But the door flew open with a splintering crack when the flat of my foot hit it. David stepped back with a muttered “Whoa,” but I was already moving into the house.

“Alexander!” I called. “Hey! Anybody home?”

“There’s no need for screaming, Miss Price,” Alexander said, appearing on the landing. He was wearing another suit, this one black, and smiling pleasantly at me like I hadn’t just kicked in his front door.

“I disagree,” I told him. “I usually feel pretty screamy when someone attacks my school.”

His brows drew together as he made an exaggeratedly puzzled expression. “Did I not tell you that the trials would be coming up very soon? Or are you confused as to what the trials entail?”

“Actually, yes, I am confused,” I said, my heart still pounding. Even though David was safe now, I could still feel a sort of residual ache in my chest. “Because I expected someone to come after me. I didn’t think you’d put my entire school in danger.”

Alexander gave one of those little smiles I hated so much. “Well, if we let you face the expected, that would hardly serve the point of going through trials, now would it?”

“You could have hurt innocent people,” I told him, my face hot. “You could’ve killed them. You could have made our school a smoldering pile of ash, and all for what? For some test?”

The smile vanished from Alexander’s face. “Not some test, Miss Price, I assure you,” he said, coming down a few steps, his shoulders rigid. “The most vital test a Paladin can face. And, in case this has not been made perfectly clear, I do not give a tinker’s damn about your school or the people in it. The main purpose of this exercise is to test whether or not you are an adequate Paladin for the Oracle. You passed that test today—quite well, I should add.”

“Are you going to give me a gold star?” I asked, and from behind me, I heard David’s warning: “Harper.”

“No,” I said, turning to face him. “You should be angry, too. What is the point of putting your Oracle in danger to prove that your Paladin knows her stuff?”

At that, Alexander sighed, straightening one of his cuffs. “Mr. Stark was never in danger,” he told me. “The situation was closely monitored, I assure you. Had you failed in your task, the Oracle would not have come to harm.”

I didn’t even know where to start with that, so I latched on to something else he had said. “Monitored by whom? And I smelled gasoline, so what’s up with that? Can’t you just, like, magic up some fire?”

Alexander flicked a strand of hair from his forehead, and I got the feeling he was rolling his eyes at me, like, in his soul. “The details of how we conduct these tests is not your concern.”