Not much had, since my mom's death six months ago.
I slid into my seat in Professor Metis's myth-history class just before the bell chimed again, indicating that everyone should be where they were supposed to be by now.
Carson Callahan turned around in his seat, which was in front of mine. "Did you find it yet?" he whispered.
Carson was a tall guy, six feet even with a bony, lanky frame. He always reminded me of a triangle, because he was all sharp angles, from his ankles to his knees to his elbows. Even his nose was straight and pointed. His hair and skin were a dusky brown, and the square frames of his black glasses made his eyes look like malted milk balls set into his face.
I could see why Daphne liked him, though. Carson was sweet and cute, in that shy, quiet way that geeks so often are. But Carson Callahan wasn't just any kind of geek-he was a hard-core band geek and the drum major of the Mythos Academy Marching Band, even though he was only seventeen and a second-year student like me. Carson was a Celt and supposedly had some sort of magical talent for music, like a warrior bard or something. I didn't know what exactly. For the most part, I tried not to notice such things. I tried not to notice a lot of things at Mythos-especially the fact of how very much I didn't belong here.
I handed Carson the bagged bracelet, careful not to let my fingers touch his so I wouldn't flash on the band geek. Because in addition to feeling Daphne's emotions, I'd also gotten a glimpse of Carson's when I'd fished the rose charm out from behind his desk yesterday. I didn't just see the person who had touched something last-I could flash on everyone who'd ever handled an object. Ever.
Which meant that I knew who Carson really wanted to give the silver bracelet to and that it wasn't Leta Gaston like he claimed.
"As promised," I said. "Now, it's your turn."
"Thanks, Gwen."
He put a hundred-dollar bill, the back end of my finder's fee, onto my desk. I took the money and slid it into my jeans pocket.
As a general rule, I ignored all the other Mythos students, and they ignored me-at least until they needed something found. It was the same gig that I'd done back at my old public high school to earn extra cash. For the right price, I found things that were lost, stolen, or otherwise unavailable. Keys, wallets, cell phones, pets, abandoned bras, and crumpled boxers.
I'd overheard an Amazon in my calculus class complaining that she'd lost her cell phone, so I'd offered to find it for her, for a small fee. She'd thought I was nuts-until I fished the phone out of the back of her closet. Turned out that she'd left it in another purse. After that, word had spread around campus about what I did. Business wasn't exactly booming yet, but it was picking up.
Since my Gypsy gift let me touch an object and immediately know, see, and feel its history, it wasn't too hard for me to find or figure things out. Sure, if something was lost, I couldn't actually, you know, touch it-otherwise, the item wouldn't be missing in the first place. But people left vibes everywhere-about all sorts of things. What they had for lunch, what movie they wanted to see tonight, what they really thought of their so-called best friends.
Usually, all I had to do was skim my fingers across a guy's desk or rummage through a girl's purse to get a pretty good idea about where he'd last left his wallet or where she'd put down her cell phone. And if I didn't immediately see the exact location of the missing item, then I kept touching stuff until I did-or got an image of who might have swiped it. Like Daphne Cruz snatching the charm bracelet off Carson's desk. Sometimes, I felt like Nancy Drew or maybe Gretel, following a trail of psychic bread crumbs until I found what I was looking for.
There was even a name for what I could do-psychometry. A fancy, froufrou way of saying that I saw pictures in my head and got flashes of other people's feelings-whether I wanted to see them or not.
Still, part of me enjoyed knowing other people's secrets, seeing all the things big and small that they so desperately tried to hide from everyone, including themselves sometimes. It made me feel smart and strong and powerful-and determined not to do totally stupid things, like let a guy take pictures of me in my underwear.
Tracking down lost cell phones might not be the most glamorous job in the world, but it was way better than slinging greasy fries at Mickey D's. And it certainly paid much more here at Mythos than it had at my old public high school. Back there, I would have been lucky to get twenty bucks for a lost bracelet, instead of the cool two hundred that Carson had given me. The bonus cash flow was the only thing I liked about the stupid academy.
"Where was it?" Carson asked. "The bracelet?"
For a moment, I thought about ratting out Daphne and telling Carson about her massive crush on him. But since the Valkyrie hadn't been overtly mean to me in the bathroom, just vaguely threatening, I decided to save that bit of information for a time when I might really need it. Since I didn't have money, strength, or great magical power like the other kids at the academy, information was the only real leverage that I had, and I saw no reason not to stock up.
"Oh, I found it behind your desk in your dorm room." The rose charm anyway. It had been wedged deep down between the desk and the wall.
Carson frowned. "But I looked there. I know I did. I looked everywhere for it."
"I guess you just didn't look hard enough," I said in a vague tone, and pulled my myth-history book out of my bag.
Carson opened his mouth to ask me something else when Professor Metis rapped on her podium with the old-fashioned slender silver scepter that she also used as a pointer. Metis was of Greek descent, like so many of the profs and kids at Mythos were. She was a short woman with a thick, stocky body, bronze skin, and black hair that was always pulled back into a high, tight bun. She wore a green pantsuit, and silver glasses covered her face.
She looked all stern and serious, but Metis was one of the better professors at Mythos. She at least tried to make her myth-history class interesting by sometimes letting us play games and do puzzles and stuff, rather than just memorizing boring facts.
"Open your books to page one thirty-nine," Professor Metis said, her soft green gaze flicking from student to student. "Today, we're going to talk some more about the Pantheon as its warriors battled to defeat Loki and his Reapers of Chaos."
But today wasn't going to be a fun day. I rolled my eyes and did as she asked.
In addition to going to school with all the mythological warrior kids, I also had to learn about their whole stupid history. And, of course, there was a group of good magic guys who had banded together and called themselves the Pantheon whose sole purpose was to fight a group of bad magic guys called Reapers who wanted to, well, bring about the Chaos.