I inhaled deeply, loving the musty smell of books. As far as my eyes could see, there were massive, crammed full floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Between them were chandeliers that probably cost more than a four-year degree would.

“I wonder why they do, but you guys don’t.” We headed through the first row. All we’d be doing was roaming aimlessly until dinner, hoping we came across the mysterious librarian. “You all have more aether in you.”

Deacon shrugged as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It’s the same thing with them being able to see through a daimon’s glamour. To us, the pure-bloods, they look normal. But to halfs? Daimons look like they really do, which is something straight out of a damn horror movie.” He paused. “Now that you are all full demigod, I wonder if you can see through a daimon’s glamour.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Is it weak of me to hope I never find out?”

“No.” He laughed as he knocked me with his shoulder. “It makes you sane.”

Relieved he didn’t think I was a giant wuss, we roamed the stacks, passing several students clustered at the large tables, their heads bent over their textbooks.

Sigh.

I kind of missed school.

And I really missed my old roommate, who’d turned out to be a furie. Erin had suffered a horrible injury by Hyperion, and Apollo—my father—said she was healing in Olympus. He’d told me she was okay, but I needed to see that for myself.

We neared the back of the library, and somewhere in a section full of books I was pretty sure were all written in Greek, the temps dropped significantly. Even in my sweater, goosebumps spread across my arms. “Did you guys know the . . . the half-blood who was killed yesterday?”

He shook his head as we hung a left, passing a series of closed doors. “No. I’ve heard he was a Sentinel. Was supposed to graduate this semester. Luke knows one of his friends. Said he was transferring to Vegas after this, to work near a pure community.”

“That’s so sad.” I folded my arms across my chest. “And so damn wrong. I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “It had to be a compulsion. There’s no other way a pure would’ve gotten the upper hand on someone who was practically a fully trained Sentinel. Not even a pure who really knows how to handle an element.”

“I just don’t understand, and it’s not even because I don’t get the politics around here,” I explained, glancing up at the wrought-iron spiral staircase that led to the second level. “We’ve had the same problems in the, um, mortal world. We still do, and I didn’t even understand it then. How people can hate someone else for really superficial differences so deeply that they hurt and kill them.”