Touch of Sibyl

Chapter Seven

By the time I rode the bus back up to Teide Mountain, avoided looking at the silent, staring sphinxes, slipped through the iron gate, and walked to the library, it was almost six and twilight had started to fall over campus. Soft shades of purple and gray streaked the sky, even as black shadows crept up the sides of the buildings, looking like blood sliding up the stone. I shook my head to banish the weird thought and walked on.

The Library of Antiquities was the largest structure at Mythical Academy and sat at the top of the cluster of the five main buildings that formed the loose points of the star. Supposedly, the library was only seven stories tall, but it always seemed to me like its towers just kept reaching up and up and up, until they finally pierced the sky with their sharp, swordlike points.

But what made the library supercreepy were the stone statues that covered it. Gryphons, gargoyles, dragons, even something that looked like a giant Minotaur. The figures were everywhere you looked, from the wide, flat steps that led up to the front entrance to the crenellated balcony on the fourth floor to the corners of the sloping roof. And they were all so detailed and lifelike that it seemed like they'd actually been real at one time-real monsters crawling all over the building until something or someone had frozen them in place.

I eyed the gryphons perched on either side of the gray stone steps. The statues loomed over me, and both gryphons sat at attention, eagle heads high, their wings folded behind them, and their thick lions' tails curled around the sharp, curved claws on their front paws.

Maybe it was my Sibyl gift, my psychometry, but I always felt like the two gryphons were watching me, tracking my movements with their lidless eyes. That all I had to do was touch them and they'd come to life, spring out of the stone, and tear me apart. It was the same feeling I had whenever I had to walk by the sphinxes down at the front gate and all the other statues on campus. I shivered again, tucked my hands into the pockets on my hoodie, hurried up the steps, and headed inside the library.

I walked through a hallway and a pair of open double doors that led into the main space. Like everything else at Mythic, the Library of Antiquities was old, stuffy, and pretentious. But even I had to admit that it was something to see.

The main part of the library was shaped like an enormous dome, and the curved ceiling was cut out all the way to the top. Supposedly, frescoes adorned the top arch of the dome, paintings of mythological battles accented with gold, silver, and sparkling jewels. But I'd never been able to spy any of them through the perpetual darkness that shrouded the upper levels.

What I could see were all the gods and goddesses. They ringed the second floor of the library like sentinels watching over the students studying below. The statues stood at the edge of the curved balcony, separated by slender, fluted columns. There were Greek gods like Nike, Athena, and Zeus. Norse gods like Odin and Thor. Native American deities like the Coyote Trickster and Rabbit. All thirty feet tall and carved out of thick white marble. If you climbed up the stairs to the second floor, you could walk in a circle past them all, something that I'd never wanted to do. Like the gryphons outside, the statues seemed a little too lifelike to me.

My eyes roamed over the gods and goddesses, staring at them one by one, until I reached the lone empty spot in the circular Pantheon--the place where Loki should have stood. There was no statue of Loki in the library or anywhere else at Mythics. I imagined it had something to do with him being such a bad guy and trying to destroy the world with his Chitauri of Chaos. Not exactly the kind of god you wanted to build a shrine to.

I pulled my eyes away from the empty spot and walked on.

Bookshelves lined either side of the main aisle before it opened up into an area filled with long tables. A freestanding cart off to the right sold coffee, energy drinks, muffins, and other snacks so students wouldn't have to leave the library to get something to eat while they were studying. The rich, roasted smell of coffee filled the air, overpowering the dry, musty odor of the thousands of books.