The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(33)

I heaved, trying to catch my breath from the rush and unpleasant exhilaration, but didn’t want to wait around for hyenas, or wild dogs, or whatever other large creatures wanted a taste of our hides.

“Let’s get on to the next challenge,” I said, taking off at a jog. “We’re flying blind.”

One knucklehead groaned, another cried out in pain.

I grimaced. “Sorry! The healer will be along soon. Good work, though! Thanks for the help!”

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Ethan said, catching up to me. By silent agreement, we ignored a pair of knuckleheads who popped up. They could follow if they liked—at a distance. We had enough weird in our crew, we didn’t need to add stupid to the mix.





Chapter 13





I could feel Ethan staring at me as we walked away from the injured crew at the watering hole. “Please don’t tell me that was good work back there. It’s not a compliment coming from you.”

“Good work,” he said, and though I wouldn’t look at his stupid face, I could tell he was smiling, could hear it in his voice.

“I have one tiny knife and no experience with lion taming,” I muttered. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Sacrifice yourself?” He laughed outright this time.

“Stop talking to me.” I did not want to so much as twitch my mouth for fear he’d see the smile.

“Veer right,” Orin said, suddenly next to me.

I jumped. I couldn’t help it. “What do you know?”

“That the badger is headed that way, and he’s not overly impressed by your lack of attention.”

Pete was hard to see deep in the grasses, so when I stepped on him, I felt even worse than I had a moment before.

“Sorry,” I said.

Idiots. You’d think they’d follow me here, in my own damn house.

“I said I was sorry!” I snapped.

Pete shot me a dirty look, then took off running. Orin followed directly behind him, somehow able to keep a better eye on him than we were.

“Where are my notes, do you think? And who would’ve taken Gregory? Was it because he stepped forward in that last challenge?” Ethan asked.

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself, but I took it upon myself to answer.

“Honestly, Gregory probably hid the papers somewhere,” I said, feeling a prickle of warning that didn’t last long enough for me to pause. “Maybe he even hid them outside. I don’t know, but I really don’t think he would’ve traded them. Or sold them. To the group, they were worth more in your hands.” I didn’t answer the other question. I didn’t know who’d taken the missing kids—I only knew that Rory and Sideburns were on the case, and that I intended to look for Gregory the first chance I got.

Another trickle of warning ran the length of my spine, but this one faded just as quickly as the first. There were watchers out here, but for whatever reason, they were deciding not to engage. Maybe one ambush was all you had to survive in this part of the challenge.

The landscape changed suddenly, the grass-swept prairie morphing into rock and dirt right under our feet. Pine trees rose up around us, bursting out of the ground, and the sweet scent of fresh sap tickled my nose. A deep rumble in the ground ahead made us all slow, the lay of the land suddenly rising with an incline as though the mountain was literally being created under us. Which at this point in the game would not surprise me in the least.

I looked behind us; the savannah had disappeared without a trace.

Pete led the way into a small clearing. Fresh grass sprigs shot up around our feet and a tall table stood off to the right next to a long, half cut log. On the log, five little bells were lined up in a perfect row beside a sheet of paper.

Ethan marched over to the log and I let him. He’d get the booby trap in the face if there was one.

“The next challenge is tracking,” Ethan said with a sour expression, lifting the piece of paper.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked as Wally looked at her feet.

He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the log. “What’s wrong with that?” He gestured at Pete, standing next to me. “He’s not a tracking animal, and even if he were, we don’t know what we’re tracking. I don’t have any notes. We’re dead in the water.”

I frowned at him, then at the rest of them when they didn’t chuckle. “Are you guys serious? It’s tracking.” I lifted my hands, waiting for them to get a clue. “It’s just tracking. Haven’t you guys ever done that?”

“What would I track, pigeons? I live in New York City,” Ethan said dryly.

“You could try tracking a better attitude, how about that?” I huffed, pushing my annoyance away. “Look, I grew up on a farm, not to mention hunting with my older brother. I know how to track. In regards to what we’re tracking, well, let’s figure it out, I guess. That paper didn’t say anything else?”

I moved to fetch it but stalled near the bells. I still had ambushes and booby traps on the mind.

“What are the bells for?” I hovered my hand over the log setup.

Ethan snorted and turned away.

“The shifters are offering us a way out,” Wally said. “They’re taunting us.”