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 like 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?"
Grandma nodded. "We did. Nike comes to us all and asks us to serve her when she thinks that we are ready."