Dark Frost (Mythos Academy #3)(19)
Author: Jennifer Estep

"Gypsy girl," Logan said in a soft voice. "It’s all right. Calm down. He doesn’t mean anything by it."

I drew in a breath and let it out. "Well, he shouldn’t talk about things he doesn’t know anything about."

The guy gave me a haughty look that turned into an arrogant smirk when Logan told them they could stay and watch us train. I moved over to the archery target and started shooting arrows with a bow, while Kenzie and Oliver stood off to one side, calling out tips and suggestions.

Maybe it was the fact that we had an audience or maybe it was because the first-year guy had pissed me off, but all my good mojo from earlier vanished, and I missed the target as many times as I hit it. Every miss made me angrier and that much more frustrated.

"Geez," I heard the guy say after one of my arrows flew past the target and weakly thumped off the wall. "How did she ever manage to kill a Reaper? She totally sucks."

The two girls murmured their agreement.

"I don’t know," one of the girls said. "There’s got to be something special about her, right? Isn’t she the one who survived the avalanche during the Winter Carnival? That weird Gypsy girl?"

"Well, maybe she does better with the weather than she does with weapons. She certainly couldn’t do any worse." The guy snickered at his lame joke.

My hands curled around the bow, and I seriously considered stalking over to the bleachers and bashing him over the head with it.

"Don’t let them get to you," Oliver said in a quiet voice, handing me another arrow. "They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know how great you’re doing, especially considering the fact that you haven’t been training your whole life like the rest of us."

I knew what Oliver said was true, but it didn’t quiet the snickers that rang up from the bleachers behind me-or soothe my anger. Still, I gritted my teeth and raised the bow up to my shoulder, determined to get through the rest of training time as quickly as possible. I lined up my shot and let the bowstring go.

Another shot, another miss. Behind me, the snickers grew even louder, seeming to echo all the way up to the top of the rafters and back down again.

I sighed. I wasn’t psychic, not like Grandma Frost, but I had a feeling it was going to be that kind of day.

After the humilation of weapons training was finally over, I left the gym and stepped outside. The main upper quad was the center of Mythos Academy and featured the five buildings where the students spent most of their time-English-history, math-science, the gym, the dining hall, and the Library of Antiquities. Each one of the buildings sat at a different edge of the quad, reminding me of the points of a star.

From a distance, the structures all looked old and pretentious with their dark gray stone and tall, slender windows. But if you took a closer look, you’d notice how the heavy vines of ivy clutched at the doors and windows like green, bony fingers, while balconies, towers, and parapets bristled out like sword points from the sides and tops of the structures. The sharp angles glittered in the winter sun, and it always seemed to me like the towers were stretching up to stab the sky.

And then there were the statues.

Gryphons, gargoyles, dragons, a Minotaur, chimeras, and dozens of other mythological creatures covered every single one of the buildings from top to bottom. A claw here, a pair of fangs there, teeth that were longer than my fingers. The sinister statues were lifelike replicas of the creatures they represented, right down to depicting all the ways the real things could tear you to pieces. But what made them especially creepy to me was the fact that the statues’ open, lidless eyes always seemed to track my movements, like there was something lurking underneath the stone just waiting to break free and gobble me up. No matter where I went on the quad or how fast I walked, I could never get away from the creatures’ cold, fixed gazes.

But today, the statues weren’t the only ones watching me.

I’d thought my ordeal would be over after weapons training, but to my surprise, it continued all day long. Ever since I’d started going to Mythos, I’d been pretty much invisible to the other students, since I wasn’t as rich, pretty, powerful, and popular as everyone else seemed to be. If the other kids even noticed me at all, it was only because they knew me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who touched stuff and saw things. Well, that, or they wanted me to find something that was missing, like their phone, laptop, or a six-pack of beer they’d smuggled into their dorm room.

But today, it was completely different.

In between every one of my classes, all the other kids on the quad turned their heads to stare at me, like I was some kind of circus freak they’d gathered to see. The bearded lady they couldn’t quit staring at. I kept my head down and hurried on to my next class, as if that would somehow protect me from all the curious looks.

But things weren’t any better inside than they were out. In every one of my classes, the other kids looked at me and whispered to each other behind their hands, or worse, they texted their thoughts across the room, until everyone’s phone lit up with the news. Apparently, word had gotten around that I’d been at the Crius Coliseum yesterday and that I’d killed a Reaper. Some of the kids gave me small, encouraging smiles, but just as many snorted, shook their heads, and rolled their eyes in disbelief. Like I’d just been lucky I’d killed a Reaper. Maybe I had, but that didn’t give them the right to judge or make fun of me.

The rumors going around campus were just absurd. Everything from the Reapers robbing the coliseum to hock the gold and jewels on the artifacts, to them murdering everyone inside the museum, to Logan’s going into full-on battle mode, killing two dozen Reapers, and scaring the others so much that they’d all run away crying. Nobody seemed to care what had really happened. The more outrageous the story was, the faster it got sent from one phone to the next.

By the time lunch rolled around, I’d had enough of the furtive looks and snarky whispers. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d enjoyed being invisible until today.

"I wish everyone would quit staring at us," I grumbled. "I don’t see what the big deal is. Don’t they know that we just got lucky?"

"I think most of them know we were lucky," Carson said. "But almost everyone at Mythos has lost someone to the Reapers. For you, Logan, and Daphne to actually kill some of them in battle, well, it makes the kids who’ve lost their parents and friends feel a little better, you know? Like we were actually able to get the upper hand on the Reapers for once. Like we were able to strike back a little for all of them."

"Even though Samson and the others kids still died yesterday?" I asked.