I stared out at the sea of diamonds, sequins, and glossy pouty lips. I hadn't thought the homecoming dance would be this formal. This was like all the proms at my old school rolled into one-times ten. It was just ... dazzling. It took me a few seconds to quit blinking and staring at all the shiny objects.
A few of the girls looked at me, but once they saw that I wasn't dressed up for the dance and thus they couldn't critique who and what I was wearing, they turned back to their friends. I put my head down, hurried through the room, and headed up the steps.
And almost ran right into Morgan McDougall.
The Valkyrie was coming down the stairs just as I was going up. Morgan looked gorgeous and totally slutty at the same time. Her skintight gown matched the deep black of her hair, while smoky shadow rimmed her hazel eyes. Her lips were a crimson heart in her pretty face. The front of her dress had some sort of wire in it that pushed her boobs up to impressive heights, while the slit in the leg almost went all the way up to the promised land. I'm sure Samson Sorensen would approve of it-and so would every other guy at the dance.
Two other girls-Morgan's usual entourage-surrounded her, looking just as glitzy as she did, although not quite as slutty. The three of them had stopped a couple of steps up from the bottom, and their conversation drifted down to me.
"Of course I'm going to be the homecoming queen of the second-year class," Morgan said in a loud, proud voice. "Professor Metis told me as much during myth-history when she said that the other profs had decided to crown an alternate winner instead of Jasmine. They didn't want to bring everyone down by mentioning her tonight. And, of course, Samson's going to be homecoming king. It's only fitting, since he's my date. Tonight is going to be perfect and just the way it was always meant to be."
The two Valkyries nodded their heads, agreeing with everything she said. Even though Jasmine, their previous fearless leader, had only been dead a few days.
Morgan tossed her hair back over her shoulder, struck a model pose, and then slinked down the last few steps, ready to go claim her homecoming crown, her new boyfriend, and her rightful place as the new queen of Mythos Academy. The Valkyrie walked past me like she didn't even notice me standing on the first step. Maybe she didn't. I imagined it was hard for Morgan to see anything but her own perfection.
"Aren't you even sorry that she's dead?" I called out.
I'd never spoken to Morgan before, and I certainly had no real reason to talk to her now. But the image of Jasmine lying on the library floor, sprawled across the sticky puddles of her own blood, flashed through my mind, and the words came out before I could stop them.
Morgan turned around to stare at me, along with her two Valkyrie followers. "Are you talking to me?"
"Of course I'm talking to you, Morgan. You were Jasmine's best friend. Aren't you sorry that she's dead? Even just a little bit?"
Morgan frowned at me, her red lips turning down into a perfect pout. "Well, of course I'm sorry. I mean, she was my best friend and all, and I'd known her for, like, ever. But just because she's dead doesn't mean that we all have to act like we are, too. If you had known Jasmine, you'd realize that's what she would have wanted. She would have wanted us to pull together, to go to the dance and have fun without her."
It sounded like some little speech that Morgan had rehearsed in front of the mirror while she was putting on her lipstick. Some pat little answer that she could just pull out and use like an emotional stun gun if anyone else asked her the same question that I had. Of course, it was also more or less the same thing that my Grandma Frost had told me, but at least I knew she meant it. Morgan? Probably not.
I rolled my eyes. I was willing to bet that I knew Jasmine a lot better than Morgan ever had. Morgan hadn't even realized that Jasmine knew that she was sleeping with Samson behind Jasmine's back. But I did, thanks to the flashes that I'd gotten off the picture that I'd dug out of Jasmine's trash. With best friends like Morgan, who needed enemies?
But I didn't say anything. There was no use trying to tell Morgan any of that. Girls like her never listened to freaks like me.
Morgan gave me a haughty, superior look, as though she'd just won some kind of war of words with her quick answer. Then, she turned and strutted out of the dorm on her black stilettos, with her two new BFFs trailing along behind her.
I shook my head and went up the stairs to the second floor, where Daphne's room was. I knocked once on the door, and, a moment later, the Valkyrie threw it open.
Daphne had already put on her dress-a pink princess ball gown with tiny spaghetti straps, a sweetheart neckline, and a poofy skirt dusted with glittering pink sequins. She'd twisted her blond hair up into a sleek bun on top of her head, and her pink lip gloss matched her dress perfectly. The Valkyrie looked like she'd just stepped out of a Disney movie. I half expected singing birds and animated mice to come scurrying out of her room, pleased by their work for the night.
"Um, so what do you need me to do?" I asked. "Because you look pretty perfect to me already."
Daphne's face creased into a smile. "Do you really think so? Do you really like the dress?"
I came inside and shut the door behind me. "I really do. And I think that Carson will, too."
Daphne beamed at me, then turned and went over to stare at herself in the mirror over her vanity table once more.
I used the opportunity to study the Valkyrie's room. She had the same dorm room furniture that we all did, more or less. A bed, a vanity table, a desk, a TV, some bookcases. But Daphne had meant it before at lunch when she'd said that she liked pink, because it was everywhere. The comforter on her bed, the pillows, the curtains. All some shade of pink. Even the walls and ceiling were painted a pale, pearly pink.
But the strange thing was that there were also tons of computers in the room. I counted three monitors, a couple of laptops, and some plastic boxes that looked like servers-and that was just on her oversize desk stuck in the back corner. Wow. I'd thought her being in the Tech Club was just a fluke or something, but it looked like Daphne was really into the computer stuff. A Valkyrie princess computer geek-who would have thought? I would have had a hard time believing all the equipment was hers-if the computers, monitors, and servers hadn't all been covered with pink cases and Hello Kitty stickers.
Daphne smoothed down her dress and turned to look at me. I stood there in the middle of the room, feeling awkward and underdressed once again.
"So ... what do you need me to do, exactly? Because you're already dressed and stuff."
Daphne shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. I just wanted ... somebody to talk to before Carson comes and picks me up."
"He's a nice guy, Carson," I said, sitting down on the bed. "You two make a cute couple."
"Do you really think so?"
"I do."
We fell silent, each one of us trying to figure out what we could talk to the other person about. This friend thing was harder than I remembered it being. A lot harder.
"So ... ," Daphne said, still standing so her dress wouldn't get wrinkled. "I take it that you're not going to the dance. At least, please tell me you're not going in that awful hoodie."
My eyes narrowed. Catty I could do. Being nice was what was so difficult. "I like my hoodie just fine, thank you very much. But don't worry. I'm not wearing it to the dance because I'm not going. No one asked me, as if you hadn't guessed. Like you pointed out at lunch today, I don't have any friends at Mythos, much less a boyfriend."
It might have been my imagination, but I thought Daphne winced a little at my harsh words.
The Valkyrie hesitated. "You know, you could come along with Carson and me... ."
I raised an eyebrow. "And ruin your first big date? I don't think so. Even I'm not that much of a bitch."
"Yeah, it might be a little awkward."
"You think?"
We both looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and laughed. That broke the ice between us, and we started talking about all the juicy gossip that we'd heard today. About who was going with whom to the homecoming dance, who would get drunk before it was halfway over, and who was planning to go All the Way tonight with their boyfriends and girlfriends.
And I suddenly realized that I felt almost ... normal. Almost like I still went to a normal school with normal kids-and even that I was normal myself. It felt ... nice ... fun, even.
Finally, we quit gossiping and giggling about the other kids, and Daphne gave me a sly look.
"So what's going on with you and Logan Quinn?" she asked.
I blinked. "What do you mean?"
She raised an eyebrow. "I mean the two of you looked awfully cozy last night at the bonfire. And he did go all Spartan and kill a Nemean prowler that was trying to eat you. Which is totally sexy, if you ask me."
"Logan Quinn doesn't strike me as a guy who gets cozy with a girl unless he wants something from her. Like the chance to sign her mattress," I said in a dry tone. "Yeah, he saved my life last night, saved me from that awful prowler. But you should have seen him. It was almost like he was happy that it was trying to kill him. That he actually enjoyed fighting it. I think he killed it more for himself than for me. Like to prove to himself that he could or something."
Daphne shrugged. "Well, he is a Spartan. Killing things is what they do. What did you expect? That he'd send you flowers and write you bad poetry? That dead Nemean prowler is pretty much as close to a stuffed animal as you're ever going to get from a Spartan like Logan Quinn."
I gave her a blank look. "What does being a Spartan have to do with stuffed animals?"
Daphne sighed. "You've been here, what, two months and you still don't get it, do you, Gwen? How things work around here? Why we're all really here?"
I shrugged.
Daphne stared at me, her black eyes serious in her pretty face. "We're all here, all of us-Valkyries, Spartans, Amazons, and all the rest of us-because we're magic. Because we're descended from myth. You know all those stories that talk about how brave the Spartans were at the Battle of Thermopylae? How such a small group of them held off all those thousands and thousands of other warriors? Well, it's not just a story. It's real. Just like the ancient Valkyries escorted the dead to Valhalla, just like the Trojans totally got punked by the Greeks and that wooden horse during the Trojan War. All the myths, all the legends, all the magic is real. And it's all a part of us, a piece of us. We keep it alive, and we use it to keep Chaos and darkness from swallowing the world."
A week ago, I would have laughed at her. But now I was actually starting to believe her, to believe in all the myths, magic, and monsters. Too many weird things had happened the past few days for me not to. Jasmine's murder. The Bowl of Tears disappearing. The statue almost hitting Morgan and Samson. The prowler stalking me, then evaporating in a cloud of smoke after Logan killed it. That strange sword in the library that I couldn't stop staring at.
"Okay," I said. "Maybe Logan is a Spartan and that explains why he went all berserker last night. Maybe you're a Valkyrie who can crush diamonds with your bare hands and shoot pink sparks off the ends of your fingers. But all that doesn't tell me anything about me. I'm the only Gypsy here. That I know of, anyway. The only one who isn't like the rest of you. I'm not a great warrior. All I do is touch stuff and see things. I don't fit in with everyone else."
"I wouldn't say that," Daphne said. "You have magic just like the rest of us do."
"Maybe, but I don't know why my magic makes me a Gypsy and not something else. Do you?"
She shrugged. "I've heard about Gypsies over the years, but nothing concrete about your powers or anything. I even asked around school after you first approached me about stealing Carson's bracelet, but none of the other kids knew anything either. Neither did the professors that I asked. Or if they knew, they wouldn't tell me. I always thought Gypsies were warriors, like Valkyries, Amazons, and the rest of us. Just with a different kind of magic."
"Until you met me," I said in a bitter voice. "And realized just how much of a warrior I'm not."
Daphne tilted her head to one side. "How did you even wind up here in the first place? I've been wondering about that."
I told her the story about Paige Forrest and how her stepdad had been abusing her. And how seeing all that had led to my mom's death.
"The next thing I know, Professor Metis is knocking on my Grandma Frost's front door telling me that I'm going to Mythos Academy this fall," I said, my voice still angry and bitter. "But she never told me why. I asked her the other day, and she still didn't give me a straight answer. My grandma knows something about all this, too, but she's not talking either. She just keeps telling me to give the academy a chance, that things will get better for me."
"I don't know your grandma, but Metis is a crafty one," Daphne said. "She's not quite like the other professors. Some people say that she's really a Champion."
"A Champion? What's that?"
Daphne rolled her eyes. "You really need to pay more attention in myth-history class, Gwen. After the Chaos War ended, all the gods and goddesses agreed to a truce. That basically, they wouldn't use their powers against each other or interfere with things here in the mortal realm. But, of course, none of them could just sit back and do nothing, so they created Champions instead as a kind of loophole to the truce. Champions are people who are chosen by the gods to be, well, their Champions. Their heroes-or villains, depending on which god it is. A good Champion helps carry out the god's desires and keep bad stuff from happening. Champions kill Reapers, guard artifacts, or even mentor other people and help them understand their magic. It's dangerous work, being a Champion. Most of them don't live too long."