Dark Frost (Mythos Academy #3)(35)
Author: Jennifer Estep

I stared at the Valkyrie, shocked and a little hurt by her snarky words. "What’s wrong with you? Why would you say something like that to me? You’re supposed to be my friend-my best friend."

Daphne glared at me, causing sparks to shoot out of her fingertips. For a moment, she stared at the pink sparks of magic flickering all around her, and her black gaze hardened.

"Forget it," she muttered. "You wouldn’t understand anyway."

Then, the Valkyrie got to her feet, grabbed her tray, and stalked out of the dining hall without another word.

I sat there and watched her go, wondering what that had been about. Daphne had been quiet and distracted ever since we’d sat down, but I thought her mood just had to do with the attack at the coliseum and almost losing Carson. Almost watching your boyfriend die, then healing him with magic you suddenly developed was enough to shake up anybody, even the tough, sassy Valkyrie. But it seemed like there was something else going on with my friend, and I had no idea what it was. For the second time in two days, someone had told me that I just wouldn’t understand. Well, I wasn’t a mind reader. I couldn’t understand if they wouldn’t tell me what was going on in the first place.

Things didn’t get any better the rest of the day, especially since I was paired with Talia in gym class. We sparred with staffs, and the tall Amazon went out of her way to kick my ass, sweeping my feet out from under me and busting my knuckles as many times as she could. I knew it was because Talia was friends with Savannah.

I wondered if it would make Savannah feel better to know that I’d taken Logan away from myself, too, just by being me.

Even Professor Metis was in a weird mood in myth-history class, and she rushed out the door the second the last bell of the day rang.

I walked over to my dorm room to check on Nott and gave the Fenir wolf some meat from the dining hall, along with some fresh water. Then it was time for me to meet up with Vivian Holler at Valhalla Hall.

Valhalla Hall was the plushest dorm at Mythos and home to most of the Valkyrie mean-girl princesses, although a few Amazons like Savannah lived there, too. I headed up to the second floor, where Vivian’s room was, and knocked on the door.

A second later, Vivian opened it and gave me a shy smile. "Come on in."

I stepped inside the room, and Vivian shut the door behind me. For a second, I just stood there, staring at everything. A bed, a desk, a dresser, some bookshelves, a nice vanity table. Vivian had the same dorm room furniture that most of the girls did.

Vivian had said she was in the drama club, but she hadn’t told me just how into it she was. Posters from popular musicals like Beauty and the Beast and The Scarlet Pimpernel covered the walls, along with smaller, framed playbills from a couple of plays the Mythos students had staged, including The Odyssey and The Iliad. There were more Janus masks in here, too, from the bronze bookends that propped up a stack of textbooks to the glittery gold stickers that decorated the mirror over the vanity table to a notepad on the desk. I thought I was a little obsessive about comic books, but I had nothing on Vivian.

I eyed the bookends. It was cool that Vivian was so into theater stuff, but all those crying and laughing faces kind of creeped me out a little-

"So are you ready to get started?" Vivian asked, cutting into my thoughts. "Because I’ve got to meet up with Savannah and Talia in a few minutes."

"Sure," I said, pulling my eyes away from the masks. "Where do you last remember seeing the ring? Do you remember having it in your room? Or do you think you lost it somewhere on campus?"

I really, really hoped it was just here in the room. If Vivian had dropped it on her way to one of her classes, it could take me days to find the ring-if I ever did.

Vivian hesitated. "The last time I remember seeing the ring was in here. Savannah and I were watching TV and hanging out Sunday night, and I remember taking it off and putting it down on my vanity table, right next to my jewelry box. But it’s not in there now, and I can’t find it anywhere."

She gestured at the jewelry box, which was also shaped like a pair of faces. It was carved out of onyx and had a slick, glossy surface that reminded me of a piano. Maybe it was a trick of the sunlight sliding in through the window, but for a moment, it seemed like the onyx faces melted into a puddle of black blood that oozed all over the glass-topped table-

I blinked, and the image vanished. The box was just a box once more.

"Gwen?" Vivian asked. "Are you okay? You have this strange look on your face."

"I’m fine," I said. "Can you show me exactly where on the vanity table you put the ring?"

She gestured to a spot right next to the jewelry box. I drew in a breath, leaned over, touched the surface of the vanity table, and waited for the images to fill my mind.

Nothing happened.

I didn’t see anything. No memories, no flashes of feeling, no flickers of emotion, nothing. I moved my fingers all around the table, until I’d touched the entire surface, along with the jewelry box, but I still didn’t get any vibes off it. I stared at the table and realized just how brand-new it looked-and not at all beat up like dorm room furniture usually was.

"Is this a new table?" I asked.

"Yeah," Vivian said. "My dad had it delivered this morning. New furniture was part of my Christmas present this year. Everything in here is new, including the jewelry box."

That seemed like kind of an odd Christmas present to me. Given how lavishly most of the warrior parents spoiled their kids, I would have expected Vivian to get something like a diamond tennis bracelet, an Aston Martin, or a custom-made sword for Christmas. Then again, I’d bought my grandma a cookie jar for the holiday, so I couldn’t judge too harshly.

Still, the fact that Vivian’s furniture was all new was a problem, since she hadn’t used it enough yet to leave any imprints of herself behind. That meant I couldn’t get any vibes off her furniture and that I wouldn’t be able to use my Gypsy gift to follow the trail of psychic flashes to her ring, wherever it was.

It was rare, but every once in a while, I just couldn’t find a missing item. Sometimes there wasn’t much of a trail to follow. Keys slid out of pockets, phones fell out of purses, and watches slipped off wrists every day in every place you could think of. Sometimes the items were just lost for good and no amount of magic or snooping on my part would make them reappear.

"Is something wrong?" Vivian asked.

I shook my head. "Nah. I just realized this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought."

Vivian gave me a strange look, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead, she sat on the bed and watched while I crawled around the room, running my hands over all her books, makeup, and furniture, searching high and low for her ring.