Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(23)
Author: Jennifer Estep

"Look," I said in a quiet voice. "Everyone thinks that it was some anonymous Reaper who killed Jasmine and took the Bowl of Tears. But Professor Metis told me that Reapers can be anyone, even Mythos students. What if it wasn’t some mystery bad guy? What if it was somebody we go to class with? That freaks me out."

Daphne didn’t say anything, but I could see the agreement flashing in her eyes.

"I use my Gypsy gift to find things for people, so I thought I’d poke around a little and see if I could figure out what really happened. So yeah, I broke into Jasmine’s dorm room last night and I took her laptop, hoping to find some sort of clue on it. Something to at least tell me why she was in the library. Maybe that makes me a thief, but at least I’m trying; at least I’m doing something. Everybody else doesn’t even seem to care that she’s dead. You were one of her friends. Can you say the same?"

Guilt flickered across Daphne’s face before she could hide it.

The blond Valkyrie stared at me, her fingers drumming on the white linen tablecloth and shooting pink sparks of magic everywhere. "So why come to me? Why ask me to help? Besides the fact that I’m one of Jasmine’s friends?"

"Because I know you’re in the Tech Club, which means you can probably break the password with no problem. And because I’ve got something on you, which means you’ll keep quiet about all this."

Her face tightened. "Carson."

I nodded. "Carson."

I didn’t tell her what would happen if she didn’t agree to help me. Daphne knew all too well. The rumor would spread through the academy like wildfire that she had a crush on Carson Callahan, of all people. It would go viral in about five seconds, and she’d be the laughingstock of the entire school. At least for this week.

She sighed. "What do you want me to do, Gwen?"

"Come up to my dorm room after last period today. Help me crack the password on the laptop and you never have to talk to me again."

"And you won’t tell anyone?" she asked. "About Carson?"

I shook my head. "Not a soul."

Daphne stared at me, trying to read my face and figure out if I was telling her the truth or not. After a minute, the Valkyrie made up her mind, because she stopped drumming her fingers on the table. She sighed and nodded.

"All right. I’ll do it. Not because I’m scared of you or whatever little rumor you might start, but because Jasmine was my friend. Okay?"

"Okay."

I wrote down my dorm and room number and told her to meet me there later.

"I can hardly wait," Daphne muttered before slipping the piece of paper into her giant Dooney & Bourke purse.

"Yeah," I drawled. "It’s almost like we’re BFFs already."

The Valkyrie gave me another dirty look before she slung her purse over her shoulder and stalked out of the dining hall.

Chapter 9

The rest of the day dragged by, especially Professor Metis’s myth-history class. I stared out the window again, wondering if Daphne would really show up at my dorm room and help me with Jasmine’s computer or if the Valkyrie would stand me up and rat me out to someone-

"… given the terrible tragedy and shock that we’ve all experienced, I thought that we would talk about the Bowl of Tears today and its importance in the Chaos War." Metis’s soft voice cut into my musings.

My head snapped around to her. Metis was going to talk about the Bowl? The one that had been stolen? This might actually be useful, instead of the usual stuff that she went on and on and on about. All the talk about gods and goddesses and warrior whiz kids that I didn’t quite believe. At least, that I hadn’t quite believed before this week. The jury was still out on that one.

I wasn’t the only kid who was suddenly showing more interest. Everyone sat up straighter and stared at the professor.

Metis told us to look at page 379 in our myth-history books. I flipped to the page, and there it was-an illustration of the Bowl of Tears, the same bowl that Nickamedes had shown me in the library. It looked the same as I remembered. Round, brown, dull, plain. It didn’t look like much of anything, certainly not like some powerful artifact that was worth killing over.

"Loki was always a trickster god, playing pranks on his fellow gods and mortals, but eventually, his mischief turned to evil, and his tricks became cruel. Among his many crimes, Loki was responsible for the death of Balder, the Norse god of light. Loki tricked another god into throwing a mistletoe spear at Balder, which pierced Balder’s heart and killed him," Metis explained. "As part of his punishment for that and his other crimes, Loki was chained below a giant asp, or snake, which constantly dripped venom onto his face. A very harsh form of torture. Loki was supposed to stay there for all time, locked away so he could never hurt anyone again. But, of course, he eventually tricked Sigyn, his wife, into releasing him, and escaped."

"So where does the Bowl come in?" a girl across the room asked.

Metis smiled. "Patience, Skylar. We’re getting to that. Now, the Bowl you see in your books is the one that Sigyn used to collect the snake venom. Despite his crimes, Sigyn loved Loki very, very much, and she held up the Bowl over his head, catching as much of the venom as she could to keep it from dripping on to her husband and burning him. But by standing there Sigyn also exposed herself to the venom, which severely burned her hands and arms."

It sounded to me like Sigyn was kind of … dumb. Loki was the one who got another god killed, not her. She should have let him be punished for it, not tried to lessen his pain, let him escape, and hurt herself in the process. Or maybe I was just being bloodthirsty since the cops had never caught the drunk driver who’d plowed into my mom’s car. I wouldn’t have minded seeing him, whoever he was, chained up under a giant snake with poison, acid, or whatever dripping all over his face.

"When the Bowl filled up, Sigyn would have to empty it, which let the venom drip freely onto Loki’s face, causing him unimaginable pain. When Sigyn came back with the empty Bowl, before she would lift it up again, Loki’s tears would drip into it, mixing with the venom. That’s why it’s called the Bowl of Tears," Professor Metis finished.

She told us to turn the page. There an illustration showed a giant snake curled around a tree, its head hanging down, its jaws open wide enough to reveal its curved fangs, a drop of fluid hanging off the end of each of them.

Loki cowered beneath the snake. The pen-and-ink drawing showed the god in utter agony, his mouth open in a silent scream, the muscles in his neck and arms bulging with the strain of trying to break free of the magical chains that bound him. His features were blurred in the drawing, but half his face looked like it was melted off. Because of the venom, I supposed.