The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(50)

“Okay, Wally, come on in,” I said.

She opened the door, eyebrows lifted. “Did I hear you talking?”

“Um. Yeah. To myself.”

“Oh, I do that all the time.” She smiled and then did a slow circle. “So, you think Gregory hid something?”

I nodded. “Just a gut feeling.” I thought about Gregory’s connection to treasure, to gold and gems. A tiny pulse started in the tips of the fingers of my left hand. Quick experimentation indicated that the tingle dulled when I clenched them and deepened when I spread them wide. I followed the pull of that pulse to Gregory’s bed.

“It seems too obvious,” Wally said. “Statistics clearly show that goblins excel at hiding things. To put it near his sleeping area would be ridiculous.”

I ran my fingers over the mattress, the sheets and the pillow, the pulse deepening as I got closer to the foot of the bed. “But he had nowhere else to hide anything. And if he left the room on his own, he might have thought he’d be coming back.”

There was nothing in the sheets, but that pulse was still there. I pulled the mattress up—nothing. As I pulled my hand out from under it, my fingers slid against something like a flap. No, a slit had been cut into the underside of the mattress, almost imperceptible. “Bingo.”

I reached in, felt paper, and pulled out a small bundle of pages, fanning them over the bed. “These are Ethan’s cheat sheets!”

“We could use them,” she whispered, as though someone might be listening in. Which I supposed was a distinct possibility.

I frowned. “But if Gregory wasn’t taking these to sell them or turn Ethan in, what was he doing out the night he went missing?”

A booming announcement cut through the air, sudden enough that we both jumped.

“Mason Whitehall, report to Director Frost immediately.”

I grabbed Wally’s arm. “That’s the missing kid. How can he be called to her office if he’s missing?”

She frowned. “Could you have made a mistake?”

I’d been so sure his name was on the list of missing kids, but it struck me that there was a simple way of checking. We could watch her office, see if he showed up.

I tucked the cheat sheets back to where they’d been and let the mattress fall into place.

“Come on, we can see her doors from a spot down the hall.”

I bolted from the room, Wally rushing to try and keep up with me, but I didn’t slow, not for a second.

We covered the short distance in under a minute, skidding to a stop at the top of the stairs. The double door was shut and the director’s thug, Adam, stood outside it, hidden in the shadows.

“Hey, did Mason show up?” I asked before I thought better of it.

Adam lifted his head, eyes narrowing as he looked our way. “No.”

I nodded and slid down to sit at the top of the stairs, feet on the first step, watching the door.

“Wild?” Wally crouched down beside me.

“Why would they call him to the office if he’s on the list of missing kids?” I asked again. Then a new possibility struck me. “Or are they worried about him being taken?”

My blood ran cold. The kidnappings seemed to take place after the trials. What if the director knew who was at risk?

We needed to see that paper with the list of kids on it. There could be more names added.

Which meant we were going to break into the director’s office.





Chapter 19





We waited for over an hour, sitting at the top of the stairs watching the director’s door for the boy to make an appearance. Mason was called twice more over the PA system, but he never showed. My skin prickled each time he was called. Every part of me knew he wasn’t going to show, but I still waited. Just in case I was wrong. Finally, I turned away from the doors, Adam gave us a pointed glare from his spot in front of the director’s door, and we headed back to our room.

Only Pete and Orin were there.

“Where’s Ethan?” I asked as I shut the door.

“Where have you been?” Pete asked from the bed. “Did you go to the healers?”

I hadn’t but felt remarkably okay. I’d take it as a win.

“Where is he?” I asked again, and Orin shook his head.

“He didn’t want to wait for you. Said he had things to do.”

I retrieved the sheets from Gregory’s mattress and held them out to the others. “First thing’s first. Wally and I found the cheat sheets.”

Pete jumped up and I held them above his head. “Hey, let me see!”

When Orin took a step toward me, I pointed a finger at him. “Hear me out. If we got caught with these, what would happen?”

“Expelled,” Wally said, her voice solemn. “It would be instant, there would be no recourse.”

I took the papers and shoved them under Ethan’s mattress. “He might be part of our crew, but if anyone is getting expelled, it can be him.”

Pete grinned and spread his hands wide. “But can’t we just look?”

“You want Ethan to—” I cut off as the door opened and Wonder Bread himself walked in. And he was not alone.

“You want Ethan to what?” Ethan put his hands on his hips. Colt stood to his left, a loose ease to his body. He was fit like Ethan, only not so bulky. Colt’s body was leaner as if he’d actually trained for the physical strain of the trials and not just lifted weight to gain mass.