We looked at the map for a few more minutes before Metis took it over to the copier in the corner and made several duplicates of it, probably to give to the Powers That Were at the academy. Once that was done, the professor held out the original piece of paper to me, a clear question in her eyes.
I sighed. I didn't feel like using my Gypsy gift. Not now, not after everything that had happened, but I didn't have a choice. I needed to find the dagger before the Reapers did, and my psychometry magic was the best chance I had of doing that.
So I sat down on a chair, closed my fingers around the paper, and waited for the memories and emotions associated with the map to fill my mind.
The first image that popped into my head was one of the Reaper girl. She wore the same black robe and rubber mask she'd had on today, and she stood in an opulent living room. Dark wooden furniture, heavy, antique sofas, large paintings on the walls, crystal vases full of red and black roses. I watched as the Reaper girl leaned over the map, which was spread out on a table in front of her.
"Are you sure the dagger's in the library?" she asked.
She turned her head, and I realized that she was talking to a man. He wasn't wearing a robe and mask like she was, so I could see his face, but he wasn't one of the academy professors or staff members, so I had no idea who he was.
"I'm sure," he said. "All the locating spells we've done confirm it. The Helheim Dagger is hidden somewhere in the Library of Antiquities."
The Reaper girl looked up at a painting on the wall, one that showed a Black roc. I'd seen pictures of the gigantic bird in my myth-history book before, but this painting showed exactly how large and fierce it was. The roc was big, just as big as other mythological creatures like Nemean prowlers and Fenrir wolves, with curved, black talons that were capable of plucking a man off the ground-or tearing him to pieces. Its entire body was a glossy black, although this painting emphasized the bloody red tinge to the creature's feathers and the red spark that burned in the depths of its liquid black eyes.
The Reaper girl stared out at the rest of the room, and I realized that practically every piece of furniture and knickknack had an image of the bird painted on or carved into it. The chairs, the tables, several vases, a pair of bookends, even a marble statue in the corner. Someone was a little obsessed.
"Well, then," the Reaper girl said in a smirking voice. "If the dagger's in the library, I guess we should go get it, shouldn't we?"
The two of them started discussing where the dagger might be hidden and how they could go about pinpointing its exact location. Apparently, whatever security spells Nickamedes had placed in and around the library were blocking the bad guy's magic, which was why he couldn't be more specific about the dagger's location.
I frowned. Maybe I wasn't concentrating hard enough, but it seemed like there was something slightly off about the memories attached to the map. Something obvious I was missing. Something that didn't seem quite ... real, like it wasn't a genuine memory or feeling. But try as I might, I couldn't figure out what it was.
Slowly, the flickers and flashes of images and feelings faded away, telling me that I'd gotten all the memories I could from the map. I opened my eyes and looked at the others.
"The Reapers have used some kind of magic mumbo jumbo to track the dagger," I said. "They can't zoom in on its exact location, but they've narrowed it down to somewhere in the library."
"If they think it's hidden in the library, then they'll do whatever it takes to breach campus security so they can search for it themselves," Ajax said. "I need to tell Nickamedes about this. Raven, too."
Metis nodded, and Ajax left the office to go look for the others. Then, the professor let out a weary sigh, sounding just as tired as Ajax had a few minutes before.
"What's wrong?" Daphne asked. "This is good, right? That we know where the dagger is?"
A grim smile curved Metis's lips. "Yes and no. It's good that we have a place to start looking for the dagger, but the library is enormous, and it could be anywhere inside. Even if you had an army of people at your disposal, it would still take years to thoroughly, completely search all seven floors, not to mention the patios and balconies outside and the surrounding grounds."
"There's something else, isn't there? Something else bad?" Carson asked.
Metis looked at him and nodded. "The bad is that not only do we now know where the Helheim Dagger is, but the Reapers do, too-and they'll do whatever it takes to find it first."
I thought of all the awful things I'd seen today. The Reapers storming into the coliseum and killing everyone within arm's reach; Carson getting stabbed; Daphne screaming; Morgan crouching over Samson's dead body; the blood that now seemed to coat everything inside the coliseum.
Metis was right. The Reapers wanted the Helheim Dagger, and they didn't care what they had to do or whom they had to kill to find it.
Which meant that everyone at Mythos Academy was in serious, serious danger.
Chapter 5
We left the office and went back out to the main floor. The bodies had been cleared away, but the Mythos students who'd survived the attack clustered together in small groups, watching the men and women in the black coveralls take photographs and do other forensic-type stuff. Raven stood next to one of the pillars, supervising the evidence collection and cleanup.
Some of the kids who lived in or near the city were waiting for their parents to come get them and take them home, while others were going straight to the academy. I'd called my Grandma Frost and told her what had happened, and she was on her way here. She'd dropped Daphne and I off at the coliseum earlier, where we'd met Carson, who had taken a cab from the academy.
Logan, Daphne, Carson, and I drifted over to one side of the coliseum, not standing with the other kids, but not too far away from them either. Some of the students were still crying or just sitting on the floor with dazed looks on their faces. A few, like Abigail Rose, a smart Valkyrie who was in my English lit class, were trying to help the others. Abigail moved through the crowd, passing out bottles of water and tissues and keeping everyone calm. She noticed me watching her and gave me a small smile, which I returned.
My eyes scanned over the other students. To my surprise, more than a few looked back at me, and I realized that people were staring at my friends and me.
By now, everyone knew we'd fought a group of Reapers and had killed several of them. To the others, I suppose that made us heroes, although all we'd been trying to do was just survive. The four of us had been lucky we'd been in the weapons room. If we'd been out here on the main floor, we would have been injured like the other kids were-or worse.