The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(3)

“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.”