creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

the stairs to the mentors’ level. “Do these assignment races happen often?” I ask.
    Perry shakes his head. “It isn’t often that the Seers See enough things going wrong at the same time.”
    “And all assignments need to be of similar difficulty level,” Ned adds. “That’s not something they can control either.”
    We reach the second floor landing where the rest of our classmates are gathering. I aim for Gemma, who still looks miffed, but someone grabs my arm and pulls me aside. “You’re late,” Olive says.
    “But … the race hasn’t started yet.”
    “Ling was here before you,” she says, nodding to the girl standing patiently beside her. “That means you’re late.”
    Ling gives me a sweet smile laced with venom. I choke down my desire to argue with Olive’s ridiculous logic and force myself to return Ling’s smile.
    “Now,” Olive says. “If either of you return from this assignment in last position, there will be consequences. I have a reputation to maintain, and I don’t need the two of you ruining it.”
    What reputation? The words almost slip out, but I manage to hold my tongue. I doubt Olive would appreciate me asking what makes her reputation more special than that of every other mentor.
    “And please don’t forget, Calla—since you seem to have trouble performing this part of your duty—that if you have to kill someone, don’t hesitate .”
    I bristle at her implication that I can’t do my job properly. “I won’t hesitate. But I won’t kill either.”
    Her lip curls up slightly, almost as if she’s snarling. It isn’t an attractive look on her. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Innocent people are going to wind up dead if you can’t do this.”
    “I can do it,” I say as an image of the boy I forced off the top of the chef school building resurfaces. “But I’ve chosen not to.”
    She sighs, her expression turning patronizing. “We all started off with our unrealistic ideals. You’ll learn.”
    I certainly don’t want to learn that killing is sometimes the only option, and I plan to prove that to Olive by—
    My thoughts are interrupted as someone shoves past, knocking me into Olive. “Lo-ser,” Saskia sings as she saunters past us.
    Olive pushes me away with a growl of annoyance. “Somebody do me a favor and beat that Starkweather girl. Both she and her mentor have become far too full of themselves.”
    Ling gives Olive a curt nod. “I’d be happy to.”
    “Thank you, Ling. I don’t see Calla succeeding, so it’ll have to be you.”
    I breathe in deeply and count to five. Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.
    “Here he comes,” another mentor calls out. I look around and see a boy of about fourteen or fifteen coming down the stairs, struggling to balance a pile of scrolls in his arms.
    “So how does this work?” I ask.
    “They’re handed out randomly,” Ling says, to my complete surprise. I’m fairly certain those are the first words she’s uttered to me.
    “And then what? Do we go over the details with our mentors as usual? Or do we read the scroll on our own and then—”
    “Stop asking silly questions and get over there,” Olive says, pushing me forward into the crowd of fifth years. Scrolls disappear from the arms of the flustered Seer trainee as my classmates jostle around him. As I attempt to get closer, the remaining scrolls slide from his hands and land on the floor.
    “Oops!” Saskia says, grabbing a scroll from the floor and skipping away.
    I crouch down and help the boy gather the fallen scrolls. “Sorry about that,” I say.
    His eyes lock on mine as we stand. He frowns, then sifts through the remaining scrolls and hands me one. “Here. This is yours.”
    “Oh.” I wrap my hand uncertainly around the rolled-up reed paper. “I thought these assignments were random.”
    “No, that one’s definitely for you.”
    Unease pricks at the back of my mind. “How do you know that?”
    He shrugs and smiles as the last few