Ian leaned down and picked a stray wildflower that had somehow managed to bloom in a group of rocks. In the time we’d been sitting here, a pale frost had coated the ground all around us, making everything look encased in ice, including the flower. Still, despite the icy sheen, the delicate white petals gleamed and curled up, protecting a smaller, dark green, heart-shaped blossom in the center of the flower, which glimmered almost like an emerald.
“That’s a winterbloom,” I said, seeing his puzzled look. “They only blossom when the ground is covered with frost or snow. I think they’re some of the prettiest flowers up here.”
Ian studied the wildflower. “Me too. The heart in the center reminds me of your locket. Here. You should have it, Rory.”
He grinned and held the flower out to me. My breath caught in my throat. No one had ever given me a flower before. At least, no one like Ian.
He frowned, as if realizing what he’d done. I thought he might take back his words, make a joke, and toss the flower away. But then he pressed his lips together and looked at me, his gaze steady on mine. I stared into Ian’s eyes and reached for the winterbloom—
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
His phone buzzed, startling us both and breaking the spell.
Ian lowered the flower down to his side, pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket, and stared at the message on the screen. “Takeda wants to know where we are. He says it’s hours past curfew.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s the one who recruited us to be supersecret spies. And now he’s talking about curfew? Kind of ironic, don’t you think? That we’re old enough to fight Reapers and chimeras but not old enough to know when to go to bed?”
Ian grinned. “Yeah. But you were right before. Takeda would never admit it, but he’s hurting over Drake just as much as I am. This is him trying to make peace and watching out for me. I’ll tell him we’re on our way back to the academy.”
Ian texted Takeda, and I let out a soft whistle and waved my hand, summoning the still-grazing gryphons back to our sides. I started to climb onto Balder’s back, but Ian reached out and grabbed my hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “For bringing me up here. For listening. It was really nice of you, especially given how awful I was to you before.”
I smiled and squeezed his hand back. “You’re welcome.”
He stared at me, and I found myself swaying closer to him and falling, falling, falling into his stormy gray eyes…
Ian cleared his throat, dropped my hand, and stepped back. I curled my fingers into a fist, trying to capture the warmth of his skin against mine, but the sensation quickly faded away, although not the light, dizzy feeling in my heart.
I turned away from him and climbed on top of Balder’s back. Ian settled himself behind me, his hands gently curving around my waist. When I was sure he was ready, I scratched the gryphon’s head.
“And away we go,” I whispered.
A second later, we were airborne and flying back to the academy, but all I could think about was the feel of Ian’s body against mine, his warm breath kissing the back of my neck, and how the touch of his hands made my heart soar even higher and faster than the gryphons were flying.
Chapter Nineteen
The gryphons flew us back to the library roof.
I scratched their heads again and thanked them for the ride, and then Balder and Brono sailed up, up, up, and away into the night sky. It was late, and we had classes in a few hours, so Ian and I went our separate ways for the rest of the night. He headed to his dorm, while I walked home to the cottage.
Aunt Rachel was already in bed, but she’d left me a note on the kitchen table saying that a lasagna was warming in the oven. My stomach rumbled, reminding me how long it had been since I’d eaten. So I used some oven mitts to grab the lasagna and dished myself up a generous serving, along with a couple of garlic breadsticks and a garden salad with homemade Italian dressing.
Everything Aunt Rachel cooked was wonderful, and the lasagna was no exception. Layers of pasta sheets, melted mozzarella, rich tomato sauce, and crumbled bits of spicy Italian sausage. The breadsticks had just the right amount of tangy garlic butter slathered on them, while the salad was full of crisp, crunchy vegetables. Best of all, Aunt Rachel had made dark-chocolate fudge with dried cherries for dessert. The rich, decadent treat was the perfect way to finish off my meal.
By the time I’d cleaned up the kitchen and taken a shower, it was after two in the morning, and I was more than ready to go to sleep. I crawled into bed and started to pull the covers up to my chin, but my charm bracelet snagged on the sheets, and I had to stop and work it free.
The moonlight streaming in through my bedroom window made the delicate links gleam like a ring of snow around my wrist, with the locket glimmering like an icy heart in the center of the chain. My fingers stroked over the locket, but for the first time since I had thrown it down on my parents’ graves, the sight of the silver charm didn’t fill me with anger.
Ian was right. At least my mom and dad had tried to leave the Reapers. I might never know the answers to my questions about my parents, but in the end, they had wanted out of the evil group. That had to count for something. That did count for something. Even if I had been too angry, upset, and stubborn to realize it until tonight.
Still thinking of my parents, I put my head down on my pillow, curled my fingers around the heart locket, and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
My alarm went off way too early, given how late I’d gone to bed, but I got up, got dressed, and trudged to my classes. And just like usual, none of the other kids talked to me as I walked across the quad. They were all too busy gossiping about Lance’s party last night.
“It was great!”
“I had, like, so much fun!”
“Yeah, it was terrific! Except for the part where I puked my guts out.”
And the conversations went on and on, although another concern quickly crept into the gossip.
“Hey, where’s Lance?”
“I haven’t seen him this morning.”
“Do you think the Protectorate arrested him because we brought a keg to his party?”
So the Protectorate guards hadn’t told the other kids what had really happened last night. No surprise there, since Linus Quinn wanted to keep everyone in the dark about the new group of Reapers.
I wondered how long it would take the other students to realize that Lance wasn’t coming back to Mythos Academy—ever. One week? Two weeks? Or maybe he would end up like Amanda, here one day, then gone the next, with no one batting an eye at his sudden, unexplained disappearance. It would serve Lance right if no one remembered him, since he’d ordered those chimeras to murder Amanda in the library—and me too last night at the mansion. He was going to pay for that—all of it—and so were Drake and the mysterious Sisyphus.
But the good thing about Lance’s party was that everyone was too busy talking about it to hassle me. I actually got through the morning without one single person giving me a dirty look.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was actually in a good mood. We might have lost Lance, Drake, and the chimera scepter last night, but Takeda would use his Protectorate resources to find them again. Once we figured out where they were hiding, we would get the scepter and put them in prison, where they belonged, along with Sisyphus and all the other Reapers.
In the lunch line, I grabbed a burrito stuffed with spicy grilled chicken, black beans, rice, cheese, sour cream, and pico de gallo, along with a couple of chocolate chip cookies, then went over to the corner table where Ian, Zoe, and Mateo were already sitting.
Ian looked up at me and smiled. My heart did a funny little flutter, and I smiled back at him. Then he realized that Zoe was staring at us, and he quickly scowled at me like usual.
“Hey.” Ian ducked his head and concentrated on his food.
“Hey,” I replied, trying to play it cool.
Mateo had a candy bar in one hand and his phone in the other, so he did
n’t notice the sudden awkward silence between Ian and me. But Zoe did. She waggled her eyebrows and gave me a knowing look, which I did my best to ignore. I set my tray on the table, plopped down in a chair, and started eating.
Slowly, the awkward silence faded away, and the four of us started talking about our classes, our professors, and more. Even Mateo put down his phone and joined in the conversation. It was all so…normal.
After being alone at school for so long, it was nice to hang out with other people. To sit and eat and laugh and talk and not worry about my parents being Reapers or the other kids whispering about me or all the other drama that made up my life.
It was nice having friends again.
I had missed it more than I’d realized, more than I’d thought possible—and I would soon miss it again. When this was all over, Ian, Zoe, and Mateo would go back to the New York academy like they’d planned, and I would be all alone again, except for Aunt Rachel and the gryphons.
The thought jarred me out of my happy bubble. My hands froze, and I stopped breaking apart the last cookie on my plate.
“Rory?” Mateo asked. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to be sick.”
I put the cookie down and pushed my tray away. “I’m fine. Just full, I guess.”
I tried to make my tone light and breezy, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Ian glanced at me, then at the uneaten cookie, and back again. His gray eyes narrowed. He’d only known me for a few days, but he could still tell that something was wrong, especially since I hadn’t finished my dessert. But he didn’t say anything, and I was glad for that.
Eventually, the four of us bent our heads together and started talking about what had happened last night, keeping our voices soft so that we wouldn’t be overheard.
“As far as I can tell, no one on campus has seen Lance this morning,” Ian said.
Mateo held up his phone. “None of the security cameras has caught him coming or going either. Not at his dorm or any of the other buildings. He’s definitely not at the academy. I even plugged Lance’s picture into the Protectorate facial-recognition database this morning, but he hasn’t been spotted on any cameras anywhere in Snowline Ridge or the surrounding area.”
“Wouldn’t you be hiding out if a bunch of Protectorate spies crashed your party and tried to arrest you last night?” Zoe snarked. “I certainly would.”
“Sure,” I chimed in. “And I would tell the rest of my Reaper friends who were still at the academy to keep an eye on those spies and let me know what they were up to.”
Ian frowned. “You think that Lance told his friends to watch us?”
I shrugged. “I would have. Besides, that’s how Reapers work. They never come right out and attack you head-on. Not until they absolutely have to. No, they stay in the shadows and play games and keep their true selves hidden until they’re ready to strike.”
Ian noticed the bitter tone in my voice. He stared at me, and I knew he was thinking about our talk last night and all the feelings we’d shared about our Reaper relatives. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. I’d already obsessed about my parents’ betrayal long enough. So I looked out over the dining hall. Ian, Zoe, and Mateo all did the same thing, staring at first one student, then another.
All around us, the other kids laughed and talked and wolfed down their food, since lunch was almost over. No one pointed at our table, no one whispered about us, and no one snuck a sly glance at us and then started texting on their phone. Everything seemed normal, but at Mythos Academy, that was usually when things got the most dangerous.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you need to be careful who you trust,” I said. “Lance has a lot of friends. He tried to recruit me to become a Reaper, so maybe he did the same thing to some of the other kids. Everyone needs to watch their backs. At least until we know where Lance is and what he and Drake are planning. We might think Lance is gone, but he could always come back to the academy and surprise us.”
Ian nodded. “Rory’s right. Everyone needs to be careful. Takeda wants us all down in the Bunker after classes today. Maybe by then, he’ll have found out something about Lance and Drake and where they are. See you guys later.”
We all murmured our good-byes. Ian and Mateo got to their feet, grabbed their trays, and walked away from the table, leaving me alone with Zoe. She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave me another one of those knowing looks.
“So you and Ian, huh?” she asked.
I stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ri-i-ight.” She drawled out the word. “You go off and talk to him last night, and now the two of you are being totally awkward and adorable with each other.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated, although I could feel the hot, guilty blush staining my cheeks.
Zoe laughed and waggled her fingers, shooting blue bursts of magic all over the table. “Oh, please. You guys are giving off more sparks than I do.”
My face kept getting hotter and hotter, and I started fidgeting in my seat. Zoe kept smirking at me, and I knew she wouldn’t stop until I spilled my guts to her. At least, some of them.
I sighed. “Okay, so maybe Ian isn’t a complete jackass like I thought he was. But that doesn’t mean the two of us are going steady or anything. We just hate each other slightly less than before.”
“Ri-i-ight,” Zoe drawled again. “Keep telling yourself that.”
I sighed again and slumped down in my seat. “Even if I did…like Ian, or whatever, it wouldn’t matter anyway. As soon as we find and arrest Lance, Drake, and Sisyphus, you guys will go back to the New York academy and get ready for your next mission.”
Zoe picked up her phone from the table and waggled it at me the same way she had waggled her fingers. “Guess what? There are these things called phones. And there’s this other thing called the internet. You might not be familiar with them, but they are both perfect for long-distance relationships.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. It still doesn’t matter, because Ian and I are not having any relationship, much less a long-distance one.”
“We’ll see about that. But I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What?”
Zoe’s face turned serious, and she leaned forward and stabbed her finger at me, causing blue sparks of magic to shoot out all over the table again. “Ian’s a good guy, and he’s been through a lot. I might not be a great fighter, but if you hurt him, then I will run you through with your own sword. Got it?”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Got it. I know what it’s like to be hurt by the people you care about. I’m not going to do that to Ian. I promise.”
Zoe stared at me, but whatever she saw in my face must have satisfied her, because she dropped her hand and sat back in her chair. “Good. Then we won’t have a problem, Spartan.”
“No, we won’t, Valkyrie.”
We stared at each other, our expressions serious, but we couldn’t stay that way for long. Zoe’s lips started twitching, and so did mine. A second later, we were both smiling and laughing, knowing we’d just cemented our new friendship.
* * *
I made it through my afternoon classes, then went to the library, snuck through the secret bookcase entrance, and rode the elevator down to the Bunker. The others were already here, and I stood in the doorway watching them.
Takeda sat at the head of the briefing table, flipping through stacks of papers and photos, while Ian was over at his desk, sharpening his Viking battle ax and other weapons. Mateo pounded away on his laptop, while Zoe was soldering bits of metal onto a broken shield, repairing it.
Nobody was talking, although Takeda’s classical music was playing in the background. Everyone was focused on their own projects, and the mood was far less tense than it had been last night. Team Midgard might have had a setback in losing Lance, Drake, and the chimera scepter, but we weren’t defeated. Not yet. Not by a l
ong shot.
Takeda sensed my presence and looked up from his reports. “Ah, Rory. There you are. Please come in, and we’ll get started.”
Takeda picked up the remote and turned off the music. I pulled out a chair at the briefing table and sat down. Ian and Mateo took the seats across from me, while Zoe plopped down in the chair next to mine. Once we were all settled at the table, Takeda got to his feet.
“As you all know, our mission last night was not a success.” His voice was as calm as ever, as though he were talking about the weather instead of the fact that the Reapers had gotten away. “While we did take some of the Reapers into custody, Lance and Drake escaped with the chimera scepter. Mateo, where are we in tracking them down?”
Mateo shook his head. “Nowhere. I’ve double-checked all the security footage from campus today, and Lance and Drake haven’t shown up on any of the cameras. I’ve also checked the footage from the shops in Snowline Ridge. There’s no trace of them anywhere near the academy. Lance also turned off his phone, so I can’t track him that way.”
Takeda nodded. “No doubt Lance and Drake are in hiding and planning their next move. I’ve reached out to my Protectorate sources, but so far, no one’s spotted them. Which means that we have to find them ourselves—before they strike again. Lance stole that chimera scepter for a reason, and I want to know what Sisyphus plans to do with it.”
“And how are we supposed to find them?” Zoe asked.
“I don’t know,” Takeda admitted. “But we have to try. Let’s start by reviewing everything from the mansion last night. Maybe Lance, Drake, or one of the other Reapers left behind something that will lead us to them.”
He passed each of us a thick stack of papers and photos, and we all started looking through the files. Much of the information focused on the Reapers from the office fight, who they really were, where they were from, and all their known associates. I didn’t recognize any of their names or mug shots, so I moved past those reports and started studying the photos the Protectorate had taken of the mansion and the surrounding area.