as more teachers and students ventured into the trees. I wiped my blade on the back of Jared’s shirt and tucked it away.

For the first time since I’d arrived, I knew for certain I wouldn’t need it.

At least for a minute or two.

After the arrival of the other teachers, testers, and students, everything went to hell. Frost was hauled off to some magical jail that Wally whispered to me was the place where all the baddies went.

We were sent back to our dorms. Wally let me shower first. I couldn’t get the water hot enough to wash off the feeling of Jared’s blood. I couldn’t get warm even though it wasn’t by any means cold outside this late in the summer.

I pulled on cotton pj’s and climbed into bed. Wally kept talking, but I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to think about what I’d done. Despite everything we’d faced in the trials, Jared was the first person I’d ever killed. He was a vampire, sure, but I was the reason he’d died.

And Frost’s words clung to me. I wasn’t just a freak of nature for being a Shade, but a Chameleon who could drink down the power of others. Fear jangled my nerves and kept me awake far longer than I wanted.

“Wally?” I spoke to her after the lights were out.

“Yeah?” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one wide awake.

“Why did my blade kill him? I thought…that it would hurt him, but I honestly didn’t think it would kill him.”

Her bed squeaked as she shifted her weight. “Magical blades can do a lot of things, Wild. And that blade might seem like an ordinary hunting knife to you, but whoever made it had magical skill. And they gave you an extraordinary weapon. But I thought you knew that already?”

Magical skill? But my dad had said he was a null, and that he and mom had made the knife together. Or had he just said that so my mom would bring him with her when she ran away from…well, from the Shadowkiller.

The director had said I shared blood with him...how?

Sleep came eventually in fits and starts, and I tossed and turned. I realized only a couple hours in that I had a solution for my lack of sleep. We were just in the wrong room. “Wally, get up,” I grumbled, grabbing my pillow and leading the way.

She mumbled something under her breath but wasn’t far behind me.

The door on the second floor wasn’t even locked. What a bunch of ding dongs.

At least the four of them woke up when I opened the door. “What are you doing here, Wild?” Orin asked.

“Can’t sleep.” I went straight to the bed Pete was on. “Shift.”

“You could say please,” Pete muttered, but he shifted to his honey badger form. I crawled into the bed, and Wally tucked in behind me. Pete lay on our legs. Orin grumbled and moved to the side of the bed, laid down on the floor and flung an arm up. Wally took his hand. Gregory muttered something about crazy girls, but he slid his mattress onto the floor and scooted it close enough that he could reach us. I took his hand.

“And where do I fit in?” Ethan asked.

“Wherever you like,” I mumbled, already feeling sleep pull itself over me. Ethan grunted and then arranged some pillows at the foot of the bed. He leaned back and reached an arm up and over one of my legs. His hand rested on Pete’s back.

I didn’t see him do it, but I felt it. Now that we were together, I could feel all of them, weirdly enough, kind of in the back of my head. They had been my crew, the misfits no one thought would make it through the culling trials, but we were more than that now.  No matter what I was, if Frost was even right about me being a Chameleon.

We were family.

Chapter 21

The next day announcements came on loud and clear, snapping us all out of a deep sleep.

“Director Frost has been removed from the grounds due to unprofessional conduct. Director Rufus will oversee the final advancement ceremony. Please be advised that the ceremony will take place in one hour for those who missed it last night.”

I would have rolled out of bed, but the others had me pinned down. I smiled to myself. “Up and at ’em, boys.” I wiggled my legs, disturbing both Pete and Ethan as I let go of Gregory’s hand and saw Wally let go of Orin. You’d think we would have been uncomfortable sleeping like that all night, but no one had complained.

Not even Ethan.

Wally and I headed back to our room and quickly dressed. So the Sandman was taking the director’s spot? Did that mean he would stay on with the academy?

Rory’s words came back to me.

The Sandman. He’s not what he seems. I can feel it. His position in the school is a cover.

Whatever the Sandman’s game was, it wasn’t over. Whatever plans he had, he was in a prime position to execute them now. Cold washed over me. Did he know I was a Chameleon? Was that why he was on my case? I kept my thoughts to myself, unable to spill the beans, even to my crew. Maybe later.

Maybe never.

Dressed in clean jeans, a dark green T-shirt and my ball cap, I headed out. Or tried to. Wally stopped me. “You don’t have to wear that hat anymore, you know. Everyone knows you’re a girl.”

I touched the brim of the hat. “Yeah, I know.” The thing was, they might know I was a girl, but they’d given me wide berth as a boy. And maybe I wanted that respect. I didn’t want to have to go through earning it all over again because suddenly people realized I had boobs instead of balls.

We hurried down to the front hall and into the ballroom I’d rushed out of the night before. In the center of the room a cauldron rose out of a trap door, flames curling up around the black bulbous pot. Steam swirled up from the surface, flickers of light dancing through it.

Wally nodded. “You weren’t the only student who didn’t get to toss their tokens into the cauldron.”

“Crap, I lost my tokens!” I put my hands to my pockets as if I’d find them there.

She smiled and held up a little bag. “My mom sent me with an extra set, in case I lost mine.”

A sigh of relief slid out of me. Ethan was ahead of us, along with Gregory, Colt, Mason, Ethel, and Lisa. Pete and Orin hurried to our side. Okay, Pete hurried, Orin glided.

“I’m kinda glad I missed it,” Pete said. “It’s better this way, just us.”

“Not quite.” I tipped my chin at the kids who’d been missing. They lined up first and I watched, excited to see how this played out. That is until the Sandman strode across the ballroom floor. His eyes were hidden behind his aviators, but I saw the bruise on the side of his face. He’d not escaped the fight unscathed.

“Line up, throw your tokens in, and when you’re called to your house, get your ass in gear. The buses are waiting.”

“Such pretty words,” I said, just loud enough for my crew to hear. Pete snickered and even Orin’s mouth tipped up.

Lisa was the first, and when she threw her tokens in they bubbled and hissed and one was thrown back out of the cauldron, spinning in the air, catching the light. She reached up and snagged it. “House of Claw.” She clutched it to her chest and hurried away.

Mason went next. Then Heath. Then the other kids who’d been taken and not noticed. Two of them threw their tokens in and got nothing back.

“Nulls.” Sideburns said. “Wait outside my office.”

Those two, a boy and a girl, left with their eyes low and their shoulders hunched. Just watching them, I wasn’t surprised they were nulls. This place had eaten them up and spit them out.

Colt was next. He threw his tokens in and the cauldron shook and hissed harder than before, the steam turning from a clear mist to a red burst of magic and sparkles.

I grabbed Wally’s arm. “He won’t be a null, will he?”

She shook her head I think, but I only caught it from my peripheral as I stared hard at Colt.

Sideburns gave a slow smile. That could not be good.

The cauldron spit out not one, but two tokens. Colt caught them both. “House of Wonder and House of Shade.”

Sideburns tipped his head at him. “Your choice where you train. But you can only train one.”

Colt stared at them and slowly left the ballroom, but not before he shot a look at me. I couldn’t decipher what was in his eyes. He couldn’t be confused about what to choose, he was obviously a mage.

Ethan was up next and got—surprise!—House of Wonder.

Gregory, House of Unmentionables.

Orin, House of Night.

Pete, House of Claw.

Wally, House of Night.

My friends waited to the side of the cauldron for me. I stepped up to the black pot and stared into it.

“Wait.” Sideburns put his hand out, stopping me. “Everyone else, leave.”

“What? Why? Are you going to try and kill me again?” I took a few steps back, my hands going for my weapons.

Even underneath those aviator glasses, I could feel him glaring at me. “Not yet, I’m not.”

“That’s a threat!” Pete yelled.

It was, but something passed between Sideburns and me that I couldn’t quite explain. He was trying to protect me.

Because what if I had more than one token come out? What if Director Frost had been right about me and I was a chameleon? What kind of danger would that put me and my friends in. I swallowed hard and gave him a small nod. “It’s fine, I’ll be out in a minute.”

The others were reluctant but did as I asked. Ethan was the one who stopped at the doorway. “Just shout, we’ll be right here.”

“Don’t start being a nice guy now,” I said. “I just got used to you being a douche.”

He grinned and closed the door, and I turned back to the cauldron. “You think I’m going to be like her. Like Frost.”

“I do. And the fewer people who know that the better.” Sideburns made a motion to the cauldron. I lifted my hand over it, tokens in my palm.

“Why even make me do it then?”

“Because we could all be wrong about you. You could just be a talented human, a null like your father. Which would be worse?” he asked.

“Null,” I answered without hesitation and dropped my tokens into the cauldron.

They hit the tumbling, boiling water with tiny little plops. The water hissed and bubbled, turning a distinct shade of gray that slid into silver, then to red, not unlike Colt’s.

I held my breath as the cauldron shook, rattling on its bed so hard I thought it would tip over.

I didn’t dare take a step back. The steam rose, smelling of apples and lilac bushes, and then five tokens shot back out and into the air. I caught them as they fell, snagging them like a juggler.

Or like a Shade.

“House of Shade,” Sideburns said. “That is where you will train.”

“Under you?”

“God no.” He grunted. “I am no trainer. But I will be watching you. If you look even for an instant that you are going down the path of the other Chameleons, you’ll be dead faster than you can blink.”

I clutched the tokens in my hands. “Eloquent as always.” I turned my back on him, something I wouldn’t have done even a week ago and headed out to where the others waited. I tucked the tokens into my pockets, all except one. I held it up. “House of Shade!”

They grinned along with me and I let them think I was happy, excited, and not a little bit freaked out.

A host of buses were lined up at five intervals, ready to take us to the academy. Each of the houses had a retinue, and most had two flag bearers holding up a banner. They were decked out in colors and designs matching the house they represented. The House of Wonder was a trio of triangles, the lines interlocked, made out of silver and gold of course.

House of Night’s banner was a deep blue, a pair of back to back ravens holding a bone between them.

The House of Claw was a giant multi-branched tree and each branch was covered with animals in a forest scene, from wolves to squirrels to the alicorns, and even… “Pete, there’s a honey badger on that banner!”

He grinned and high fived me. “Hot damn, cats on fire, there is!”

The House of Unmentionables had a simple sign, the unfinished figure eight, the ends of it curling in on itself. Two gargoyles waited at the front of that bus.

And then there was the House of Shade. Black on black, the banner seemed to be one color, but within it was the Web of Wyrd, just like the patch on the Sandman’s jacket. The more you looked at the banner, the more things you saw in the darkness. Figures. Weapons. A man on his knees. I gasped and started shaking. It was Jared in the banner. I was sure of it.

We started forward and then suddenly we were walking apart from one another. I wanted to tell them to stop, that we couldn’t separate. But that wasn’t how this worked.

Wally waved at me, but she was sad. Pete wasn’t much better. Orin stared straight ahead, and Gregory kept shooting glances my way.

Ethan didn’t look at any of us. Of course not, he was done with us now that we’d finished the trials.

That hurt more than I’d thought it would.

I stopped walking and spoke without looking at them. “We’re still a crew. No matter how far we go.”

I felt more than saw each of them straighten.

“Damn right,” Pete said. “To the end.”

“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Again,” Ethan said, and I laughed.

“Yeah, let’s not do that again.”

We all stepped out at the same time to our individual houses.

At the banner of the House of Shade, I waited. There was a good cluster around us, and damned if everyone wasn’t shooting me fervent glances. No one spoke, though. I noticed some of the girls from the Shade challenge, those who’d baited the group of dumb boys to follow them. I nodded at one of them. She nodded back, an eyebrow arched.

“I will be your chaperone to get you to your new home, the campus of the House of Shade.” Rory’s voice cut through all the other noise as he stepped out of the passenger side of the nearest bus. “If you have any questions, I will be the one to answer them.”

My mouth got ahead of my filter. “How do you punish someone when they’ve wronged you in the House of Shade?”

Rory didn’t miss a beat. “You challenge them to a sparring match.”

I nodded. “I challenge you to a sparring match, Rory. You need an ass kicking.”

The other kids pulled away from me. But I wasn’t afraid, not of Rory.

He grinned at me, and a piece of the hurt I’d been carrying slid away from my heart. History was a strange thing. It made you forgive when you otherwise might not.

I sure hoped it would help him forgive the ass whooping I would be giving him.

I sure hoped I could fit into this new world. Maybe I would find out what it meant to be a Chameleon.

I crossed my arms. “And you need to tell me how you survived zombies.”

“Only if you win.” His grin widened, and I found myself grinning back.

He stepped back from the bus and waved a hand toward the many behind it.

“Welcome to the House of Shade.”

Let the games begin.

The End.

* * *

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About the Authors

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:

www.shannonmayer.com

shannonmayerauthor@gmail.com

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K.F. Breene is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, and Amazon Charts Bestselling author of paranormal romance, urban fantasy and fantasy novels. With over two million books sold, when she isn’t 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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www.kfbreene.com

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