"So," Daphne said, cracking open a soda with her fingernails and causing pink sparks of magic to fill the air. "I ran into Morgan at the dining hall when I went to get the pizza."
"And how was that?"
Daphne hadn't really had much to do with Morgan and the other Valkyries since she'd gone to the homecoming dance with Carson. We'd been hanging out a lot, though, and were slowly becoming real friends. I liked a lot of things about Daphne. She was cool and funny and a complete nerd when it came to talking about computer stuff. She wasn't at all like the spoiled, selfish Valkyrie princess I'd thought she was that day when I'd first confronted her in the girls' bathroom.
Daphne shrugged. "About what I'd expected. Morgan tried to get me to sit with her and the others. They wanted to know all about my big date with Carson. But I knew that if I told Morgan anything, she'd make fun of me behind my back just like Jasmine did."
"I'm sorry."
Daphne shrugged again. "Don't be. I told Morgan exactly what I thought of her and what a ho-bag she was for sleeping with Samson behind Jasmine's back. And then, I gave the other girls all the e-mails that I pulled off Jasmine's laptop, all the ones that Morgan and Jasmine had swapped back and forth, talking about everyone."
I almost choked on my pizza. "You didn't!"
Daphne gave me a wicked grin. "I did. You should have seen their faces. They were all so pissed that they started yelling at Morgan right in the middle of the dining hall. They were all still screaming at her when I left to come over here."
It wasn't the bloody, gruesome revenge that Jasmine had wanted, but I supposed it was something. Maybe now at least the other girls would know what Morgan was really like and they could steer clear of her.
"What about you?" Daphne asked. "Did you meet with Metis like you were supposed to? What did she say?"
I wasn't quite ready to tell Daphne about the goddess Nike picking me to be her Champion, so I glossed over that part. But I told Daphne everything else, including the fact that Metis thought I might be in danger from Jasmine's family since they were all Reapers.
"I've met Jasmine's family," Daphne said. "Metis is right to be worried. Her brother is especially freaky. I always thought he was wound a little too tight, no matter how cute he was."
"Metis didn't tell me that," I said. "But she rearranged my schedule. Now I get to have private lessons with a combat tutor every morning before classes start. Metis wants me to learn how to actually use my sword."
I gestured at Vic, who was in his scabbard and hanging on the wall right next to my Wonder Woman poster.
"Combat tutor?" Daphne asked. "Metis assigned you a tutor? Who?"
"Logan Quinn."
Daphne's black eyes gleamed. "Really? That's very interesting."
"It's not going to be like that at all," I said, a bitter tone creeping into my voice. "Logan told me so himself. He pretty much gave me the I-like-you-but-we-can't-goout-for-some-stupid-reason speech. And then, he stuck his tongue down Savannah Warren's throat right in front of me on the quad."
Daphne winced in sympathy.
I hadn't told Daphne how I felt about Logan, but I was pretty sure that the Valkyrie had guessed. It was probably as obvious to her as her feelings for Carson had been to me.
"I'm sorry, Gwen," she said.
I just shrugged.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, before Daphne steered the conversation back to a safer subject-Carson and how wonderful she thought that he was.
"Did I tell you that he wrote a song for me?" Daphne said in a dreamy tone. "It goes something like this... ."
Despite my other problems, I found myself getting caught up in Daphne's story, and soon we were laughing and giggling like we'd been BFFs forever. Once again, that sense of normalcy, of peace, crept over me. Gossiping with a friend over pizza. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the night.
Sure, there was still a lot of stuff going on. A goddess had given me a sword and declared me to be her Champion, and Jasmine's family and the rest of the Reaper bad guys wanted to do some pretty nasty things to me. I'd just told the boy I liked that I actually, well, liked him, and before going off with another girl he'd told me that we couldn't be together
My eyes went to my mom's photo, which was on my desk right under Vic's spot on the wall. I planned to get a frame for the picture of her and Metis and put it there as well. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like my mom was always smiling right at me whenever I looked at her picture now. Like she could see me from wherever she was or something. Maybe she could. Mythos Academy was a place of magic after all, where legends were real and anything could happen.
And I'd finally figured out something else, too. That the people you loved never really died, not as long as you kept your memories of them alive, not as long as they lived on in your heart. And my mom would always be in mine.
Daphne snapped her fingers in front of my eyes. "Earth to Gwen!"
"What? What did you say?"
She gestured at the pizza box in between us. One single slice lay inside. "I asked you if you wanted the last piece of pizza."
I looked at her, then at my mom's picture again and Vic and the rest of my cozy little dorm room. Finally, my eyes landed on the small statue of Nike that I'd bought from the campus bookstore. The winged figure of the goddess of victory sat on my desk, right next to my mom's photo.
As I stared at the statue, Nike's eyes suddenly snapped open, just like Vic's had done to me that first night in the library. They were the same color as Vic's eye, the same color as the goddess's eyes had been when I'd seen her, the same color as my eyes. A beautiful mix of purple and gray that always made me think of twilight.
As I watched, mouth hanging open, one of the eyes slowly lowered and went back up again. Was she ... winking at me? I blinked, and the figure's eyes were closed just like they had been before.
But for once, the sight didn't freak me out. Instead, I felt like I'd earned the goddess's approval, like I'd achieved some sort of ... peace or something. Some sort of victory. At least for tonight.
"Gwen?" Daphne asked again. "Are you okay?"
"Tell you what," I said, looking at my friend. "Why don't we split the last piece?"
Daphne smiled. "Works for me."
"Me too."
So we did.