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that. My friends had been supernice about everything, especially Bethany, but I hadn’t wanted to see anyone. I hadn’t wanted to do anything but lie on my bed and cry.
    But one day three weeks after my mom’s funeral, Professor Metis had shown up at my Grandma Frost’s house. I didn’t know exactly what Metis had said to her, but Grandma had announced that it was finally time for me to go to Mythos Academy so I could learn how to fully use my Gypsy gift. I thought that I could control my psychometry just fine already, and I’d never really understood what my grandma had meant when she’d said finally, as if I should have been going to Mythos all along or something—
    â€œ... Gwen ?”
    The sound of my name snapped me out of my memories. “What?”
    Metis peered over the rims of her silver glasses at me. “I asked you which goddess was responsible for the Pantheon’s victory over Loki and his Reapers?”
    â€œNike, the Greek goddess of victory,” I said automatically.
    Professor Metis frowned. “And how do you know that, Gwen? I haven’t mentioned Nike yet. Have you read ahead to the next chapter already? That’s very industrious of you.”
    I’d done that very thing last night, mainly because I was bored out of my mind and there hadn’t been anything good on TV. Given my lack of friends at Mythos, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do to occupy my time here.
    I don’t think Metis meant it as a jibe, but snickers rippled through the room at her words. My cheeks flamed red, and I sank a little lower into my seat. Great. Now, everyone would think that I was that nerdy Gypsy girl who had nothing better to do than study. It might be true, and I might be insanely proud of my 4.0 GPA, but I didn’t want the other kids to know that.
    It occurred to me that I wasn’t quite sure how I knew the answer to Metis’s question. I didn’t think Nike had even been mentioned in the chapter that I’d read. But since it wasn’t the strangest thing that I’d encountered at Mythos, I pushed it out of my mind.
    Professor Metis speared one of the louder snickerers with a dirty look before asking him an even more obscure question about Reapers.
    When I was sure Metis wasn’t going to call on me again, I went back to staring out the window and brooding about how I’d caused my own mom’s death just by picking up the wrong girl’s hairbrush.

Chapter 3
    Myth-history was my last class of the day. As soon as the bell rang, I stuffed my textbook into my bag.
    â€œSee ya, Gwen.”
    Carson Callahan called out a cheery good-bye and slid the plastic bag with the charm bracelet into one of the pockets on his designer khaki cargo pants. I nodded at him, shouldered my bag, and left.
    I walked down the crowded hallway, pushed through the first door I came to, and stepped outside. Five main buildings made up the heart of Mythos Academy—math-science, English-history, the gym, the dining hall, and the library—all grouped together in a loose cluster, like the five points of a star. Even though I’d been going here for two months now, the buildings all looked the same to me—dark gray stone covered with thick, heavy vines of glossy ivy. Large, creepy Gothic structures, with towers and parapets and balconies. Statues of various mythological monsters like gryphons and Gorgons perched on all the buildings, their mouths open in silent, angry snarls.
    An enormous open quad and a series of curving walkways connected the five buildings to each other before the ash gray cobblestones snaked down a hill and farther out to the student dorms and the other structures that made up the rest of the lush academy grounds. Green grass still rolled over the smooth lawns, despite the October chill. Here and there, tall maples and oaks spread their limbs wide, their leaves holding on to the last bright blazes of bloody crimson and