Read Online The Iron Trial by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare - Free Book Online Page A

corner of it was slightly singed.
    “In the hospital,” Call said. “My leg was messed up when I was born and I was having an operation. I guess she should have just stayed in the hospital waiting room, even if the coffee was bad.” It was always like this when he was upset. It was like he couldn’t control the words coming out of his mouth.
    “You are a disgrace,” Tamara spat, no longer the chilly, restrained girl she’d been throughout the Trial. Her eyes danced with anger. “Half the legacy kids at the Magisterium have family who died on the mountain. If you keep talking that way, somebody’s going to drown you in an underground pool and no one will be sorry, including me.”
    “Tamara,” Aaron said. “We’re all in the same apprentice group. Give him a break. His mother died. He’s allowed to feel any way he wants about it.”
    “My great-aunt died there, too,” Celia said. “My parents talk about her all the time, but I never knew her. I’m not mad at you, Call. I just wish it didn’t happen to either of us. To any of them.”
    “Well, I’m mad,” said a guy in the back. Call thought his name might be Rafe. He was tall, with a thicket of curly dark hair, and he wore a T-shirt with a grinning skull on it that glowed a faint green in the dim light.
    Call felt even worse. He almost said something apologetic to Celia and Rafe, until Tamara turned to Aaron and said fiercely: “But it’s like he doesn’t care. They were heroes.”
    “No, they weren’t,” Call burst out, before Aaron could speak. “They were victims. They got killed because of magic , and it can’t be fixed. Not even by your Enemy of Death, right?”
    There was a shocked silence. Even people who had been involved in other conversations in other parts of the bus turned around and gaped at Call.
    His father had blamed the other mages for his mother’s death. And he trusted his dad. He did. But with all of their eyes on him, Call wasn’t sure what to think.
    The silence was broken only by the sound of Master Rockmaple snoring. The bus had turned onto a bumpy dirt path.
    Very quietly, Celia said, “I hear there are Chaos-ridden animals near the school. From the Enemy’s experiments.”
    “Like horses?” Drew asked.
    “I hope not,” Tamara said with a shudder. Drew looked disappointed. “You wouldn’t want a Chaos-ridden horse if you had one. Chaos-ridden creatures are the Enemy’s servants. They’ve got a piece of the void in them and it makes them smarter than other animals, but bloodthirsty and insane. Only the Enemy or one of his servants can control them.”
    “So they’d be like evil-possessed zombie horses?” Drew asked.
    “Not exactly. You’d know them by their eyes. Their eyes coruscate — pale, with spiraling colors inside of them — but otherwise they just look regular. That’s the scary part,” put in Gwenda. “I hope we don’t have to go outside much.”
    “I do,” said Tamara. “I hope we learn how to recognize and kill them. I want to do that .”
    “Oh, yeah,” Call said under his breath. “ I’m the crazy one. Nothing to worry about at the ole Magisterium. Evil pony school, here we come.”
    But Tamara wasn’t paying attention to him. She was leaning out from her seat, listening to Celia say, “I hear there’s a new type of Chaos-ridden where you can’t tell from the eyes. The creature doesn’t even know what it is until the Enemy makes it do what he wants. So, like, your cat could be spying on you or —”
    The bus stopped with a jerk. For a second, Call thought maybe they’d gone to another gas station, but then Master Rufus rose to his feet. “We’ve arrived,” he said. “Please file off the bus in an orderly fashion.” And for a few minutes, everything was really ordinary, as if Call were just on a field trip. Kids grabbed their luggage and bags and jostled toward the front of the bus. Call got off just after Aaron and, since he didn’t have to collect any baggage, was the