Midnight Frost (Mythos Academy #5)(31)
Author: Jennifer Estep

I frowned. "Consequences of what – "

Something rustled off to my left. I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was walking, and I’d drifted back into the stacks while I’d been talking to Grandma Frost. Now, I was about halfway down one of the aisles, with books all around me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see someone watching me from the next shelf over.

I couldn’t tell much about the figure. The stacks were actually shelves that had been carved out of the lumber logs, and the thickness of the wood cast deep shadows. The figure seemed to be tall, so I assumed it was a guy. He appeared to be wearing dark clothes, judging from the glimpses of his jeans and long coat that I got through the rows of books that separated us, but he was standing too far back in the shadows for me to get a good look at his face.

I was going to change that, though. No doubt he was some spy sent here to follow me and my friends since the Reapers had failed to kill us on the train. Maybe if I could sneak up on him, I could question him and get some answers as to what the Reapers were up to and why – and where Vivian and Agrona were hiding. Logan might not be here, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from tracking them down – and making Vivian and Agrona pay for what they’d done to him.

"Pumpkin?"

"I have to go, Grandma," I said. "I’ll call you again later tonight, okay?"

"Just be careful. I love you, pumpkin."

"I love you too."

I hung up the phone. But instead of putting it away, I kept fiddling with it. I started pacing up and down the aisle, as though I were totally distracted and checking my text messages, even though I didn’t have any. With every pass I made, I crept a little closer to the end of the aisle – and so did the guy on the other side.

He was keeping pace with me, and I was going to make him pay for it. When I was in range, I planned to grab Vic, charge around the end of the bookshelf, and put the sword up against the Reaper’s throat. Okay, okay, so it wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than letting some Reaper creep spy on me and report back to Vivian and Agrona.

I finally got close enough to the end of the aisle to put my plan into action. I hit a few more buttons on my phone, scrolling through screen after screen, before sliding it back into my jeans pocket. I took a step forward, like I was going back to the center of the library, but at the last second, I pivoted, grabbed Vic from his scabbard around my waist, raised the sword high, and darted around the end of the bookcase and over into the next aisle, ready to attack whomever was watching me . . .

Empty – the aisle was completely, utterly empty.

I looked right and left and in front and behind me, but no one was there. I even peered through the rows of books, looking into the stacks on either side, but those aisles were as empty as this one was.

"Gwen?" Vic asked. He’d woken up when I’d abruptly yanked him out of his scabbard. "What are you doing? Are there Reapers to fight?"

I let out the breath I’d been holding. The Reaper must have realized that I was onto him and had slipped away into the stacks. He could be anywhere by now – if he’d really even been there to start with.

I thought I’d seen someone watching me, but now, I didn’t know. Because it had been a long day already, and I was still jumpy and on edge from the Reaper attack this morning. Maybe someone had been watching me – or maybe I was imagining things the way I so often did. Either way, there was nothing for me to do but go back to my friends.

"Gwen?" Vic asked again. "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," I told the sword. "It’s nothing. Just a false alarm. Go back to sleep."

Vic yawned again, and his eye snapped shut once more.

I sighed. I didn’t know what was worse – the Reapers or my paranoia. With Vic still in my hand, I turned to head back to my friends – and slammed into someone creeping up behind me.

Chapter 16

Still thinking about the mystery figure, I immediately went into attack mode and raised Vic high. The only problem was that hitting the figure had thrown me off balance, and I staggered back. My shoulder slammed into one of the bookcases, making me wince with pain – and drop Vic.

The sword skittered across the floor. I threw myself down and forward, reaching, reaching, reaching for Vic –

A black boot came down on top of the sword, stopping it from skidding any farther along the floor. My head snapped up, and I realized it wasn’t a Reaper looming over me – it was Rory Forseti.

"Geez, Princess. Kind of hard to fight when you’re on your knees on the floor, isn’t it?" Rory sniped.

I let out a breath and scrambled to my feet. "You scared me."

Rory’s eyes dropped to Vic. "Apparently so."

She leaned down and grabbed the sword. Instead of handing Vic back to me, she held up the weapon, studying the hilt. I tensed, wondering if maybe she really was a Reaper after all – and if she was about to use my own weapon against me.

Vic’s eye snapped open, and he regarded Rory with a cold, suspicious glare. "What you looking at, chickie?" he asked.

Rory jumped and almost dropped the sword. Her eyes bulged, and all of the color drained from her face. Vic had just given her a good scare. I snickered.

That snapped Rory out of her fright. She glared at me. Still, it took her a moment to work up the courage to raise Vic once more and peer even closer at the weapon.

"There’s – there’s some guy’s face in the hilt of your sword," she said, an awed note in her voice.

Vic rolled his eye. "Well, aren’t you the observant one?"

I held out my hand. "His name is Vic, he talks, and he belongs to me."

"Yes, if you don’t mind, chickie, hand me back to the Gypsy," he said. "I want to get the rest of my nap in, just in case we run across any more Reapers today."

Eyes wide, Rory stared at Vic a moment longer before carefully passing him over to me. I took the weapon from her and slid the sword back into the scabbard strapped to my waist.

We stood there, staring at each other, and I studied her again. Black hair, green eyes, round face, pretty features. I wondered if she looked like her mom or her dad – my uncle.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I snuck out of weapons training in the gym. I was bored."

Of course she was bored. Rory was like Logan, Oliver, Kenzie, Nickamedes, and Coach Ajax; she didn’t need a weapon to fight – or kill. She’d already proven that on the train when she’d whaled on all of those Reapers with just a crossbow and then the broken bits of it.

Rory kept looking at me, her eyes scanning my features just like I’d done to her. I leaned against the shelf closest to me and stared right back at her. There were so many things I wanted to ask her – about her parents, about my dad, about why all the other kids had looked right through her as if she didn’t even exist. But I decided to play it cool, so I kept my mouth shut, even though I wanted to know all of her secrets – all of our family’s secrets – just the way I always did.