Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials, Book 3

by Breene, K. F.

  Orin sucked in a breath. “Once death has taken—”

  I waved my wand hand at him. “Too far into death is not dead. Am I right?”

  Wally’s eyes were as wide as Mara’s had been. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do what you’re asking.”

  “Try,” I whispered. “Please try.” I kept my hand on Ethan’s. Still warm, he was still warm. I had to believe that we could save him yet.

  Wally put her hands on Ethan’s chest and bowed her head. The magic I’d seen around her in the graveyard spilled out of her body, pink and soft and gentle, and for a moment, I thought I saw a darkness around Ethan. Like his body was engulfed in shadows even though I knew for a fact that it wasn’t.

  Noise erupted outside the tent—angry shouts, the wail of a woman, the bellow of a voice that likely belonged to the elder Helix. I understood that cry of grief and could easily guess who’d made it. Ethan’s mother.

  “Hurry, Wally, hurry,” I said.

  Pete slipped up beside Wally and put a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

  Orin put his hand on my shoulder, too, and the circle was complete, our crew linked together in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Wally blew out a breath and the magic she carried pushed the darkness clinging to Ethan back, lighting it up.

  “It is not his time,” she said, and her voice radiated power that rippled outward, flapping the edges of the tent. Everyone outside went silent for a moment, then a hand pushed on the flap but didn’t make it in. They were trying to get in, but something held them back. I didn’t know if it was Wally’s power, or the presence of death.

  A voice that was anything but human chimed back, answering Wally. “He is in my grasp. You cannot take him from me.”

  Pete and Orin gave identical gasps. But Wally just shook her head, her hands clenching against Ethan’s chest, digging into his shirt. “But he is not fully with you, and so I command you to release your hold on him. You obey me. I rule you, Bani.” Wally’s Conkrite voice was in full effect and the power it radiated was anything but funny.

  The darkness around Ethan surged, wisps wrapping around him, but Wally pushed it back again, her shoulders tightening, the pale pink light glowing hotter, brighter. “I will not be ignored. No longer!” There was a snap of power to her words, like a whip being cracked, and the shadows slid back from Ethan, slowly, and then faster until there was nothing left but Wally’s glowing pink power.

  “Death is held at bay, for a minute or two at best,” Wally whispered, slumping, Pete catching her.

  I leaned forward. “Ethan?”

  His chest still didn’t rise.

  Orin slapped Ethan’s chest. “CPR, we need to restart his heart.”

  He started compressions, and I just stared at him in shock for a moment. Who the hell would think a vampire would know CPR? It hit me in a flash. A vampire who didn’t want to kill his human victims would need to have at least basic CPR and medical knowledge.

  “You need to breathe for him.” Orin said. “Now, two breaths.”

  I leaned over Ethan, pinching his nose, and breathed into his mouth, forcing his chest to rise and fall. Two puffs. Orin did another round of compressions. “Again, two more.”

  I held my mouth to Ethan’s and closed my eyes, putting more than my own air into him—trying to give him my energy too, if that were even possible.

  Orin pressed long pale fingers to Ethan’s neck. “There’s a pulse. Very weak. Breathe for him again. We keep breathing for him until he takes one on his own.”

  I didn’t question Orin, just put my lips over Ethan’s and breathed into him.

  One. Open your eyes, don’t give up!

  Two. Come back, Wonder Bread. We aren’t done, you and I.

  I pulled back a little, enough that I could look straight into Ethan’s face, watching for any sign that he was alive. Any sign at all.

  His left eyelid flickered and then the right, and those blue eyes opened and stared right into mine. Had he heard me calling him back?

  “Wild.” His voice was hoarse, a mere croak of my name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Personal space, it’s a real thing.”

  Chapter 16

  I stared into Ethan’s eyes a beat longer as his words sunk in, the air in the tent lightening up as I realized we’d done it, we’d saved him. “Personal space might be a thing when you aren’t dying,” I said as I pulled back. “You get no say when your heart isn’t beating, Wonder Bread.”

  His eyes widened, and he took a slow breath. “Was I dead?”

  I nodded, not able to say we’d brought him back. Because even in my head the truth sounded like a lie. If we could bring Ethan back, why hadn’t someone tried to bring Tommy back? Why hadn’t I found Rory and brought him back?

  The entrance to the tent flapped again, and this time it opened. An older man with an air of power and prestige strode into the room. Ethan’s father. A woman of similar age hurried in behind him, worry etching her eyes. His mother.

  “No, not my boy,” she said, makeup making tracks down her face. It was probably the only time she’d ever present herself like that. She was beautiful, like Ethan, and put together.

  Grief, thicker than over-floured gravy filled the room, sucking the air out of it.

  Wally put a hand on my shoulder and the four of us stepped back, giving Ethan’s parents space.

  “Time to leave,” Pete said. I nodded my agreement and we slipped out of the tent as Ethan’s mother fell on him, sobbing and kissing his face.

  Outside the tent, I took a deep breath. Crazy, this whole place was crazy, but it was sinking in that we’d done it. We’d finished all the trials.

  And we were still alive. All of us.

  A flash of Gregory’s face, his hands grabbing at mine through bars that held him back, cut through the haze of the concussion. Had I seen him? I lifted a hand to my head, but it was still stuck to the wand as if glued.

  “You’ve got to get that looked at.” Orin grabbed my hand. No, not glued, scorched.

  “I can’t even feel it,” I said, turning my hand to get a good look it, the crackled skin, the black char in places. Part of me knew it was shock, the other part was morbidly fascinated that this burned up hand was mine. Orin and Wally shook their heads in unison.

  “That’s because your hand is nearly dead,” Wally said. “We’ve got to get you to a healer right away.”

  I followed her toward another medic tent, empty except for a healer I didn’t know. A guy with messy brown hair, glasses, and a pair of light green scrubs. He took one look at my hand and sat me down on the edge of a bed, his hands cradling mine. “How did you do this?”

  “The trial?” I offered.

  He shook his head and pushed his glasses up with a finger. “No, what spell?”

  “Bascilium—”

  He cut me off, slapping his hand over my mouth, his eyes wide. “You used that spell?”

  I shot a look to Wally and she nodded for me. “It was the only chance we had.”

  The healer blew out a shaky breath. “The director is going to want me to report this.”

  “Will it get me kicked out?” I asked.

  “No. Not if you can handle a spell like that.” He readjusted his hands on mine and began to mumble words under his breath. His magic was immediate, the glow of it lighting up the small space between us with a faint green light.

  I sucked in a breath as the healing started, the pain sharp as the burn wounds were reversed, the skin reforming with each second. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed.

  To block the pain, I focused on what was going on around us, outside the tent.

  “You said he was dead,” Mr. Helix roared.

  “Then you should be happy he isn’t!” Mara yelled back. “When I left him in the tent, there was no heartbeat. He was dead! You felt that magic holding us back, we all know—”

  “That is impossible. Bringing people back from the shadow of death…”

  “N
ot impossible. Forbidden.” The director’s voice cut through all the yelling. “And if I am correct, his teammates were the ones who did it.”

  My eyes flew open and I stared at Wally, Orin, and Pete. “Go, get out of here!” I growled at them, a sharp stab in my hand making me grimace.

  Wally shook her head, fatigue heavy in her words. “They will know it wasn’t you alone. There is no point in running. The odds of us escaping…very low. I don’t know what they would be exactly but very low indeed.”

  The two guys stood up a little straighter as the tent flapped open and Mr. Helix strode in, followed by the director. She looked damn good for late seventies—closer to her early fifties at best, maybe even a rough forty something.

  Mr. Helix was a big guy, though not as muscular as his son. “You four…saved him?”

  The healer let go of my hand and I flexed my fingers, opening and closing them on the wand. I held it out to his father. “We did what we had to do. He is part of our crew.”

  He stared at the wand in my hand. “I do not like being in others’ debts.”

  I stood slowly. “Would you rather we had let him die?”

  The fact that he paused before answering said it all. His son’s life was of value to him. But that value only went so far—he seemed more interested in his family legacy than in Ethan’s life. Damn it, I really didn’t want to feel bad for Ethan.

  There was no stopping my mouth from curling into a sneer. I turned my back on him, but the director had moved to stand in front of me. “To my office with the four of you. Now.”

  And just like that we went from the frying pan into the fire.

  The director sat across from us in her office, her fingers laced together in front of her full lips. Seriously, she looked like she’d knocked off another fifteen years at least. I wanted to ask her how she’d done it. Likely just an illusion, like so much of this place was. Vanity at its best.

  “What am I to do with you four? You’ve broken one of the most sacred laws of our world. We do not bring the dead back to life!”

  “We didn’t know.” I crossed my arms and frowned at her. How the hell did they expect us to know their rules? We were just students—no, future students.

  The other three shifted beside me, their furtive movement saying it all. Crap, they had known. I straightened up a little more and deepened my frown. “I didn’t know, and I pushed them to it.”

  “I see.” Director Frost’s eyes stayed locked on me, the edges of them definitely smoother than the last time I’d seen her. Those icy blues were weighing my worth, and I had a niggling feeling that perhaps she saw me the way Mr. Helix saw Ethan. A tool, and if that tool was broken, she’d find another. Or maybe she’d finally realized my troublesome ways weren’t worth the possible gain.

  “If the heads of your soon-to-be houses were not so damn ecstatic to welcome you four in, I’d have all of you removed from the trials and sent home with wiped memories. As it is…” She tapped her fingers on a thin stack of papers. “You have made too much of an impression to just disappear.”

  She was silent as she stared down at the papers. “All of you have passed the trials and will be welcomed into your respective houses,” she said softly. “But let me make this crystal clear. You will speak of this event to no one. As far as anyone is concerned, you came through the trial of Wonder because of Ethan Helix and his final spells. He was injured gravely, but a healer fixed him up.” Her eyes locked on each of us, one at a time, as if she could force us to agree. The other three lowered their eyes, cowed by her.

  “Why?” The single-word question popped out of me. “I get that we broke a rule, but why the rest? Because you don’t want people to know that someone’s infiltrating the trials? Someone who’s stealing kids? Trying to kill us?” With each of my questions, my friends tensed further until I thought they would spring forward and slap their hands over my mouth. But I couldn’t stop. Not now, not after everything we’d been through. “We did better than survive those damn trials. We survived when we should have died, and you damn well know it!”

  Director Frost smiled at me, the gesture as cold as her name. “Again, let me be clear, since you seem to be thick as most Shades when it comes to understanding the why of things. Those who did indeed infiltrate the trials were not trying to kill all of you. Just one of you. And they nearly succeeded.”

  My head spun. “Ethan? They were trying to kill Ethan?”

  “His father has many enemies. Powerful enemies that wanted to destroy his family legacy. He is the last of his bloodline,” Director Frost said. “You didn’t seriously think they would be here to kill you, a Shade impersonating her brother? As much as you thought you were hiding, everyone knew by the second day who you were. The shifters were the first to sniff you out, then the vampires, and those vampires are nothing if not gossips. We let you stay because it was too much bother to send you back and take your brother instead. You are a tool, Wild. Nothing more than a blunt instrument.”

  Orin stiffened at the gossip comment.

  Anger flashed through me like a bolt of lightning, there and gone, leaving behind the residue. They’d all known. And they’d let me keep trying to hide it? I opened my mouth to give her my thoughts on that matter, but she cut me off. But what about Sideburns? And Rory? They’d said nothing about Ethan being in danger.

  Her eyes never flicked to the others, not once. “You are all dismissed for the remainder of the day. The advancement ball will begin at ten p.m. While I’d rather you four weren’t there, again, your heads of houses will expect your presence.”

  Just like that, we were done, out of the room and headed to the dorm. We walked in silence all the way to our room, but as soon as the door was shut, Pete let out a whoop that set my heart racing.

  Talk about PTSD—I reached for my blade without even feeling a warning tingle. Pete grabbed Wally and spun her around, then grabbed Orin and attempted to spin him about too. Orin was stiff as a board, and the spin was beyond awkward, falling into comical.

  “We did it! We all did it!” Pete shouted.

  His excitement was contagious, and laughter bubbled out of me. We had done it. Despite the odds that Wally had insisted on spewing, despite the fact that we were the underdogs, the outcasts, we’d done it.

  I grabbed Pete and hugged him, then Orin and Wally.

  The door opened and we all turned to see Ethan standing there, pale but upright. His father behind him, gripping his shoulder just this side of too hard.

  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 l
augh, 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.”