The Glass Gauntlet

"Ronan Truelove barely survived his first encounter with his father and the Bend Sinister. Now, he's determined to become one of the Blood Guard, a sword-wielding secret society sworn to protect thirty-six pure souls crucial to the world's survival. Eager to prove he's got what it takes, Ronan is sent on his first mission with his friends Greta and Sammy to visit a weird-sounding school and take a series of tests called the Glass Gauntlet. Paper and pencils and nerdy scholarship--where's the life-or-death challenge in that? But the Glass Gauntlet is actually something much more dangerous: head-to-head competitions against ruthless opponents"--Amazon.com.