I was about to give up, let go of Preston's hand, open my eyes, and tel Metis that I wasn't getting anything useful from him, when an image of Preston pul ing on a pair of gloves popped into my head. It was the same memory I'd gotten when I'd touched his gloved hand outside the Solstice coffee shop that night in the alpine vil age. It seemed strange, given All the other more violent and disturbing things that I'd witnessed so far. Curious, I concentrated on that memory, digging it out of the depths of his brain like a miner prospecting for gold, shining it up, and pul ing it into sharper focus. Suddenly I was completely in the memory, seeing everything from Preston's point of view.
He sat in the driver's seat of an SUV, pul ing on the gloves.
Once that was done, he looked in the rearview mirror at the person sitting in the back of the vehicle.
Shadows cloaked the inside of the car, so I couldn't tel who was there, although I got the impression it was a girl about my age. Whoever she was, Preston knew her-and was afraid of her.
A tingle of fear tickled his spine just from looking at her. Weird.
What kind of person would frighten a Reaper like Preston?
"Are you sure she's stil in the police station?" the girl asked in a low, soft voice.
"I cAll ed and asked for her five minutes ago," Preston said.
"She's stil in there. See? There she is, coming out right now."
Preston turned his head, and I saw who he was talking about.
Brown hair, violet eyes, beautiful smile. My mom stepped out of the back door of the police station.
Oh no, I thought, somehow knowing what was coming next.
No, no, no.
My mom strode across the parking lot and got into her car, just like she had in the dream I'd had of her at the ski resort. I'd wondered where the awful memory had come from, and now I knew. It had been an image, a feeling, associated with Preston's glove, one that my psychometry and my subconscious had picked up on, even if I hadn't immediately seen it when I'd touched his glove.
"I thought you said the daughter would be with her," Preston asked. "We could kil them both tonight and be done with this whole thing."
The girl shrugged. "So the daughter's not here. So what?
We have our orders. We disable the mom and question her about the dagger and where she hid it. That's what's important tonight. Now let's go."
Dagger? What dagger? What were they talking about?
Why would my mom have a dagger, much less hide it?
I lost my focus, and the memory blurred and shifted before I was able to latch onto it again. Now the SUV idled at a dark intersection, its lights off. Preston's head was turned, looking out the window.
"Here she comes. Get ready," the girl ordered from the backseat. "Now ... go!"
Preston smashed his foot down on the gas, and the SUV
hurtled out of the dark toward my mom's car. She never even saw it coming. The sound of metAll screeching and glass breaking roared in my ears, as though I'd reAll y been there when Preston had rammed his vehicle into hers.
I drew in a ragged breath, and the memory blurred again.
Now my mom was out of the car and lying on her back on the blacktop. A light rain had started to fAll , but it couldn't hide the fact that blood covered her whole body-her legs, her chest, her face. The ends of her broken bones poked against the skin of her arms, and her breath came in shAll ow rasps. Dying-my mom was dying.
The girl stood in front of Preston, a sword glinting in her hand as she towered over my mom. She was wearing a hoodie, just like I did All the time. Except the girl's hood was up to protect her from the rain, so I couldn't even see the back of her head, much less her face.
"Where's the dagger?" the girl snarled. "Where did you hide it?"
My mom smiled at the Reaper girl. "Someplace you'l never think to look."
"Fool. There's no place you can hide it that we won't find it.
It's only a matter of time."
"I'm not a fool," my mom said, raising her head. Despite her injuries, pride blazed in her violet eyes. "I was a Champion in my time, and I've served my goddess wel .
There is comfort in that, even now, at the end." Nike. My mom was talking about Nike. She must have hidden the mystery dagger-or whatever it was-on the goddess's orders. But why?
And why did the Reapers want to get their hands on it so badly?
"So am I," the girl snapped. "I'm Loki's Champion, and he's decided it's time for you to die. Tel me where the dagger is, and I'l make it quick. Otherwise ..." She swung her sword in a menacing arc, and raindrops hissed against the blade.
"I'm dying anyway," my mom said, coughing up a mouthful of blood. "So do your worst, Reaper. Because in a few minutes, I'l be beyond your reach."
"But your precious daughter won't be, and you won't be able to protect her from me," the girl said. "What's her name again?"
"Gwen," my mom whispered. "My lovely, lovely Gwen.
There was so much I wanted to tel you, so much I wanted to teach you... ."
Her voice trailed off, and tears streamed down her face, mixing with the cold, cold rain. My mom started mumbling then, about All the things she'd wished she'd said to me. I was so shocked by what I was seeing that I couldn't quite focus on what she was saying. Her voice grew raspier, and her words more incoherent, until the only thing she muttered was "Gwen, Gwen, I love you, Gwen... ."
"She's not going to talk," Preston said. "Finish her, and let's go before another car comes along."
"Oh, very wel ," the girl huffed.
She gripped her sword and raised it over her head. She turned toward Preston, and I saw a smile curve her lips despite the shadows that cloaked her face. Then she brought the weapon down with a vicious slash. I shoved the memory away the second before the sword plunged into my mom's heart.My mom hadn't been kil ed by some anonymous drunk driver like I'd thought. No, she'd been murdered-
murdered by Preston and the Reaper girl.
I opened my eyes, wrenched my hand away from his, and sprang up out of my chair, stumbling away until my back was pressed up against one of the glass wAll s of the cel s. I was only about a foot away from Raven and her desk.
"I told you that you wouldn't like what you saw, Gypsy,"
Preston sneered. "Tel me, how did it feel to see your own mother murdered right before your very eyes?" Everyone froze for a second, then they All turned to look at me. Metis shocked, Coach Ajax angry and disgusted, Nickamedes with a pitying expression on his face. Even Raven looked up from her gossip magazine, a haunted look in her eyes.
"Just wait," Preston sneered. "Because I'l be doing the same thing to you reAll soon, Gypsy."
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I couldn't speak, I couldn't scream, I couldn't even breathe.
Everything just hurt. Every cel , every nerve, every broken, bloody bit of my shattered heart.
Desperate, I turned to Metis, searching for some kind of comfort, some kind of reassurance. Instead, what I saw was guilt.
Sometimes if a memory was vivid enough, if an emotion was strong enough, I didn't have to touch an object or person to get a vibe off them. Guilt fil ed the professor's green eyes, and her whole body radiated with it, like heat boiling off the sun, burning me to the bone.
"You knew my mom was murdered," I whispered. "This whole time, you knew."
"Gwen-" Metis started, stepping toward me.
I turned and ran from the prison, but I didn't even make it to the door before Preston's mocking laughter started ringing in my ears.
Chapter 26
I sprinted out of the prison and back up the many flights of stairs. Somehow All the doors opened at my touch, despite the fact that I didn't know the codes or the magic mumbo jumbo. Or maybe Metis just hadn't locked them behind her.
Either way, I stumbled out of the math-science building and into the cold. And then I just ran, desperate to get as far away from Preston and the awful thing I'd seen, the awful thing he'd helped the Reaper girl to do my mom.
They'd fol owed her home from work that night. They'd caused the car accident. They'd murdered her. They'd taken her away from me. Not a drunk driver. The casket at her funerAll had been closed because the Reaper girl had murdered her, and Grandma Frost hadn't wanted me to see my mom like that.
Grandma. She had to have known about my mom's murder, just like Metis. When I'd first come to the academy, I'd asked Grandma over and over again why I had to go to school at Mythos. I'd thought it had been because I'd had a freak-out with my magic. Now I knew the reAll reason why: Reapers had murdered my mom, and Metis and Grandma Frost had been afraid they'd do the same thing to me. So they'd shipped me off to Mythos, so Metis could keep an eye on me, thinking I'd be safe on campus, that the magic protecting the grounds would protect me as wel . They just hadn't realized how dangerous the academy would turn out to be for me.
But as hard as I tried, as fast as my legs pumped, I couldn't outrun the memories-because they were mine now, too. I couldn't unsee them, and I couldn't forget them-
ever. My psychometry wouldn't let me.
For the very first time, I thought of my Gypsy gift as a curse.
I don't remember exactly how, but I wound up in the Library of Antiquities. Students and staff crowded into the first floor of the library, clustered around the study tables and checkout counter. I kept to the back wAll and raced past the bookshelves and glass cases ful of artifacts. For once, I was glad the other kids never paid any attention to me. I didn't want anyone to see me like this, much less start gossiping and texting about it on their stupid cel phones.
I didn't stop running until I sprinted up the stairs and reached the second floor, where All the statues of the gods and goddesses were arranged in an enormous circle on the balcony. Nobody else was up here, and the silence pressed against my face like a blanket, smothering me. Or maybe that was because I was out of breath from my frantic run.
My footsteps finAll y slowed, then stopped, in front of Nike's statue. The Greek goddess of victory towered thirty feet tAll , like All the other statues, her feathery wings just peeking out from behind her back, her proud gaze fixed on something only she could see.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why did they have to kil my mom?"
Nike's face remained cold and impassive. I didn't know why I'd come here, what I'd thought would happen, but the grief overwhelmed me, weighing me down until I couldn't take another step.
I curled up into a bAll at the goddess's feet and wept.
I don't know how long I cried-the eerie, stil silence of the second floor swAll owed up my sobs-but at some point, my exhaustion overpowered everything else, and I fel asleep right there in the library. I woke up, stiff and sore from my awkward position, my eyes crusty with dried tears, and my heart just-just sick with what I'd seen in Preston's mind. His awful, awful memories of my mother's murder.
It took me two minutes to realize the statue was gone.
I'd col apsed in a heap at Nike's feet, but now only empty air fil ed the space where the goddess's statue had been. I jumped to my feet and looked around, but All the other statues were stil in their places along the second floor balcony, All turned the same way, staring down into the first floor of the Library of Antiquities.
Only Nike was missing. I took a few steps back from the spot where she'd been-
"Hel o, Gwendolyn," a soft voice cAll ed out to me.
Somehow I managed not to scream. Instead, I slowly turned around, and there she was-Nike. She looked the same as she had the last time I'd seen her, the night Jasmine had tried to murder me in the library.
Nike might have been the Greek goddess of victory, but she was also the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Her hair slipped past her shoulders, the soft brown waves shimmering with a metAll ic, bronze sheen. An elegant gown in a soft lilac color rippled around her body like water, while a thin silver belt looped around her waist. The belt matched the crown of silver flowers that ringed her head-laurels, the symbol for victory. Soft, feathery wings arched up from the goddess's back, making her look as if she could take flight at any moment.
Nike was pretty enough, but the thing that made her striking to me was the sheer power that radiated off her-
cold, beautiful, and terrible All at the same time.
"Okay," I said. "We're doing that weird dream world thing again, aren't we? Where we're in the library but not reAll y there at All ? That's why there aren't any students studying on the first floor right now?"
It was the same thing that had happened the last time I'd spoken to the goddess. One minute I'd been in the library, fighting Jasmine. The next I'd stil been in the library, but everyone and everything else had disappeared except for me, the goddess, and Vic.
Nike laughed and stepped closer to me. "Something like that."
The goddess's eyes met mine, and I felt I could stare into her gaze forever. Her eyes were a curious shade, not quite purple, but not quite gray either, just like Vic's eye was. Her gaze made me think of the soft color of twilight, that instant of time just before darkness came and covered the land in blackness for the night.
Maybe I should have been more humbled, maybe I should have been more respectful, but now that the goddess was here in front of me, I couldn't help asking the questions that burned in my heart.
"Why did the Reapers kil my mom? What did they want?
What are they up to? How can I stop them? What am I supposed to do now?"
Nike's face was kind, but sadness tugged down her mouth.