“Oh, that’s the easy part,” I said. “Because you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
I stared at the sword. “The candle isn’t the only thing in the library with magic. I’ve spent more time in that library over the past few months than Linus Quinn and all the other Protectorate guards put together. I know things they don’t. More important, I know about artifacts they don’t.”
Vic stared back at me. “You know you’re going to have to do this alone, right? Because you can’t ask Logan to help you with this. Or any of your other friends. Because if it doesn’t work, and they’re involved, then it’s not only going to be your neck on the line. It’s going to be theirs too.”
He was right. I couldn’t involve any of my friends. Not with this. I’d seen their reactions in the infirmary and then again out on the quad. They felt sorry for me, they really did, and they wanted to help me find a way to save Grandma Frost, but the threat of Loki getting stronger was one they couldn’t ignore. Maybe it was wrong of me to ignore it too, but my grandma’s life was at stake, and I was going to do whatever it took to save her.
Even if I had to sacrifice my friends’ trust—and
Logan’s love.
“I didn’t have any friends when I first came to Mythos, and I did okay,” I said, answering Vic’s question. “I can make it through this without them.”
No matter how much it would hurt all of us.
“Okay,” he said again, still trying to discourage me. “Let’s say you actually manage to steal the candle from the library, get off campus with it, and take it to Vivian, Agrona, and the Reapers. They’re not going to let you and Geraldine go, Gwen. You know that. As soon as he gets his hands on the candle, Loki will order them to kill you both.”
I got up, walked over, and plopped down on the window seat, pushing the curtains aside and staring out the window again. “I know. And that’s what I have to figure out—how to get us away from the Reapers and steal the candle back at the same time before Loki ever gets the chance to use it.”
Vic eyed me. “Well, wake me up when you figure it all out, Gwen. Because there’s no getting around it. If you don’t have an escape plan, you can’t risk taking the candle to the Reapers in the first place. Linus is right about that. You’ll doom us all, including yourself.”
I wanted to point out that we were all pretty much doomed anyway, since I still had no idea how to actually kill Loki, but I didn’t say anything. Vic let out another sigh, then slowly closed his eye. A few minutes later, snores started rumbling out of his mouth. Nyx curled her tail around the sword’s blade and settled down for her own nap.
I sat in the window seat and brooded.
As much as I hated to admit it, Vic was right. I couldn’t trust the Reapers to keep their promise and let me and Grandma go after I handed over Sol’s candle. I might be reckless sometimes, but I wasn’t completely stupid. So how could I get Grandma Frost and myself to safety? How could I swipe the candle right out from under the Reapers’ noses? Or at least come up with some way to rig it so that Loki couldn’t use it, couldn’t heal himself with it? I didn’t know the answers to my questions, and if I didn’t figure them out, then my grandma would die.
So I pulled my knees up to my chest and continued my brooding, staring out into the growing darkness, as if the shadows would suddenly part and give me the answers I so desperately needed.
There wasn’t much to see out the window, except Aiko leaning against one of the trees below my windows, standing guard. So I looked past her, idly scanning the rest of the grounds, my brain churning and churning, trying to come up with solutions to all of my many problems.
Besides Aiko, the only other thing of interest was a white marble bird feeder that someone, Raven probably, had set up in the grass close to the dorm. Despite the cold, a few birds flitted around the feeder, grabbing bits of black birdseed out of the holes in the sides. My gaze locked on to one bird who kept returning to the feeder time and time again. Some sort of crow, I thought, although its dark, shiny feathers made it look more like a miniature Black roc than anything else. I sighed. It was so sad that I couldn’t even look at a simple bird now without automatically comparing it to its mythological equivalent. Oh yeah. I’d been at Mythos Academy for way too long.
Still, the crow circling around and then dive-bombing back to the bird feeder made me think of all the times Vivian had escaped from a battle by hopping onto her Black roc and soaring up into the sky. She’d done it at the Garm gate, the Crius Coliseum, and even at the Eir Ruins out in Colorado. And she’d pulled the same stunt yesterday after the fight had turned against her and Agrona.
I snorted. If only I had a Black roc, then I could do the exact same thing to help my grandma escape from the Reapers. Problem solved. Of course, the Reapers would never let me get close enough to a roc to actually climb on top of the creature. Even if I could miraculously do that, there was still the small matter of getting the roc to fly me and Grandma away of its own free will—
A bolt of an idea shot through me, and I sat upright in the window seat, jerking to attention so fast that I almost went careening down onto the floor. I didn’t have a Black roc, and I would never, ever have a Black roc. But I didn’t need one of the birds.
Because I had something better.
If I could figure out a way to make it work—and call in some serious favors.
I sat there, my eyes closed, my fingers drumming against my jeans, trying to figure out all the pieces in my mind, all the angles, all the ways my crazy plan might succeed—or fail miserably. And slowly, I puzzled out a way to make it actually work. At least, I thought I did. Even the best plan could bite the dust when the Reapers were involved, but it was the only chance I had to save Grandma Frost, and I had to take it.
But first, I had to reach out to someone to make it happen.
I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and hit a number in the speed-dial. “Yeah?” a voice answered on the third ring, as snarky and sarcastic as ever.
“It’s Gwen.”
“Yeah?” came the response, a little more interested—
and much more wary.
“The Reapers have my grandma, and I need your help. How soon can you get here with our mutual friends?”
After I finished my call, and set the first part of my plan into motion, I took a shower and got ready for bed. Daphne and Logan called just like they’d said they would, and I talked to both of them. I didn’t say a word to either about my plan to steal the candle, though. Vic was right. I couldn’t involve them in what I was about to do, no matter how much I would have liked their support and understanding. Besides, I didn’t want to wreck things between Logan and his dad by asking the Spartan to help me. They’d just started talking again, and I wasn’t going to come between them. Not when I knew how much Logan had missed his dad and yearned for his love, support, and approval all these years.
Oh, I knew Logan, Daphne, and the rest of my friends would be angry when they found out what I’d done, but that was a consequence I was just going to have to live with.
So the next day, I went about my usual routine. Weapons training in the gym, where I apologized to everyone for pitching such a massive fit in the infirmary yesterday. Morning classes. Lunch. Afternoon classes. The day passed by in a perfectly normal fashion, right up until it was time for me to work my usual shift at the Library of Antiquities.
Alexei was waiting in the hallway outside my dorm room when I was ready to leave, and he walked me over to the library. He didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t speak to him. Other than my apology, I hadn’t said a lot to any of my friends today, and they’d given me the space they thought I needed. I did need the space—just not for the reasons they assumed. I couldn’t exactly steal the candle if they were all watching me like, well, Black rocs.