We hadn't reAll y talked since we'd kissed in the construction site. Sure, we did weapons training together and joked around, but neither one of us had mentioned the kiss-the one that had made me feel so many wonderful things. I wasn't sure how to bring it up or even what to say.
So I kept my mouth shut, and Logan did the same.
Every once in a while, though, I'd catch him staring at me, a worried look in his blue eyes. I knew Logan wanted to ask me what I'd seen when I'd kissed him, but I wasn't sure what I should tel him. I saw you crying over two dead bodies didn't exactly make for great romantic talk.
The days slipped by, until there were just a few more before the academy let out for the long holiday break. All the Mythos kids were going home to spend Christmas and New Year's with their families, and I was looking forward to having a simple holiday with Grandma Frost and Vic. I'd even bought the sword a little red Santa hat to wear, although I expected him to put up a fuss about it.
"Bloody holidays," Vic muttered to me one night in my dorm room. "We should be out fighting Reapers instead of thinking about stuffing ourselves with ham and pie." I, for one, was looking forward to Grandma Frost's cooking, as wel as a little peace and quiet, but I couldn't tel him that. If anything, Vic had become even more bloodthirsty since the fight with Preston. Apparently, I'd done so wel during the battle that Vic now had some far-fetched hope that I'd turn out to be "a right proper brawler after All ."
I just rol ed my eyes, turned up the television a little louder in my dorm room, and let the sword rant.
Two days later, the finAll bel rang, signaling the end of myth-history, my last class of the day. I stuffed my books into my messenger bag and started to file out of the room with the other kids, but Professor Metis stepped in front of me and gestured for me to stay behind.
"I need you to come with me, Gwen," Metis said. "Right now, please."
Icy dread fil ed my stomach at her serious tone and the grim look on her face. "What's wrong? Did something happen to my grandma?"
She shook her head. "No, your grandma's fine, but I need your help with something else."
Mystified and stil a little worried, I fol owed Metis out of the building. We stepped out onto the upper quad. Snow flurries had been flying through the air All day, and now, the fat flakes drifted down, dusting the ground like powdered sugar. Despite the cold, students stil hung out on the quad, clustered together in tight groups, texting on their cel phones as best they could with their gloved fingers.
I thought we might be going to the Library of Antiquities to speak to Nickamedes about something or maybe even to the gym to talk to Coach Ajax, but instead, Metis cut across the quad. I fol owed her, and the two of us headed over to the math-science building. Like All the other structures at Mythos, the building was covered with statues of gryphons, gargoyles, and other mythologicAll creatures, looking hard and sinister underneath their thickening coats of snow. As always, the creatures' eyes seemed to fol ow my every move, as though they were just waiting to shake off the snow, break free of their stony shel s, and attack me.
I shivered; pul ed my gaze away from a pair of snarling, fanged gargoyles mounted on either side of the stone steps; and hurried after the professor.
Metis led me inside the building. Instead of going into one of the classrooms or up to a lab on another floor, I fol owed the professor down severAll flights of stairs. Down, down, down we went until it seemed like we were going into the bel y of the academy. Every once in a while, when we came to a door, Metis would stop and either punch in a code on an electronic keypad or mumble a few words in a language I didn't understand.
I didn't know how far underground we were, but we'd passed the last classroom three floors ago. There were just as many lights on down here as in the rest of the building, but for some reason, the shadows seemed darker, longer, and deeper, like blood slowly oozing across the floor.
Maybe it was sil y of me, but I took care not to step in the shadows, just in case there was something hiding in them that I couldn't see.
FinAll y, on the bottom floor, Metis walked down a long hAll way and stopped outside a strange door. Unlike the other metAll ones we'd passed, this door was made out of the same dark gray stone as the rest of the building. Iron bars thicker than my wrist crisscrossed in a tictac-toe pattern over the stone, and two giant sphinxes had been carved into the surface. The creatures stared at each other, just like the pair above the main academy gate, and I got the sense that this was definitely a door designed to keep something in.
The professor stared at the door a moment, as if the sphinxes might turn their heads and reveAll some secret to her. But the statues remained fixed where they were, so she looked at me.
"I guess I should tel you where we are," Metis said.
"The Mythos Academy prison, right?" I asked. "I saw the sign for the morgue on the floor above this one, so I'm guessing this is the prison that Nickamedes was talking about at the ski resort."
Metis tried to smile, but her lips twisted into more of a grimace. "Correct. This is where we keep Reapers, Nemean prowlers, and other threats to students before they're shipped off to a more permanent facility." I stared at the reinforced door and the staring pair of sphinxes. My stomach twisted. Somehow, I knew exactly why Metis had brought me down here today.
"Preston Ashton's stil here, isn't he?"
Metis nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. We've been questioning him ever since we brought him back from the resort, but Preston has been ... less than forthcoming about what the Reapers are up to. I was hoping you might be able to help us, Gwen." She hesitated. "I was hoping you'd be wil ing to use your psychometry on him."
I heard what she said, but for a second, her words didn't actuAll y register. Then they sank in, and my stomach twisted even more. My knees felt like they were going to go out from under me, and I staggered back a few steps. I started to put my hand against the wAll to steady myself, but thought better of it. I had no idea what kind of memories I'd see down here, but I doubted they'd be happy ones.
"You want me to-to touch him?" I whispered.
Metis nodded again. "We've tried everything we can think of, but Preston won't talk to us, and so far, he's been resistant to All the magic we've thrown at him. With you, he doesn't have to talk.
You can see his memories whether he wants you to or not."
"So what? You want me to dig around in his brain and see what I can come up with?" I asked. "What if there isn't anything to find? What if he doesn't know anything about what the Reapers are planning? Yeah, Preston's one of them, but he mainly wanted to kil me because he was Jasmine's brother, and he thinks I murdered his sister." Metis's face hardened until her features looked as cold and remote as those of the sphinxes on the door in front of us. "Then at least we'l know that, and we can put him in a reAll prison where he belongs. But if the Reapers are planning something, like we think they are, then we're All at risk. And this is a chance to strike back against them-the first good chance we've had in a long time. Please, Gwen, I know I'm asking a lot, but we've run out of options here." I knew Metis wouldn't ask me to do this if there was any way to avoid it. She'd promised my mom she'd look out for me. More than that, she was just too good a person to ask me to do something like this unless it reAll y was a last resort. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't say no. Not if there was a chance of stopping the Reapers and saving other people, no matter how slim it was. My mom would have done the same thing if she was here, if she'd had the kind of magic that I did.