“What is going on in here?” a sharp voice called out.
Startled, I raised my sword up even as my head snapped around to the double doors at the back of the library. To my surprise, they were open once more and three people crowded into the doorway—Professor Metis, Coach Ajax, and Nickamedes. I spotted Daphne and Carson lurking behind them, trying to see what was going on inside.
Nickamedes stepped into the library and walked toward me, his face even paler than usual and his mouth wide open in shock. The librarian had a right to be stunned. It looked like a bomb had gone off in here. Thousands of books littered the marble floor, dozens of shelves had been knocked over, tables and chairs had been upended and sliced to ribbons by the Nemean prowler—and that was just the damage I could see from where I was standing.
And then, there was the biggie—Jasmine Ashton slumped against one of the tables, her sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling, Logan’s spear through her chest, her blood coating the floor around her. Right above her, Morgan McDougall was still stretched out on top of the table, like some comatose fairy princess waiting for her handsome prince to come and wake her up with a kiss.
I winced. This was so not going to be fun.
Sure enough, Nickamedes rounded on me and stabbed his finger in my direction. “What have you done to my library, Gwendolyn?”
There was a lot of explaining to do after that. A lot of explaining. I told Professor Metis and the others about everything that I’d found out about Jasmine’s plot to use the Bowl of Tears to control Morgan. How Jasmine had wanted to get revenge on her slutty best friend for sleeping with Samson. How Jasmine had claimed that she and her whole family were Reapers who served Loki.
I didn’t tell them about seeing Nike, though, and that the goddess had told me that I was her Champion. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about all that—or if it had even been real to start with and not something that I’d just imagined.
Sometime in the middle of it all, Morgan woke up from whatever kind of zombie trance Jasmine had put her in. The Valkyrie blinked, sat up, looked at all of us, and demanded to know what was going on—and exactly who had stolen her homecoming tiara, ruined her designer dress, and scratched up her face. Coach Ajax took her aside and tried to explain things to her. The Valkyrie still looked confused, though. Just like I felt.
While everyone was busy with Morgan, I showed Professor Metis the sword I’d grabbed out of The Case in the back of the library. The one that Nike had given back to me during my dream, vision, or whatever that had been. Sometime during the commotion, Vic had closed his eye, and he wouldn’t open it back up or talk no matter what I did or said or how I pleaded with him to show Metis that he was in fact kind of alive.
“It’s okay, Gwen,” Professor Metis said, staring at the sword with a strange look on her face. “I believe you about the sword.”
I glared down at the spot where Vic’s closed eye was. “So what do you want to do about it? Do you want to take it and stick it back in one of the artifact cases?”
Metis shook her head. “No, I think you should hang on to the sword, Gwen. At least for now. We’ve got a lot to do tonight, and it would just get lost in the mess anyway. We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
I shrugged. I supposed I could hang on to Vic. Even if the fact that the sword could look at and talk to me was kind of bizarre.
“I think you were very brave tonight, Gwen,” Metis said, her green eyes soft and kind in her face. “Trying to help Morgan. Your mother would be very proud of you.”
I frowned, wondering once again at the familiar tone in Metis’s voice when she’d talked about my mom. But then I thought of how I’d seen my mom’s face when I’d first picked up the sword, of how she had seemed to smile at me. Emotion clogged my throat, and I just nodded. I thought my mom would be proud of me, too. And that made me happier than anything else had in a long time.
Metis smiled at me, then walked over to Ajax and the still-stunned Nickamedes. The three of them huddled together, talking about who they needed to call, how long it would take to clean up the mess in the library, and what to do with Jasmine’s body—the real one—this time. I wondered if they would put it in cold storage in the morgue, like Jasmine had claimed they’d done to her other body, the illusion she’d created to fool us all.
Thirty minutes later, I stood off to one side and watched while a couple of men dressed in dark coveralls loaded Jasmine into a black body bag and zipped it shut. Despite the fact that she’d tried to kill me, I still felt sorry for the Valkyrie.
Her best friend had betrayed her, and her boyfriend had cheated on her. She’d faked her own death to make them feel guilty about what they’d done, but it had backfired, and she’d realized just how little they really cared about her. Just how little everyone had cared about her. So Jasmine had decided to make her best friend pay for everything, especially her hurt feelings.
Jasmine Ashton had been the richest, most beautiful and popular girl in our class, and she’d had everything that she could possibly want—except real friends.
Speaking of friends, I was pretty sure that I had at least a couple now, although my feelings for Logan had zoomed way past the friendship point and had turned into something else completely. The Spartan stood a few feet away, talking to Daphne and Carson about everything that had happened.
Professor Metis was over there, too, looking at Logan’s injuries. She took his hands in hers and stared into the Spartan’s eyes. After a few seconds, a golden glow enveloped Logan. As I watched, the ugly cuts on his face slowly closed shut like they’d never even been there to start with. So did the deeper, bloodier ones on his chest. Metis had told me about her magic and how she could heal people. It looked like Logan would be just fine in a few minutes.
But I didn’t feel like joining them yet. Somebody should stay with Jasmine just a little while longer.
A minute later, Daphne said something in a soft voice to the others and walked over to me. The Valkyrie stood beside me, a blank expression on her face as we watched one of the men start scrubbing Jasmine’s blood off the marble floor.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know she was your friend.”
Daphne shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think that I ever really knew Jasmine. I never would have thought that she could have done any of this.”
I wondered if anyone here at Mythos had known what Jasmine was really like—or if they would even care that she was dead for real this time.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Daphne said in a low voice. “Jasmine made her own choices, just like she always did. She wanted revenge on Morgan, and she decided to go all Reaper on everyone to get it. You and Logan were only defending yourselves. That’s the way things are here at Mythos. People come, people go, and some people die.”
“Maybe,” I replied. “But Morgan and Samson broke her heart and then lied to her about everything. They thought it was funny, like a game or something, sneaking around behind Jasmine’s back. So I still feel sorry for her, you know?”
“Yeah,” Daphne said. “I know.”
We didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
“Well,” Daphne said. “The homecoming dance is still going strong, but Carson, Logan, and I are going to head over to Carson’s dorm. He has some Dionysian wine that his dad shipped him in special from Napa.”
I raised an eyebrow. “The band geek has liquor?”
Daphne smiled. “Who knew? Seems like there’s a lot of things about Carson that I don’t know. But now, I get to find out, thanks to you. So you want to come with or what?”
“Sure,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”
Daphne nodded, and she went back over to Carson and Logan. Metis had finished healing Logan, and the three students said their good-byes to the professor, headed toward the double doors, and walked out of the library. Metis watched them a few seconds before going back over to Ajax, who was still trying to console Nickamedes about the huge mess in the library.
> No one saw me slip to the back of the library where the sword case had been. I looked at the remains of the glass and wood before slowly raising up my head.
And there she was on the second-floor balcony, the one filled with the statues of all the gods and goddesses. Nike’s statue stood right above the smashed antiques case, as if she’d been watching over it—and me—this whole time. Maybe she had. The thought comforted me the same way that hugging Grandma Frost always did.
Nike looked the same as she had when I’d seen her. A long, loose gown flowing around her body, wings arching up over her back, a cold, terrible sort of beauty filling her face. I don’t know why I’d never noticed her standing up there before. Maybe because I hadn’t been looking. Maybe because I hadn’t been ready.
“Ahem,” a voice coughed.
I looked down at the sword in my hand. I’d completely forgotten that I’d been holding on to the weapon this whole time. It was weird, but it felt almost like a natural extension of my arm now. A part of myself, even.
Vic had opened his twilight-colored eye again and was studying me intently. Well, as intently as he could with only the one eye.
“You did okay tonight, for a bloody rookie,” the sword said, his mouth moving under my hand and tickling my palm. “Although you really should get your Spartan friend to show you a few things. Because he has the potential to be a real warrior.”
“Later, Vic,” I said. “Much, much later.”
He seemed to nod. “Well then, by your leave, I think I’ll take a little nap. All this excitement has worn me out. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”
“Of course not,” I said in a kind voice. “You take your nap, Vic. We can talk about everything else later.”
I’d scarcely finished saying the words before the eye snapped shut again. I might have only imagined it, but it felt like the part of the hilt that was Vic’s mouth curved into a soft smile.
I was about to lower the sword and leave the library when something shimmered on the blade itself, above Vic’s face and the rest of the hilt. I held the sword up to the light, turning it this way and that, so I could see what had caught my eye.
It was the symbols that I’d seen before on the blade, the faint letters that I hadn’t quite been able to make out. Now, they glowed with a cold, silver fire, and, for the first time, I could clearly read the words that had been carved into the sword’s blade—Victory Always.
Of course. Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, and this was her sword.
And now, it was mine, given to me by the goddess herself to help me be her Champion.
I only hoped that I was worthy of Vic and the strange, unwavering faith that Nike seemed to have in me.
Chapter 24
What happened at the Library of Antiquities the night of the homecoming dance was the talk of Mythos Academy for the next week.
But not in the way that I expected.
Even though she didn’t seem to remember anything, Morgan McDougall still managed to take credit for everything, from thwarting Jasmine to destroying the Bowl of Tears to killing the Nemean prowler. It was like Logan and I hadn’t even been there and she’d saved everyone at the academy from a fate worse than death.
Not all of the kids believed her, though, and wild rumors spread as fast as people could text them. Everything from how a group of Reapers had planted a magic bomb on campus to drunk kids performing a crazy ritual to Jasmine coming back from the dead and destroying the library because she was pissed that she hadn’t been crowned homecoming queen before she’d been murdered. The last one was a little truer than anyone knew.
I kept my head down through the whole mess. Something told me that the fewer people who knew that I’d been involved in what had happened, the better. I still remembered the glowing red eyes that had been swirling around in the cloud of magic when I’d destroyed the Bowl of Tears. How the eyes had been fixed on me and exactly how full of hate, rage, and anger they’d been. I remembered what Jasmine had said about being a Reaper and how there were other Reapers at the academy, other kids and profs who served Loki, who wanted to free him from his prison and return the god to the mortal realm so he could bring about another Chaos War—something that Nike had told me I was somehow supposed to help her with.
Despite my unease, life returned to normal. I went to my classes and worked my assigned shifts at the library. Actually, I worked double shifts, because Nickamedes had more or less decided that I alone was responsible for the destruction of his precious library, so he was making me help him clean it from top to bottom as punishment. If I thought that Nickamedes hadn’t liked me before, he absolutely hated me now. So yeah, my world was pretty much back to normal.
I’d called Grandma Frost the night that everything had gone down at the library and told her what had happened. She’d immediately offered to come to the academy to comfort me, but I’d told her that I was okay. The truth was that I’d needed some time to myself to think about things—a lot of things. Finally, a couple of days later, I managed to get away from Nickamedes long enough to sneak off campus and go see her.
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” I asked Grandma Frost as we sat in the kitchen eating the sticky, sinfully sweet chocolate fudge that she’d just made. “That we come from a long line of warrior chicks who serve a kick-ass goddess.”
“Warrior chicks? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Grandma Frost smiled and reached for another piece of fudge, her bright scarves fluttering with the motion. She’d just been doing a reading for a client, so she was dressed in her usual Gypsy clothes.
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, you know what I mean.”
“Of course I know. That’s what makes us Gypsies, Gwen.”
I frowned. “How does being warrior chicks make us Gypsies? You never told me that before.”
Grandma Frost stared at me, a serious look on her face. “Gwen, why do you think that we can do the things that we can do? Why do you think that I can see the future or that you can touch objects and know everything about them? Where do you think that power comes from?”
I opened my mouth, but no answer came to me. I shrugged.
“We can do those things and more because Nike has gifted us with that power. Back when our very first ancestor served Nike, the goddess rewarded her by giving her the gift of seeing the future. Over the years and generations, that psychic gift has taken on many different forms, like your mother’s ability to sense the truth and your psychometry.”
“But I thought we were Gypsies,” I said. “Not warriors.”
“ ‘Gypsy’ is just another word for those who are gifted by the gods,” Grandma said. “Who have special powers and abilities like we do. We’re just as strong in our magic and just as much warriors as all the Valkyries, Amazons, and other kids you go to school with.”
So Daphne had been right after all. I was a warrior, just with a different kind of magic.
I thought for a minute about what my grandma had said. “Okay, so Nike gave us our powers. I guess I can understand that. But there are tons of other gods and goddesses out there. I mean, you should see all the statues of them in the library. So ... are there more people out there like us? More Gypsies? More people Nike has gifted?”
“Yes and no.” Grandma Frost stared at me. “There are more Gypsies out there, but each family is gifted by a single god or goddess, which means that we are the only ones gifted by Nike, just like there is only one family that has been gifted by Athena and Ares and Odin and so on.”
“Have you ever met any of the other Gypsies?” I asked.
“Yes,” Grandma Frost said in a dark tone. “But not all of them are like us.”
“What do you mean?”
She stared at me with her violet eyes. “Not all of them are good, Gwen. Some of them are lazy or indifferent or use their powers to gain wealth and power. And some of them are Reapers.”
“Reapers? Like Jasmine?”
Grandma Frost nodded. “Just lik
e Jasmine—and worse.”
So there were other people, other kids, running around just like me who had powers? And some of them were Reapers of Chaos? I shivered at the thought.
“So why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I asked. “About where our gifts come from and Reapers and Gypsies and why I got shipped off to Mythos in the first place? It would have made things ... easier for me. Simpler. At least, then I would have understood. I would have given the academy a chance. I would have believed in all the magic to start with.”
I hesitated, thinking about something else that had been on my mind lately. “Did you and Mom ever ... go to Mythos? Were you students there, too?”
Grandma gave me a sad smile. “We did. And that’s why we decided that you shouldn’t have to.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “We’re part of a dangerous world, pumpkin. Gypsies, Reapers, Loki. We’re all tangled together like a ball of string. You can’t have one without all the others. But your mom and I wanted better for you. We wanted you to have a normal life. We wanted you to grow up slowly, naturally, without always worrying about Reapers trying to kill you.”
I thought of Daphne and Carson and Logan and all the other kids at school. About how all the violence and gods and magic seemed normal to them—and about how Carson had told me that they’d all lost somebody to the Reapers. Suddenly I was grateful for what my mom and grandma had done, for protecting me as long as they had.
“But then, I picked up Paige’s hairbrush and had my magical freak-out,” I said. “Is that why Professor Metis came here?”
“Partly.” Shadows darkened Grandma Frost’s violet eyes, and she didn’t say anything for a moment. “Metis thought that it was time for you to go to Mythos, for you to learn where your power really came from and how to better control it as it grows. And I’m not as young as I used to be, Gwen. I wanted you to go to the academy, too, so you’d be safe. At least, as safe as you can be there.”
“But what about Nike?” I asked. “Did you and Mom serve as her Champions, too?”
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