Chapter Twenty-Eight
I sat up straighter in bed and glanced around. I was in one of the infirmary rooms in the Bunker, wearing a pair of white pajamas. An eerie sense of déjà vu swept over me. This was the same place I’d woken up in the first time after I’d seen Sigyn at the Eir Ruins.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep and dreams. “How did I get here?”
Gwen gestured at the two swords, who were still bickering about who had woken me up. “Well, from what Babs has told me, your friends rushed you out of the museum and down here. They didn’t know if you were going to make it, given your serious wounds, but by the time they got you here, your wounds were gone, like they had magically healed all by themselves. Everyone was quite shocked by that.”
I glanced down at my left arm, but the blood and claw marks were gone, and my skin was smooth and whole again. My other wounds had vanished as well.
“I was shocked by it too, until I noticed those runes on your sword.”
Gwen pointed over at Babs, who had finally fallen silent, along with Vic. Gwen, Vic, and I all stared at Babs, our gazes dropping to the silvery runes that glimmered on her blade. A red tint tinged her cheek, as if she were embarrassed by the sudden attention.
“What do the runes say?” Gwen asked in a soft voice.
Only a Champion could read the words on her specific weapon. To everyone else, even another Champion like Gwen, the runes would just look like gibberish.
I cleared my throat. “Devotion is strength.”
“And what does that mean?” Gwen asked.
“You know that Sigyn is the Norse goddess of devotion.”
She nodded.
“After I passed out, I woke up in the Eir Ruins, in the main courtyard with all those wildflowers. The two of us talked. It’s the second time she’s appeared to me in the last few days.”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed with understanding. “Sigyn made you her Champion.” Then she grinned again. “Well, it’s about time.”
I hadn’t known how Gwen would react to the news, but seeing how happy she was put me at ease. I told her everything that had happened, everything Sigyn had said to me about how my sacrifice had broken Babs’s curse and how she needed me to be her Champion to stop Covington and his evil plan.
“Every Champion receives some kind of weapon or magic from their goddess. Sometimes both. What did Sigyn give you?” Gwen asked.
I looked down at my charm bracelet. The winterbloom flower that Sigyn had given me was hanging from the silver links, right next to the heart locket containing the photo of me and my parents. I thought of what Gwen had said about my wounds healing themselves.
“I have a theory. Let’s see if I’m right.”
I reached over and plucked Babs up off the chair. I held the sword in my left hand and sliced the blade across my right palm. I hissed at the wound, and blood welled up out of the deep cut. But that strange, cool, soothing power I’d felt at the ruins flooded my body, and the wound began to seal itself shut. A moment later, the cut was completely gone, like I’d never sliced open my hand.
“Well,” I said. “That looks like healing magic to me.”
I set Babs back down in her chair.
“I feel different too. Stronger. Not like Viking or Valkyrie strong but more like my endurance is better and I can fight longer and harder.”
“You probably can,” Gwen said. “And you know what this means.”
“What?”
Her grin widened. “A goddess gifted you with magic, so I’d say that officially makes you a Gypsy girl now. Just like me.”
“Nah,” I said, grinning back at her. “I’m way cooler than you are.”
Gwen laughed at my joke, and I joined in with her chuckles. We sat there for a minute, lost in our own thoughts. Even Babs and Vic remained quiet.
I looked at Gwen again. “What you doing here?” I asked. “The last time we talked, you were still at the North Carolina academy, helping with the cleanup and getting ready for the first day of school.”
“Oh, I’m still doing that,” Gwen said. “But your Aunt Rachel talked to my Grandma Frost and told her about you joining Team Midgard. She told Grandma about the mission tonight, and I thought you guys might need some backup. I would have been here sooner, but my plane got delayed by bad weather.”
I frowned. “You know about the Midgard?”
She nodded. “Of course. Linus keeps Logan and me updated about all the major Protectorate missions. As soon as he said that Takeda was tracking some Reapers near the Colorado academy, I told him they should ask you to join the team.”
“So it was your idea for Takeda to recruit me?”
I couldn’t keep the disappointment and bitterness out of my voice. I’d thought Takeda had wanted me on the team because I was, well, me. Not because I was Gwen’s cousin and he wanted to do her and Linus Quinn a favor.
“I might have suggested it, but you totally earned it, Rory,” Gwen said, picking up on my thoughts. “All on your own. You’re a great warrior, and they’re lucky to have you.”
I sighed. “Yeah, except for the part where Covington and Drake got away.”
She shook her head. “You can’t think like that. Sure, they might have escaped, but you kept them from getting their hands on that artifact, and you saved your friends from being killed by those chimeras. Not to mention the fact that you stopped Covington from turning you into a Reaper. That’s a definite win in my book.”
“It doesn’t feel like a win,” I muttered.
Sympathy filled Gwen’s eyes. “I know. But it is a win. So enjoy it as much as you can before the next bad thing happens.”
I nodded, telling her that I understood. She was right. It was a win. For now.
Gwen got out of her chair and grabbed a stack of clothes from a table by the door. “Rachel brought these over for you. Get dressed. There are a lot of people waiting to see you.” She pointed at my white pajamas. “Unless you want to walk around in those for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I snapped off a cheeky salute to her.
Gwen grinned back at me and tossed the clothes onto my lap.
* * *
I got dressed in sneakers, jeans, and an I Love Cloudburst Falls T-shirt. I also slid Babs into her scabbard and hooked it to my belt before leaving the infirmary room and heading into the main briefing area.
Gwen and Vic were already there, along with the rest of my friends. Zoe, Mateo, Aunt Rachel, Takeda, and Ian. They all jumped to their feet, came over, and hugged me, even Ian, although he quickly dropped his arms from me and stepped back.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Rory,” he said.
I smiled at him. “Thanks to you. Although how did you get the gryphons to come to the museum? That was your doing, right?”
“Later,” he whispered.
I frowned, wondering what he meant, but Aunt Rachel swallowed me up in another hug, and I didn’t have time to ask him any more questions. After a few more hugs, Aunt Rachel finally let me go.
We all sat down at the table, and Takeda looked at me. “I’ve briefed the others, but you should know that so far, we haven’t been able to find Drake or Covington,” he said. “There’s no sign of them on any of the security or traffic cameras anywhere around the museum. It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
I nodded. I’d expected as much, but disappointment filled me all the same. “When did Covington escape from prison?”
“It looks like he’s been free since the day of the battle at the North Carolina academy,” Takeda said.
“How is that possible?” Aunt Rachel said. “He was supposed to be locked away for good. And once he got out, why weren’t we notified?”
Takeda shook his head. “From what we’ve been able to piece together so far, several Reapers worked at the Protectorate prison where he was being kept. They helped him escape. Not only that, but they swapped his paperwork and identification numbers with those of another inmate who was in custody to make it look like Covington was still in prison. We didn’t even consider the idea that he might be Sisyphus, because we thought he was still locked away. But don’t worry. We’re looking for him and Drake right now. They won’t get far.”
Takeda’s lips pinched together, as though he were holding back a grimace, and I could tell that he didn’t really believe what he was saying. The Protectorate wouldn’t find Drake and Covington. Not until the Reapers decided to strike out at us again.
“Despite their escape, we did keep them from getting away with the artifact,” Takeda said. “We recovered the box from the rotunda.”
Takeda nodded at Ian, who got up from the table and disappeared among the shelves in the back of the room. A moment later, the Viking returned, carrying the box, which he set down in the middle of the briefing table.
It looked the same as it had in the museum—a jewelry box made of polished jet, with that tangle of sharp silver thorns wrapping around those heart-shaped rubies. And once again, just looking at it made me shiver.
“What is it?” I asked. “What does it do? What’s inside it? And why does Covington want it so badly?”
Takeda shook his head again. “We don’t know. Some museum officials bought the box at an estate sale a while back, but they don’t have any other information about it. They were planning to put it on display with some other items from the sale, which is why it was already sitting out in the rotunda. The Protectorate is searching for more information on it right now. As far as we can tell, there’s no way to actually open the box, so we have no idea what might be inside. I was hoping Gwen might help us learn more about it.”
He looked at my cousin, silently asking her to use her psychometry magic to see what emotions and memories might be tied to the jewelry box. Gwen nodded, let out a breath, and pushed up the sleeves of her purple hoodie. She stared at the box a moment, then closed her eyes, reached out, and wrapped both of her hands around the artifact.
I held my breath, wondering if she might start muttering or even screaming as the thoughts and feelings of everyone who had ever touched the box washed over her.
Nothing happened.
Gwen didn’t scream or yell or even mutter to herself. A minute passed, then two, then three, and still, nothing happened.
She frowned, opened her eyes, and stared at the box. She touched it again, and then again, running her hands all over the surface, frowning all the while.
“What’s wrong?” Aunt Rachel asked.
Gwen shook her head. “I’m not getting any vibes from it. Nothing at all. Not a single flash of emotion or memory. Not so much as a single image of someone picking up the box, much less putting something inside it. It’s like my psychometry magic isn’t working on it at all. That’s never happened to me before. Never.”
She looked at me, and I could see the worry filling her violet eyes.
“Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing that Covington didn’t get away with it,” Zoe said.
“Yeah,” Mateo added. “That dude is scary enough all by himself.”
We all stared at the jewelry box, wondering what secrets it might contain, but we wouldn’t get those answers tonight. By this point, it was after midnight, and Takeda told us all to go home, get some sleep, and take the rest of the weekend off.
“You’ve earned it,” he said. “Especially you, Rory.”
Takeda bowed his head to me, and I returned the gesture. Everyone got to their feet and started collecting their things. One by one, the others headed out of the briefing room and toward the elevator that would take them back up to the main part of the library. Takeda left the box where it was on the table, and I found myself glancing back over my shoulder at it.
Once again, the black box seemed to absorb all the light in the room, instead of reflecting it back. The silver vines gleamed sharp and bright, and the ruby hearts almost looked like red Reaper eyes, staring at me.
I didn’t have Gwen’s psychometry magic, but somehow I knew that the box—and whatever was inside—was extremely dangerous. And that sooner or later, Covington would try to take it away and use it against us.
I shivered, turned away from the box, and left the Bunker.