Who else was there that I could trust?
Rory was . . . well, Rory, but I wasn’t entirely sure who he would side with if it came down to me and the Sandman. He was the Sandman’s right-hand guy.
And no matter how I looked at it, ol’ Sunshine had a beef with me that at some point would come to a head. How long before I was on the receiving end of his blows? How long before he told someone else my secret?
After a few more questions, mostly about where our stuff was—our bags would apparently be taken to our rooms—Daniella clapped her hands together, and pure white gargoyles stepped out of the walls. Yes, I said out of the freaking walls, materializing as if with . . . you guessed it . . . magic.
They emerged from the sections that were etched with the symbols of the various houses. Each gargoyle servant, because they were clearly servants by the thick black chains linked around their necks, held up a tray balanced on the tips of their claws—one in each hand.
They came through the room, offering their trays to the students around them. When one of them reached us, I finally saw what was on the trays. Globs of silver shaped like . . . nothing. A puddle of melted metal.
I stared down at them. “What are those?”
The gargoyle didn’t blink—he just continued to stare past me as if he couldn’t see me. “A house marker. It will become a symbol of the house you have chosen.”
White eyes, white skin, white teeth as he spoke. There were only two exceptions to the white on white look outside of the neck collar—two large, black as night scars slashed his back, one on either side. Wings? Or where wings had been?
The gargoyle offered the platter to Ethan first, tipping it so one blob slid to him. He scooped it up, and the others followed suit. I hesitated because what if I had the same issue with the blob that I’d had with the house tokens in the cauldron? What if it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be and ended up somehow being all five houses?
Sweat beaded along the back of my neck and trickled down my spine. I grabbed the edge of my ball cap and adjusted it, thinking hard. There was no way out of this that I could see. I looked at my friends and what their house markers had become. They were simpler than the house symbols but easily recognizable.
A sunburst for Ethan. A crescent moon for Orin and Wally. A clenched claw for Pete. A coin for Gregory, and for me . . . I scooped up the metal blob and covered it with my other hand. It shifted against my palm, over and over. Like it couldn’t decide what to become.
Shit, shit, shit!
This was not how I wanted to be outed!
“Lift your hand, I want to see your mark.” Ethan tapped the top of my hand with a single finger.
“You aren’t the boss of me,” I said.
His eyes shot to mine and he smiled again, lowering his voice. “Not yet.”
I twisted my wrist and moved to stuff the pendant—whatever it was—into my pocket. “It’s fine. It’ll be for the House of Shade, doesn’t matter what it looks like,” I said. The pendant seemed to pause in its shifting and then picked up speed again before finally settling in my palm.
Ethan grabbed my wrist with a speed that impressed me and turned my hand over. “Huh. Not very fearsome.”
I looked down at the silver moth that rested in my palm. What the hell was this garbage? I grimaced and picked the pendant up by one tucked wing, fully expecting it to move. I hated moths, filthy, stupid flying creatures that they were. Yet part of me wondered if this wasn’t even for the House of Shade. What if it was a mark of a Chameleon?
Wally leaned in for a closer look. “That is the silkworm moth. The House of Shade derives sixty-nine percent of their poisons from the caterpillar pupae. Fitting. If a bit buggy.”
“Gross,” I whispered. I chose to ignore the snickers from the guys. Nothing we’d faced during the trials had made me squeamish, but I hated moths. Who the hell would make us wear this? Terrible people. It should have been a knife or some other weapon. I looked over to see Gen attaching a similar silver moth to her shirt. At least that answered one question I didn’t want to ask out loud.
The moth wasn’t the mark of a Chameleon.
A small weight slid off me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Moths are silent, and they can see in the dark,” Wally mused. “It actually makes sense for the House of Shade. You’d never see them coming; they’d be able to kill you and fly off. I kind of like it.”
“You want to trade?” I drawled.
She blinked up at me. “I could never survive in the House of Shade.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “I think you would. You’re stronger than you realize, Wally.”
Wally ducked her head and I dangled the moth in front of her. “What do we do with these?”
Ethan took my moth from my hand and flipped it over. The back side of the pendant was flat, solid without a pin or any other way to attach it to anything. “They are spelled to stick to your clothing.”
He slapped the pendant just above my heart, a little too close for comfort for me. I put my hand over his and he grinned until I squeezed and twisted his fingers. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“You say that now,” he murmured and stepped back.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I growled at him.
He shrugged and his eyes slid away from mine. “Things are different here, Wild. You need to remember that. This isn’t the trials. This is real life.”
Before I could pepper him with more questions, I was tugged back by Wally.
“Look, she’s going to talk again.”
Daniella had waited until the gargoyles finished circulating, then raised her hand again for silence.
“Each of you must wear the mark of your house at all times. It will allow us to find you within the House of Wonder, a rather important matter since the magic of this house will swallow you whole if given the chance. It does not take lightly to those who do not belong. And let me be crystal clear”—her eyes swept the room of students in front of her—“to those of you who are not the House of Wonder—you most certainly do not belong. Do not make yourselves comfortable.”
“Tell us how you really feel,” I muttered.
Maybe I said it a little louder than intended because her eyes swept my way again. I lifted my chin and stared right back at her. I’d faced down a T-Rex, nearly died, then fought off a vampire, saving me and my friends. This dainty, frou-frou, Wonder Bread woman did not scare me.
At least, that’s what I told myself even as I had to lock my knees to keep myself standing upright. Something in her gaze drove into my body, as if her magic were pushing its way under my skin, trying to sweep around inside and figure me out.
Drop your eyes, fool!
I lowered my eyes, with difficulty, wondering what the hell was going on, because that was not a voice I wanted in my head. It had to be my imagination.
My fingers tingled around the moth pendant, and my eyes swept up to see the Sandman staring right at me.
Correct. You can hear me. The pendants allow the directors of the houses to reach any or all of their students.
The Sandman could speak directly into my head. “What the actual fu—” I bit off the last word, because no doubt swearing was a no-no here too.
And here I’d thought that the day couldn’t get any worse.