Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  “Um, so what do you need me to do?” I asked. “Because you look pretty perfect to me already.”

  Daphne’s face creased into a smile. “Do you really think so? Do you really like the dress?”

  I came inside and shut the door behind me. “I really do. And I think that Carson will, too.”

  Daphne beamed at me, then turned and went over to stare at herself in the mirror over her vanity table once more.

  I used the opportunity to study the Valkyrie’s room. She had the same dorm room furniture that we all did, more or less. A bed, a vanity table, a desk, a TV, some bookcases. But Daphne had meant it before at lunch when she’d said that she liked pink, because it was everywhere. The comforter on her bed, the pillows, the curtains. All some shade of pink. Even the walls and ceiling were painted a pale, pearly pink.

  But the strange thing was that there were also tons of computers in the room. I counted three monitors, a couple of laptops, and some plastic boxes that looked like servers—and that was just on her oversize desk stuck in the back corner. Wow. I’d thought her being in the Tech Club was just a fluke or something, but it looked like Daphne was really into the computer stuff. A Valkyrie princess computer geek—who would have thought? I would have had a hard time believing all the equipment was hers—if the computers, monitors, and servers hadn’t all been covered with pink cases and Hello Kitty stickers.

  Daphne smoothed down her dress and turned to look at me. I stood there in the middle of the room, feeling awkward and underdressed once again.

  “So ... what do you need me to do, exactly? Because you’re already dressed and stuff.”

  Daphne shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I just wanted ... somebody to talk to before Carson comes and picks me up.”

  “He’s a nice guy, Carson,” I said, sitting down on the bed. “You two make a cute couple.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I do.”

  We fell silent, each one of us trying to figure out what we could talk to the other person about. This friend thing was harder than I remembered it being. A lot harder.

  “So ... ,” Daphne said, still standing so her dress wouldn’t get wrinkled. “I take it that you’re not going to the dance. At least, please tell me you’re not going in that awful hoodie.”

  My eyes narrowed. Catty I could do. Being nice was what was so difficult. “I like my hoodie just fine, thank you very much. But don’t worry. I’m not wearing it to the dance because I’m not going. No one asked me, as if you hadn’t guessed. Like you pointed out at lunch today, I don’t have any friends at Mythos, much less a boyfriend.”

  It might have been my imagination, but I thought Daphne winced a little at my harsh words.

  The Valkyrie hesitated. “You know, you could come along with Carson and me... .”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And ruin your first big date? I don’t think so. Even I’m not that much of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, it might be a little awkward.”

  “You think?”

  We both looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and laughed. That broke the ice between us, and we started talking about all the juicy gossip that we’d heard today. About who was going with whom to the homecoming dance, who would get drunk before it was halfway over, and who was planning to go All the Way tonight with their boyfriends and girlfriends.

  And I suddenly realized that I felt almost ... normal. Almost like I still went to a normal school with normal kids—and even that I was normal myself. It felt ... nice ... fun, even.

  Finally, we quit gossiping and giggling about the other kids, and Daphne gave me a sly look.

  “So what’s going on with you and Logan Quinn?” she asked.

  I blinked. “What do you mean?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I mean the two of you looked awfully cozy last night at the bonfire. And he did go all Spartan and kill a Nemean prowler that was trying to eat you. Which is totally sexy, if you ask me.”

  “Logan Quinn doesn’t strike me as a guy who gets cozy with a girl unless he wants something from her. Like the chance to sign her mattress,” I said in a dry tone. “Yeah, he saved my life last night, saved me from that awful prowler. But you should have seen him. It was almost like he was happy that it was trying to kill him. That he actually enjoyed fighting it. I think he killed it more for himself than for me. Like to prove to himself that he could or something.”

  Daphne shrugged. “Well, he is a Spartan. Killing things is what they do. What did you expect? That he’d send you flowers and write you bad poetry? That dead Nemean prowler is pretty much as close to a stuffed animal as you’re ever going to get from a Spartan like Logan Quinn.”

  I gave her a blank look. “What does being a Spartan have to do with stuffed animals?”

  Daphne sighed. “You’ve been here, what, two months and you still don’t get it, do you, Gwen? How things work around here? Why we’re all really here?”

  I shrugged.

  Daphne stared at me, her black eyes serious in her pretty face. “We’re all here, all of us—Valkyries, Spartans, Amazons, and all the rest of us—because we’re magic. Because we’re descended from myth. You know all those stories that talk about how brave the Spartans were at the Battle of Thermopylae? How such a small group of them held off all those thousands and thousands of other warriors? Well, it’s not just a story. It’s real. Just like the ancient Valkyries escorted the dead to Valhalla, just like the Trojans totally got punked by the Greeks and that wooden horse during the Trojan War. All the myths, all the legends, all the magic is real. And it’s all a part of us, a piece of us. We keep it alive, and we use it to keep Chaos and darkness from swallowing the world.”

  A week ago, I would have laughed at her. But now I was actually starting to believe her, to believe in all the myths, magic, and monsters. Too many weird things had happened the past few days for me not to. Jasmine’s murder. The Bowl of Tears disappearing. The statue almost hitting Morgan and Samson. The prowler stalking me, then evaporating in a cloud of smoke after Logan killed it. That strange sword in the library that I couldn’t stop staring at.

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe Logan is a Spartan and that explains why he went all berserker last night. Maybe you’re a Valkyrie who can crush diamonds with your bare hands and shoot pink sparks off the ends of your fingers. But all that doesn’t tell me anything about me. I’m the only Gypsy here. That I know of, anyway. The only one who isn’t like the rest of you. I’m not a great warrior. All I do is touch stuff and see things. I don’t fit in with everyone else.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Daphne said. “You have magic just like the rest of us do.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know why my magic makes me a Gypsy and not something else. Do you?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve heard about Gypsies over the years, but nothing concrete about your powers or anything. I even asked around school after you first approached me about stealing Carson’s bracelet, but none of the other kids knew anything either. Neither did the professors that I asked. Or if they knew, they wouldn’t tell me. I always thought Gypsies were warriors, like Valkyries, Amazons, and the rest of us. Just with a different kind of magic.”

  “Until you met me,” I said in a bitter voice. “And realized just how much of a warrior I’m not.”

  Daphne tilted her head to one side. “How did you even wind up here in the first place? I’ve been wondering about that.”

  I told her the story about Paige Forrest and how her stepdad had been abusing her. And how seeing all that had led to my mom’s death.

  “The next thing I know, Professor Metis is knocking on my Grandma Frost’s front door telling me that I’m going to Mythos Academy this fall,” I said, my voice still angry and bitter. “But she never told me why. I asked her the other day, and she still didn’t give me a straight answer. My grandma knows something about all this, too, but she’s not talking either. She just keeps telling me to give the academy a chance, that things will get better for me.”
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br />   “I don’t know your grandma, but Metis is a crafty one,” Daphne said. “She’s not quite like the other professors. Some people say that she’s really a Champion.”

  “A Champion? What’s that?”

  Daphne rolled her eyes. “You really need to pay more attention in myth-history class, Gwen. After the Chaos War ended, all the gods and goddesses agreed to a truce. That basically, they wouldn’t use their powers against each other or interfere with things here in the mortal realm. But, of course, none of them could just sit back and do nothing, so they created Champions instead as a kind of loophole to the truce. Champions are people who are chosen by the gods to be, well, their Champions. Their heroes—or villains, depending on which god it is. A good Champion helps carry out the god’s desires and keep bad stuff from happening. Champions kill Reapers, guard artifacts, or even mentor other people and help them understand their magic. It’s dangerous work, being a Champion. Most of them don’t live too long.”

  Well, that answered my question about why the gods and goddesses didn’t fight things out among themselves. They’d agreed not to and were using the rest of us to do their bidding instead, which was so totally Clash of the Titans. Being a Champion sounded exactly like something that Metis would do. Not the killing or guarding part, but the mentoring others. Although if the professor had been trying to do that for me, it wasn’t sinking in yet.

  I shifted on the bed. Maybe everything that Daphne had said was true, but it still didn’t explain why I was here and what I had to do with myths, gods, the Chaos War, or any of the rest of it. I was just a Gypsy girl who touched stuff and saw things. Hardly special at all. Not like Logan and his killer warrior skills, or Daphne and her incredible strength and sparking fingers.

  Some kind of alarm beeped, and Daphne’s black eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of the room. “It’s seven o’clock already. Carson is probably waiting for me downstairs. How do I look?”

  She twirled around, making her dress swing out in an arc around her, before she smoothed it back down into place.

  “You look beautiful,” I said in a truthful voice. “Now go have a great time.”

  Daphne smiled at me, grabbed her purse off the bed, and went over to the door. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder at me.

  “Thanks for coming over, Gwen,” she said. “I had fun.”

  I smiled at her. “Me too.”

  “Can I call you later?” the Valkyrie asked in a shy voice. “If it’s not too late?”

  “You’d better,” I warned in a tough voice. “Because I want to hear all about what a good kisser Carson is.”

  Daphne laughed and held out her hand. I got up, and she looped her arm through mine, resting her hand on my hoodie sleeve.

  Arm in arm, we left her room, the beginnings of a real friendship shimmering in the air between us, just like the bright pink sparks fluttering up from the Valkyrie’s fingertips.

  Chapter 17

  I escorted Daphne down the stairs. Carson was waiting in the main common room.

  He wore a classic tux that made him look like a tall, lanky penguin, but I didn’t say anything to Daphne. Because the band geek’s face lit up at the sight of the Valkyrie, just like hers did when she saw him. More pink sparks flashed around Daphne’s fingers, and if Carson’s grin got any wider, his lips would pop off his face.

  “Hi,” Daphne said in a soft voice, stopping in front of him.

  “Hi,” Carson whispered back. “You look beautiful.”

  Daphne blushed. Carson kept staring at her. Neither one moved or said another word. Finally, I cleared my throat to make the band geek get on with things.

  “Oh! This is for you.” Carson jerked forward and held out a plastic box with a single pink rose inside, as if he’d just remembered that he’d been holding it all along.

  “Thank you.” Daphne took out the flower, handed me the empty box, and slipped the simple corsage over her wrist.

  I got a little flash off the box, an image of Carson clutching it in his sweaty hands and wondering if he’d picked out the right color rose. It was a sweet, nervous feeling, that he’d be worried so much about something so small. I could feel that Carson wanted everything to be perfect tonight, right down to the corsage.

  The two of them stood there staring at each other, before Carson cleared his throat.

  “Well, I guess we should be going. We wouldn’t want to be late.” He frowned. “Or would we? What’s cooler?”

  Daphne laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way over to the dining hall.”

  Carson held out his arm, and Daphne slipped hers through his. The Valkyrie turned to wave at me; then the two of them left the dorm. I watched them go and smiled. They really did make a cute couple.

  Now that they were gone, I had no reason to stick around Valhalla Hall. But instead of heading over to my own dorm, I turned and walked back up the stairs to the second floor. Everyone had left for the dance already, and the dorm was still and quiet, like no one lived here at all.

  Nobody saw me use my driver’s license to pop the lock and slip back into Jasmine’s room.

  It looked exactly the same as it had the first time that I’d been in here a few days ago. Bed. Vanity table. Desk. TV. Bookshelves. I pulled out Jasmine’s desk chair and sat down, still holding the empty corsage box in my hands. My eyes scanned over the room, hoping for a clue or a vibe or something that would tell me what had really happened to her.

  But everything was exactly the way that I’d left it during my last break-in. Pictures of Jasmine stilled lined the mirror over the vanity table. Makeup still cluttered the glass surface. And her bookcase was still full of reference books with titles like Common Valkyrie Powers, Mastering Your Magic, and Manipulating Magical Illusions.

  I stared at the books a minute. Something about them stirred a faint memory in the back of my mind, some vague, half-formed thought. My eyes kept going back to the last book. Illusions, illusions ... it was something to do with illusions and magic. Something that I’d seen or felt or heard someone say. But even as I reached for it, I could feel it slipping away. Whatever it was, the memory, thought, or idea wasn’t ready to come to the surface of my mind yet. Sooner or later, it would, though. They always did.

  I didn’t know why I’d come in here. What I thought I’d find, if anything. It just seemed ... sad. That someone could be forgotten so easily so soon, even if Jasmine hadn’t been the nicest person at Mythos Academy. Nobody ever wanted to be forgotten.

  But there were no real answers to be found in the quiet room, so I got up and left.

  I made it back to my own dorm, went inside the turret, and closed the door. Everyone who lived here was at the dance, too, and my dorm was just as quiet as Valhalla Hall. I was probably the only person left inside. Alone again. Naturally.

  I flopped down onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. There were things that I could do. Read the last of the new comics that I had, take a shower, watch some lame reality show, eat the rest of Grandma Frost’s almond sugar cookies.

  I still had that report due for Metis’s myth-history class, the one where we had to pick a god or goddess and write an essay on them. Maybe I’d choose Nike, I thought. The Greek goddess of victory seemed to be in the thick of things when it came to Loki, Reapers, and the Chaos War.

  Instead of reaching for my myth-history book, I found myself sitting up and staring at my closed closet door. After a few seconds, I heaved myself up off the bed, went over, and opened it. My usual assortment of jeans, graphic T-shirts, hoodies, and sneakers filled the closet, along with a few other things. My heavy purple plaid winter coat. A couple of pairs of dressy black pants. Thick gray fishermen’s sweaters for when the weather got really cold. The scratchy black dress that I’d worn to my mom’s funeral.

  I didn’t have a black dress back then, and Grandma Frost had taken me shopping the day before the burial to get one. I’d picked out the very first dress that I’d seen in my size, not caring what it
looked like or who saw me in it. I’d hated the fact that I’d had to wear it at all, that my mom was dead and never coming back.

  My fingers hovered over the fabric, but I didn’t touch it. I didn’t want to remember that day and how miserable I’d felt in that dress, how devastated I was that my mom was gone forever because she’d been trying to help one of my friends instead of staying home where she belonged with me. How her accident was all my fault because I’d been so damn nosy and so determined to learn another girl’s secret. I never wanted to put that dress on again. Just looking at it made my stomach twist with a sick, guilty feeling, like I was responsible for my mom’s death instead of some anonymous drunk driver... .

  I slid the metal hanger aside, careful not to touch the black fabric, and pulled out the garment buried in the very back of the closet—the prom dress that my mom and I had bought the weekend before she’d died.

  It was a curious shade, somewhere between purple and gray—that same soft violet color that my mom always teasingly claimed my eyes were. The gown had a kind of Greek goddess vibe to it—cap sleeves with a high empire waist and a long, flowing skirt. Silver sequins ran across the dress in a slim band where the waist was and rimmed the circular neck, adding a bit of soft shine to it.

  I drew in a breath, pulled out the dress, and brushed my fingers against the fabric.

  There were no weak feelings, no faint flashes, associated with the dress. Instead, all at once, I was assaulted with images. Mom and me laughing in the food court at the mall over the chocolate milk shakes we’d ordered for lunch. The two of us flipping through rack after rack of dresses, trying to find just the right one. Always coming up empty, but still having a good time together. Mom deciding to try a little boutique she knew across town as a last resort. And finally, the look on my mom’s face when she’d spied this dress and shown it to me.