She waved her hand around at the room, with all of its high-tech monitors, tools, weapons, and shelves full of artifacts.
“Not many people know this, but every single Library of Antiquities has a basement level deep underground,” Linus said. “Most of them are used to store artifacts, books, and the like from the library’s collection. The Colorado library is unique in that it has two basement levels, the second of which is not listed on any of the library schematics. Several months ago, after Loki was freed, I had this second, secret level converted into a fallback headquarters and stocked it with the Protectorate’s most powerful artifacts in case things didn’t go our way. It was going to be our last resort, our last base of resistance and operations, if we weren’t able to defeat the god.”
Now that he mentioned it, I realized that the shape and size of this room was an exact match for the main space around the checkout counter and the fireplace on the first floor. I had thought I knew every single inch of the library, but apparently not.
“And them?” Aunt Rachel asked, waving her hand at Takeda and the others.
“Sisyphus is recruiting kids and turning them into Reapers,” Linus said. “Kids who won’t talk to adults wandering around campus in Protectorate robes, much less gossip around them or share any sort of information. So I put together a group of people those kids will talk to—other students. This is Team Midgard.”
Midgard was another name I recognized from myth-history class. The term often referred to the mortal realm, but it was also the name of an enormous wall that the gods had once built to protect people from monsters and other threats.
I eyed the other kids sitting at the table. “Doesn’t look like much of a team to me. Or a guard.”
This time, Ian, Zoe, and Mateo all glared at me.
Linus ignored my snide remark and gestured at Takeda. “Hiro Takeda is the team leader. A Samurai with impressive fighting and tactical skills, as well as healing magic. Takeda has been a member of the Protectorate for more than ten years, joining as soon as he graduated from the Tokyo branch of Mythos Academy.”
Takeda was already sitting perfectly straight, but he seemed to grow even straighter at his boss’s praise. Ten years out of the academy would put him in his early thirties, a few years older than Aunt Rachel. Takeda’s dark brown gaze dropped to my arm. He must have been the one who had healed me. I tipped my head, silently thanking him. He nodded back at me.
“Mateo Solis,” Linus continued. “A Roman with remarkable quickness and even more remarkable computer skills. If it’s electronic, Mateo can hack it.”
A blush stained Mateo’s cheeks, but he too sat up a little straighter.
“Zoe Wayland,” Linus said. “A Valkyrie with an affinity for creating all sorts of interesting gadgets and weapons.”
Zoe lifted her chin and waved her hand toward her desk covered with tools. “In other words, I make all the awesome stuff around here.”
“And Ian Hunter,” Linus finished. “A Viking warrior whose family has a long history of Protectorate service.”
I expected Ian to sit up straighter too, just like Takeda and Mateo had, but he grimaced instead, as though Linus’s praise bothered him. Weird. I would think he would be chomping at the bit for Linus to tell everyone how awesome he was.
“So you guys are basically the mythological equivalent of supersecret, black-ops spies,” I said.
Linus nodded. “Something like that.”
“Well, superspies, do you know who the Reaper was in the library? The one who stole the scepter and unleashed those chimeras? Because all I could see was his black cloak.”
Linus hit another button on his remote. “We believe it was this student.”
A familiar face popped up onto the screen. Black hair, blue eyes, tan skin, great smile, perfect dimples.
Surprise shot through my body. “But…that’s Lance Fuller.”
“The guy you were getting cozy with earlier today,” Ian sniped. “I saw your little meet-cute in the dining hall.”
I wanted to point out that Ian and I’d had the same sort of meet-cute on the quad earlier today, but I bit back my snarky words. I didn’t want Ian to realize how gorgeous I had thought he was—at least until he’d opened his mouth and started insulting me.
“Lance and I weren’t getting cozy,” I muttered. “We just bumped into each other. That’s all. He was actually nice enough to apologize for running into me. But that’s not surprising, since he’s practically the only person at this stupid school who will even talk to me now.”
Aunt Rachel glanced at me. She knew all about my crush on Lance, since I had pretty much gushed to her every single time he’d smiled at me or laughed at one of my stupid jokes last year.
“According to our intel, Lance is one of Sisyphus’s new recruits,” Linus said. “He joined the Reapers over the summer.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got the wrong guy. Lance’s family is totally rich and connected. His dad works for the Protectorate.”
“His father used to work for the Protectorate,” Linus said in a cold voice. “James Fuller was caught stealing weapons and armor from the Protectorate warehouse where he worked in New York. In addition to stealing the weapons, he sold many of them on the black market to Reapers. Mr. Fuller and several Reapers were killed during a Protectorate raid on that warehouse a few months ago.”
I hadn’t heard a whisper about Lance’s dad dying, much less that he’d been selling weapons to Reapers. Then again, the Protectorate would have wanted to keep it quiet that one of their own had betrayed them. Lance would have wanted to keep it quiet too. He had seen what happened to me at school last year, and he wouldn’t have wanted the same thing to happen to him. He wouldn’t have wanted to lose his golden-boy status, especially since he was so much more popular than I had ever been and had so much farther to fall.
“So you think that Lance joined up with the Reapers so he can get revenge on the Protectorate for his dad’s death,” I said.
Linus and Takeda both nodded.
“Just because Lance’s dad was a Reaper doesn’t mean that he’s one too!” I snapped.
My voice boomed out far louder and angrier than I had intended. A tense, awkward silence fell over the room, and everyone looked at me again. This time, I glared right back at all of them, including Ian. After a moment, he dropped his gaze from mine and shifted in his seat, as though he were suddenly uncomfortable.
“We understand what you’re saying, Miss Forseti,” Linus said. “But the Midgard has been tracking Lance for several days now.”
“So you actually saw him put on a Reaper cloak and break into the library.”
“No.” This time, Takeda answered me. “We spotted Lance approaching the library, but he wasn’t wearing a Reaper cloak. We tried to follow him, but he vanished.”
“So you don’t know for sure that he’s the Reaper,” I said. “He could have been sneaking around campus for some other reason.”