The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(44)

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.