“Sorry, Aurora,” Coach Ajax said, sticking his head into the room. “I couldn’t keep her out any longer.”
“Gwen!” Daphne said, rushing over to me.
She bumped Nickamedes out of the way, her Valkyrie strength pushing the librarian back several steps. He gave her a sour look, and his mouth pinched down into a frown.
Daphne grabbed my hand, and her concern for me flooded my body. It was a nice feeling—in a panicked, anxious kind of way.
“I’m fine,” I said, squeezing her hand tight. “Really, I’m fine.”
Her face relaxed a little bit. “You’d damn well better be. You’re my best friend.”
“And you’re mine,” I whispered back, hot tears stinging my eyes. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Daphne gripped my hand even tighter, her Valkyrie strength crunching my bones together, but I didn’t pull away. I knew I’d have bruises tomorrow, but I didn’t care. Right now, I was happy to let her warm, happy relief flood my body. We stayed like that for a few seconds, before the Valkyrie’s gaze flicked around the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s with the big professor powwow?”
Metis smoothed a stray piece of her black hair back into her bun. “Nickamedes and I were just filling Gwen in on what happened during the avalanche and what we think might have caused it.”
“You mean the explosion,” Daphne corrected her. “Somebody totally set a bomb off on top of the mountain, didn’t they? I mean, the flames were just shooting up and up into the air like they were never going to stop.”
Nickamedes and Metis exchanged another look, obviously debating how much they wanted to tell Daphne—and whether they thought the Valkyrie would spread the gossip around to all the other students. But they decided to trust her or just realized that I would tell her later anyway, because Nickamedes finally nodded.
“Yes, we do believe it was some kind of deliberate explosion meant to specifically cause the avalanche,” the librarian said.
Daphne rolled her eyes. “Well, of course, it was. When Reapers try to kill people, they always bring out the big guns.”
Busted. I was totally, completely busted.
I knew the second the words came out of Daphne’s mouth that there was no taking them back—or wiggling my way out of an explanation.
“Reapers?” Nickamedes asked in a sharp tone. “What Reapers?”
Daphne frowned, a puzzled expression on her pretty face. “The Reaper. The one who’s trying to kill Gwen. The one who almost ran her over with a car and then took a shot at her in the Library of Antiquities the other night ...”
The Valkyrie’s voice drifted off as she realized just how intently Nickamedes and Metis were staring at her. She looked at them a second before turning her gaze to me. “You didn’t tell them about the Reaper? You told me you were going to talk to Metis!”
“And I changed my mind,” I muttered. “I have the right to do that, you know. Free will and all. We talked about it just the other day in myth-history class.”
Daphne put her hands on her hips and glared at me. The pink sparks flashing around her fingertips crackled and coalesced into tiny streaks of lightning, showing me just how pissed she was at me right now.
“And I told you that you don’t mess around when it comes to Reapers, especially when one of them is trying to kill you,” the Valkyrie snapped.
Metis stepped around the hospital bed and put a hand on Daphne’s arm. “I think the two of you need to tell us what’s going on. Right now.”
Yep, there was no way out of this—not with the professor staring at me, her green eyes sharp and narrow behind her silver glasses. And especially not with Nickamedes glaring at me, his own gaze as blue and cold as the snow on the mountain.
I sighed and told them the whole story, from almost being run over outside Grandma Frost’s house to the arrow in the library to the Fenrir wolf that had been lurking around the ski resort and finally, to the avalanche. When I was finished, Metis called Coach Ajax into the room and made me repeat the whole thing over again to him.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before?” Ajax asked when I was finished.
I shifted in the bed, feeling the weight of the professors’ accusing stares on my chest, as hard and heavy as the wolf’s paws had been earlier. “Because I didn’t have any proof. Nobody saw the car, the arrow, or even the Fenrir wolf but me. I didn’t want you all to think I was being hysterical or paranoid or something.”
Nickamedes crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know how much danger you’ve put everyone in, Gwendolyn? If you even suspected that a Reaper of Chaos was running around the academy, you should have told one of your professors immediately. Not stupidly thought that you could handle it by yourself.”
I really, really wanted to point out the small fact that the mystery Reaper hadn’t actually, you know, killed me yet. That in my own way, I had handled it. At least, enough to stay alive these past few days. But then I looked at Metis. I didn’t have to touch her or use my Gypsy gift to see the disappointment and reproach in her face. She was upset I hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about the Reaper. Somehow that made me feel worse than anything else, even almost getting buried by the avalanche.
“I’m going to call your grandmother and tell her what’s happened,” Metis said in a low voice. “I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you.”
I was sure she would too. Grandma Frost didn’t get angry at me often, but when she did, watch out. My grandma was probably going to be majorly pissed I hadn’t told her what was going on. Though, in my defense, nothing had actually happened until after I’d left her house.
“Most important, you are not to leave the hotel until either we get this whole thing sorted out or head back to the academy tomorrow night,” Nickamedes said. “I mean it, Gwendolyn. You are not to set one foot outside this building. Do you understand me?”
I gave him a sullen look.
“Do you understand me?” The librarian’s harsh tone had so much acid in it that it actually made me flinch.
“Yes, sir,” I muttered.
Nickamedes gave me another stern glare, but he didn’t say anything else. He wanted to, though. Anger made his face even pastier than normal. Instead of yelling at me some more, Nickamedes turned to Ajax, and the two of them, along with Metis, moved to the other side of the infirmary and started talking in low voices. Probably trying to figure out who the Reaper might be and how they could track down him and the Fenrir wolf. Daphne stayed by my side at the bed.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I really didn’t mean to rat you out.”
I sighed. “I know. And you were right. I should have told Metis what was going on after class the other day, and I should have told you and Carson that I didn’t think it was just a wild Fenrir wolf I’d seen. I hate to admit it, but Nickamedes and the other profs have a right to be pissed. I put myself in danger, and everyone else here, too.”
“So why didn’t you tell them about the Reaper? Or at least get me and Carson to believe you about the wolf?”
I threw my hands up. “Because I go to a school for warrior whiz kids. Everyone else at Mythos can take care of themselves, including you and Carson. I just wanted to be able to do the same. I bet if there was a Reaper after Logan or one of the other Spartans, the profs wouldn’t make such a big deal about it. They certainly wouldn’t make Logan hide in the hotel like he was a kid. Ajax would probably give him a weapon and let Logan hunt down the Reaper by himself.”
Red-hot shame and miserable embarrassment tangled up together in tight knots in my stomach, overcoming the uneasy guilt I felt at keeping quiet. That was one reason why I’d hated the academy so much when I’d started going there—because everyone was so much better at everything than I was. So much braver, tougher, smarter, stronger. I was a weak little freak in comparison to everyone else at Mythos Academy, with only my Gypsy gift to rely on.
“But you haven’t had the training the rest of us ha
ve,” Daphne pointed out. “Your mom and your grandma sheltered you from all that stuff. I started using a bow when I was three years old. It took me a long time to learn how to use it and all the other weapons we train with—and even longer to think I could actually hurt someone with them.”
“Do you think you could do it?” I asked. “Do you think you could kill a Reaper if you had to?”
The Valkyrie thought about it. “I think so, after everything I’ve seen—all the other kids, parents, and professors who have been murdered by them over the years. I hope so, because I know that if I didn’t kill the Reaper, then he would kill me—without hesitating.”
Even though I was still lying under the thermal blankets, Daphne’s words made me shiver, because I knew they were true. Anybody who’d gone to all the trouble to start an avalanche wouldn’t hesitate to run me through with a sword if he got the chance.
“Just do what the profs want and stay in the hotel until we head back to the academy, okay, Gwen?” Daphne said, her black eyes full of concern. “I don’t want you to get hurt, and I know Metis and the others don’t either. Not even Nickamedes, even if he doesn’t act like it.”
I could have argued with her about the librarian, but I just blew out a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be a good girl from now on.”
Daphne smiled and took my hand again. “Good.”
I smiled back, even though the fingers on my other hand were firmly crossed. Yeah, maybe it was silly, but crossing my fingers made me feel a little better about lying to my best friend. But in this case, it was necessary. Because not only was I freaked out about what had happened today, but I was seriously pissed off about it, too.
Maybe I hadn’t had the warrior training the other kids had. Maybe I wasn’t as good with a sword as Daphne, Logan, and the other students were. Maybe I wasn’t as strong or quick or tough or brave. But I had my psychometry magic, and I was Nike’s freaking Champion. Those things had to count for something. Otherwise, what was the point of me being at Mythos Academy in the first place?
But the most important thing was the fact that the Reaper was after me. He wanted to kill me. Not anyone else, just me.
I might not be able to put an arrow through his heart, but I was Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl who touched stuff and saw things. I used my magic to find things that were lost and to learn people’s secrets. Well, the Reaper’s real identity was just something else to uncover, just another puzzle to solve, just another secret waiting to be revealed.
No matter what I’d promised Metis, Nickamedes, and even Daphne, I was going to do everything in my power to find out who the Reaper was and take him down—before he tried to kill me again.
Chapter 16
Professor Metis, Nickamedes, and Coach Ajax finished up their hushed talk and left the infirmary, probably to start tracking down the Reaper. Daphne went out with them, so she could let Carson know that I was fine. I didn’t ask the Valkyrie if she was going to talk to Logan—or if the Spartan had even asked her whether I was okay or not. I didn’t want to know if he hadn’t.
Half an hour later, Metis came back into the infirmary and handed me a cell phone, since my own had been swept away by the snow. “Your grandmother, as promised.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And I’m sorry for, well, everything. But mainly for not telling you about the Reaper in the first place. You told me a while back you’d always look out for me, because of your friendship with my mom. I should have trusted you the way she would have.”
Metis looked at me a second, then gave me a curt nod. Her face was still tight with worry, but her green gaze was a little softer than it had been before. She might not like it, but I think Metis understood why I hadn’t told her about the Reaper. I hoped so anyway. I also hoped she could forgive me for keeping my mouth shut—and the other things I planned on doing to discover the Reaper’s real identity, just as soon as she and the Powers That Were let me out of this hospital bed.
The professor stepped back outside and shut the infirmary door behind her, giving me some privacy.
I raised the phone to my ear. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Hi, pumpkin,” Grandma Frost’s voice flooded the line, as warm, soft, and comforting as a hug. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Really, I am.”
“Tell me what happened.”
I drew in a breath and told Grandma everything that had happened since I’d left her house on Wednesday afternoon. When I finished, she stayed quiet for a few seconds.
“Do you want me to come get you, pumpkin? Bring you home with me?” she asked, worry making her voice sound low and strained.
Part of me really, really wanted to say yes. To let Grandma Frost come get me and take me back to her house, just like she had when I was a little girl and I’d woken up scared and crying in the middle of the night the first time I slept over at a friend’s house when my mom was out of town.
But the other part of me wondered how much danger I would be putting my grandma in if I let her do that. Word would get out if I’d left the hotel before the other kids, and it wouldn’t be too hard for the Reaper to track me back to my grandma’s house. He already knew where it was since that was where he’d tried to kill me in the first place.
Besides, I wasn’t a little girl, and I didn’t want to act or be treated like one. Yeah, I was only seventeen, but I’d grown up a lot since coming to Mythos. Like it or not, Reapers, mythological monsters, and the evil god Loki were part of my life now. I couldn’t just pretend they didn’t exist anymore. If I didn’t stand up for myself against them now, if I didn’t try to fight back against the Reaper who was trying to kill me, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to—and Nike would have placed her trust in me for nothing.
I wanted to be worthy of the faith the goddess of victory had in me—and all the other Frost women who had been Nike’s Champions over the years. I wanted to fight against the bad guys and the darkness in them that I’d seen.
“I want to stay here at the resort,” I finally said. “But I’m not going to lie to you. I want to stay, so I can figure out what’s going on and who the Reaper really is before he hurts someone else.”
Grandma Frost let out a long, weary sigh, like she’d known that’s what I was going to say all along. Maybe she had, given her Gypsy gift of seeing the future. “I don’t like it, but I understand, Gwen.”
I blinked. Grandma hardly ever called me Gwen. I was always “pumpkin” to her.
She let out a sharp, rueful laugh. “You’re growing up, just the same way your mom did: wanting to help people, just like she did. Wanting to be worthy of the Gypsy magic that Nike has entrusted our family with.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do. How did you know?”
“Because I felt the same when I was your age, and I’m not going to stand in your way now. Just be careful, Gwen. More careful than you’ve ever been before because I—I don’t want to lose you.” Her voice cracked on the last two words. “I don’t think I could bear to lose you like I did your mom.”
“I’ll be careful,” I whispered back. “More careful than you can imagine.”
“I love you, pumpkin,” Grandma said. “You call me whenever you need me. Any time, day or night, and I’ll come running.”
All the emotions I was feeling clogged up my throat, making it hard to talk, but I forced out the words. “I know you will, and I love you, too.”
“Bye, pumpkin.”
“Bye, Grandma.”
She hung up. I ended the call and curled up into a small ball on the hospital bed. Despite the fact that I knew I was doing the right thing by staying at the resort, I couldn’t keep the tears from leaking out of the corners of my eyes—and wishing that I could go back to just being Grandma’s little girl again.
Late that afternoon, the professors finally let me leave the infirmary and go back to my room with Daphne on the thirteenth floor of the resort. Coach Ajax put his heavy hand on my shoulder and walked me through the hotel lobby, like I was som
e kind of invalid—or criminal. I couldn’t decide which one was more embarrassing.
Quite a crowd had gathered there to witness my walk of shame. Well, that and the fact that they were stuck inside the hotel until the Powers That Were at the resort made sure the slopes had stabilized and were safe once more. Of course, pretty much all the Mythos kids had seen the avalanche come hurtling down the mountain toward me during the carnival. And if they hadn’t, then their friends had texted them all the juicy details, along with the cell phone photos they’d snapped during the avalanche.
Still, it was kind of weird having everyone stare at me, since, you know, most of the students at the academy barely acknowledged my existence, unless they were mocking me or wanted to hire me to find something they’d lost. But I shouldn’t have been worried about being the center of attention. Once the kids in the lobby realized I was fine, they all turned away and started gossiping and texting on their phones again.
Everyone except for Logan.
The Spartan stood by a coffee cart in the lobby, with Kenzie and Oliver by his side. Logan’s gaze met mine across the massive room. I hadn’t noticed how tense he’d been before, but seeing that I was okay must have taken some kind of burden off his shoulders, because he visibly relaxed. One moment he looked all dark and dangerous and on edge and keyed up for battle. The next he was just Logan again—fun, flirty, sexy Logan. Once the Spartan relaxed, so did Kenzie and even Oliver, who for once didn’t give me a dirty look. Instead, Oliver actually looked ... concerned, like he’d been worried about me too. Strange.
But really, I only had eyes for Logan. The intense expression on his face made my heart quiver and my whole body sing. Nobody could fake that kind of concern—nobody. Maybe he really did care about me after all. Maybe Logan really did feel the same way about me that I felt about him... .
Then Savannah stepped around the cart, holding two cups of steaming hot chocolate in her hands. She headed straight for Logan. Even though he didn’t turn around and look at her, I realized nothing had changed at all. He was still with Savannah, and I was still being lovestruck and stupid.
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