The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(47)

He bowed at the waist and flashed her a big smile, going so far as to wink at her. “Not yet, you aren’t.” Damn, he was a mean flirt. Would Orin develop that wicked charm when he got his full fangs? Somehow, I doubted it.

I swallowed and faced the director, realizing that I’d lost my hat again. Damn it.

I lowered my eyes.

“We have a problem, you and I,” she said.

“No problem, Director. It won’t happen again.” Keeping my voice low wasn’t hard seeing as it was raspy from being partially choked.

She huffed a laugh. “Oh, I doubt that you will be able to keep that promise at all, Ms. Johnson.”





Chapter 18





Director Frost didn’t move from behind her massive desk, and I didn’t move from my spot in front of her on my knees. She knew I was a girl. I’d hoped her old lady ears would miss Jared’s slip. But maybe she’d just looked past the sweat and blood splatter on my face and had known. Whatever the case, my secret was out, and Billy would pay the price.

“Please, my brother’s life is on the line. I couldn’t let him come, not when he’s so young. He’s not cut out for a place like this. He doesn’t have any survival instinct. Please, please don’t send for him.” I was not above begging, not for Billy.

Her face didn’t so much as twitch to telegraph her thoughts. “You have inspired loyalty in those I would never have put together in any sense of the word. Underdogs. Outcasts. The fact that the Helix boy spoke for you is truly amazing.”

I blinked a couple of times. “Are you going to throw me out?”

She smiled then. “If a sharp tool is not in the right drawer, do you cast it into the garbage? Of course not. I have seen the reports on you, Ms. Johnson. I know very well who is leading your ragtag crew in the trials. And it is not the Helix boy.” She leaned back in her chair. Yes, she was definitely not as old as I’d first thought. Her movements and face pegged her under fifty, not in her seventies like I’d first believed.

“We’re working together,” I said. “It’s not just me doing all this. Isn’t that what you want?”

“That is not normal for our world, even if it is what we strive for.” She let out a sigh and spread out the papers on her desk. “I will not spill your secret, Ms. Johnson. Though I will tell you this, there will be no hiding behind a hat and a boy’s name by the end of the Culling Trials. And the other directors will not be as lenient should you give them a reason to cast you out. Such as fighting in the halls. Or being out past curfew.”

I stared down at my boots, a ridiculous urge to cry sweeping over me. A question burned its way to the tip of my tongue. “Why would they get rid of me when you can see I have value to this place?” I had to find a way to stay. For my family. And maybe a little bit for me too.

“Your family is well known, Ms. Johnson, and not, shall we say, well loved. Your father is a null. Your mother dropped out of the academy right before her fourth and last year. The time and expense put into her training was never recouped. So, any excuse to evict you early in the game…well, they will take it.” She sighed again. “But…I will do what I can to protect you.”

My head snapped up. “Why?”

Her smile was soft, genuine, and it soothed away some of my fears. “Because I have been on that side of the desk. In my day, women were not trained alongside the men, and we were seen as lesser because we had breasts instead of balls. You are strong, stronger than many of the men here, and that will make you a target and a threat.”

Her words echoed the Sandman’s, and a trickle of a warning slid down my spine.

She reached out and touched the black box on her desk that had drawn my attention on my first visit to her office. “Strength can be broken, Ms. Johnson. Even those who believe they are untouchable can be cast out.” Her fingers flipped open the box, and I craned my neck to see inside it.

“Wands?” A stack of them lay in the box, at least a half dozen.

“Most of the students who have been kicked out of the academy under my watch were affiliated with the House of Wonder. Not the House of Shade as you might think. Arrogance was their downfall. Which is why I believe you will be safe. You’re confident, yes, but arrogant you are not.” She snapped the box shut and smiled at me again.

She scribbled something on a piece of paper then pushed it aside next to another stack. My eyes tracked it, latching onto the words even upside down on the further stack of papers.

Heath Percival.

Gregory Goblin.

Lisa Danvers.

Mason Whitehall.

Another kid had gone missing? I couldn’t stop myself from saying something. She would know if there were any updates, and there had to be a reason she was working on sensitive information in front of me.

“Is there any word on Gregory? On any of the missing kids?”

Her eyes closed, and she leaned back in her chair, rubbed at her gray temples with her fingertips. “You need to go now, Ms. Johnson. That bastard Jared will escort you back to your room.”

The door opened, and the handsome vampire held it wide for me, having obviously listened in to our whole conversation. He glared at the director but spoke to me. “Let’s go, Johnson.”

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be escorted by a vampire who could hold me up by one hand, but seeing as I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I went along with him.