Jennifer Estep Bundle Read Online Free PDF Page B

the statues were carved into the shapes of mythological monsters right out of the bedtime stories my mom used to read me. The statues were made of the same dark gray stone as the buildings themselves, but for some reason, their teeth and claws and talons glinted in the warm spring sunshine. I thought the architect had taken the name Mythos Academy a little too literally. Mythological monsters didn’t exist, no matter how real and lifelike the statues looked or how their open, lidless eyes seemed to follow my every movement . . . right? I wasn’t so sure of the answer now. I shivered and dropped my gaze from a pair of particularly fierce-looking gryphons planted on either side of the library steps.
    Before I could ask Metis what was up with the creepy statues, another professor came over and started talking to her. I dug my sneaker into a patch of grass and focused on the other things I could see on the quad—the students.
    A class must have just ended because kids of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities streamed onto the quad, laughing, talking, and texting on their cell phones. Metis had told me that the Mythos kids ranged in age from the first-year, sixteen-year-old students up to the sixth-year, twenty-one-year-old students—but she hadn’t told me how rich they all were. Even the wealthiest kids at my old high school couldn’t afford the brand names I saw stitched onto the purses, shirts, jeans, and sneakers that the kids here wore and carried. Not to mention the platinum watches that gleamed on wrists and the diamond studs that winked in ears.
    A girl my age stopped on the quad a few feet away from me, texting on her phone. She was pretty, with blond hair, amber-colored skin, and black eyes, but what really caught my attention were the princess-pink sparks dancing in the air around her like butterflies. Her fingers tapped across her phone’s keyboard, and I realized that the sparks were actually shooting out of her fingertips like miniature fireworks.
    And she wasn’t the only one with sparking fingers and lights flickering around her body. Green, blue, gold, red. All those colors and more shimmered in the air, as if the kids around me were kicking up clouds of glittering confetti as they walked from one side of the quad to the other. Electricity hummed in the air, and I could feel the power in those flashes of color—and in the kids themselves.
    Magic, I thought with a jolt. Those cracks and sizzles and sparks were magic . Not magic like I had, but supernatural power all the same. I hadn’t quite believed Metis when she’d claimed there were other kids out there like me, kids who could do amazing things, but now I was seeing it for myself.
    The blond girl with the phone finished her text message and looked up, catching me staring at her with wide eyes. “What are you looking at?” she snapped.
    â€œI—”
    â€œDaphne!” another girl called out from across the quad.
    Daphne stared at me a final time, then waved her hand at the other girl and started walking toward her. I thought about calling out to Daphne and asking her what kind of magic she had, where those princess-pink sparks came from, and what she could do with them, but I didn’t want to feel like a total idiot.
    Metis finished her conversation with the other professor and turned back to me. She didn’t seem to notice the dazed look on my face. “How about a tour of the library next?”
    All I could do was just nod my head and follow her.
    Â 
    Metis led me past the two gryphon statues, up the library steps, through the front doors, and down a short hallway. We stepped into the main part of the library, which was shaped like an enormous dome. The ceiling was cut out all the way to the top, and I arched my neck up, trying to see what was on the upper levels, but all I could really see were thick shadows.
    Metis walked down a wide center aisle and past several study tables. A checkout