Killer Frost (Mythos Academy #6)(45)

I opened the top of the box, reached inside, drew out a handful of the sand-like granules, and blew them in his direction. A gust of fine black powder swirled through the air, straight into his face, sank into his skin, and disappeared. For a moment, the veins in his forehead turned black, as though he had ink running through them instead of blood. The guard blinked and waved his hand in front of his face.

“Kid, what do you think you’re doing—”

His eyes rolled up in the back of his head. That was all the warning I had, but I darted forward, caught his heavy body, and slowly lowered him to the floor. A moment later, peaceful snores started rumbling out of his mouth. Looked like Morpheus’s dreambox and dust did exactly what the ID card had claimed.

“Sweet dreams,” I murmured and slipped back into the shadowy stacks.

I did the same thing to the second guard. Snuck up beside him, blew the powder into his face, and caught him before he hit the floor.

A minute later, Aiko was the only thing standing between me and the candle. She was engrossed in her graphic novel, and it didn’t look like she was getting up anytime soon. I let out a frustrated breath, but I didn’t have any other options. I had no way of knowing how long the other two guards would sleep, and I needed to be long gone before they woke up.

“Now what are you going to do?” Vic asked from his position on my belt. He’d kept quiet while I was dealing with the other two guards. “It’s not like you can just walk up to Aiko and ask her to give you the candle.”

I thought for a moment. “You know what, Vic? I actually think that’s an excellent idea.”

“Oh, bugger,” he muttered. “This is so not going to end well.”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

I lifted my chin and headed toward Aiko. This time, I did step out into the center aisle of the library, as if I’d just gotten there and hadn’t been lurking around in the stacks, taking out the other guards. I didn’t try to be loud, but I wasn’t trying to be quiet either. Aiko looked up at the sound of my sneakers scuffing across the marble floor. Like the other guards, she frowned when she recognized me. I marched over to the table where she was sitting, as if she was the person I’d come here to see all along.

“Gwen?” she asked in her soft voice. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”

“Yeah,” I said. “There are a whole lot of other things

I should be doing right now instead of this.” She frowned at my words.

“Anyway, tell Linus I’m sorry,” I said. “Sort of.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Sorry for what—”

I brought a handful of the powder up and blew it into her face just like I had with the other two guards. Aiko’s eyes widened. She was quicker than the others in that she started to push back from the table, get to her feet, and draw her sword, trying to stop me. But the powder hit her as hard as it had the other guards, and she slumped down over the table. I glanced around, then darted forward, pulled her away from the table, and carefully laid her body on the floor in between two of the study tables. That way, if someone else did come into the library, they might miss seeing her for a few precious seconds—and every one of those was important to me right now.

Once Aiko was sort of out of sight, I hurried over to the case. Sol’s candle lay under the glass, looking as harmless and innocent as ever, even though I knew it was anything but. I grabbed Janus’s key out of my pocket, slid it into the padlock on the case, and gently turned it.

Click.

And just like that, the case was open, and the candle was mine.

I hesitated, wondering if some sort of magic mumbo jumbo might flare to life, or if an alarm would blare and give me away, but nothing happened, so I lifted the glass and grabbed the candle, careful to use my jacket sleeve, instead of grabbing it with my bare hands. I couldn’t afford to get lost in another intense vibe from the artifact right now, so I made sure that none of the white wax touched my bare skin as I slid it into my messenger bag. I suppose I could have put an ordinary candle into its place to buy myself some more time, but Aiko knew what I’d done to her. Once she and the other guards woke up, everyone would realize that I’d stolen the candle.

Either way, there was no going back now.

“Well,” Vic said, his voice a little less snide than before. “That was actually easier than I expected it to be.”

“Yeah, me too—”

I spoke too soon. Because the second I turned around, I realized there was one person in the library I’d forgotten about.

Nickamedes.

He stood by the door of the office complex, staring straight at me. For a heartbeat, all we did was look at each other. I wondered if he was going to lunge for one of the phones, call Linus, and tell him what I’d done. It was one thing to hand me an artifact for supposed cleaning. It was quite another to let me walk away red-handed from the scene of the crime.

“I saw what you did to Aiko. The Dreambox of Morpheus,” Nickamedes murmured. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Clever, Gwendolyn. Very clever.”

I shrugged, not sure what else to do.

Nickamedes leaned to one side, and I realized that one of Aiko’s legs was sticking out from behind the study tables. “And apparently, very effective as well.”

I shrugged again.