I staggered back up onto my feet and swung Vic in arc after furious arc, but it didn’t change the battle at all. Finally, I felt Logan’s hand on my arm again, pulling me back. Oliver and Alexei grabbed Carson, who still had a dreamy look on his face. It seemed as if the Horn of Roland was still working its magic on him.
This time, Vivian and Agrona made their way to the front of the Reapers, and I saw Vivian finally start swinging Lucretia and getting into the fight. From the triumphant look on her face, she thought they had already won, and that it was just a matter of getting rid of the guards one at a time before she could come and kill me and the rest of my friends.
And I couldn’t help but think that she was right. “Retreat!” Linus yelled out, his voice booming through
the quad, even as he scrambled back over the piles of stone that now littered the grass. “Fall back to the library! Now!”
The Protectorate guards turned and raced toward the library, and my friends dragged me and Carson along with everyone else.
And so we made our second and final retreat up the steps and into the Library of Antiquities.
Chapter 27
Logan and I staggered up the library steps along with everyone else. Linus, Sergei, and Inari were the last ones inside, and Metis and Ajax slammed the doors shut behind them. I didn’t know where they’d gotten them from, but Metis, Ajax, and some of the guards raised a couple of thick iron bars and slid them across the doors, locking us inside and the Reapers out.
I stared at the doors, waiting for the Reapers to start trying to break through them, but nothing happened, and everything was eerily silent.
“They need some time to regroup,” Metis said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “And so do we. Come on.”
I nodded and let her lead me away from the doors, more than a little numb after everything that had happened. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what was taking place outside on the quad, especially to the two stone gryphons. Had Loki raised his hand and turned them to dust like he had all the other statues?
The sadness, worry, and grief just kept on coming as I stepped into the main space of the library—because it had already been turned into a sick bay.
The remaining Protectorate guards slumped over the tables and chairs or had collapsed onto the floor, and the students and other adults weren’t much better. I saw blood everywhere I looked, on every single arm, hand, leg, and face. My gaze locked on to a guy who wasn’t that much older than me. He was cradling his arm, which had a nasty gash in it, and it almost seemed as if I could hear each and every drop of his blood plopping against the white marble floor.
I stood there in the middle of the chaos, that numb feeling spreading through my body.
“Quickly!” Nickamedes said, hobbling around and trying to get everyone’s attention. “Get the injured and the wounded into the back of the library! This way! This way!”
Grandma Frost was with him. Her eyes met mine, and I could see the relief in her face that I was okay. She clapped her hands together. “Do what Nickamedes says. Now!”
The two of them waved their hands, urging the others to follow them as they hurried into the back section of the library. Everyone who was able put their arms under the shoulders of the wounded and helped them in that direction.
“Gwen?” Alexei said, touching my arm. “Are you okay? Do you need to be healed?”
“Why would you say that?” I murmured. “Because you look half-dead,” Oliver said.
I snapped out of my daze and stared down at my own body, which was covered with dirt, blood, bruises, and shallow cuts. I’d been so caught up in the fight that I hadn’t even noticed my injuries before now. None of them was serious, but still, all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball on the floor and cry. But I couldn’t do that.
“Gwen?” Alexei asked again.
“I’m fine. What about you guys?”
“I think we’re all okay,” Logan said, coming to stand beside me. “Just some cuts and bruises, for the most part.”
One by one, my gaze swept over my friends. Logan. Alexei. Oliver. Carson. All of them covered with just as much dirt, blood, and sweat as I was. Oliver had a knot on his head the size of a goose egg from where a Reaper had slammed the hilt of his sword into the Spartan’s temple. A cut dripped blood on Logan’s cheek, while one of Alexei’s eyes was starting to blacken from where someone had hit him. But Logan was right. We’d all been lucky to escape with minor injuries—so far.
Carson, miraculously, didn’t have a scratch on him, and some of the dreaminess seemed to have leaked out of his gaze, along with the strange magic that had darkened his eyes. Still, he kept a tight grip on the horn, and I wondered if he was thinking about what else he might do with the artifact.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Carson looked at me, his eyes dark with sadness. “He killed them all. Loki. I made them come to life, I set them free, and now, they’re all gone. Just . . . gone.”
I thought of how the statues had shattered one by one, then how all of the others had crumbled to dust with a wave of Loki’s hand. I put my own hand on his shoulder.
“I know how you feel,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” Carson reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose
above his black glasses, as if he was trying to hold back tears. “I know that it’s stupid. That people died out on the quad today—good people. But I can’t stop thinking about the statues . . .” He glanced down at the horn he was still holding. “If I’d known that they were going to be destroyed, I never would have started playing in the first place. I never would have even picked up the stupid horn that day at the coliseum. I wish I’d never even seen it.”
“Maybe the statues being destroyed was what was always supposed to happen,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. I didn’t really know, but it was something Nike had said to me more than once. I’d hoped that Carson would find some comfort in the words, but his face seemed as troubled as before. I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know what to say to anyone right now.
“Come on,” I said. “We should help the others and find Daphne and my grandma.”
He nodded, and we headed toward the checkout counter. Logan, Oliver, and Alexei stayed behind with Linus and the guards.
I noticed Morgan McDougall trying to hop around on a bum ankle, so I went over and put my arm under her shoulder. The Valkyrie leaned on me, a few sparks of green magic hissing out of her fingertips.