My face kept getting hotter and hotter, and I started fidgeting in my seat. Zoe kept smirking at me, and I knew she wouldn’t stop until I spilled my guts to her. At least, some of them.
I sighed. “Okay, so maybe Ian isn’t a complete jackass like I thought he was. But that doesn’t mean the two of us are going steady or anything. We just hate each other slightly less than before.”
“Ri-i-ight,” Zoe drawled again. “Keep telling yourself that.”
I sighed again and slumped down in my seat. “Even if I did…like Ian, or whatever, it wouldn’t matter anyway. As soon as we find and arrest Lance, Drake, and Sisyphus, you guys will go back to the New York academy and get ready for your next mission.”
Zoe picked up her phone from the table and waggled it at me the same way she had waggled her fingers. “Guess what? There are these things called phones. And there’s this other thing called the internet. You might not be familiar with them, but they are both perfect for long-distance relationships.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. It still doesn’t matter, because Ian and I are not having any relationship, much less a long-distance one.”
“We’ll see about that. But I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What?”
Zoe’s face turned serious, and she leaned forward and stabbed her finger at me, causing blue sparks of magic to shoot out all over the table again. “Ian’s a good guy, and he’s been through a lot. I might not be a great fighter, but if you hurt him, then I will run you through with your own sword. Got it?”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Got it. I know what it’s like to be hurt by the people you care about. I’m not going to do that to Ian. I promise.”
Zoe stared at me, but whatever she saw in my face must have satisfied her, because she dropped her hand and sat back in her chair. “Good. Then we won’t have a problem, Spartan.”
“No, we won’t, Valkyrie.”
We stared at each other, our expressions serious, but we couldn’t stay that way for long. Zoe’s lips started twitching, and so did mine. A second later, we were both smiling and laughing, knowing we’d just cemented our new friendship.
*
I made it through my afternoon classes, then went to the library, snuck through the secret bookcase entrance, and rode the elevator down to the Bunker. The others were already here, and I stood in the doorway watching them.
Takeda sat at the head of the briefing table, flipping through stacks of papers and photos, while Ian was over at his desk, sharpening his Viking battle ax and other weapons. Mateo pounded away on his laptop, while Zoe was soldering bits of metal onto a broken shield, repairing it.
Nobody was talking, although Takeda’s classical music was playing in the background. Everyone was focused on their own projects, and the mood was far less tense than it had been last night. Team Midgard might have had a setback in losing Lance, Drake, and the chimera scepter, but we weren’t defeated. Not yet. Not by a long shot.
Takeda sensed my presence and looked up from his reports. “Ah, Rory. There you are. Please come in, and we’ll get started.”
Takeda picked up the remote and turned off the music. I pulled out a chair at the briefing table and sat down. Ian and Mateo took the seats across from me, while Zoe plopped down in the chair next to mine. Once we were all settled at the table, Takeda got to his feet.
“As you all know, our mission last night was not a success.” His voice was as calm as ever, as though he were talking about the weather instead of the fact that the Reapers had gotten away. “While we did take some of the Reapers into custody, Lance and Drake escaped with the chimera scepter. Mateo, where are we in tracking them down?”
Mateo shook his head. “Nowhere. I’ve double-checked all the security footage from campus today, and Lance and Drake haven’t shown up on any of the cameras. I’ve also checked the footage from the shops in Snowline Ridge. There’s no trace of them anywhere near the academy. Lance also turned off his phone, so I can’t track him that way.”
Takeda nodded. “No doubt Lance and Drake are in hiding and planning their next move. I’ve reached out to my Protectorate sources, but so far, no one’s spotted them. Which means that we have to find them ourselves—before they strike again. Lance stole that chimera scepter for a reason, and I want to know what Sisyphus plans to do with it.”
“And how are we supposed to find them?” Zoe asked.
“I don’t know,” Takeda admitted. “But we have to try. Let’s start by reviewing everything from the mansion last night. Maybe Lance, Drake, or one of the other Reapers left behind something that will lead us to them.”
He passed each of us a thick stack of papers and photos, and we all started looking through the files. Much of the information focused on the Reapers from the office fight, who they really were, where they were from, and all their known associates. I didn’t recognize any of their names or mug shots, so I moved past those reports and started studying the photos the Protectorate had taken of the mansion and the surrounding area.
The empty cups, cans, and other trash the kids had left behind in the living room. The library safe Ian and Zoe had tried to break into. The overturned furniture, bloody rugs, and other destruction from the office fight. Several footprints in the mud in the woods outside the mansion. Even a set of tire tracks from where Lance and Drake had peeled away in their getaway car.
The photos tracked the mission from beginning to end, but I found myself going back to the shots that showed the office. One picture of the desk caught my eye, showing all the items Lance had pulled out of the drawer. Pens, pencils, and paper clips were strewn all over the top of the desk, and papers littered the floor all around it. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for Drake’s black Reaper mask, with those large, creepy red diamond shapes over the eyes. But even that was just a simple harlequin mask, the kind you could buy in any costume shop.
Still, something about the photo bothered me, like there was an obvious clue in the jumble of objects that I should be picking up on. I kept scanning the photo, studying every single part of it, just like I would go back and reread certain passages two or three times whenever I was reading a really good mystery and trying to figure out whodunit. But this was far more important than the satisfaction of figuring out who the villain was before the end of a book.
“What is it?” Zoe asked, nudging me with her elbow. “You’ve been staring at that same photo for the last five minutes.”
“I’m not sure. Hey, Mateo. Can you put this up on one of the monitors?”
I slid the photo across the table to him. Mateo glanced at the reference number stamped on the back and hit some keys on his laptop. A second later, the photo popped up on the center wall monitor. I got up, walked around the table, and stopped in front of the screen so I could have an even better look at the photo.
“What do you see, Rory?” Ian asked.