Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(50)
Author: Jennifer Estep

It all made me sick.

Because even out here, I couldn’t get away from everyone’s perfect little dance-

Something winked in the shadows up ahead, distracting me from my dark thoughts. The bright flash came again, bobbing up and down, and I spotted another lone figure moving across the quad. Was she … wearing something on her head? I squinted, but I couldn’t quite make out who it was. Then, she stepped into the glow from one of the streetlights that lined the walkway, and I was able to get a good look at her.

Morgan McDougall.

The homecoming queen plodded across the quad, heading toward the Library of Antiquities. Probably so she and Samson could hook up on the outside patio again. I rolled my eyes. Slut. The flashes that I’d seen had come from the homecoming queen tiara that Morgan wore on top of her head. The expensive crystals winked at me with every step the Valkyrie took.

I frowned. For some reason, something about Morgan seemed … off. I kept trailing after her, wondering what it was. Finally, I realized that it was the way she was walking, so slow and steady with careful, measured steps. It wasn’t the way a normal person would walk, especially a girl who was eager to hook up with the hot guy she’d been sleeping with on the sly. Morgan stepped through the glow of another streetlight, and I realized that she had a weird look on her face, too. One that was totally … blank. She reminded me of a zombie or something, like she wasn’t really herself. Like she was possessed or being controlled by someone else-

Little warning bells went off inside my head, and they only got louder the longer that I stared at the Valkyrie.

I glanced around, but by this point the dining hall and all the couples were several hundred feet away. Nobody else had noticed Morgan. They were all too absorbed in their own little dramas, in their own little bad romances, to notice her-or me.

So I started following her.

I didn’t know why. Maybe because I was pissed at myself for being such an idiot in front of Logan. Maybe because I didn’t have anything better to do. Or maybe it was because of this … this feeling that I had. That something about this was very, very wrong. I almost felt like I needed to follow Morgan for some reason. That something really, really bad would happen if I didn’t.

It was the exact same feeling that I’d had right before I’d picked up Paige Forrest’s hairbrush.

Morgan walked across the quad, still heading toward the library. I frowned. Weird. The library was closed tonight because of the dance, and only a few lights burned inside the building. So why would Morgan be going there? Especially tonight of all nights? Yeah, maybe she and Samson were going to hook up again … except the two of them didn’t have to hide the fact that they were a couple anymore. Everyone had already seen them together at the dance. So why would they meet at the library again? Why wouldn’t they go to one of their dorm rooms? What was the Valkyrie doing? And why did she have that blank, empty look on her face?

Morgan plodded up the front steps of the library, still moving in that slow, steady zombie way. I picked up my skirt and hurried after her. Did the Valkyrie actually think that she was going to get inside? The doors were shut, and I’d watched Nickamedes lock them after my shift this afternoon-

Morgan pulled open one of the double doors and stepped inside the library, disappearing from sight. I slowed and stopped at the bottom of the steps. I bit my lip and stared at the structure before me. All the stone statues, towers, and balconies seemed especially sinister tonight, as though the whole building was a living thing just waiting to swallow me. I blinked, and, for a moment, it seemed like the entire library just … rippled. Like there was something crawling around underneath the stone. Something old. Ancient. Powerful. Evil.

I shivered, wrapped my arms around myself, and looked back over my shoulder. In the distance across the quad, the lights of the dining hall seemed warm, bright, inviting. I should go back there. Go grab a plastic cup of beer from someone, smoke some pot, get completely wasted, and pretend like tonight had never happened.

But I couldn’t do that, any more than I’d been able to stop myself from reaching for that damn hairbrush. In the end, I always wanted to know people’s secrets, no matter how dark and twisted they were. Maybe it was my Gypsy gift or maybe just my own paranoid imagination, but I felt like there was one lurking in the library tonight-maybe the biggest secret of all. Somehow, I knew it to the very depths of my soul. Who killed Jasmine, who stole the Bowl of Tears, even the reason that I was here at Mythos Academy in the first place. It was all inside the library, just waiting for me to walk in and discover it for myself.

Come inside, and all will finally be revealed, a voice seemed to whisper in the back of my mind. Or maybe it was just my own wishful thinking.

Whatever it was, I picked up my skirt, walked up the stairs, and slipped inside.

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I’d been wrong before, when I’d thought that there had only been a few lights on in the Library of Antiquities. The double doors that led into the main floor stood wide open, and the golden glow from inside spilled out into the hallway, showing the way. But there was something strange about the light tonight. It seemed to cast out more shadows than it actually banished and gave a black, sinister air to everything it touched, from the suits of armor that lined the hallway to the mythological creatures carved into the marble walls.

Once again, the stone eyes of the gryphons and Gorgons watched me, tracking my movements as I crept forward. The weird light splashed across the carvings, making the creatures look even fiercer and more lifelike than ever before-like they could spring out from the stone at any second and tear me into pieces. I shivered and dropped my gaze from the walls.

Morgan had already disappeared from sight, but the clack of her stilettos on the floor inside the main space echoed through the entire library. I stopped a moment to slip off my own heels, then followed her. The floor was as cold as ice on my bare feet, but at least now I wouldn’t make as much noise as the Valkyrie had.

From the hollow echo of her footsteps, it sounded like Morgan had gone down the main library aisle, walking right toward whoever or whatever was waiting inside. I wasn’t so naive or stupid to think that there wasn’t someone or something else here. Somebody had had to turn on the lights and open the doors for Morgan, and I doubted it was Nickamedes, since I’d just seen him over at the dining hall, chaperoning the homecoming dance.

Since I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to run into whoever else was waiting inside, I headed over to one of the side doors that led into the main floor, opened it up, and slipped in that way. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I wasn’t going to bumble right into the middle of it. Not if I could help it, anyway.