The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(54)

“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!”