Killer Frost

  This time, the statues plowed into the Reapers, clawing, biting, and scratching for all they were worth. One wave of Reapers fell. Then another, then another. Everyone in the Protectorate drew in a collective breath and got back into the fight as well. Logan and I stayed where we were by Carson’s side while the two library gryphons protected him—and us too.

  Every time a Reaper got within five feet of me, Logan, and Carson, the gryphons would lash out with their paws, talons, and beaks, and either drive the Reaper back or kill the warrior outright. It was one of the most bizarre, wonderful, and frightening things I’d ever seen.

  And it slowly turned the tide in our favor.

  With the statues fighting by our side, helping us, the Protectorate guards and the rest of my friends were finally able to make a dent in the Reapers’ numbers. Warrior after warrior fell on the quad, and this time, the Protectorate forces were the ones who advanced, instead of retreating. The last notes of Carson’s song finally faded away, but no one seemed to notice, and everyone kept right on fighting, including the statues.

  Suddenly, Alexei and Oliver were by my side, and we all pressed forward, cutting down Reaper after Reaper.

  Logan was grinning, and so was I. New energy, new determination, surged through my body. Because, now, I thought we might actually win this battle after all—

  An angry snarl sounded, lower and uglier than all the others, and I realized that Loki was striding forward through the Reapers, shoving his own warriors out of his way. He stopped close to the middle of the quad, not that far from where Carson, Logan, Oliver, Alexei, and I were standing. A gargoyle bounded across the grass, heading straight toward him. Loki looked at it with disgust, then gave a sharp, short wave of his hand, sending a burst of power forward.

  The gargoyle disintegrated into dust, and my heart sank.

  One by one, the stone statues moved to attack Loki, and every time—every single time—he waved his hand at them.

  One by one, the statues crumbled to dust, breaking into bits and tumbling to a stop at the god’s feet. One after another, they all just . . . shattered. I wasn’t even aware that I was crying until I felt the cold wetness of my own tears on my cheeks. The statues . . . he was destroying them all.

  Every last one.

  Somehow, that hurt worse than any other part of the battle so far. For months, I’d been creeped out by the statues, always feeling like they were watching me, and now I knew why—because they’d been protecting me. And now, they were being destroyed for their watchfulness.

  “No!” I screamed. “Stop it! Stop killing them!”

  I would have surged forward and tried to attack Loki myself, but Logan caught my arm and pulled me back.

  “No, Gwen!” Logan yelled. “It’s too late! There’s nothing you can do! Not against his magic!”

  Loki stepped forward and raised both of his hands. This time, a blast of magic swept over the entire quad, rippling through the air like a heat wave, smashing every single statue that it touched, until the only ones that remained were the two gryphons from the library steps. But even they seemed to be weakened, stumbling around from the powerful blast like the rest of us were.

  I kept crying, the tears rolling down my cheeks. I’d been able to ignore the horrors of the battle up until now, but everything hit me at once, and I fell to my knees on the quad, trying to find the strength to get back up.

  “She’s down!”

  “Nike’s Champion is down!” “Death to the Protectorate!”

  The Reapers pressed their advantage and began engaging the Protectorate guards again, their attacks even fiercer than before. This time, without the statues to help us, the Reapers advanced.

  I staggered back up onto my feet and swung Vic in arc after furious arc, but it didn’t change the battle at all. Finally, I felt Logan’s hand on my arm again, pulling me back. Oliver and Alexei grabbed Carson, who still had a dreamy look on his face. It seemed as if the Horn of Roland was still working its magic on him.

  This time, Vivian and Agrona made their way to the front of the Reapers, and I saw Vivian finally start swinging Lucretia and getting into the fight. From the triumphant look on her face, she thought they had already won, and that it was just a matter of getting rid of the guards one at a time before she could come and kill me and the rest of my friends.

  And I couldn’t help but think that she was right. “Retreat!” Linus yelled out, his voice booming through

  the quad, even as he scrambled back over the piles of stone that now littered the grass. “Fall back to the library! Now!”

  The Protectorate guards turned and raced toward the library, and my friends dragged me and Carson along with everyone else.

  And so we made our second and final retreat up the steps and into the Library of Antiquities.

  Chapter 27

  Logan and I staggered up the library steps along with everyone else. Linus, Sergei, and Inari were the last ones inside, and Metis and Ajax slammed the doors shut behind them. I didn’t know where they’d gotten them from, but Metis, Ajax, and some of the guards raised a couple of thick iron bars and slid them across the doors, locking us inside and the Reapers out.

  I stared at the doors, waiting for the Reapers to start trying to break through them, but nothing happened, and everything was eerily silent.

  “They need some time to regroup,” Metis said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “And so do we. Come on.”

  I nodded and let her lead me away from the doors, more than a little numb after everything that had happened. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what was taking place outside on the quad, especially to the two stone gryphons. Had Loki raised his hand and turned them to dust like he had all the other statues?

  The sadness, worry, and grief just kept on coming as I stepped into the main space of the library—because it had already been turned into a sick bay.

  The remaining Protectorate guards slumped over the tables and chairs or had collapsed onto the floor, and the students and other adults weren’t much better. I saw blood everywhere I looked, on every single arm, hand, leg, and face. My gaze locked on to a guy who wasn’t that much older than me. He was cradling his arm, which had a nasty gash in it, and it almost seemed as if I could hear each and every drop of his blood plopping against the white marble floor.

  I stood there in the middle of the chaos, that numb feeling spreading through my body.

  “Quickly!” Nickamedes said, hobbling around and trying to get everyone’s attention. “Get the injured and the wounded into the back of the library! This way! This way!”

  Grandma Frost was with him. Her eyes met mine, and I could see the relief in her face that I was okay. She clapped her hands together. “Do what Nickamedes says. Now!”

  The two of them waved their hands, urging the others to follow them as they hurried into the back section of the library. Everyone who was able put their arms under the shoulders of the wounded and helped them in that direction.

  “Gwen?” Alexei said, touching my arm. “Are you okay? Do you need to be healed?”

  “Why would you say that?” I murmured. “Because you look half-dead,” Oliver said.

  I snapped out of my daze and stared down at my own body, which was covered with dirt, blood, bruises, and shallow cuts. I’d been so caught up in the fight that I hadn’t even noticed my injuries before now. None of them was serious, but still, all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball on the floor and cry. But I couldn’t do that.

  “Gwen?” Alexei asked again.

  “I’m fine. What about you guys?”

  “I think we’re all okay,” Logan said, coming to stand beside me. “Just some cuts and bruises, for the most part.”

  One by one, my gaze swept over my friends. Logan. Alexei. Oliver. Carson. All of them covered with just as much dirt, blood, and sweat as I was. Oliver had a knot on his head the size of a goose egg from where a Reaper had slammed the hilt of his sword into the Spartan’s temple. A cut dripped blood on Logan’s
cheek, while one of Alexei’s eyes was starting to blacken from where someone had hit him. But Logan was right. We’d all been lucky to escape with minor injuries—so far.

  Carson, miraculously, didn’t have a scratch on him, and some of the dreaminess seemed to have leaked out of his gaze, along with the strange magic that had darkened his eyes. Still, he kept a tight grip on the horn, and I wondered if he was thinking about what else he might do with the artifact.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Carson looked at me, his eyes dark with sadness. “He killed them all. Loki. I made them come to life, I set them free, and now, they’re all gone. Just . . . gone.”

  I thought of how the statues had shattered one by one, then how all of the others had crumbled to dust with a wave of Loki’s hand. I put my own hand on his shoulder.

  “I know how you feel,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” Carson reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose

  above his black glasses, as if he was trying to hold back tears. “I know that it’s stupid. That people died out on the quad today—good people. But I can’t stop thinking about the statues . . .” He glanced down at the horn he was still holding. “If I’d known that they were going to be destroyed, I never would have started playing in the first place. I never would have even picked up the stupid horn that day at the coliseum. I wish I’d never even seen it.”

  “Maybe the statues being destroyed was what was always supposed to happen,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t really know, but it was something Nike had said to me more than once. I’d hoped that Carson would find some comfort in the words, but his face seemed as troubled as before. I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know what to say to anyone right now.

  “Come on,” I said. “We should help the others and find Daphne and my grandma.”

  He nodded, and we headed toward the checkout counter. Logan, Oliver, and Alexei stayed behind with Linus and the guards.

  I noticed Morgan McDougall trying to hop around on a bum ankle, so I went over and put my arm under her shoulder. The Valkyrie leaned on me, a few sparks of green magic hissing out of her fingertips.

  “You okay?”

  “Never better,” Morgan quipped. “You know, for being in the middle of the most epic fight ever.”

  I grinned at her black humor and helped her to the back of the library.

  Nickamedes was already there, along with Metis, who was healing the most seriously injured. She went from one warrior to the next, the golden glow of her magic bathing the wounded in its soft, warm light. Nickamedes followed her, hobbling around on his cane and helping her as best he could. Metis finished with a particularly nasty wound in a guard’s stomach and staggered back from the table, but Nickamedes was there to catch and steady her. Metis looked at him a moment, then hurried on to the next person who was injured. Nickamedes followed her again. Raven was there, too, trailing both of them, carrying rolls of bandages that were the same ghostly white as her dress.

  My eyes swept over the study tables, and I finally spotted a splash of pink among all the blood. Daphne had come down from the second-floor library balcony and was holding hands with Savannah, who had an ugly cut over her right eye. A rosy golden glow moved from Daphne’s body into Savannah’s, and I watched while the gash over the Amazon’s eye seamlessly healed.

  “You good?” Daphne asked.

  Savannah nodded, and Daphne got up and started to move to the next person. But she caught sight of Carson trailing along beside me and Morgan, and stalked over to us.

  “What were you doing?” she hissed at him. “What were you thinking, strolling out into the middle of the quad like that? You could have been killed, you idiot!”

  Carson gave her a sheepish grin and held up his artifact. “Um, the horn made me do it?”

  Daphne grabbed the front of Carson’s robe, drew him forward, and pressed her lips to his. A cascade of sparks erupted all around them, bathing them in a soft, princesspink shimmer.

  “Wow,” Morgan drawled. “Maybe you guys should get a room.”

  Daphne wrapped her arms around Carson’s neck and kissed him even harder.

  I helped Morgan over to one of the empty chairs so she could sit down and take her weight off her ankle. Then, I went over to my grandma, who was holding the hand of a Protectorate guard who’d been laid out flat on one of the study tables.

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked. “No,” she said.

  And I realized that the guard was staring at the ceiling, his gaze glassy with death. Grandma sighed, then leaned forward, and gently closed his eyes. She turned to me and opened her arms. I let out a choked sob and stepped forward into her embrace. We stood like that for a long time, rocking back and forth, drawing what strength we could from each other.

  “I have to go,” I finally whispered. “And see what the plan is now.”

  She nodded, and we both drew back. Grandma cupped my face in her hands. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my bloody forehead before moving over to help Metis and Nickamedes.

  I returned to the front of the library. By this point, all of the injured had been taken to the back, and all of the warriors that were more or less in one piece were milling around the study tables.

  There weren’t many of us left.

  Maybe thirty warriors were at the tables, clustered around Linus, Sergei, Inari, and Ajax. Thirty warriors to try to defeat Vivian, Agrona, Loki, and the rest of the Reapers out on the quad. It wasn’t enough.

  We weren’t going to be enough.

  My heart sank, but I forced myself to look up at the second floor, where Nike’s statue was. The goddess’s face was neutral, although her lips were turned down, almost as if she felt the same weary, aching sadness that I did. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Loki would wave his hand and destroy her statue as easily as he had the ones outside. My stomach clenched at the thought, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  Because I still didn’t know how to kill Loki.

  But I shook off my worry and hurried over to where Linus was standing with Logan, Oliver, and Alexei. Linus noticed that we were listening to him, and he stared at me a moment before turning to address the rest of the guards.

  “We all know what we’re up against,” he said in a low voice. “We all know that there is no escape. Not for us.”

  The Protectorate guards nodded their heads in grim agreement. We’d all hoped we would win the battle, but we had prepared for this too—including me.

  “I’m afraid all we can do at this point is try to hold them off long enough to get the wounded to safety.”

  Linus looked at Rory and Rachel, who had come down from the balcony with the other archers and were now standing with the rest of the warriors. I’d lost track of them during the fight outside, and I was glad to see they were both okay.

  “You two seem to be the most familiar with the gryphons,” he said. “Do you think you can convince them to fly the wounded out of here?”

  Rory looked at me, and I nodded at her. She, in turn, nodded at Linus. “We’re on it.”

  Rory and Rachel disappeared into the back of the library to climb up to one of the balconies to talk to the remaining gryphons.

  “It will still take the gryphons several trips to evacuate everyone,” Inari said.

  Linus ran a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of blood behind in his blond locks. “I know. We need to think of a way to buy ourselves some more time. It won’t be long before the Reapers try to enter the library, if that’s not what they’re doing already.”

  “So how do we stall?” Sergei asked, clutching his hand to his side, blood trickling out from the wound he’d gotten there.

  Linus shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  I thought for a minute, then pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket. To my surprise, the device was still intact, and I quickly scrolled back through my call history until I could pull up Vivian’s number. Whe
n I was sure I could reach her, I stepped forward.

  “I might have an idea that can buy us a little more time.”

  Linus looked at me. “And what would that be?”

  “We give the Reapers exactly what they want. We let them walk right on into the library.”

  “And why would we do that, Miss Frost?” Linus asked. “We’re trying to keep them out of here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  I stared back at him. “We let them in here so they can finally kill me.”

  I quickly outlined my plan. Nobody liked it, especially not Logan.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No way, Gypsy girl.”

  I looked at him. “You know it’s the best option we have at this point. The only option, really. They’ll go for it. You know they will. Especially Vivian, since she’s failed to kill me so many times in the past. She’ll want to prove herself to Loki by finally taking me down.”

  Logan opened his mouth, but his dad cut him off. “She’s right,” Linus said. “The Reapers know they

  have us trapped and outnumbered. They’ll want to savor their victory. I know Agrona. She’ll agree to it.”

  “And Vivian will be practically salivating at the thought of killing me,” I added before Logan could protest any more. “And while the two of us are fighting, it will give the Protectorate more time to evacuate the folks in the back of the library. Trust me. It will work. Besides, this is what you’ve been training me for all these months, right? Surely I didn’t get up early all those mornings for nothing.”

  I gave him a wobbly grin. Logan tried to return the expression, but he couldn’t. Yeah. I knew the feeling.

  Logan didn’t like it, but he realized it was our only option, and he reluctantly agreed. We worked out a few more of the details. When everyone knew what their part was, I hit the button to dial Vivian’s number. Of course, it wouldn’t matter how clever my plan was if the Reaper girl hadn’t bothered to bring her phone with her—