Zoe gave him a sour look. “You are so not helping right now.”
He shrugged.
“Well, at least we have Minerva’s Spear.” I gestured at the weapon, which was lying on my desk. “We know we can use it to kill Fafnir dragons.”
Zoe sighed. “I hate to burst your bubble, Rory, but us having that spear still doesn’t solve the problem of the Reapers being able to summon dragons and basilisks.”
“Let’s look on the bright side,” Aunt Rachel said. “At least we managed to get the white Chloris box before the Reapers did.”
We all stared at the artifact, which was sitting in the middle of the table. Perhaps it was because the box wasn’t under a glass case anymore, but the white stone and the silver vines and thorns gleamed even more brightly than they had at the museum, while the emerald flowers glowed with an inner fire, as though they were heart-shaped stars. Artifact or not, the white Chloris box was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
I just hoped it wasn’t also one of the most dangerous.
Takeda broke the silence. “Well, I suppose we should open it and see what’s inside. Rory? Do you want to do the honors?”
I nodded, got to my feet, and pulled the box over to the edge of the table. Then I grabbed Babs, who was propped up in the chair next to mine, and sliced her blade across my palm, opening up a deep cut.
My healing magic flooded the wound, soothing the sting, but I squeezed my hand into a tight fist and forced out several drops of blood before my power sealed the wound shut. My blood spattered onto the white stone, looking like small red flowers that had bloomed next to the emerald hearts, and my friends and I all leaned forward, curious to see what was inside the box.
But nothing happened.
The silver vines and thorns didn’t move, twist, and rearrange themselves like the ones on the other two boxes had. No faint click-click-clicks sounded. And worst of all, the box didn’t open.
“What’s wrong?” Zoe asked. “Why isn’t the top of the box popping open? That’s what the black one did when you dripped your blood on it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t use enough blood. Let me try again.”
I used Babs to cut my hand a second time and dripped even more of my blood onto the white stone, but once again, nothing happened, and the box didn’t open.
“What’s wrong with it?” I muttered.
I started to cut my hand a third time, but Professor Dalaja held up her own hand, stopping me.
“Your blood obviously isn’t working,” she said. “We need something else to open this box.”
“Like what?” Ian asked.
Dalaja shook her head. “I don’t know. Blood opened the black and red Chloris boxes, so I assumed it would open this one too. I’ll have to do some research and see what I can find out about this white box.”
Everyone stared at the artifact again. I still didn’t get any creepy vibes from this box like I had from the black and red ones, but the artifact worried me all the same. If blood wouldn’t open the box, then what would? And what was inside it?
“Well, if we can’t open it, then Covington probably doesn’t know how to open it either, right?” Mateo said, trying to be hopeful.
“Right,” Takeda agreed. “But whatever opens this box, we’re not going to figure it out tonight. So I want everyone to go home and get some rest. We’ll start working on the box again tomorrow afternoon, after classes are finished for the day.”
My friends got to their feet and started gathering up their things. I grabbed the Chloris box from the table.
“Here.” Zoe tossed me a white cloth from the jumble of items on her desk. “You might as well clean it up before you put it away.”
“Thanks.”
I took the rag and the box over to my desk and sat down. Minerva’s Spear was lying across the wood. I had already cleaned the dragon’s black blood off the silver spear, so I nudged it to the side so I would have more room to work. Then I placed the Chloris box on the desk and used the cloth to wipe my blood off the white stone.
Everyone else was busy gathering up their bags and weapons, but the potted winterbloom perched on the corner of my desk turned its white petals to watch me work.
I bent forward and stared at the flower. “If you have any ideas on how to open this thing, let me know.”
The white petals quivered, and the green heart-shaped blossom in the center of the flower scrunched up like a face, almost as if the winterbloom was seriously considering my question.
Over at her own desk, Zoe rolled her eyes. “Are you talking to that thing again? How many times do I have to tell you that flowers are not pets? You don’t have to talk to them.”
I cupped my hand protectively over the winterbloom. “Shh. Don’t listen to her. I like talking to you.”
The winterbloom straightened up and waved its petals, as if it was saying it liked me talking to it too.
I gave the flower a drink of water, then finished wiping my blood off the white Chloris box. Once that was done, I threw the cloth into the trash, grabbed the box, and headed back to the artifact shelves. Takeda had already set out an empty case, on the same shelf where the black Chloris box was sitting. I carefully positioned the white box inside the case, then shut and locked the glass lid over it.
I stepped back and studied the white Chloris box again. Maybe it was my imagination, but the artifact seemed to gleam and glow even more brightly than when it had been sitting on the briefing-room table. Perhaps the museum staff hadn’t polished the artifact before putting it on display.
I looked at the white box a moment longer, then stared at the black one, which was perched on the shelf a few feet away. Seen side by side, the contrast between the two was quite startling. The white box emitted a pure, radiant light, while the black box smothered every bit of illumination that dared to touch its surface. And it wasn’t just their colors that were different; so were the vibes I got from each one. The white box made me feel calm, serene, and peaceful, while the black box increased my worry, fear, and dread.
I shivered, turned away from the black box, and focused on the white one again, but my worry, fear, and dread didn’t decrease—quite the opposite. At least, if I had gotten a bad feeling from the white box too, I would have known that it contained something awful. But I had no idea what was lurking inside this box and, even worse, no idea how to open it to find out. And if I couldn’t open the box, then how could I take whatever was inside and hide it from the Reapers?
Those worrisome thoughts and a dozen others swirled through my mind, but I sighed and forced myself to push them away. Takeda was right. We weren’t going to figure out how to open the white Chloris box tonight, so I walked away and left it sitting on the shelf next to the black box, putting them both out of sight and out of mind.
At least, that was what I told myself, even if I knew it wasn’t true.
* * *
Once again, my alarm went off way too early the next morning, but I had no choice but to slap it into silence and crawl out of bed. I took a shower, threw on some clothes, grabbed Babs and my messenger bag, and headed into the kitchen for breakfast.
Aunt Rachel was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of oatmeal. She smiled at me. “Good morning.”
But it wasn’t a good morning for her. Aunt Rachel’s voice came out as a low rasp, and her green eyes were puffy and bloodshot.
I frowned. “Are you okay?”
“More or less,” she rasped again.
“Why do you sound like that? And why are your eyes so red?”
Aunt Rachel cleared her throat. “I’m still having a bit of a reaction to the Reapers’ smoke bombs. But don’t worry, I’m sure it will pass soon enough. I’ve made some tea. That should at least help with my voice. Now, sit down, and let’s eat.”
Aunt Rachel had made hot oatmeal with dried tart cherries, dark chocolate chips, and crunchy slivered almonds, along with a fresh fruit salad and egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwiches on to
asted sourdough bagels. We polished everything off with mugs of green tea with orange and lemon slices and drizzles of sourwood honey. It was a warm, hearty, filling breakfast, and I enjoyed every single bite.
By the time we finished, Aunt Rachel’s voice sounded much better, although her eyes were still red. She also seemed tired as she shuffled around the kitchen, slowly cleaning up the remains of our breakfast.
“Why don’t you call in sick and go back to bed? Or visit the academy infirmary? The nurses might have something to make you feel better.” Another idea popped into my mind. “Or I could try to heal you.”
Not only did my magic heal my own injuries, but I could also help other people with it, like when I had healed Ian when he had been severely wounded at the Idun Estate. I hadn’t really practiced using my power on other people, but surely I could fix Aunt Rachel’s allergic reaction, especially since it wasn’t nearly as bad as Ian’s wound had been.
“Are you sure that using your magic won’t hurt you too badly?” she asked. “I don’t want you to collapse like you did at the Idun Estate.”
The only bad thing about using my magic to heal other people was that I seemed to take on the pain of their injuries myself, but I smiled and walked over to her anyway. “I’ll be fine. I can handle an allergic reaction.”
I took her hands in mine and reached for my magic. I pictured my cool, soothing power filling my palms, like I was holding handfuls of white winterbloom petals. Then I imagined giving all of those petals, all of that magic, to Aunt Rachel. The scratchy sensation in her throat would ease, the irritation in her eyes would vanish, and the lethargy would leave her body. I concentrated as hard as I could, trying to share as much of my power with her as possible.
But it didn’t work.
No matter how hard I concentrated, no matter how much I pushed, no matter how many times I tried to share my healing magic with her, it just didn’t work. I felt like she was on one side of a glass wall, and I was on the other, and I just couldn’t break through to her.
After several minutes, Aunt Rachel gently tugged her hands free of mine. “It’s okay, Rory. Thank you for trying. Maybe an allergic reaction is something that magic just can’t heal, like the flu.”
She was joking, but her words didn’t make me feel any better. I had totally failed her, just like I had failed to stop the Reapers last night.
Aunt Rachel shooed me toward the door. “Don’t worry. I’m going to drink another mug of tea and flush my eyes out again with some warm water before I go to work. That should help. Now, you’d better get going, or you’re going to be late for class.”
“If you’re sure…”
She smiled. “I’m sure. Now, scoot.”
I was still worried, but she seemed okay, so I hugged her, then left the cottage.
Aunt Rachel was right. I was running late, and by the time I got to the main quad, the other kids had already gone inside, so I missed seeing Ian, Zoe, and Mateo. I ran across the quad, sprinted up the steps of the English-history building, and hurried inside. I had just slid into my seat in Professor Dalaja’s myth-history class when she stepped inside the room and shut the door behind her.
“Good morning, students,” she called out.
I frowned. Dalaja’s voice was raspy too, and her black eyes were red and puffy behind her silver glasses, although her symptoms didn’t seem to be quite as bad as Aunt Rachel’s. Looked like the red smoke had had more of an impact on my friends than I’d realized. Or maybe it just took a day or two for the effects to fully wear off.
But Professor Dalaja didn’t let her symptoms stop her any more than Aunt Rachel had, and she lectured and assigned us our homework like usual. Still, she seemed a bit hoarse and tired by the end of class, so I went to check on her.
I knocked on the door and stepped inside the office. “Professor? Are you okay?”
Dalaja looked up at me from her chair behind her desk. “Oh, I’m fine, Rory. That smoke from last night just hit me a little harder than I realized. I’m sure I’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.”
She winced, as if it hurt to talk, then opened one of the desk drawers and drew out a bag of menthol cough drops. She unwrapped one of the lozenges and popped it into her mouth. After a few seconds, her features eased, as the drop soothed her throat.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” Dalaja said. “I haven’t found out how to open the white Chloris box yet, but I’m looking into it. I hope to have some ideas and information to share with everyone during the afternoon briefing in the Bunker.”
She popped another cough drop into her mouth. I thanked her and left to go to my next class.
Aunt Rachel and Professor Dalaja weren’t the only ones still feeling the effects of the smoke bombs. Takeda’s brown eyes were also red and bloodshot, and his voice wheezed as he called out instructions to the students in my gym class.
But other than that, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully, and I headed to the dining hall to meet my friends for lunch.
There was an open-air garden in the middle of the dining hall, but instead of flowers, this garden featured several boulder formations, along with evergreen trees that perfumed the air with their sharp, tangy sap. A small, narrow creek curled through the trees, before dropping down over the rocks and creating a waterfall, along with a pool at the bottom. Gray stone statues of bears, rabbits, ducks, and other animals ringed the pool, along with one of Coyote Trickster, the Native American god. Two statues shaped like Eir gryphons perched on the rocks at the top of the waterfall, as though they were keeping watch and protecting the animals below.
I grabbed a plastic tray and went down the lunch line. Today the chefs had whipped up a pasta bar, with all sorts of unusually shaped pastas, along with spicy meatballs, grilled sausages, and roasted veggies. They had also made several different cheese, marinara, and alfredo sauces to go along with the pastas.
Gwen would have grumbled that plain ol’ mac and cheese from a box was better, but I loved the gourmet food that Aunt Rachel and the other chefs created. I loaded my tray with several different pasta, meat, veggie, and sauce combinations, along with a fresh garden salad tossed with a tangy Italian vinaigrette and toasted garlic bread topped with melted mozzarella and sprinkled with crushed red-pepper flakes.
Aunt Rachel was working the dessert station as usual, and she placed two cinnamon cannolis stuffed with sweet cream cheese and miniature chocolate chips and dusted with powdered sugar on my tray. They looked absolutely delicious.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I’m okay,” she rasped.
Aunt Rachel didn’t look okay. Her eyes were still red, and her voice sounded even worse than before, despite all the tea she’d drunk this morning. But there was nothing I could do to help her, and people were waiting in line behind me, so I grabbed my tray, paid for my food, and headed over to the table in the corner where my friends were sitting.
Zoe and Mateo were eating their food, but Ian was only moving his pasta from one side of his plate to the other. All three of them looked tired, and their eyes were red and irritated.
Mateo’s eyes weren’t that bad, but Zoe’s were even more bloodshot than Aunt Rachel’s, and Ian’s were so red it looked like he had pink eye. Then again, Zoe and Ian had both been exposed to the smoke not once but twice, so it made sense that their symptoms would be worse than everyone else’s, especially Ian’s, since he had waded through the red clouds to help me kill the Fafnir dragon.
“So you guys are still sick too,” I said in a sympathetic voice, sitting down with them.
Zoe nodded. “Unfortunately. I have never been more jealous of your healing magic than I am today.” A few blue sparks winked in the air around her but not nearly as many as usual.
“Me too,” Ian rasped, his voice so deep and throaty I barely recognized it.
“It’s not so bad,” Mateo said. “Yeah, my eyes are all itchy and watery, but at least I can still see my phone and my laptop.”
Zoe and Ia
n both gave him a sour look.
“Has anyone been to the infirmary?” I asked. “Maybe the academy nurses could help. Or what about Takeda? Maybe he could use his magic to heal you guys.”
Ian pushed his plate away. “Takeda tried to heal me after gym class, but it didn’t have any effect. Maybe because he felt bad too.”
So Takeda’s healing power hadn’t worked either. Weird. Maybe Aunt Rachel was right. Maybe an allergic reaction was something that magic just couldn’t fix.
“Professor Dalaja excused me from myth-history class and sent me to the infirmary. One of the nurses told me to keep flushing my eyes out with warm water, but so far, it hasn’t helped. She said that if I wasn’t feeling better after last period, to come back, but I don’t know that there’s any use. I think it’s just going to have to wear off.” Ian sighed. “Besides, it can’t last forever, right?”
His words made a chill slither down my spine, although I wasn’t quite sure why. My friends were lucky they were just having allergic reactions. Covington could have easily summoned enough Fafnir dragons to fill the museum rotunda and kill us all last night.
Once again, I wondered why he hadn’t done that, but once again, I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. Maybe he had known how aggravating the smoke would be and had wanted everyone to suffer the effects. Covington would definitely delight in causing my friends pain and misery. But I still felt like something else was going on, something I just wasn’t seeing. I didn’t share my concerns with my friends, though. They were already miserable enough without worrying about the Reapers right now.
Our conversation moved on to other topics, like how we might open the white Chloris box, but no one came up with an answer before lunch ended. Zoe and Mateo grabbed their trays and headed off to their next classes. Ian sighed and slowly got to his feet, as if it was an effort just to move.
I stood up and put my hand on his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He smiled, although his expression quickly turned into more of a grimace. “I’m fine. I’m sure it’ll wear off eventually and we’ll all feel better soon.”
He tried to smile again, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. Ian grabbed his tray and shuffled over to dump his uneaten food into one of the trash cans.
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