“It’s okay,” I said, seeing the debate on his face whether to go with me or stay here. “Go spend some time with your dad. Daphne and Carson will walk me back to my dorm.”
Logan let out a relieved sigh. “Thank you, Gypsy girl. I’ll call you later, okay?”
I nodded. We kissed, and then he walked over to his dad and joined in the conversation with the adults. Oliver and Alexei stayed behind as well.
Still holding the folder of artifact photos, I left the basement with Daphne and Carson and climbed back up the spiral staircase to the main floor. The three of us didn’t talk as we left the library and stepped outside onto the quad. The sun had gone down while we’d been in the basement, and shadows now cloaked the lush lawns and spread out from the base of the bare, leafless trees like black blood slowly oozing over everything. I shivered, and not because of the bitter cold.
“All right, Gwen,” Daphne said as we started walking down the hill toward my dorm. “Spill it. Which one of the artifacts are the Reapers really after?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t get any big vibes off the photos, and none of the images moved or did anything creepy. I’ll have to see the artifacts in person to try to figure it out.”
Daphne gave me a suspicious look.
“Really,” I insisted again. “I don’t know what they’re after. At least, not yet.”
“But you’ll be able to find out with your psychometry, right?” Carson asked. “Once you see and touch the artifacts?”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to.”
We didn’t say anything else, and we reached my dorm, Styx Hall, a few minutes later. I said good-bye to my friends, slid my ID card through the scanner attached to the door, and went inside for the night.
I trudged up the stairs to my room, which was located in a separate turret that had been added on to the side of the building. I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
All of the kids at Mythos had the same sort of dorm furniture, and my room was no exception with its bed, bookcases, TV, mini fridge, and desk. But the small, personal touches were what made it feel like home, like the photos of my mom and Metis that were propped up on my desk, along with a small replica statue of Nike. Posters of Wonder Woman, Karma Girl, and The Killers decorated the walls, while crystal suncatchers shaped like snowflakes hung in the windows.
At the sound of the shutting door, something stirred in a wicker basket in the corner. A moment later, a flash of ash-gray fur exploded out of the basket and leaped across the room, landing on top of my right sneaker. Nyx, the Fenrir wolf pup I was taking care of, sank her teeth into one of my shoelaces and gave it a vicious tug, easily ripping it in two. Her teeth were getting sharper every day.
I laughed, bent down, and rubbed her ears between my fingers. Nyx sighed with pleasure and leaned in to my touch, her tail thumping against my legs.
I finished petting her and straightened up, then crossed the room, unbuckled the leather belt from around my waist, and propped Vic, still in his scabbard, up on my bed. Nyx let out a happy, slightly squeaky yip, then jumped up onto the bed, reared up onto her hind feet, and licked the sword’s cheek. Vic’s eye snapped open.
“Ugh, fuzzball!” he groused. “What have I told you about licking me when your breath is that bad?”
Nyx let out another happy yip and licked him again. Vic grumbled, but his half of a face curved up into a smile. He would never admit it, but he loved the wolf pup as much as I did.
I plopped down on the bed next to them, sat crosslegged, and opened up the file of photos that Linus had given me.
“I take it you heard everything in the library?” I asked the sword. “About the Reapers desperately wanting to get their hands on this latest mystery artifact?”
“Yep,” Vic said.
“What do you think they’re after?” I asked, holding the photos up one by one so he could see them all. “From what Logan told me, none of the artifacts seemed particularly powerful.”
“You know that doesn’t mean anything,” Vic said, his purplish eye locked on to the pictures. “Just look at that bracelet on your wrist. Who would think that those silver laurel leaves could either heal or kill someone? Much less a god?”
He had a point. I wondered if I should have told Linus that I also had an artifact the Reapers would desperately love to get their hands on, should they ever learn of its existence. But that was one of the many secrets I was keeping. I hadn’t told my friends much about the bracelet, only that I’d found it in the Eir Ruins, and I hadn’t told them I was supposed to kill Loki either, although Grandma Frost and Professor Metis knew.
“I don’t know,” Vic said in a thoughtful voice, after I’d finished showing him the photos. “The Reapers could be after anything. Any one of those objects could have more power than the Protectorate realizes. What is your Gypsy gift telling you?”
“Nothing right now. I guess I’ll have to wait until I
see the artifacts in person tomorrow.”
I stuffed the photos back into the folder and put it on my desk. Vic continued chastising Nyx, trying to get her to stop licking him, as I moved around my room, taking a shower, putting on some pajamas, and getting ready for bed. By the time I finished, the wolf pup had wrapped her tail around Vic, and they were both snoring on my bed. I left them alone, not wanting to disturb them.
I grabbed an extra blanket from my closet, curled up in the window seat, pushed back the curtains, and looked outside. Below, partially hidden by the branches of a large maple, Aiko, a Ninja and one of the Protectorate members, stood guard outside my dorm the way she did every night.
My eyes scanned the darkness, but all I saw were shadows, broken up here and there by a few patches of snow that still clung to the ground from the latest winter storm a couple of days ago. The night was so cold that a killer frost covered everything, from the grass and trees to the cobblestone walkways that wound through them, adding sharp glints of silver to the black landscape. Frost had even crept up onto my window and frozen into delicate clusters of hard, brittle snowflakes around the edges of the glass.
Everything seemed calm, cold, and quiet. Still, I couldn’t help but peer out past the frost and stare broodingly into the night, wondering how long it would be before the Reapers struck again.
At noon the next day, Sunday, I found myself standing on the tarmac at the Cypress Mountain airport, shivering in the cold. The sun had already vanished for the day, disappearing into a wall of ominous, dark gray clouds that cloaked the sky like a Protectorate robe spread over the tops of the surrounding mountains. The private Protectorate plane containing the artifacts had arrived fifteen minutes ago, but it was taking the guards forever to unload the crates, which was why I was standing around, freezing my ass off.