I hesitated, wondering if some sort of magic mumbo jumbo might flare to life, or if an alarm would blare and give me away, but nothing happened, so I lifted the glass and grabbed the candle, careful to use my jacket sleeve, instead of grabbing it with my bare hands. I couldn’t afford to get lost in another intense vibe from the artifact right now, so I made sure that none of the white wax touched my bare skin as I slid it into my messenger bag. I suppose I could have put an ordinary candle into its place to buy myself some more time, but Aiko knew what I’d done to her. Once she and the other guards woke up, everyone would realize that I’d stolen the candle.
Either way, there was no going back now.
“Well,” Vic said, his voice a little less snide than before. “That was actually easier than I expected it to be.”
“Yeah, me too—”
I spoke too soon. Because the second I turned around, I realized there was one person in the library I’d forgotten about.
Nickamedes.
He stood by the door of the office complex, staring straight at me. For a heartbeat, all we did was look at each other. I wondered if he was going to lunge for one of the phones, call Linus, and tell him what I’d done. It was one thing to hand me an artifact for supposed cleaning. It was quite another to let me walk away red-handed from the scene of the crime.
“I saw what you did to Aiko. The Dreambox of Morpheus,” Nickamedes murmured. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Clever, Gwendolyn. Very clever.”
I shrugged, not sure what else to do.
Nickamedes leaned to one side, and I realized that one of Aiko’s legs was sticking out from behind the study tables. “And apparently, very effective as well.”
I shrugged again.
Nickamedes kept staring at me. After a moment, he nodded his head, as though he’d made some sort of decision. “Well, I think I’m going to go back into my office now and do some work for, oh, say, the next thirty minutes or so. Unless I am interrupted before then.”
Surprise surged through me again that he was actually helping me with this, but I wasn’t going to stand around and waste my good fortune. I slowly started backing toward the doors that led out of the library, in case he decided to change his mind. I started to turn around and run when I thought of one more thing I
needed to do before I left.
“If I don’t come back, you totally need to ask Metis out on a date sometime,” I called out. “Because she’s crazy about you.”
This time, he blinked, and his mouth was the one that fell open, as if he were absolutely shocked by my words. Well, it looked like Metis was right, and he really didn’t know how she felt about him, how she had always felt about him.
“She never said anything because of your history with my mom,” I said. “But my mom would want Metis to be happy. And you too.”
A faint smile pulled up his lips, and his blue gaze softened with memories. “You’re so much like Grace, do you know that?”
It was the best compliment he could have possibly given me, and I nodded back, blinking away the tears that burned my eyes.
“Be careful, Gwendolyn,” Nickamedes said.
I nodded again, then whirled around and ran out of the library as fast as I could.
Chapter 16
I eased back out onto the quad, looking left and right, but the area was as deserted as before, since everyone was still in class. I stepped off the cobblestone path that led to the library and cut across the grass, trying to get off the quad and down the hill as quickly as possible.
Sol’s candle might as well have been on fire, along with the rest of my messenger bag. That’s what it felt like anyway. Like there was a big neon arrow over my head that kept flashing the word Thief! Thief! Thief! in huge red letters. But I had to go through with the rest of my plan.
So I darted from tree to tree, and building to building, working my way down the hill and toward my ultimate destination—the main gate at the edge of campus. Eventually, I made it to the amphitheater and hurried through there, knowing that area would be empty at this time of day, and over to the far side. I stood at the edge of the amphitheater and peered out across the snow-dusted landscape, waiting for all of the guards I saw to move around the sides of the dorms and other outbuildings before I ran forward.
It took me longer than I thought it would, but I made it all the way down to the gate without any problems. To my surprise, a guard hadn’t been posted by the iron bars. Of course not, I thought in a sour mood. Linus wanted the Reapers to sneak onto campus to steal the candle. He didn’t want to make it any harder for them than necessary to breach the perimeter.
I wondered what he would think when he realized that I’d done the job for them.
No doubt he’d throw me in the academy prison like he’d threatened, and I doubted he would ever let me out again. But, on the bright side, if the Reapers killed me first, then at least I wouldn’t have to listen to Linus yell at me or spend the rest of my life in jail. It wasn’t really a bright spot, but it was all I had, so I decided to go with it.
Even though I didn’t see any guards, I was still careful as I eased up to the gate and peered out through the iron bars. Just because Vivian had sent me an address to go to didn’t mean that she and Agrona couldn’t have ordered some Reapers to wait outside the academy, jump me, and take the candle away without even giving me the chance to see Grandma Frost again. That would be exactly the sort of cruel, sneaky thing they would do.
But no one was lurking on the other side of the gate, and I didn’t see anyone milling around across the street over in the shops in Cypress Mountain either. That was one reason why I’d decided to steal the candle so early in the morning. So that if the Reapers were lying in wait for me in town, I would at least have a better chance of seeing them coming—
A branch cracked behind me.
I yanked Vic out of his scabbard, raised the sword high, and whipped around, ready to attack whoever was sneaking up on me.
But no one was there.
My eyes darted left and right, wondering if the effects of the dreambox dust had worn off sooner than I’d expected and if Aiko had caught up with me after all. With her stealthy Ninja skills, I wouldn’t even see the Protectorate guard coming until she had her sword pressed up against my throat—
“Finally,” a familiar voice muttered. “I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to get here.”
I froze. What . . . what was she doing here?
A shower of pink sparks erupted, flickering in the air like fireflies, and Daphne stepped out from behind a tree.
It took me several seconds to get over my shock. “What are you doing here?” I finally hissed, sliding
Vic back into his scabbard.
“I’m going with you to rescue your grandma, silly.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “Really, Gwen, what does it look like I’m doing?”
An onyx quiver was strapped to Daphne’s back, one that contained a single golden arrow, while a black onyx bow with thin golden strings hung off her right shoulder. Her usual pink purse dangled off her right arm. It was almost as big as her bow was. Instead of a skirt and tights, she was wearing a black leather catsuit with a hot pink zipper and other pink trim accents underneath a long, matching, black-and-pink trench coat. Black boots covered her feet, and her golden hair was slicked back into a ponytail. She’d even gone the extra step of swiping some black greasepaint under her eyes like a football player. The Valkyrie was definitely geared up for a fight. All put together, she looked like some superhero straight out of one of the comic books I loved to read.