Finally, Vivian shook her head and turned away from him. The ugly, invisible force vanished, and after a moment, Preston quit screaming, although his whole body shook with violent sobs.
"Too easy," she said. "His mind is so simple. That was hardly a challenge. But you, Gypsy, you've been much more interesting to play with."
While Preston wept on the floor, I thought about everything that had happened the past few days.
"You planned this whole thing, didn't you?" I asked. "The attack at the Crius Coliseum, letting me see you there after the fact so I'd notice how shaken up you were, the creepy voice in the Library of Antiquities, even hiring me to find your lost ring. You did it all just so you could keep track of me while I was searching for the Helheim Dagger."
Vivian reached down and plucked the dagger off the desk. I blinked. How had I not noticed it lying there? She turned the dagger this way and that, making the bronze flecks in the marble shimmer. For the first time, I realized what had bothered me so much about the memories I'd gotten off the map that Vivian had dropped-the fact that she'd been wearing her Reaper mask in them to protect her real identity. Something she wouldn't have done if she hadn't been planning to leave the map behind the whole time.
"You dropped that map on purpose," I said. "You wanted me to have it. You wanted me to flash on it. Why?"
Vivian shrugged. "Some of the other Reapers had determined that the dagger's location was somewhere in or around the Library of Antiquities, but it would have taken years to search the building and find it, especially given my obvious limitations as a student. So I decided to let you find it for me. But since you didn't seem to know the dagger was in the library, I decided to give you a little push. Everyone always waits until the last second to do his or her homework. I figured you'd probably be at the exhibit the day before school started, so I convinced Savannah to go with me to finish my myth-history assignment."
"If you were just trying to get at me the whole time, then why kill those other kids?" I whispered. "Why did they have to die?"
Vivian shrugged. "I had to make it look like a real attack or you never would have bought the idea that I'd accidentally dropped the map. Besides, I never liked Samson Sorensen. He always thought he was so much cooler than the other guys at school-much too cool to date someone like me. I asked him out once, back before Jasmine got her hooks into him, but he just laughed and asked why I ever thought he'd want to go out with a mousy little girl like me. Well, he didn't laugh so much when I ran my sword through his chest, did he?"
Rage twisted her face, and her fingers tightened around the dagger, like she wanted to kill Samson all over again.
"And then in the library?" I asked, trying to keep her talking. "What was with the whole creepy voice thing?"
Vivian's face smoothed out a bit, and she shrugged again. "I needed Metis's door codes and magic passwords to get down to the prison to free Preston. I knew she'd been taking you to the prison to pry into his mind, and given your psychometry and the fact that you never forget anything you see or hear, I knew you had the passwords locked away in your brain. All I had to do was slip into your mind and make you think about Preston so I could find the information I needed. We know all about you and your touch magic. I must say it's come in quite handy so far. Helping me free Preston, then finding the dagger. Good job, Gwen. Good job."
I thought about all the headaches I'd had these past few days and all the times it had seemed there were a pair of fingers digging into my skull. That had been Vivian, using her telepathy on me. On some level, I'd sensed what she was doing and had even tried to fight back, although it hadn't worked. Then, another thought popped into my head.
"You know about my touch magic-and what I'm supposed to do with it," I said, echoing something Preston had once said to me.
Vivian snorted. "Please. As if you could ever kill Loki with your pitiful psychometry."
Once again, all the air left my lungs, and white stars exploded before my eyes. I thought I'd been stunned before, but that was nothing compared to the utter shock I was feeling right now. "You think-the Reapers actually think-that I'm going to kill Loki with my magic?"
My voice was barely a whisper. I could hardly even find the breath to ask the question. Kill a god? Me? How could I do that with my touch magic? How could anyone do that?
Vivian noticed the shocked look on my face and burst out laughing. "You mean you didn't know? The great goddess Nike didn't tell you? Oh, how wonderful."
Vivian kept right on laughing. Meanwhile, Preston had finally quit shaking and crying and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He gave Vivian a hate-filled glare and wiped away the tears on his flushed cheeks.
"But what about the ring?" I asked, my mind spinning in a thousand different directions. "Why even bother to hire me to find it?"
Vivian held out her hand, admiring the ring glinting on her finger. I stared at the two faces in the gold band. Now, instead of one laughing and one crying, both faces seemed to be twisted and grinning at me with evil, malevolent glee.
"I should have known," I muttered. "The ring has two faces just like you do. It doesn't just represent theater masks, does it? Although you should buy something nice for Mr. Ovid, the drama teacher. He's made you into quite the little actress."
"True," Vivian agreed. "I'm much more talented than that stupid Amazon, Helena Paxton, will ever be, but Mr. Ovid always gives her the lead roles in our plays. You really need to brush up on your myth-history, Gwen. I told you before it was a Janus ring, as in the Roman god of beginnings and endings. He has two faces, one looking into the future and one looking into the past. The ring's been in my family for years as a symbol of our hidden loyalty to Loki. It was my mom's-until some members of the Pantheon killed her."
Her face scrunched up, and I remembered the image I'd seen of Vivian's mom handing her the ring and all the pain the girl had felt at her mom dying. I would have felt sorry for her-if she hadn't caused me the same pain by murdering my mom.
Then, another thought popped into my head. "That's why you had brand-new furniture in your dorm room, wasn't it? And why you rushed to open the door for me when I left the day I came over to look for your ring. You couldn't take a chance that I'd flash on something in your room, like your vanity table, and realize who you really were. But why hire me to find the ring when it was never lost?"
"You're right about the furniture. As for the ring, I needed to hang around and see what you were doing, and I didn't want you to get suspicious of me before you found the dagger. So I made up the story about Savannah's stealing my ring and hid it in her room for you to find. Besides, I knew it would be easy to make you think that she was a Reaper. It's no secret the two of you are still fighting over Logan."