Vic’s eye snapped open, and he regarded me for several long seconds. “It’s not your fault, Gwen. None of this is your fault. Even Champions are not infallible.”
Even Vic was being nice to me, which let me know just how royally I’d screwed up.
“Thanks, Vic,” I mumbled and hung the sword on his spot on the wall.
The sword kept looking at me, and I flopped down onto the bed to avoid his steady stare. Loki, Vivian, Preston, Nott, Logan. All the images from the last day swirled through my mind, adding to my guilt. I don’t know how long I would have lain there staring up at the pointed ceiling if a soft, familiar whimper hadn’t caught my attention.
“Nott?” I whispered, sitting up.
The room was empty.
Then, I remembered. Nott was gone, and I’d seen the wolf die, held her in my arms while it happened. It was just my imagination, just my Gypsy gift playing a cruel, cruel trick on me. I started to lie back down on the bed when the whimper sounded again.
I looked around the room again and noticed something moving in the pile of blankets that Nott had been sleeping on. It looked small, but I still grabbed Vic. Then, I tiptoed over to the blankets, leaned down, and carefully pulled one of them back.
A newborn wolf pup whimpered up at me.
My mouth dropped open, and all I could do was just stand there and stare at it. How—why—when—My jumbled thoughts didn’t make any sense, but the answer finally came to me.
“Nott,” I whispered.
The wolf must have had her pup while I’d been kidnapped. Then, somehow, someway, she’d sensed that something was wrong and had come after me. Grandma Frost had said the wolf and I had some kind of connection, but I’d never expected this.
In my hand, Vic’s eye narrowed as he peered down at the wolf.
“Great,” the sword muttered. “Just bloody great. Now, there’s another one of them.”
“Shut up, Vic,” I said, putting the sword down and going back over to the pup.
The wolf pup had fuzzy, ash-gray fur and looked like it weighed maybe two pounds. Since I didn’t know what else to do, I tentatively stretched my hand out toward it. I didn’t know if it could smell me or not, if it had any idea who I was or what had happened to its mom, but the pup nestled its head under my hand and licked my fingers. All sorts of feelings flashed through my mind. The pup was confused and scared and hungry.
They were some of the most beautiful emotions I’d ever felt.
The feelings smashed at the cold, hard shell that had coated my heart ever since Nott had died, cracking it wide open. A smile spread across my face, and tears streamed down my cheeks. I wrapped the pup back up in the blanket, then fumbled for my phone. I was too excited to text, so I hit the number on my speed dial. She picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Grandma!” I shrieked. “You’ll never guess what’s happened!”
“Pumpkin?” Grandma Frost asked. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
I started to answer her, but that’s when the wolf pup opened its eyes for the briefest second, for the barest moment of time. What I saw took my breath away and made me wonder if I was dreaming. The phone slipped from my fingers and thumped to the floor.
“Gwen? Gwen!” Grandma’s voice rang out through the phone, but I wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.
Instead, I was looking at the wolf. Once again, the pup opened its eyes for just a split second. I hadn’t been wrong before, and I wasn’t just imagining things.
The pup’s eyes were the same color as Vic’s—the soft color of twilight.
“A Fenrir wolf pup,” Professor Metis said in wonder an hour later. “I’ve never seen one of them before.”
Metis was in my room, along with Coach Ajax, and the three of us were staring at the wolf. Metis had brought over a cardboard box, which I’d lined with blankets. The professor had let me feed the pup using a bottle full of milk, and now, the pup—a girl—was sleeping. I reached down and stroked the wolf’s tiny ears, and the pup’s contentment filled my mind.
“Do you suppose that’s why Nott came here?” I asked. “So I could take care of it? Do you think she knew she was going to die?”
Ajax shrugged his massive shoulders. “The world and the gods work in mysterious ways, Gwen. But Nott left something of herself behind, and we’ll take good care of it. You can count on that.”
“Hmph,” Vic harrumphed from his spot up on the wall. “It’s going to be a lot of trouble if you ask me, and it will shed everywhere.”
I glared at Vic and started to tell him to be quiet again, when I realized that the sword’s face had softened and that there was a gleam of a tear in his eye.
“I suppose the little bugger is kind of cute, though. At least for something covered in fur,” Vic mumbled.
He sniffed a few times, and I got the impression that he would have reached up and wiped the tear out of his eye if he, you know, actually had had a hand to do that with. So I grabbed a tissue out of the box on my desk and dabbed at the sword’s eye with it.
Vic smiled at me, and then the two of us turned our attention to the wolf pup once more.
“What are you going to name her?” Metis said.
I thought about it for a second. “Nyx.”
“The Greek goddess of the night?” Ajax asked.
I nodded. “Yes, because she came out of the darkness just like Nott did.”
In the box, the pup stirred a little, almost as if she could hear the sound of her mom’s name, even though Metis had said that the wolf would be blind and deaf for at least a few days.
I kept right on stroking her tiny, silky ears, though, just like Nott would have wanted me to.
Chapter 27
I stayed with Nyx for the rest of the day, marveling at how small and perfect she was. Daphne and Carson came over, too, and the three of us just sat there looking at the pup. I thought about calling Logan, but every time I picked up the phone, Preston’s face filled my mind instead. I just couldn’t get over my fear I’d do the same thing to Logan that I had to the Reaper.
But there was something else I had to do, so I asked my friends to feed Nyx again while I went out for a while.
I walked across campus to the Library of Antiquities. Everything was normal inside. Students laughed, talked, and gossiped on the first floor, while Raven sold snacks and drinks at her coffee cart. Nickamedes stood behind the checkout counter, helping Mrs. Banba find some reference material. He, Metis, and Ajax had decided to go about their daily routines and pretend everything was normal until they heard from the Powers That Were on how they wanted to handle the news of Loki’s escape.
I noticed the librarian staring at me, but I ignored him and climbed the stairs to the second floor. I stopped and looked down at all the kids studying below. They had no idea how much their world had changed overnight. I thought of the attack a few days ago at the Crius Coliseum. There’d been so much death, destruction, and deception already. And now, it would only get worse since Loki was free. There was a war coming—a war I had no idea how we were going to win.
I walked around the circular balcony until I came to a particular statue in the Pantheon—Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. She looked the same as always, although her face seemed to be a little sad today, with the corners of her mouth turned down instead of up. I wondered if it was because I’d failed her so miserably.
“I’m sorry,” I said, tears filling my eyes once again. “So sorry. For everything.”
I stood there, hoping the goddess would respond to me, but of course, she didn’t. The gods only appeared to mortals on their terms. Still, I knew that Nike would come to me again, so I sat down beside the statue to wait.
I don’t know how long I sat there, waiting for Nike to move, to blink, to speak, to just do something, anything to let me know that all hope wasn’t lost.
But nothing happened.
Down below, Nickamedes announced that the library was closing for the night
, and the few students remaining inside packed up their things and left. Not wanting to spend the night trapped in the library, I got to my feet, trooped down the steps, and headed toward the double doors on the first floor. I was just about to step through them when a voice called out behind me.
“Gwendolyn? A moment, please.”
I sighed and turned around. Nickamedes stood behind me, holding something in his hand. He gestured at me, and I walked over toward him.
“What?” I mumbled. “Going to lecture me about what a mess I’ve made of everything? You don’t have to. Trust me, I know how bad things are right now.”
Nickamedes shook his head. “No, Gwendolyn, I’m not going to lecture you. I think you held up remarkably well, all things considered. I don’t know that I would have been as brave as you were.”
I blinked. The librarian never complimented me—never. I’d thought he’d rant and rave about how I’d pretty much doomed the entire world, since that was exactly what I’d done. Instead, the librarian gestured for me to take a seat at one of the study tables. Bewildered, I did as he asked, and Nickamedes pulled out a chair and sat across from me. It occurred to me that this was the first time the librarian hadn’t stared down his nose at me. But instead of looking at me, he kept his eyes on the thin piece of paper in his hand, like it was the most important thing he’d ever seen.
Finally, Nickamedes cleared his throat. “A few days ago, you asked me why I hated you so much.”
“And now you’re going to tell me? Terrific,” I muttered.
The librarian shook his head. “No, I’m not going to tell you because I don’t hate you, Gwendolyn. I never have.”
“Then what’s with all the attitude every time I come in here? Because you sure act like you hate me.”
Nickamedes sighed. “It’s ... complicated.”
“Most things are at Mythos,” I said in a snide tone.
I would have said something else snarky if I hadn’t noticed the pained look on the librarian’s face. “What’s the matter? What have I done wrong this time?”
Nickamedes finally looked up at me. “Nothing. You haven’t done anything wrong, but I admit that it’s been ... difficult for me to work with you, Gwendolyn. And your perpetual tardiness isn’t the only reason.”
He drew in another breath. “I knew your mother, you see. Back when we both went to Mythos. We were actually quite good friends, Grace, Aurora, and I.”
Nickamedes flipped over the piece of paper he’d been clutching, and I realized that it was actually a photo—one of my mom, Metis, and Nickamedes sitting on the library steps, laughing about something.
My breath caught in my throat. “Where—where did you get that?”
“It slipped out of your mother’s diary when you dropped your bag in the library a few nights ago,” he said. “The photo slid underneath one of the tables. I tried to give it back to you then, but you’d already left.”
So that’s what he’d been calling out to me about that night. I’d thought he’d just wanted to gloat about Logan’s dumping me.
“You were friends with my mom?” I asked. “Really?”
He nodded, and a smile curved his lips. “Really. Grace, Aurora, and I were as thick as thieves. We had big dreams back then, you see, of how we were going to take on the Reapers and change the world, how we were going to make it safe for all the other warriors out there, so that maybe we wouldn’t have to be warriors anymore.”
“What happened?” I asked, sensing the story didn’t have a happy ending.
Nickamedes shrugged. “We did fight Reapers, the whole time we were at Mythos, and Grace and Aurora were chosen as Champions. But then, things started to change. We all started to change. By the time graduation rolled around, we weren’t the same people that we were in this photo. Your mother was ... tired. Tired of fighting Reapers, tired of being a Champion, tired of all the blood and death and responsibility.”
I knew exactly how she had felt. I’d only been Nike’s Champion for a few months, but it seemed that no matter what I did, no matter how hard I fought, the Reapers just kept coming and coming and coming. And now, with Loki free, it would only get worse—so much worse.
“Anyway, right before graduation, your mother and I ... argued,” Nickamedes continued. “I wanted to join up with other members of the Pantheon. The Pantheon has its own police force, you see, with members stationed all over the world, dedicated to finding Reapers and putting them in prison where they belong. Joining their ranks had been my dream as long as I’d been at Mythos. It had been Grace’s dream, too.”
“But she changed,” I said, picking up on his feelings. “And she didn’t want to fight anymore, did she? After graduation.”
Nickamedes shook his head. “No, and I couldn’t understand why, since she was a Champion, since she had so much power, so much magic. I said some things to her... . Well, let’s just say they weren’t very nice. Basically, I called her a quitter and told her that she didn’t deserve to be Nike’s Champion.”
I winced. “Sounds kind of harsh to me.”
Nickamedes gave me a sad smile. “It was, and I regret it more than you’ll ever know. We went our separate ways after graduation. Eventually, I decided to come back here and look after the artifacts in the library.”
“And my mom became a cop in the mortal world.”
“I guess she fulfilled our dream in a way after all,” Nickamedes said. “I thought about her quite often, wondering where she was and what had become of her, if she was living the Reaper-free life she’d wanted. Then one day last spring, Aurora came to me and told me that Grace had been murdered. That she had a daughter and that you were going to start attending Mythos in the fall. I immediately told Aurora that I wanted you to work here in the library with me.”
I frowned. “But why? Why would you do that?”
Especially given how you’ve treated me. I didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air between us, angry and unspoken.
“Because you’re Grace’s daughter,” Nickamedes said in a quiet voice. “And I loved your mother very much.”
The revelation stunned me. Uptight, prissy Nickamedes and my—my—mom. Together? As a couple? In love? It didn’t make any sense. Then again, I supposed Logan and I didn’t make much sense either. The fierce Spartan warrior and the Gypsy girl who was just learning how to fight.
“I’m sorry I’ve acted the way I have toward you,” Nickamedes said. “Our breakup was rather ... messy, as you can imagine. I’d thought I’d gotten over your mother, or at least gotten over my anger at her for leaving, but then you came to Mythos. And you look so much like her, especially when you smile. More than that, you’re smart and strong, just like she was too.”
The librarian’s face softened, and for a moment, I got a glimpse of what he had been like when he was younger—of the guy my mom had fallen for all those years ago. Then, Nickamedes cleared his throat again, and the image vanished.
“I suppose I’ve been taking my anger at your mother out on you, Gwendolyn, and that’s not fair. I wanted to apologize for that. It won’t happen again.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. Nickamedes loving my mom; my mom wanting a normal life; my mom quitting as Nike’s Champion. It was a lot to take in, and a thousand different questions filled my mind.
“Anyway,” Nickamedes said. “I thought you should know why I’ve treated you the way I have, and I wanted you to have this.”
He held out the picture, and my fingers trembled as I took it. My psychometry kicked in immediately, and I felt all the things my mom and Nickamedes had, since they’d both handled the photo. Mainly, I got flashes of my mom’s fond memories and her aching regret over the way things had ended between the two of them. They were the same feelings Nickamedes had, although his were now mixed with the determination to do right by me—to protect me the same way Metis had sworn she would.
“Thank you for this, but I think you need it more than I do.” I held the photo out
to him. “Keep it as a reminder of my mom. I think she’d want that.”
Nickamedes nodded and took back the picture. His fingers lingered on my mom’s face, and I could tell he was thinking about her again and wishing things had been different between them. Finally, the librarian raised his gaze to mine once more, his blue eyes that were so much like Logan’s.
“And now, for the last thing I wanted to say to you tonight. You can’t give up, Gwendolyn,” Nickamedes said. “You have to keep on fighting just like the rest of us do.”
I sighed. “What’s the point? Loki’s free because of me. Because I failed to protect the Helheim Dagger, he and the other Reapers are going to kill people. You know, start another Chaos War, plunge the world into eternal darkness, that sort of thing.”
I’d been kind of out of it back in the forest, but I knew that Oliver had found the dagger beside Preston’s body. I had no idea what would happen to the artifact now. Maybe the Powers That Were would put it on display here in the Library of Antiquities as a reminder of my epic failure.
“You listen to me, Gwendolyn Cassandra Frost,” Nickamedes said in a sharp tone.
I blinked, wondering how the librarian knew my middle name, but I decided not to ask him since he was glaring at me—again.
“You’re Nike’s Champion just like your mother was before you,” the librarian snapped. “And I will not have Grace Frost’s good name dragged through the mud because you’re too busy moping and brooding to do what needs to be done. There’s a war coming, and we’re going to do our best to win it, which means you need to start polishing up that talking sword of yours. Do you understand me?”
Maybe it was Nickamedes’s prissy tone or the fierce look on his face. Or maybe it was because I’d felt all the same things he did for my mom—all the love and all the aching regret. But for this moment, this one instant, he gave me a flicker of hope that maybe it wasn’t too late. That maybe we could figure out a way to defeat Loki after all.
Dark Frost: A Mythos Academy Novel Page 25
