Chapter Two
The rest of my day didn’t get any better.
I suffered through all my morning classes, painfully aware that everyone was talking and texting about my confrontation with the Viking. I slumped down in my seat, keeping my gaze on my books, but I could still hear the other kids whispering about me. Well, at least they weren’t talking about my parents being Reapers anymore. I didn’t know if that was better or worse, but at least my misery was new and different—for today, anyway. The other students would remember my Reaper parents soon enough.
Lunchtime rolled around, and I trooped over to the dining hall with the other kids, all of whom kept a healthy distance from yours truly. Apparently, talking about me behind my back was just fine, but actually walking beside me on the cobblestone path was not. I gritted my teeth and plodded on toward the dining hall. I wasn’t hungry—not in the slightest—but I had to show up for lunch, or Aunt Rachel would start worrying.
I stepped into the dining hall, which looked exactly the same as it had last school year, right down to the open-air garden in the center of the room. Instead of pretty flowers, this garden featured evergreen trees that grew between dense boulder formations and perfumed the air with their sharp, tangy sap. A narrow creek curled through the garden and over to a tower of boulders, where it dropped down and created a small waterfall and a pool at the base of the rocks. Gray stone statues of bears, rabbits, ducks, and other animals ringed the pool, along with one of Coyote Trickster, the Native American god. Two more statues, both of them Eir gryphons, perched on the rocks at the top of the waterfall, as though they were keeping watch and protecting the animals below.
Lion bodies, eagle heads, broad wings, long tails. The two statues looked just like the real gryphons that lived in a cavern near the Eir Ruins. I stared at their stone faces a moment, getting my anger under control, then grabbed a plastic tray and got in line to get some lunch.
Unlike that of your typical school cafeteria, the dining-hall food was upscale all the way, in keeping with the wealth and expensive tastes of the students, professors, and other workers. No rubbery chicken nuggets, plastic cups of lumpy applesauce, or paper cartons of sour milk here. Instead, the chefs chopped, grilled, and whipped up everything from crisp garden salads to honey-apricot-glazed chicken to Parmesan-garlic mashed potatoes.
I breathed in, enjoying the delicious aromas and curls of steam that wisped through the air. Maybe Aunt Rachel’s cooking had spoiled me, but I loved all the fancy food, and I didn’t understand why Gwen always wanted to have plain old boring pizza and cheeseburgers. Gourmet was where it was at, baby.
Aunt Rachel was working the end of the lunch line today, dishing up sundaes made with vanilla-bean ice cream, warm chocolate sauce, and fresh sliced strawberries. My stomach rumbled in anticipation. Spartans didn’t have many weaknesses, but dessert was definitely one of mine. I had a massive sweet tooth, and sundaes were one of my favorite treats. I might not have been hungry before, but I could always eat ice cream.
Aunt Rachel knew all about my sugar addiction, and she fixed me an extra-large sundae with lots of chocolate sauce and strawberries, along with chopped toasted almonds sprinkled on top for some nutty crunch. She slid the sundae dish onto my tray, and I admired it. The dessert was almost too pretty to eat. Almost.
“How’s your first day going?” she asked.
I forced myself to smile. “Great. Just great. Except for all the homework.”
She frowned. “Homework already? On the first day?”
“Oh, yeah.”
That part was definitely true. My myth-history professor had already assigned us a lengthy term paper, and we had to have an outline ready for approval next week, which meant that I would be spending some time in the library this afternoon, tracking down reference books.
“How about you?” I asked. “How’s your day going?”
Aunt Rachel smiled, but it seemed she was clenching her jaw to hold the expression in place. “Oh, great. Just great. Just…getting back into the groove of things.”
Unlike my parents, Aunt Rachel was a terrible liar, and I could tell that her day had been as bad as mine. I wondered if the other chefs had gossiped about her behind her back like all the kids had done with me. Probably.
But I forced myself to smile. She would be disappointed that things weren’t any better for me, and I wasn’t going to make her day any worse than it already was. “I’ve got to hit the library after classes and get started on a paper, so I’ll see you tonight at home. Okay?”
“Sure,” Aunt Rachel said. “Sounds good. I’ll fix us a special late-night snack to celebrate our first day.”
“Great.”
I nodded and smiled at her again, as though everything was fine and I really was having a terrific day. Then I dropped my head, moved past her, and paid for my food at the cash register. I stuffed my change into my jeans pocket, grabbed my tray, and turned to face a new dilemma.
Where to sit.
Since this was the first day of school, the dining hall was packed, just like the quad had been this morning, and I didn’t see any empty tables. I didn’t even see any empty seats. At least, none at a table where I thought I could sit and eat in peace without everyone else muttering snarky comments about me. Of course, I could always go outside and eat on the dining-hall steps. I had done that almost every single day last year, no matter how cold and snowy it was outside. Being by myself was better than being with people who hated me.
I started to head outside to find a quiet, deserted spot, but then I realized that Aunt Rachel was still watching me from her place at the end of the lunch line. If I left the dining hall, she would realize that something was wrong, so I clenched my jaw and forced myself to walk past the tables, searching for a seat, any seat, where I could sit for a minute until she went back to work and I could get up and sneak outside—
A shoulder rammed into mine, almost making me drop my tray. I whirled around, ready to snap at the person who’d run into me, but the words died on my lips.
Lance Fuller stood in front of me.
The Roman warrior was six feet tall, with broad, muscled shoulders. His eyes were an intense blue against his tan skin, and his wavy black hair gleamed like polished jet under the lights. In addition to his poster-boy looks, he radiated confidence, and with good reason. Lance Fuller was, quite simply, the guy at Mythos Academy—smart, rich, handsome, charming, popular. He was the guy all the other guys wished they could be and the one all the girls wanted to be with.
Including me.
I’d had a massive, massive crush on Lance ever since the first time I saw him walking across the quad last year. And to my amazement, he had seemed to like me too. We’d had a couple of classes together last year, and he was always volunteering to be my lab partner in chemistry or to work with me on other projects. He had even started asking what movies and music I liked, as though he was thinking about asking me out. But then all the bad stuff with my parents had happened, and my dreams of dating Lance had vanished like a cloud of smoke.
Lance realized that he’d run into me, and he actually smiled, revealing the two perfect dimples in his cheeks. “Hey, Rory. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you standing there. How’s your first day back?”
It took me a moment to quit staring and answer him. “Um, fine. How are you?”
“Good.” His smile widened. “Really good now.”
My heart picked up speed and started pounding in my chest. Unlike all the other kids, Lance didn’t mock or berate me for what my parents had done. All last year, he had still waved at me whenever he saw me walking across the quad, and he had even talked to me a few times too. His kindness had made me like him that much more.
“Hey, Lance!” Kylie, a cute Valkyrie with sleek blond hair, called out. “Over here! We saved you a seat!”
But Lance kept staring at me, his face still crinkled in that adorable smile. “Maybe I’ll see you around this week.”
My heart beat even faster. “Sure, that would be great.”
Lance winked at me, then moved off to sit with his friends. I watched him go, wishing that I could join his table, but of course, Kylie shot daggers at me with her eyes, clearly telling me that I was not welcome. So I sighed and moved on, still searching for an empty seat.
And I finally found one—at the Viking’s table.
He was sitting at a table in the corner, and he wasn’t alone. A beautiful girl with perfect blond curls perched next to him, leaning in close so she could whisper to him and hang on to his every word in return. I snorted. Of course he had a girlfriend. Gorgeous guys like him always had a girlfriend. Sometimes two or three at once.
But theirs was the only table with an empty seat, so I headed in that direction. I didn’t even ask if I could sit with them. There was no point in it, since they would tell me no. So I marched over, plopped my tray down, and scooted the empty seat as far away from the two of them as I could get and still be sitting at the same table.
I dropped into the chair across from them, and they both practically jumped out of their seats. I had startled them out of what seemed to be a very private, very intense conversation. The Viking frowned, recognizing me from before, but the girl smiled and nodded at me. She had to be a new student, like the Viking was. No Mythos kid who knew anything about me or my parents would ever give me such a warm welcome.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s your name?”
I sighed, not wanting to make any sort of polite chitchat with them, but it would be totally rude not to answer her. “Rory.”
The girl smiled at me again. “Hi, Rory. I’m Amanda, and this is Ian.”
So that was the Viking’s name. I grunted in response, and so did he. Amanda looked back and forth between the two of us, wondering what was going on, but I didn’t say anything else, and neither did Ian.
I put my head down and reached for my tray. Instead of digging into my salad, chicken, and mashed potatoes, I grabbed my sundae, sank my spoon into the melting ice cream, and shoveled it into my mouth as fast as possible without choking or getting brain freeze. The sundae was delicious, a perfect mix of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, but I still wanted to eat it and leave as soon as I could.
Especially since the happy couple looked so cozy.
Ian leaned over and murmured in Amanda’s ear. Her blue gaze locked with mine, and her eyes widened with surprise. My heart sank. I knew that look. I had seen it a hundred times before. Ian had told her about my Reaper parents.
Amanda wet her lips, glanced away from me, and scooted her chair even closer to the Viking’s. I rolled my eyes. As if I was going to attack them in the middle of the dining hall in front of the entire school. Please. My parents might have been Reapers, but they weren’t stupid—and neither was I.
I thought they might start whispering about me, like some of the kids at the surrounding tables were doing, but the two of them ignored me. Like totally ignored me. They didn’t even look at me. Instead, Ian pulled out his phone and thumbed through some screens until he found the one he wanted. Then he and Amanda both bent over the phone, their heads close together, completely absorbed in whatever they were staring at.
For a moment, disappointment filled me. I had been looking forward to snarling some insults at the Viking, since he had gotten the better of me on the quad this morning, but I got over it. Being ignored was much better than being gossiped about, and besides, I still had more than half of my sundae left. So I tuned them out just like they had done to me and focused on my food again, eating much more slowly and taking the time to enjoy every single delicious bite of ice cream.
Sadly, it was the nicest, quietest lunch I’d had in the dining hall since before everyone learned the truth about my parents.