Dark Frost

by Jennifer Estep

Page 17

 

  While Nott ate the meat I'd brought her from the dining hall, I took a shower, then went downstairs and grabbed some blankets and pillows from one of the closets where the extra bedding was kept. I carried the blankets up to my room and made a nest for Nott in between my bed and my desk.

  "You never made me a cozy bed like that," Vic said from his spot on the wall. "And I'm far more useful than a bloody wolf. "

  Nott stopped eating long enough to growl at him.

  "That's because you have a cool leather scabbard," I told the grumpy sword. "It's your own little nest. "

  "Hmph!" Vic snapped his eye shut once more.

  I sighed and went back downstairs, this time grabbing a bucket from underneath the sink in the common kitchen that all the girls in the dorm shared. I carried the bucket back up to my room, filled it with water, and let Nott drink as much as she wanted. Then, when most of the lights in the dorm had gone dark and everything was quiet, I snuck the wolf down the stairs and let her do her business outside the dorm before the doors automatically locked down for the night.

  Finally, we were safe in my room. I thought about cracking open the gryphon book and getting started on the essay for Metis's myth-history class, but instead, I found myself digging my mom's diary out of my bag and curling up with it in bed.

  Nott and Vic were both asleep, but I was too wound up to settle down, so I snapped on a light over my bed and started reading.

  Today, I started my second year at Mythos Academy. . . . Those were the words on the diary's first page. I snuggled down below my comforter a little more, ready for a long night of reading and hopefully forgetting about my own problems.

  The diary went on from there, detailing the things my mom had done when she was seventeen and a second-year student at the academy like me. She wrote of her teachers and classes and how much she disliked Mrs. Banba, the moody economics professor.

  I smiled, hearing my mom's voice in her words, almost like she was here reading the diary to me like a bedtime story. It comforted me. I especially liked the pages that talked about her friendship with Metis. Apparently, the two of them had been quite the troublemakers during their days at Mythos. Mom even complained about getting a talking to by the Powers That Were at the academy after one of their stunts. A few photos had been stuck in the diary, too, mostly of my mom grinning at the camera or her and Metis with their arms around each other. I set those aside. I'd frame them later and put them with the other photos on my desk.

  Still, as much as I enjoyed reading the diary, it didn't give me any clues as to where my mom had hidden the Helheim Dagger. She never wrote anything about the artifact at all. The closest she came was when she mentioned an important mission she'd received from Nike. I thought she might have meant the dagger, and I scanned the surrounding pages, but she didn't write anything else about the mission-not even if it had been a success or not.

  But the diary did tell me one thing about my mom: She liked to doodle. Sketches and drawings could be found on almost every page, but they weren't the usual hearts and flowers you'd expect to find.

  Instead, my mom had drawn statues-all the statues that covered the buildings at Mythos Academy.

  Gargoyles, Minotaurs, basilisks, dragons, chimeras, Gorgons. All those and more littered the diary, peeking out at me from the tops and bottoms of the pages or stretching down the spine. For whatever reason, my mom had especially seemed to like the gryphons that guarded the library steps. There were more drawings of the two of them than there were of all the other statues combined. Maybe my mom had been given an assignment like I had to research and write about the statues. That was the only reason I could think of for why she'd drawn them over and over again.

  Despite the weird doodles and my frustration at not being able to find the dagger, just reading through my mom's diary, just listening to her voice in my head and staring at her beautiful handwriting, made me feel a little better about, well, everything. Or maybe that was because I was holding the diary and soaking up all the images and feelings associated with it-everything my mom had felt and done. All the good times she'd had at the academy, and the bad ones, too. It was all a part of her and let me see my mom in a way I never had before, like watching old home movies of her as a teenager.

  I didn't want the feeling to end, so when I finally quit reading and turned out the light, I slid the diary under my pillow, curling my fingers around it. And I stayed like that until I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 14

  The next day was exceptionally average. Except, of course, for my aching heart. I made sure I was at the gym for weapons training ten minutes early, hoping to talk to Logan before the others arrived, hoping to tell him . . . something, anything that would fix this problem between us.

  For once, the Spartan didn't show up.

  "Sorry, Gwen," Oliver said, slinging his bag onto the bleachers. "Logan texted me and said that he felt a little under the weather this morning. "

  "He's not the only one," I muttered.

  I knew the Spartan was avoiding me, and it looked like Oliver and Kenzie knew it, too, from the sympathetic looks they gave me. As if that wasn't bad enough, we once again had an audience of first-year students, with even more kids than had been here yesterday. At least until they found out Logan wasn't going to be training. After that, all the girls left.

  I gritted my teeth and clutched Vic so hard my fingers went numb, just trying to get through the hour of torture.

  The rest of the morning passed by in a boring blur of classes, lectures, and homework assignments until it was finally time for lunch. Carson had a special practice session to attend for the upcoming winter concert. The band geek was a Celt and had a magical talent for music, like a warrior bard. He automatically knew how to play every instrument he picked up.

  So it was only Daphne and me at our usual table in the dining hall, although the Valkyrie just picked at her curried chicken salad croissant and ambrosia fruit salad.

  ". . . and then he told me that I didn't understand, that I would never understand, and basically broke up with me before we even got together. Can you believe it?" I muttered, griping about Logan.

  I waited a second, but Daphne didn't say anything. Instead, the Valkyrie stabbed another heart-shaped strawberry on her plate, although she didn't actually eat it.

  "And then Logan and I totally made out right there on top of one of the tables in the middle of the library," I finished. "In front of Nickamedes. What do you think of that?"

  "Awesome," Daphne muttered. "Just awesome. "

  I waved my hand in front of the Valkyrie's face, finally getting her to look at me. "What is wrong with you? You've barely said a word during lunch, and you're not listening to me at all. "

  "Sure, I am," Daphne said. "It's the same stuff you always talk about. You and Logan and your star-crossed relationship, and this big, important thing you have to do for Nike, because you're her freaking Champion. Give it a rest, Gwen. You are not the absolute center of the universe. The rest of us have problems, too, you know. "

  I stared at the Valkyrie, shocked and a little hurt by her snarky words. "What's wrong with you? Why would you say something like that to me? You're supposed to be my friend-my best friend. "

  Daphne glared at me, causing sparks to shoot out of her fingertips. For a moment, she stared at the pink sparks of magic flickering all around her, and her black gaze hardened.

  "Forget it," she muttered. "You wouldn't understand anyway. "

  Then, the Valkyrie got to her feet, grabbed her tray, and stalked out of the dining hall without another word.

  I sat there and watched her go, wondering what that had been about. Daphne had been quiet and distracted ever since we'd sat down, but I thought her mood just had to do with the attack at the coliseum and almost losing Carson. Almost watching your boyfriend die, then healing him with magic you suddenly developed was enough to shake up anybody, eve
n the tough, sassy Valkyrie. But it seemed like there was something else going on with my friend, and I had no idea what it was. For the second time in two days, someone had told me that I just wouldn't understand. Well, I wasn't a mind reader. I couldn't understand if they wouldn't tell me what was going on in the first place.

  Things didn't get any better the rest of the day, especially since I was paired with Talia in gym class. We sparred with staffs, and the tall Amazon went out of her way to kick my ass, sweeping my feet out from under me and busting my knuckles as many times as she could. I knew it was because Talia was friends with Savannah.

  I wondered if it would make Savannah feel better to know that I'd taken Logan away from myself, too, just by being me.

  Even Professor Metis was in a weird mood in myth-history class, and she rushed out the door the second the last bell of the day rang.

  I walked over to my dorm room to check on Nott and gave the Fenir wolf some meat from the dining hall, along with some fresh water. Then it was time for me to meet up with Vivian Holler at Valhalla Hall.

  Valhalla Hall was the plushest dorm at Mythos and home to most of the Valkyrie mean-girl princesses, although a few Amazons like Savannah lived there, too. I headed up to the second floor, where Vivian's room was, and knocked on the door.

  A second later, Vivian opened it and gave me a shy smile. "Come on in. "

  I stepped inside the room, and Vivian shut the door behind me. For a second, I just stood there, staring at everything. A bed, a desk, a dresser, some bookshelves, a nice vanity table. Vivian had the same dorm room furniture that most of the girls did.

  Vivian had said she was in the drama club, but she hadn't told me just how into it she was. Posters from popular musicals like Beauty and the Beast and The Scarlet Pimpernel covered the walls, along with smaller, framed playbills from a couple of plays the Mythos students had staged, including The Odyssey and The Iliad. There were more Janus masks in here, too, from the bronze bookends that propped up a stack of textbooks to the glittery gold stickers that decorated the mirror over the vanity table to a notepad on the desk. I thought I was a little obsessive about comic books, but I had nothing on Vivian.

  I eyed the bookends. It was cool that Vivian was so into theater stuff, but all those crying and laughing faces kind of creeped me out a little-

  "So are you ready to get started?" Vivian asked, cutting into my thoughts. "Because I've got to meet up with Savannah and Talia in a few minutes. "

  "Sure," I said, pulling my eyes away from the masks. "Where do you last remember seeing the ring? Do you remember having it in your room? Or do you think you lost it somewhere on campus?"

  I really, really hoped it was just here in the room. If Vivian had dropped it on her way to one of her classes, it could take me days to find the ring-if I ever did.

  Vivian hesitated. "The last time I remember seeing the ring was in here. Savannah and I were watching TV and hanging out Sunday night, and I remember taking it off and putting it down on my vanity table, right next to my jewelry box. But it's not in there now, and I can't find it anywhere. "

  She gestured at the jewelry box, which was also shaped like a pair of faces. It was carved out of onyx and had a slick, glossy surface that reminded me of a piano. Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight sliding in through the window, but for a moment, it seemed like the onyx faces melted into a puddle of black blood that oozed all over the glass-topped table-

  I blinked, and the image vanished. The box was just a box once more.

  "Gwen?" Vivian asked. "Are you okay? You have this strange look on your face. "

  "I'm fine," I said. "Can you show me exactly where on the vanity table you put the ring?"

  She gestured to a spot right next to the jewelry box. I drew in a breath, leaned over, touched the surface of the vanity table, and waited for the images to fill my mind.

  Nothing happened.

  I didn't see anything. No memories, no flashes of feeling, no flickers of emotion, nothing. I moved my fingers all around the table, until I'd touched the entire surface, along with the jewelry box, but I still didn't get any vibes off it. I stared at the table and realized just how brand-new it looked-and not at all beat up like dorm room furniture usually was.

  "Is this a new table?" I asked.

  "Yeah," Vivian said. "My dad had it delivered this morning. New furniture was part of my Christmas present this year. Everything in here is new, including the jewelry box. "

  That seemed like kind of an odd Christmas present to me. Given how lavishly most of the warrior parents spoiled their kids, I would have expected Vivian to get something like a diamond tennis bracelet, an Aston Martin, or a custom-made sword for Christmas. Then again, I'd bought my grandma a cookie jar for the holiday, so I couldn't judge too harshly.

  Still, the fact that Vivian's furniture was all new was a problem, since she hadn't used it enough yet to leave any imprints of herself behind. That meant I couldn't get any vibes off her furniture and that I wouldn't be able to use my Gypsy gift to follow the trail of psychic flashes to her ring, wherever it was.

  It was rare, but every once in a while, I just couldn't find a missing item. Sometimes there wasn't much of a trail to follow. Keys slid out of pockets, phones fell out of purses, and watches slipped off wrists every day in every place you could think of. Sometimes the items were just lost for good and no amount of magic or snooping on my part would make them reappear.

  "Is something wrong?" Vivian asked.

  I shook my head. "Nah. I just realized this isn't going to be as easy as I thought. "

  Vivian gave me a strange look, but she didn't say anything else. Instead, she sat on the bed and watched while I crawled around the room, running my hands over all her books, makeup, and furniture, searching high and low for her ring.