Metis walked down a wide center aisle and past several study tables. A checkout counter divided one side of the library from the other, along with several glassed-in offices.

“This is the Library of Antiquities,” the professor said, spreading her hands out wide. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

It was kind of marvelous, although I would never admit that to her. It was the biggest library I’d ever seen, crammed with more books than I’d ever dreamed existed. Shelves and shelves and shelves of books stretched out into the farthest reaches of the domed room, along with a series of glass cases, the kind you see in museums. I squinted at the closest case, trying to figure out what was inside it. Was that a . . . sword? Strange. Why would there be weapons in a library?

But my attention was quickly captured by something else—the statues that ringed the entire second-floor balcony. Slender, fluted columns separated the statues, which were roughly thirty feet tall and made of white marble that gleamed in the dim light. To my surprise, they weren’t shaped like monsters this time.

No, these statues were of the gods.

I recognized a few of the statues from the stories and pictures my mom had told and shown me, mostly Greek gods like Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, and Norse gods like Odin with his one eye. But my gaze kept drifting back to one statue in particular—a goddess with a pair of wings arching up over her back and a crown of laurels resting on her head. The goddess’s eyes seemed to stare straight at me, just like the ones of the monsters had done out on the quad, and I had a hard time looking away from her cold beauty.

“Who’s that?” I asked Metis, pointing at the statue.

“Nike, the Greek goddess of victory,” the professor said. “You’ll be learning about her and all the other gods in my myth-history class. Now, come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Metis led me over to the checkout counter and peered into one of the glass offices that sat behind it. A man with ink-black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin sat in the largest office, talking on the phone and tapping a pen on his desk with his free hand.

“That’s Nickamedes. He’s the head librarian,” Metis said. “You’ll be working for him.”

In addition to making me change schools, the Powers That Were at the academy apparently thought I needed an after-school job, too. Metis had dropped that little bombshell on me on the way up here this morning. It was bad enough that I had to leave all my friends behind to come to Mythos, but making me get a job, too? That was so not fair. Besides, I already had a job—finding lost items for kids—although I didn’t mention that to Metis.

The professor waved at Nickamedes to get his attention, and he waved back. He smiled at Metis, but then his eyes flicked to me, and his expression completely changed. His eyes darkened, and his mouth pinched into a frown. If there was such a thing as hate at first sight, it seemed like Nickamedes had it for me, and I had no idea why. I glared back at him. I didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted me here.