Crimson Frost (Mythos Academy 4)

"We have already launched our investigation, and we will start the trial on Friday afternoon, two days from now," Linus said. "Metis will escort you here after your myth-history class. In the meantime, I suggest you reflect on your actions these past few months and prepare to account for everything you've done since coming to Mythos. That is all-for now."

Linus got to his feet, turned, and left the prison, his gray robe streaming out behind him. Sergei and Inari nodded at me and the others before they followed him. Alexei stayed behind, though. At first, I wondered why, but then I realized what was going on-guard duty was starting already. Marvelous.

I sat in the stone chair, wondering if my legs would actually work if I tried to get to my feet. A little more than an hour ago, I'd been having coffee with Logan, and my biggest worry had been how our first date was going. Now, my whole world had been turned upside down-again.

"Gwen?" Metis asked. "Are you okay?"

"Sure," I said. "Just fine and dandy for a girl who's about to be put on trial for her life."

"Don't worry, Gwen," Ajax said in his deep, rumbling voice. "We're going to get this sorted out. Nothing's going to happen to you."

I started to tell him it was too late for that, that everyone at Mythos hated me now, but I kept quiet. Instead, I focused on the one person who hadn't been in the prison with the others, the one person I needed to see.

"What about my grandma?" I asked. "Where is she? Does she know about this?"

Metis nodded. "She does. I called her as soon as the assembly ended. She should be waiting for you in your dorm room by now."

I nodded. Grandma Frost would know what to do. She always knew what to do.

"Come on," Nickamedes said. "Let's get you out of here and back to your room."

I got to my feet, and we walked toward the prison door. Raven gave me another brief glance as we left, but she went right back to her magazine. I doubted she cared one way or the other what happened to me.

Ajax opened the door, and we stepped out into the hallway. Daphne and Carson were standing outside, but there was no sign of Logan, his dad, or the other members of the Protectorate. Metis, Nickamedes, and Ajax started talking in low voices, so I walked over to my friends.

"Gwen!" Daphne said. "Are you okay?"

The Valkyrie hugged me, her great strength making my back crack.

"I'm okay," I said. "For now. Where's Logan?"

Daphne shook her head, her blond ponytail swishing from side to side. "He went after his dad to try and talk to him about . . . things."

"Yeah. Things."

"Is it true?" Carson asked, his brown eyes big and wide behind his black glasses. "That they're going to put you on trial for what happened with Vivian and Loki?"

"It's true."

I told my friends everything Linus had said-except that the punishment was death if I was found guilty. I didn't want to worry them any more than they already were. Besides, Metis and the others had said that they would straighten all this out. I had to believe them. I just had to. Otherwise, I'd go crazy on the spot, and Vivian, Loki, and the rest of the Reapers would have already won.

When I finished, Carson jerked his head. "Who's that?"

I turned and realized that Alexei was standing behind me. I hadn't even heard him move. "Oh, this is Alexei. My . . . guard."

"Alexei Sokolov," Daphne said in a cool voice. "I remember you. You gave me a run for my money last year at the spring archery championships at the New York academy."

For the first time, a hint of a smile lifted up his lips. "And you beat me in the final round."

"I did," Daphne said. "I know you have your orders from the Protectorate, but if you lay so much as one hand on Gwen or do anything to hurt her, I will break your fingers so badly that you will never be able to pick up a weapon again. Or anything else."

"Daphne!" I hissed, shocked at the threat of violence in her deceptively sweet voice.

"What?" she said. "I'm just telling him what's what."

Sparks of magic shot out of her fingertips, as if to punctuate her brutal promise. All Valkyries gave off flickers and flares of magic that were tied to their personalities and auras. I always thought it was ironic that Daphne's aura apparently had a princess pink color, given how volatile and quick to anger she could be.

"Don't worry, Gwen," Alexei replied. "I know all about you and your friends, including the Valkyrie's temper."

"And how is that? Because I've never seen or even heard of you before today."

"I have my sources."

Something flashed in his eyes, something that looked a lot like longing, but a second later, his face was blank and expressionless once more. Weird. I had no idea how Alexei could know anything about me, but it looked like I was stuck with him, whether I liked it or not.

"Do you think Vivian is behind this?" Carson asked, running a hand through his brown hair.

I shrugged. "I don't know. The last time I saw Vivian, she was flying off on that Black roc with Loki strapped in behind her. But I wouldn't put it past her to try to make trouble for me, especially since Preston didn't succeed in killing me at the Garm gate."

I shivered once again, thinking about all the awful things that had happened that night. Vivian slicing open my palm with the Helheim Dagger and using my blood to free Loki. The evil god telling Preston to kill me, and the Reaper stabbing me in the chest with the dagger. Then me using my psychometry to touch Preston, to pull all the magic, all the life, out of his body and into mine so I could heal myself. Killing the older boy with my Gypsy gift, the magic Nike had given to me and my family.

"Gwen," Metis said, coming over to stand beside me, her phone in her hand. "Your grandmother just texted me. She's waiting for you."

I snapped out of my thoughts. "Thanks, professor. I'll go see her right now."

Metis nodded, then pulled me away from the others. "I don't want you to worry about any of this. Nickamedes, Ajax, and I will take care of everything. We'll make sure that Linus and the rest of the Protectorate follow the rules. We'll protect you. Okay?"

Emotion clogged my throat, making it hard to speak, so I just nodded instead. Metis and my mom had been best friends back when they'd been students at Mythos, so I knew that the professor meant every word she said. I just wondered what it would cost her to get me out of this mess-if she even could.

Chapter 5

I promised to call Daphne later, and she told me that she and Carson would be at weapons training in the gym in the morning just like usual. I said good-bye to my friends and followed Metis up the stairs and out of the math-science building. It was even colder now than it had been during the assembly, and the main quad was deserted. By now, the other students would have gathered in the dining hall, library, or their dorms to talk about what had happened.

The professor walked with me across campus, with Alexei trailing along behind. He didn't speak to us . In fact, he didn't make a sound. His clothes didn't rustle, his boots didn't thump on the cobblestones, his breath didn't even steam like mine did in the cold. Creepy.

We finally reached Styx Hall and stopped outside the dorm.

"Just try to just relax and put this out of your mind as best you can, okay, Gwen?" Metis said. "And know that Nickamedes, Ajax, and I are working as hard as we can to get the charges dropped."

I nodded. "I'll try. Thank you. And I want to say that I'm sorry for all this. I never thought-I never thought something like this would happen." My throat tightened once more, and that was all I could say.

"I know, and it's not your fault, none of it, no matter what the Protectorate thinks. Remember that."

Metis squeezed my arm, turned, and headed back up to the main quad. Alexei left too, following her, but I wasn't alone. Inari was outside the dorm, leaning against a tree right below my dorm room windows. He still wore his gray robe, and that, along with his black hair and dark eyes, made him seem like just another shadow that had been splashed across the landscape. Looked like the Protectorate wasn't joking when it came to keeping an eye on me twenty-four-seven.

I used my student ID card to get into the dorm and walked up the steps to the third floor where my room was, stuck in a separate turret from the rest of the building. To my surprise, an older woman was on her knees outside the door to my room, a rag in her hand and a bucket of soapy water on the floor next to her.

"Grandma?" I asked. "What are you doing?"

Geraldine Frost looked up at me with violet eyes that were the same color as mine. She must have come straight here from her afternoon readings because she was still wearing what she called her Gypsy gear-a white silk blouse, black pants, and soft black shoes with toes that curled up. Colorful scarves were wrapped around her body, and the silver coins on the fringed ends jingle-jingle-jingled together with every move she made. She usually wore a scarf as a sort of headband, but today her iron-gray hair was loose around her wrinkled face.

Grandma was a Gypsy just like I was, which meant that she had a gift just like I did. In Grandma's case, she could see the future. She made extra money telling people's fortunes out of her house in nearby Asheville, just like I used my psychometry to find things that had been lost, forgotten, or stolen.

Not anymore, I realized with a jolt. Given what had happened at the amphitheater, no one on campus would ever hire me to find missing items again. That shouldn't have mattered to me, but it did. Sure, tracking down lost cell phones and stolen bracelets wasn't the most exciting or glamorous job, but it was mine-it was part of my magic, it was part of me being, well, me. Now, it was just another thing the Protectorate had taken away by accusing me in front of the entire academy. I wondered what else I would have to sacrifice before this was all over with-and if it would really end up costing me my life.

I pushed those troubling thoughts away and stepped closer to her. "Grandma? What's going on? Why are you scrubbing at my door with that rag . . ." My voice trailed off as I realized why.

MURDERER. KILLER. REAPER BITCH.

Those words and other, even nastier ones had been spray painted across the door and the surrounding walls in bright paint-Reaper-red paint.

"I'm sorry, pumpkin," Grandma Frost said, throwing the rag into the bucket and getting to her feet. "I was hoping to get it cleaned up before you saw. Don't worry. They just painted the walls. They didn't get into your room. I checked already."

I stared at the door and the walls. I could feel the anger radiating from the ugly, ugly words just as I'd felt it roll off the crowd at the amphitheater. I knew that if I leaned forward and ran my fingers over the paint, that the emotion would intensify, and I'd feel what the other kids had when they'd written those words-all their terrible hatred of me.

Suddenly, it was all just too much. My disastrous date with Logan. The Protectorate arresting me, then announcing the charges to everyone. Linus telling me the penalty for my supposed crimes was death. It was all just too much. Hot, scalding tears streamed down my cheeks even as I tried to hold back the wrenching sobs that shook my body from head to toe.

Grandma's arms closed around me, and she started rocking me back and forth. "Sshh. Sshh. It's okay, pumpkin. I'm here now. Everything's going to be all right."

I held on to her that much tighter and just cried and cried and cried. Letting it all out. My worries, my fears, my anger. Slowly, my body-shaking sobs died down to a steady stream of quiet tears, and then, even those dried up. I wiped the last of the tears off my flushed face, stepped back from Grandma, and stared at the ruined door, trying to ignore the empty, hollow ache in my chest.

"I guess Metis told you what happened," I mumbled.

Grandma nodded. "She did."

Sighing, I opened the door, and we stepped inside. A bed, a desk, some bookcases, a TV, a small fridge. My dorm room looked like any other, but I'd added my own personal touches, like the posters of Wonder Woman, Karma Girl, and The Killers that hung on the wall, and the framed photos of my mom that stood on my desk, right next to a small replica statue of Nike.

I stared at the statue, wondering if the goddess would open her eyes and give me a sly wink like she sometimes did, letting me know that everything was going to be okay. But the figurine remained still and frozen in place. I sighed. It seemed that Nike wasn't too happy with me right now either. At least she wasn't bowing her head and looking away from me like all the statues had earlier.

But somebody was happy to see me-Nyx.

The Fenrir wolf pup had been snoozing in a wicker basket in the corner, but she scrambled to her feet at the sound of the door opening. Nyx had only been born a couple of weeks ago, so she was still tiny, only weighing a few pounds, but I thought she was the cutest thing with her dark gray fur and purplish eyes. She bounded out of her basket, pounced on my sneaker, and started growling and playing tug-of-war with one of my shoelaces.

I picked up the wolf pup and hugged her to my chest. Nyx playfully growled again, giving me a nose full of raunchy breath, but I didn't care. The wolf licked my cheek, and I felt her happiness that I was finally back so I could play with her.

On the wall next to my posters, a purplish eye snapped open to glare at me.

"Well, it's about time you got back," a voice said in a cool English accent. "Where have you been all afternoon, Gwen?"

I walked over and looked at the eye. Actually, it wasn't just an eye I was staring at, but half of a man's face, complete with a nose, a mouth, and even an ear. The face was inlaid into the hilt of a silver sword that was hanging in a black leather scabbard on the wall. Vic, my talking sword, the weapon given to me by Nike.