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Authors: Jennifer Estep

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I thought of that flash of red I'd seen in Savannah's eyes, first at the coliseum and then again yesterday in the dining hall. Could—could Savannah be a Reaper? Could she even be
the
Reaper—the Reaper girl who'd murdered my mom? Loki's Champion?
I didn't know where the thoughts came from, but once they popped into my head, I couldn't seem to stop thinking about them. For some reason, the ideas just wormed deeper and deeper into my mind, burrowing into my brain like cold, grasping fingers—
“So what's next?” Vivian asked.
Once again, a dull ache started in the back of my skull, but I finally shook off my suspicions about Savannah. “You give me the hundred-dollar retainer, like we agreed on. I track down some leads and report back to you in a few days. If I find your ring, you pay me the rest of the money, but if I can't find it, I give you back your hundred bucks. Okay?”
Vivian nodded, got her wallet out of her designer purse, and passed me a crisp hundred-dollar bill. I held on to the money for a moment, but I didn't get much of a vibe off it. Just the feeling of it being handed from one person to another until it had wound up with Vivian.
“Thanks,” I said, stuffing the money into my jeans pocket. “I'll try to have some news for you in a day or two.”
I'd done all I could for Vivian, so I headed toward the door. I started to reach for the knob, but Vivian beat me to it and opened the door instead. Well, that was polite of her.
“Thanks,” I said.
She nodded. “You're welcome. And thanks for looking for my ring, Gwen. You have no idea how much it means to me.”
I smiled at her. “Hey, that's why I'm the Gypsy girl.”
 
I left Vivian's room, and she shut the door behind me. On my way toward the stairs, I passed Daphne's room. Like the other Valkyrie wannabe princesses, Daphne also lived at Valhalla Hall. I hadn't talked to the Valkyrie since our fight at lunch, and she hadn't called or texted me. I didn't know what was going on with her, what had upset her so much, but I already missed her. I hadn't even thought to tell her about Nott showing up yet, and I needed someone to talk to about the wolf, Logan, and most especially about whether or not Savannah could really be a Reaper.
I hesitated, then knocked on Daphne's door. No answer. I didn't hear any music playing inside. No sounds of typing, either. The Valkyrie wasn't in there working on one of her many computers. Disappointed, I plodded down the stairs, left the dorm, and headed across campus to the English-history building, where Metis had her office.
Today was Tuesday, which meant it was time for me to pay a visit to Preston Ashton. Ever since the Reaper had been imprisoned at the academy, I'd been using my Gypsy gift to peer into his mind, to try to find out what the other Reapers were up to. Now, of course, I wanted to know what he knew about the Helheim Dagger and if he had a clue as to where it might be hidden. Maybe it was irrational, but I also wanted to see for myself that Preston was still in the academy prison. After hearing that creepy voice whispering to me in the library last night, I wanted to make sure Preston was locked away where he couldn't hurt anyone—especially not my Grandma Frost.
I entered the building and walked down the hallway to Metis's office. To my surprise, the door was cracked open, and I could see two figures inside through the frosted glass. I'd just raised my hand to knock when a voice drifted out to me.
“But I don't want to be a healer,” someone muttered. “I
never
wanted to be a healer.”
I frowned. That sounded like Daphne. I eased to one side so I could look in through the crack and realized that it
was
Daphne. The Valkyrie stood in front of Metis's desk, her hands on her hips, princess pink sparks of magic snapping in the air around her.
“I'm afraid you don't have a choice, Daphne,” Metis said in a gentle voice. “Your magic has quickened. There's no reversing it. We've met after classes two days in a row now, and nothing's changed.”
Well, that explained where Metis had rushed off to after myth-history.
Daphne threw her hands up, causing the sparks to cascade over her like raindrops falling from the sky. “But it only quickened because I was so upset about Carson. Because the Reaper stabbed him, and he was going to die.”
“And your magic's quickening then, emerging then, was what let you save him,” Metis said.
Daphne didn't say anything, but she slumped down in the chair in front of the professor's desk. “You don't understand. None of the other Valkyries in my family are healers. My mom has fire magic, and so did my grandma before she died. I thought that's what kind of power I would have, too. Something strong, something powerful. Not this—this
useless
thing.”
Daphne held up her fingers and concentrated. After a moment, the pink sparks bled together, forming a rosy, healing glow that coated her entire hand. Once again, I had the strangest sensation that I could reach out and grab hold of her magic, that I would be able to feel it pouring into me, if only I were to touch the Valkyrie. It was the same feeling I'd had at the coliseum, when I'd grabbed Daphne's hand and had seen that brilliant pink light burning in her heart—that beautiful, beautiful spark.
“And then, there's this,” Daphne muttered.
The Valkyrie leaned down. When she straightened back up, I realized she was clutching two things in her hands—the onyx bow and the quiver with its single golden arrow. The weapons she'd used to fight the Reapers. I blinked. I'd thought Daphne had left those behind at the Crius Coliseum after the attack.
“What am I supposed to do with these?” Daphne snapped. “I've given them back to you twice now, but every time I go to my room, there they are, lying on my bed. And the same thing's happened with Carson and that stupid horn he picked up at the coliseum.”
She laid the weapons on the desk and shoved them at Metis. After a moment, the professor reached over and picked up first the bow, then the quiver. She examined them both for several seconds before putting them down.
“Daphne, do you ... see anything on the bow or quiver? Any words or symbols?” Metis asked in a soft voice.
My breath caught in my throat. I knew what Metis was really asking my friend—if Daphne could read some sort of saying on the weapons. Every Champion was given a weapon by the god or goddess she served, and only a Champion could read the words on her specific weapon. Back in the coliseum, I remembered Daphne's saying the bow and quiver had once belonged to Sigyn, the Norse goddess of devotion. Could—could the goddess have picked Daphne to be her Champion? Was that why the weapons kept showing up in the Valkyrie's room? Was that why Carson still had that strange horn, too?
Daphne sighed and picked up the bow and quiver, looking them over. “I don't see anything.”
“Well, maybe you will someday soon,” Metis said. “Until then, it appears there is some magic binding the weapons to you, so you might as well keep them—and use them, should the need arise.”
“Whatever,” Daphne muttered. “Are we done? Because I've got an essay to write for English lit.”
Metis nodded, and Daphne got to her feet and grabbed her things, including the onyx bow and quiver. I barely had time to back up before the Valkyrie yanked open the door and saw me standing in the hallway. Surprise filled her face, but it was quickly replaced by anger.
Daphne glared at me. “Geez, Gwen. Can't you keep your nose out of anyone's business for five minutes?”
I stiffened at her harsh tone. “I wasn't here because of you. I'm supposed to go see Preston today. To find out if he knew anything about the Reaper attack or knows where the dagger is hidden.”
The Valkyrie snorted. “Great. So you're going to dig through a Reaper's head instead of spying on the rest of us. Well, that's a change, I suppose, from eavesdropping on your friends. Have fun with that, Gypsy.”
Daphne shoved past me and stormed off down the hall without another word.
Chapter 15
I stood there, mouth open, and watched her go. Yeah, the Valkyrie could be volatile sometimes, but that was the second time today she'd been nasty to me. Okay, okay, so maybe I
had
been eavesdropping on Daphne and Metis, but that was just because I was concerned about Daphne. Sue me for caring about my best friend.
Metis stepped out of her office, her green eyes soft and kind.
I sighed. “I take it you heard that?”
The professor nodded. “Daphne's just upset. She thought her magic would be one thing, and it's turned out to be another instead.”
“Yeah, but why is she taking it out on me?”
Metis tilted her head to one side. “Because your magic is exactly what it's supposed to be. You fully embrace your power, Gwen, and you try to do good with it. That's one of the things that makes you so strong. Don't worry about Daphne. She'll be all right. It'll take her a little time to adjust, but she'll come to understand that everything happens for a reason. That the gods give us the gifts we need when we need them the most.”
The professor stared off into the distance. “I was the same way when I was her age. I hoped that my magic would be physical instead of mental.”
“What do you mean?”
Metis sighed. “Magic is basically divided into two categories—physical and mental. Physical magic involves things like the fire magic Daphne said her mother has. Usually, physical magic can be used to hurt someone else, while mental magic is often more of a protective magic, like my healing power.”
“So what you're saying is that physical magic has some kind of actual form or shape, right? Like rain from a storm?”
Metis nodded back. “Right. Rain from a storm would be a physical form of magic, something you can actually see and feel and touch, whereas telekinesis or telepathy would be a mental form, something you can't necessarily see or touch.”
For some reason, the word
telepathy
seemed to resonate in my head, like a bell softly chiming, although I had no idea why. As far as I knew, I'd never met anyone with telepathic magic. Lots of kids at Mythos had the physical magic Metis had described, like the ability to shoot lightning out of their fingertips or summon up gusts of wind with just a wave of their hands. I supposed the enhanced senses so many of the students had would be considered a form of mental magic.
“But what about my magic?” I asked. “What about my touch magic?”
That's what some people called my psychometry—touch magic.
“Your touch magic is different,” Metis said. “It's one of the rare abilities that can be both physical and mental at the same time.”
“What do you mean?”
Metis tapped her fingers against her lips, like she was struggling over how to explain it to me. “Well, obviously, you know about the mental part. That's when you touch objects and see things, as you put it. When you get flashes of other people's memories and emotions in your own mind.”
I nodded.
“But there's a physical aspect to touch magic as well,” Metis said. “You can get vibes off objects easily enough, but those with touch magic like yours can also influence people. I imagine if you tried hard enough, Gwen, you could push your thoughts and feelings into someone and make her see and feel exactly what you wanted her to. In theory, you could do even more than that. Your psychometry lets you see people's memories, lets you feel what they feel. Who's to say that you couldn't reach even deeper inside them? Perhaps even tap into someone's magic while you were fighting him and turn it against him? There are some very interesting theories about touch magic out there, although few of them have ever been proven, since it's such a rare gift.”
Metis's words made me flash back to the Reaper attack. I remembered seeing that spark inside Daphne and trying to reach out and grab it with my own magic. For a few seconds, it had almost felt like that was what I was doing, like I was channeling her healing energy, before the Valkyrie had toppled over from exhaustion. Maybe that was
exactly
what I'd done, since all the cuts and bruises I'd gotten during my fight with the Reaper girl had vanished then. I wondered if that was what Metis was talking about, if tapping into Daphne's or even someone else's power was one of those mysterious
other things
I might be able to do with my Gypsy gift.
Basically, though, the professor had told me the same thing my Grandma Frost had a while back—that my magic would keep getting stronger and keep growing and that I'd be able to do more and more things with it. I wondered how it all worked, though. I'd never tried to take more than memories and feelings from an object, and I'd certainly never tried to exert my will over anyone else.
I opened my mouth to ask her another question, but Metis cut me off.
“Let me get my jacket, and I'll take you down to the prison,” she said. “I'm interested to hear what Preston has to say for himself today. And don't worry about Daphne. She'll be okay.”
The professor stepped back inside her office. Once again, I thought about Daphne's harsh words and the anger simmering in her eyes. Somehow I doubted the Valkyrie would come around as quickly as Metis thought she would.
Metis and I left the English-history building and walked across the upper quad to the math-science one. I tucked my chin down into my gray scarf to try and keep warm, but the air seemed to grow colder and colder with every step I took, like there was a storm blowing in.
I followed Metis into the math-science building, and then down, down, down we went, going through a series of doors coded with keypads and magical locks, until it seemed like we were so far underground, we would never see the sun again.
Finally, we came to an enormous door that was made out of the same dark gray stone as the rest of the building. Thick iron bars crisscrossed over the door, and two sphinxes had been carved into the stone facing each other. The creatures looked even fiercer than the ones on the gates outside did, like their sole reason for being was to keep whatever was behind the door from getting out. No matter how many times I came down here, the sight of the glaring sphinxes always made me uneasy. I shivered and looked away.
Metis fished a large skeleton key from her jacket pocket and slid it into the lock. The door opened with a loud
screech,
and we stepped through to the other side.
The prison had a dome-shaped ceiling, just like the Library of Antiquities, and seemed much larger than it should have been, considering how far underground we were. Glass cells made up the circular prison walls, stacking up to form three floors. It always struck me as kind of funny that this was one place at the academy that didn't have any statues of gods, goddesses, or mythological creatures. Instead, a hand holding an enormous set of balanced scales had been carved into the stone ceiling. That didn't make it any less creepy, though.
A desk squatted right inside the door. Usually, Raven sat there, reading one of her celebrity gossip magazines, but today, her chair was empty. Metis saw my questioning look.
“Raven had to go over to the dining hall to get some supplies for her coffee cart,” she said. “Besides, it's not like Preston's going anywhere. If the other Reapers had wanted him free, they would have come for him by now.”
Her explanation made sense, but it didn't make me feel any better about being here. Nothing ever did. I put my bag down on Raven's desk and turned toward the center of the prison.
Preston Ashton slumped over a stone table in the middle of the domed room, right underneath the hand-and-scales carving. Despite the fact that he was wearing an orange jumpsuit and paper shoes, Preston was a handsome guy with white-blond hair, pale blue eyes, and chiseled features. At least, I'd thought he was gorgeous until, you know, he'd tried to kill me a couple of times. Now, when I looked at Preston, all I saw was the Reaper red spark that burned in the bottom of his eyes.
Preston sat up at the soft whisper of our footsteps on the floor, and his lips curled back into a sneer.
“Why, Gypsy,” he said. “You haven't been down here in weeks. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me over the holidays.”
As if I could ever forget about Preston and the awful thing he'd promised to do to my Grandma Frost if he ever got free. But there was no point in letting the Reaper know just how much he scared me—that would only make him happy.
“Actually, I put you completely out of my mind during the holidays,” I said in a cool voice, dropping into the stone chair across from him. “It was rather refreshing not to go digging through your depraved memories for a few weeks.”
Preston jerked toward me, but the chains that shackled his arms to the table and his legs to the floor kept him from moving more than an inch.
“Temper, temper,” I mocked him.
Preston sat back in his chair and gave me a cold smile, although his cheeks still burned with anger. “We'll see who's laughing soon, Gypsy. We'll see.”
I ignored the chill his smirking tone always made me feel, grabbed his hands, and reached for my magic. I spent the next fifteen minutes digging into Preston's mind, sorting through his memories, the things he'd seen and the horrible, terrible, sickening things he'd done as a Reaper. The people he'd killed, everyone he had tortured, everyone he'd ever hurt, I saw it all—and it was all very, very bad.
“Are you getting anything?” Metis asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just the same memories I've seen before. I don't think he knows anything about the attack at the coliseum or where the Helheim Dagger might be hidden.”
Preston raised an eyebrow. “Still searching for the dagger, Gypsy? I would have thought a clever girl like you would have found it by now.”
“Shut up, Reaper,” I said and reached for his hands again.
Once again, I got nothing. No hint that Preston had known about the attack and no clue that he had any idea where the dagger was. I'd just let go of his hands when Metis's cell phone rang. The professor pulled the phone out of her pocket.
“Hello? Hello?” Metis pulled the phone away from her ear and shook her head. “It cut off. I can never get good reception down here. I'll have to go upstairs to call back.”
Metis told me to take a break, since she also needed to update Nickamedes and Coach Ajax about the big, fat lot of nothing I'd found out. The professor excused herself, saying she would be back in a few minutes. She left the prison, leaving me alone with Preston.
Since I didn't want to touch the Reaper without Metis here, I got up and roamed around the prison, looking into all the cells. There wasn't much to see. Some of the cells featured cots, sinks, and metal toilets, while some were just empty rooms. That's where they would keep the creatures, I thought. The Nemean prowlers, the Fenrir wolves, and the Black rocs the Reapers used to do their dirty work for them.
Preston didn't say anything while I walked around, but he kept his hate-filled eyes on me, just watching—which creeped me out more than if he'd been screaming curses at me the whole time.
Finally, I couldn't stand the silence anymore, and I headed for the door. I'd wait outside until Metis came back and then I'd try looking into Preston's mind again. I opened the door to step out into the hallway—and found the Reaper girl there waiting for me.
“Hello, Gypsy,” she said in a nasty tone. “Miss me?”
 
Before I could move, before I could react, before I could even scream, the Reaper girl stepped forward and punched me in the face. I staggered back and fell to the stone floor, but the Reaper girl didn't stop there. She kicked me in the ribs, and I let out a moan and rolled away from her. Still, despite the pain, I couldn't help wondering how she had gotten down here in the first place past all the doors and locks.
“Forget about her!” Preston screamed from across the room. “Get me out of these chains! Quick! Before Metis comes back!”
The Reaper girl vaulted over me and darted over to the table where Preston was chained. She wore the same black robe and rubber Loki mask that she'd had on during the coliseum attack. I didn't know where she'd gotten it from, but the Reaper girl pulled out a key from the folds of her robe and started fiddling with the lock on Preston's chains. A second later, the lock snapped open—and I knew that I was in big, big trouble.

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