“Does Gwen know about this?” I asked. “Why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she part of Team Midgard?”
Linus hesitated a moment before answering. “Miss Frost did her job as Nike’s Champion. She imprisoned Loki, even though it almost cost Gwen her own life in the process. I can’t ask any more of her. No one can, nor should they. She deserves a little peace and quiet after everything she’s been through. She’s happy now, rebuilding the North Carolina academy. Besides, the threat is here, not there.”
I’d thought it would be something like that, and he was right. Gwen had done enough—more than enough. She had never told me exactly what had happened when she’d faced off against Loki, when she’d gone to that other place, that realm between this world and the one where the gods lived, but the experience clearly haunted her. Gwen might have defeated Loki, but he’d left a deep scar on her heart, one that she would carry for as long as she lived.
“And what happens if I say no?” I asked.
Linus shrugged. “We will proceed with the mission as planned, Miss Forseti. With or without you.”
Silence fell over the room, and once again, all eyes turned to me, but I didn’t automatically say yes. Linus and Takeda might want me on their team, but Aunt Rachel didn’t, and she was the one I listened to, the one I trusted. Besides, the three kids hadn’t exactly been friendly to me so far, especially Ian, who had been downright hostile. Their mission might be noble, but I had zero desire to spend time with kids who obviously disliked me. I got enough of that during regular school hours.
The silence stretched on, and everyone kept staring at me. Linus and Takeda looked at me with hope. Aunt Rachel shook her head again, obviously wanting me to tell them no. Zoe and Mateo stared at me with curiosity, wondering what my answer would be.
And then there was Ian, whose eyes darkened to a thundercloud gray. “We don’t need her,” he growled again. “We can spy on Lance ourselves and figure out when and where he’s going to hand Typhon’s Scepter over to Sisyphus. I know we can.”
“Just like Amanda thought that she would be fine going into the library all by herself?” Zoe muttered.
Ian jerked back as though she’d slapped him. Regret filled Zoe’s face, and she bit her lip, knowing that it was too late to take back her snarky words. Ian shoved his chair away from the table, whipped around, and stormed out of the room. His footsteps slapped against the stone, growing fainter and fainter. Several seconds later, a door slammed shut in the distance.
The others winced. For a moment, no one said anything, but then Linus looked at me again.
“The choice is yours, Rory,” he said. “I hope you make the right one—for everyone’s sake.”
* * *
Zoe and Mateo got to their feet, left the briefing room, and disappeared into the same hallway that Ian had stormed down. I wondered if they were going to check on the Viking or leave him alone. I would leave him alone, given how angry he’d been. And heartsick too, over Amanda’s death. I felt sorry for him. Angry and heartsick were emotions that I knew all too well, especially how hard they were to get rid of.
Takeda nodded at Aunt Rachel and me, then murmured an excuse to Linus and left the room as well. Linus sighed, turned off the monitors, and ran his hand through his hair, lost in his own thoughts. After a moment, he jerked his head toward another hallway.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”
Aunt Rachel and I got up from the table and followed him.
We walked down a long hallway with several glass windows set into the stone walls. I peered through the glass, staring into all the rooms we passed. An armory filled with metal lockers, wooden benches, and rows of weapons hanging on the walls. A training area populated by plastic practice dummies. A computer room bristling with laptops, wires, and servers. A library with shelves of books. A kitchen with stainless-steel appliances.
Aunt Rachel noticed the kitchen too, and she eyed the pots, pans, and other equipment with professional interest. Once a chef, always a chef.
“We call this entire level the Bunker,” Linus said as we walked along. “It contains everything you would need to survive a war with the Reapers or anyone else. Weapons, artifacts, communication equipment, food. Very few people in the Protectorate know of its existence, which is why Takeda and his team decided to use it as their base of operations. They’re going to protect all the items down here, as well as increase security in the regular library upstairs so that the Reapers can’t steal any more artifacts. At least, while they’re in Colorado.”
“What do you mean, while they’re here? Where are they going?” I asked.
“Once the scepter is recovered and Lance, Sisyphus, and the other Reapers are taken into custody, the team will move on to a new mission,” Linus said. “They’ll most likely head back to the New York academy, since that’s where they all came from.”
We reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into a small square room that reminded me of a coat closet, given the gray Protectorate cloaks hanging on hooks on the walls. I eyed the cloaks, and a sharp knife of longing sliced through my heart. I wondered what it would be like to wear one of those and be seen as one of the good guys for a change, instead of the daughter of dead Reaper assassins.
Aunt Rachel stared at the cloaks too, as if she were thinking the same thing.
Linus walked over to the far side of the room, where an elevator was embedded in the wall. The three of us stepped into the open car, and the door shut behind us. Linus pressed his thumb on a slot in the metal panel, and a green light shot out, scanning his print. Something chirped, and that panel slid back, revealing another one with floor numbers on it, like in a regular elevator. This area was marked Level B, and Linus hit the button for Level 2.
“Biometric keypad,” he explained. “The elevator only works for people Mateo programs into our security system.”
The elevator floated up and stopped a few seconds later, but the door didn’t open right away. Instead, that first panel slid back out, covering up the one with the floor numbers, and a monitor appeared on it, showing a familiar view of a balcony ringed with statues.
“That’s the second floor of the library,” Aunt Rachel said.
“Yes,” Linus replied. “Mateo has set up several scanners to make sure that no one is on this level of the library to see us coming and going. The elevator won’t open until the scanners tell it the coast is clear.”
A few seconds later, a light on the top of the panel flashed green, and the door swung outward. We stepped out of the elevator car and back onto the second floor. Behind us, a bookcase creaked shut, hiding the elevator from sight.
“A secret entrance,” I said. “Cool.”
I would have said more about how awesome I thought it was, and the Bunker too, but it wasn’t the right time.
Not when a girl was dead.
Linus gave me a faint smile, then moved over to the balcony railing and stared down at the first floor.
We were only a few feet away from Sigyn’s statue and the spot where I had battled the chimera. To my surprise, someone had already cleaned up the broken remains of the display case that Babs had been sitting in. I wondered if it had been one of the Protectorate members or Sigyn masquerading as Raven again.
I would put my money on Sigyn. The regular librarians didn’t come up to the second floor all that often, so I was betting that no one had even realized she had put the sword on display in the first place, much less disposed of the broken case afterward. For some reason, it seemed the goddess didn’t want anyone to know that I had Babs. Maybe she thought that a secret mission like battling the Reapers required a secret weapon.
“I see you have a new sword,” Aunt Rachel said in a low voice that only I could hear. “A talking sword.”
My hand dropped to Babs’s hilt. Of course Aunt Rachel would notice that I was wearing a sword. She knew me better than anyone, and she had the same Spartan skills and instincts that I had when it came to weapons.
r /> “Her name is Babs. She was sitting in a display case up here. The chimera destroyed the case, and I needed a weapon to kill it, so I grabbed her.”
Aunt Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Is that all that happened?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t ready to tell her about seeing Sigyn in the Eir Ruins, especially since I was still trying to make sense of everything the goddess had said to me.
“More or less. But I’d like to keep her, if that’s okay with you.”
Aunt Rachel studied Babs again. “I’m okay with it. You should have a weapon of your own, at least until this business with the Reapers is resolved. Besides, she looks like a fine sword.”
I flashed her a grateful smile. “I think she’s a fine sword too.”
Aunt Rachel smiled back at me, and then the two of us walked over to where Linus was standing by the balcony.
Down below, several men and women wearing gray cloaks were picking up pieces of broken chairs and righting overturned tables from the fight with the chimeras. One man sporting black coveralls was down on his hands and knees, with a bucket of water beside him, vigorously scrubbing a brush over a large red stain on the floor. He was trying to get blood off the stone—Amanda’s blood.
My chest tightened with a mixture of guilt, sadness, and relief. I might be a great fighter, but the chimeras had been the most dangerous creatures I’d ever encountered, and I hadn’t been prepared for them. I had gotten lucky tonight. That could just as easily have been my blood on the floor. It was Amanda’s blood, and it could still be the blood of Ian, Zoe, Mateo, and Takeda, given their dangerous mission.
Linus sighed. His shoulders slumped, and his eyes dulled with grief and weary resignation. In an instant, he looked ten years older. “It never ends,” he murmured. “It just never ends.”
He stared at the man scrubbing the floor for another second, then shook his head, as if rousing himself out of his own dark thoughts. Linus turned and pointed at the bookcase behind us.
“There’s a small silver button on the side of the bookcase,” he said. “Press in on it, and the scanner will read your thumbprint, open the case, and unlock the elevator for you. I’ve already had Mateo program both of you into the security system.”
My eyebrows drew together in confusion. How had the Protectorate gotten my thumbprint? Probably while I was unconscious after the chimera attack. Linus must have scanned Aunt Rachel’s thumb when he brought her down to the Bunker to see me.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Linus said. “Sisyphus, the Reapers, the Midgard. But I meant what I said before. The others…they need someone like you, Miss Forseti. Someone who’s lost just as much as they have.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Their secrets aren’t mine to tell, but we’ve all been betrayed. We’ve all had friends and family members killed by Reapers.”
I winced, and so did Aunt Rachel. Linus hadn’t meant it as an insult, but his words were another reminder of my parents and all the evil things they’d done—all the innocent people they’d killed.
Linus stared at me, his blue eyes blazing with conviction. “But this is a chance for us to stop the Reapers before they get started again. This is a chance for us to save lives. I can’t make you do anything, but you truly are one of the best warriors I’ve ever seen. You could make a difference in this battle, Rory, just as you did against Loki.”
“We almost died in the battle with Loki,” I pointed out. “And Amanda did die here tonight. I might be a Spartan, but even I get tired of fighting.”
“I know, and I feel the same way.” Linus smiled, but it was a sad, tired expression. “But Spartans are meant for fighting. Like it or not, it’s the thing we do best. Besides, if we don’t battle the Reapers now, then nobody will get to have a safe, normal life. Just promise me that you’ll at least think about it. If you decide that you want to be part of the Midgard, go down to the Bunker tomorrow after school, and Takeda will help you get started. The choice is yours.”
“Okay. I’ll think about.” It was the least I could do after Linus and the others had healed me.
Linus nodded at Aunt Rachel and me, then turned and strode away. A minute later, he was back downstairs with the other members of the Protectorate, overseeing the cleanup.
Aunt Rachel and I stood by the railing, watching as Linus moved from one guard to the next, speaking to them each in turn. Once again, my gaze focused on that bloodstain on the floor. The bright red color reminded me of the chimeras’ burning eyes and sharp claws. I shivered.
“Come on, Rory,” Aunt Rachel whispered, putting her arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
I let her lead me away from the railing. On the way toward the stairs, we passed Sigyn’s statue, and I thought of my conversation with the goddess in the Eir Ruins.
But unfortunately, evil never quite dies, no matter how hard you try to kill it. Her voice whispered in my mind.
She was certainly right about that.
Well, at least one of my questions had been answered. I knew exactly what threat Sigyn had been talking about in the Eir Ruins: this new group of Reapers who were stealing artifacts. But I still didn’t understand why the goddess thought that I was the only one who could stop them. Sure, the chimera scepter had been stolen, but Linus, Takeda, and the other kids seemed capable enough. They could probably recover the artifact without my help, but I couldn’t help wondering how many more of them might get hurt—or killed—in the process.
I glanced back over the railing, my gaze focusing on Amanda’s blood still on the floor, slowly dulling from red to pink as the man scrubbed and scrubbed at the stain. If only I could erase her death from my mind the same way.
I shivered again and looked away, not sure what I was supposed to do now. Not sure whether to accept Sigyn’s mission and Linus’s offer. Not sure about anything except how lucky I had been to live through the night.
* * *
Aunt Rachel and I left the library and went home.
Babs had closed her eye and stayed completely silent through the meeting with Linus and the others, and she seemed to be sleeping now, given her steady, even breathing. The fight with the chimeras must have exhausted her. The sword was still belted to my waist, and I wrapped my hand around her hilt as we walked across campus, ready to pull her free from her scabbard at the first sign of danger.
I carefully scanned all the shadows, but I didn’t see anyone. Still, I felt like they were out there, Reapers and chimeras, just waiting to leap out of the darkness and tear us to pieces. I gripped Babs’s hilt a little tighter and hurried on, ready to go to bed and try to forget that tonight had ever happened.
Aunt Rachel was right. The battle at the North Carolina academy had been horrific enough. So had watching Amanda die tonight. Did I really want to put myself in danger again? Did I really want to take on more Reapers? Especially when I was trying so hard to leave all of that behind?
I didn’t know—I just didn’t know the answer to anything anymore.
We made it to the cottage safely. An hour later, after taking a long, hot shower, I was sitting at the vanity table in my bedroom, brushing out my wet hair, my mind still churning with everything that had happened.
Babs was propped up in a chair in the corner. Her eye was still shut, and soft, breathy snores rumbled out of her mouth. Every once in a while, she would smack her lips together and mutter something, although I couldn’t make out her exact words.
A knock sounded, and Aunt Rachel cracked open my door. “May I come in?”
I nodded and laid down my brush. Aunt Rachel stepped into my bedroom, her hands clasped behind her back.
“How are you holding up?” she asked.
“Fine, I guess.” I shrugged. “Tonight wasn’t the first fight I’ve been in.”
She opened her mouth, then hesitated, as if she was having trouble getting out her words. After a moment, she spoke again. “I have something for you.”
She walked over and hel
d out her hand. A small black velvet box rested in her palm.
My heart dropped, my stomach flipped over, and my entire body tensed. “Is that—is that what I think it is?”
“Yes. I’ve been meaning to give it back to you for a while now. After everything that happened tonight, it seemed like the right time.”
“Why?” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I told you that I didn’t want it. That I never wanted to see it again.”
“I know, sweetheart, and I understand why you feel that way,” Aunt Rachel said, pain rasping through her words. “I’m still so angry at Rebecca that I can’t even think straight sometimes.”
I kept staring at the box. “But?”
“But there are still Reapers out there, and people are still in danger.” She sighed. “And as much as I hate to admit it, as much as I want to keep you safe, you are a Spartan warrior through and through. You would be a great asset to the Midgard. You could help them stop the Reapers.”
I stared at her. “But in the Bunker, you said that you didn’t want me to help them, that you didn’t want me to join their team.”
“No, I didn’t. I was so worried when you texted me that there were Reapers in the library, and I would be even more worried if you actually joined the Midgard. I don’t want to see you get hurt—or worse.” Aunt Rachel’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want to lose you too, Rory.”
Her green gaze fell to the black velvet box in her hand, and I knew she was thinking of her sister, my mom. Aunt Rachel’s fingers curled around the box for a moment, and then she stepped forward and set it down on the edge of the vanity table.
“But I also don’t want to hold you back. Linus was right. We’re Spartans, and like it or not, fighting is one of the things we do best.”
“I don’t want you to worry about me,” I replied. “And if that means not joining the Midgard, then I’m okay with that. You’re more important to me than this is.”
“I’m always going to worry about you, no matter how old you are. Being on the Midgard might not be safe, but if it makes you happy, then I’ll just have to learn to live with my worry.” Aunt Rachel gave me a grim smile. “Linus was right about something else: it’s your choice. We’ve both been at the mercy of your parents and what they did for far too long. It’s time for you to choose what you want. But know this—no matter what you decide, I’ll always support you.”