Spartan Frost

  I’d left Mythos Academy, left Cypress Mountain, North Carolina, the night that I’d attacked Gwen. My dad had driven me over to Ashland, then we’d flown up to Bigtime in his private plane, before getting into another car and driving to our final destination—the Quinn summer mansion in the Adirondack Mountains in New York.

  The house wasn’t too far away from the New York branch of Mythos Academy, which was where my dad spent a lot of his time. The mansion had been his base of operations ever since he’d become the head of the Protectorate, the police force for the mythological world that tracked down Reapers and put them in prison where they belonged.

  But more important, the mansion wasn’t where my mom, Larenta, and older sister, Larissa, had been murdered by Agrona and her Reapers when I was five. There were no bad memories here. No blood soaked into the wooden floors. No scratches in the thick stone walls from where weapons had missed their mark and gouged into the rock instead of someone’s skull. No imagined screams to haunt me about how I’d failed to protect my family, how I’d failed to stand and fight with my mom and sister against the Reapers. No snide whispers to remind me how disappointed my dad was in me because of that—because I hadn’t acted like a real Spartan would have that day. Because I’d hidden like my mom and sister had told me to instead of fighting—and dying—with them.

  I snorted again. Maybe I’d been hanging around Gwen too long. Because I was almost starting to think that I could hear and see things that weren’t really there and pick up on memories and feelings like she could with her psychometry.

  I walked on, moving from one hallway to the next. The mansion was all polished wood, gleaming glass, and gray stone, more like a large rustic hunting lodge than anything else. But instead of stuffed Fenrir wolf, Nemean prowler, and Black roc heads, weapons covered many of the walls—swords, axes, maces, daggers, bows with quivers full of arrows hanging beside them. Some of the weapons were for decoration, but most were in case of a Reaper attack. A threat that loomed even larger now that Loki was free from his Helheim prison, and his Reapers on the verge of declaring a second Chaos War.

  I strode by a series of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the backyard and the mountainous, wooded ridges that surrounded the mansion. Outside, fat flakes of snow slowly drifted down from the dull gray sky, adding another layer to what had already fallen overnight. It had been snowing ever since we’d gotten here about two weeks ago. More than a foot covered the ground at any one time, and it showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Fine by me. The frozen cold matched my mood.

  An ornate grandfather clock with a gold gryphon perching on top of its wooden dome started chiming as I passed one of the first-floor living rooms. The clock’s golden face was also shaped like a gryphon, complete with two topaz eyes and an ebony beak. The creature’s mouth was open in a silent snarl, as though it wanted to use its sharp beak to break free of the glass case that housed it. I glanced at the clock hands, which resembled two silver swords stabbing into the gryphon’s face. Seven a.m. on the dot.

  Gwen should be in the gym right now for weapons training with Oliver and Kenzie Tanaka, another one of my best friends. Daphne Cruz, Gwen’s best friend, and Carson Callahan, Daphne’s boyfriend, were probably there too. I’d have to text Oliver later and see how Gwen was, just like I’d done every day since I’d left the academy. Oh, I knew that she was fine—physically, at least, since her wound had been healed—and that all of our friends were watching out for her. But Oliver had said more than once that Gwen had been quiet lately—and that she asked about me every single day.

  Gwen had texted me and left me several voice mails over the past two weeks, but I hadn’t responded to any of them. In fact, I always checked my phone when it beeped so I wouldn’t accidentally answer one of her calls by mistake. Still, I replayed the recordings she left me over and over again, carefully listening to every single word and trying to figure out whether or not she was really okay from how her voice sounded. I couldn’t bear to talk to her, though. Just the thought made my chest tighten and my stomach churn with guilt.

  Still, more than once, I found myself staring at my phone, trying to work up the courage to at least text her back and tell her that she shouldn’t worry about me. That I didn’t deserve one single second of her time. Not anymore. But I couldn’t even do that. Not yet. Maybe not ever again.

  Not after what I’d done to her.

  The clock chimed a final time, snapping me out of my dark thoughts, and I moved on. Finally, I reached the kitchen, which was one of the largest rooms in the entire mansion. More wood and stone made up the floor and walls, while several square skylights were set into the ceiling, although the glass was covered over with snow, just like everything else. A long, skinny, gray marble island divided the front part of the kitchen into two large halves, with gleaming chrome appliances flanking the walls on either side. A rectangular dining table took up the back half of the room, the four wooden legs each carved to look like gargoyles standing straight up. The glass tabletop itself rested on the creatures’ upstretched front legs, as though they were really here and holding it up with their talon-tipped paws. A set of glass double doors stood behind the table, revealing even more of the cold and snow outside.

  A man stood at one of the stoves along the right wall, stirring something in a skillet. Blond hair, pale blue eyes, tall, thin figure. Linus Quinn, my dad, and the head of the Protectorate.

  Dad wore jeans, boots, and a heavy sweater like I did, although his long gray Protectorate robe was thrown over the chair at the head of the table and his sword was propped up in a nearby seat. His cell phone was also sitting on the wooden surface, although with his open laptop, several folders, and three thick stacks of papers. His black reading glasses perched on top of a pile of glossy photos, along with a magnifying glass.

  Folders, papers, pens, and more had cluttered that end of the table for as long as I could remember. Dad was always working on something. Even when I was a kid, and we’d come up here to relax and have a vacation, he’d still bring along stacks and stacks of reports on what the Reapers might be up to and where they might strike next. His dedication to his job, to stopping Reapers and keeping the members of the Pantheon as safe as possible, was one of the things I admired most about him—and hated at the same time. Because Dad had been able to lose himself in his Protectorate duties after Mom and Larissa had been killed. All I’d been able to do was miss them.

  Dad turned at the scuff of my boots on the floor. “There you are,” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost.”

  He let out a small chuckle, trying to make a joke, and I forced myself to smile back at him.

  “Yeah. The house is bigger than I remember. I turned left instead of right.”

  He nodded and scooped the eggs that he’d been scrambling out of the hot pan and into a white serving dish. “Well, you’re just in time. Come and fix a plate.”

  I wandered over to the counter next to the stove. The eggs sat next to an even bigger platter of crispy bacon, smoked sausage, and country fried ham. Buckwheat pancakes, buttermilk biscuits, black pepper gravy, and hash browns completed the menu, along with pitchers of fresh-squeezed orange, apple, and grapefruit juice. The smells of the sizzling meat, fluffy eggs, and fried potatoes made my stomach rumble. I hadn’t been eating much lately.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You really went all out this morning.”

  “What is it they say? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Dad let out another small chuckle.

  This time, I didn’t respond. I was too interested in the food. Instead, I grabbed a plate, piled it high, went over to the table, and sat in my regular spot, three seats down from and well out of the way of Dad’s nest of work at the end.

  Dad fixed his own plate and came over to the table. He started to sit down in his chair at the end, but then hesitated and glanced at me, as if he was thinking about going around the table and sitting across from me. I kept my gaze fixed on my plat
e and shoveled another bite of eggs into my mouth. After a moment, he slid into his usual spot, moving his laptop off to one side to make room for his plate.

  I didn’t know whether I was disappointed that he hadn’t chosen to sit closer to me or happy that he hadn’t. After a moment, I decided on happy, or at least relieved, since him being down there was pretty much the status quo. This was what we were, and this was what we’d been for a long time now—as distant and impersonal as strangers sharing a meal. That was the only way we’d been able to keep from shouting at each other for the last few years. By being polite, eating quickly, and getting out of each other’s hair, going to different parts of the mansion, and doing our own separate things as soon as we could.

  For several minutes, we focused on our food, and the only sounds were the tinny scrape-scrape-scrape of our knives and forks on the plates and the occasional slosh-slosh of juice in our glasses.

  My dad was no gourmet cook, not like the chefs at Mythos, who whipped up lobster omelets, spicy veal sausages, and other elaborate concoctions on a daily basis, but the food was warm, tasty, and filling. The pancakes were light and fluffy, while the wild blueberry syrup that I poured over them was tart, tangy, and sweet all at the same time. The cheesy scrambled eggs went great with the slightly salty ham, buttermilk biscuits, peppery gravy, and fried hash browns. And, hey, bacon made everything better.

  After we’d finished our first helpings and had gotten seconds of everything, my dad cleared his throat. Wary, I looked at him. He only did that when he wanted to talk to me, usually about something I wasn’t going to like. Actually, we never talked about anything I did like.

  “So,” he said, struggling to smile just as I had earlier. “What’s on your agenda for today?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe some training exercises in the gym. I should work on my archery. I’ve been slacking off on that lately.”

  Plus, bows and arrows didn’t immediately remind me of what I’d done to Gwen. Not like all the swords hanging on the walls.

  Dad frowned. “That’s all you’ve done ever since we arrived. I’m all for training, staying strong, and keeping on top of your game, but I think you’re taking things a little too far, Logan. You’ve spent at least three hours in the gym every day since we’ve been here—sometimes even more. Then, after you train, you go hiking through the woods for another couple of hours, and you don’t come back until it’s dark out.”

  I shrugged again. I wasn’t going to tell him that wearing myself out to the point of utter exhaustion was the only way that I could keep from dreaming about stabbing Gwen again, that I could at least postpone some of the nightmares. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell him the other reason I was training so hard—so I could kill Agrona the next time I saw her.

  Part of me still couldn’t believe she was the head of the Reapers, the person who’d led the attack on my mom and sister in hopes of killing them and kidnapping me all those years ago. Agrona had actually been okay, as far as stepmoms went. She’d always been nice to me, and she’d certainly never tried to take my mom’s place or anything. She hadn’t even bossed me around all that much or nagged me about how messy my room always was.

  She’d even listened when I’d complained to her about my dad, and she’d always encouraged the two of us to try to get along better. In fact, Agrona was pretty much the only reason my dad and I had been civil to each other the last few years. But the whole time—the whole damn time—she’d been using us. Spying on the Protectorate through my dad and his friends, secretly sabotaging the missions she went on with them, keeping tabs on me so she could try to put Loki’s soul into my body when the evil god finally got free from Helheim.

  “Well, I thought we might go over to the academy today,” Dad said when it became apparent I wasn’t going to say anything else about my reasons for training so hard. “Get you all set up for classes next week.”

  “I thought you did that already,” I muttered.

  I hadn’t wanted to go back to the North Carolina academy, but I didn’t want to transfer the New York one either, or any of the others around the world. But my dad was a stickler for the rules, and he insisted that I return to one of the academies and get caught up on all the work I’d missed the past two weeks. As if nothing had happened. As if I hadn’t been connected to Loki. As if I hadn’t tried to murder Gwen. And most especially, as if everyone didn’t know about all the terrible things I’d done.

  Oh, I knew it was all the talk of the mythological world. How Logan freaking Quinn had gone all Reaper and almost killed Nike’s Champion and a whole bunch of other kids at the Aoide Auditorium. Oliver and Kenzie had told me about all of the calls, texts, and questions they’d gotten from the other kids at the academy. Not to mention the crazy rumors that were going around campus—everything from Gwen killing me, to me willingly joining and escaping with the Reapers, to my body being in cold storage in the morgue in the bottom of the math-science building.

  Apparently, Kenzie had started turning his phone off so he wouldn’t see all the silly questions and stupid messages. Nobody had been brave enough to text or call me, though. I supposed they were all too afraid of me for that.

  Nobody except for Gwen, that is.

  She’d even sent me a letter, telling me how she’d seen exactly what Loki had done to me, how he’d tortured me from the inside out, and how hard I’d fought against him. She also said that she forgave me for everything I’d done, for how I’d hurt her.

  Maybe she did, but I couldn’t forgive myself.

  But questions, rumors, and my own guilt aside, everyone would be watching me the second I set foot on any Mythos campus anywhere in the world. And right now, I just didn’t want to deal with all of the stares and whispers and stupid gossip.

  It was hard enough handling what had actually happened.

  “Logan?” Dad asked in a soft voice. “Are you okay?”

  “Terrific,” I muttered, pushing my scrambled eggs from one side of my plate to the other instead of eating them. “Just terrific.”

  “Look, I know it’s hard, but I really think that returning to school and getting back to some sort of normal routine will help you . . . deal with things,” he said. “You can’t just sit around here all day and do nothing.”

  “I’m not doing nothing. I’m training. Just like a real Spartan would, right?” I didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm out of my voice, but I couldn’t hide the hurt that went along with my words.

  Dad sighed and started to open his mouth, probably to lecture me some more about going back to school—

  A sharp knock sounded on the front door, cutting him off before he could get started. A second later, the door creaked open. I tensed and sat up straight in my chair, my fingers repositioning the knife and fork in my hands so I could lash out with them. Like all Spartans, I didn’t need a weapon to fight. Thanks to my innate killer instinct, I knew I could jab the knife into someone’s neck or poke one of his eyes out with the fork. If worse came to worst, I could always break one of the plates and use the shards like daggers, or shove someone’s head through the top of the glass table—

  Dad waved his hand at me in a placating gesture. “Relax, Logan. I’m expecting company. It’s time for the morning briefing, remember?”

  Every morning, at least a couple of Protectorate members stopped by the house to update my dad on the latest Reaper sightings, crimes, and suspected activities. It had been Dad’s routine for as long as I could remember, and I felt stupid that I’d forgotten about it today.

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  I gave him a curt nod, but it still took me a moment to unclench my hands from around the utensils and set them down on my plate. I’d been on edge ever since that day at the auditorium, expecting Agrona to show up at any moment, slap another collar studded with Apate jewels around my neck, and try to finish the ritual she’d started. Or worse, for Loki to suddenly storm back into my mind, take control of me once more, and make me murder everyone around me.
Nickamedes and Professor Metis had told me that wouldn’t happen, that I wasn’t connected to the evil god anymore, that he couldn’t force his will on me like that ever again, but I didn’t know if I believed them.

  I didn’t know what to believe anymore—especially not about myself.

  Heavy footsteps sounded, and two men appeared in the kitchen doorway. One of the men was short and stocky, with a thick, muscled body, while the other was tall and slender. Sergei Sokolov and Inari Sato, two of my dad’s best friends and important members of the Protectorate. Normally, this early in the morning, Sergei and Inari would have been in jeans, boots, and sweaters, like me and Dad, but today, they’d already put their gray robes on over their regular clothes, and their swords were belted around their waists, the metal hilts winking at me like sly, knowing eyes. Something was up.

  “Linus, Logan,” Sergei said, his Russian accent a little more pronounced than usual.

  We both nodded back at him. Inari stood by his friend’s side, still and silent, as was his way. The Ninja never talked much.

  Dad gestured over at the platters of food on the counter. “Sit down and help yourselves to some breakfast. I made enough for all of us.”

  Sergei shook his head. “No time. I hate to interrupt your meal, but we’ve got a report of some Reapers using a nearby building as a base of operations,” he rumbled, his hazel eyes dark and serious. “According to our intel, there are at least half a dozen Reapers there right now. Maybe more. We think it’s the same crew that’s been stealing artifacts from some of the local museums.”

  Dad’s gaze flicked to the photos on top of the table. He spread them out, and I leaned over so I could get a better look at them. They were all slick, glossy shots, the sort of things you might see in a museum brochure, artful photos that would show the items in the best possible light. A spear, a shield, some rings, and a half-used candle were among the artifacts featured in the pictures.