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frowned. Was he—was he actually flirting with me? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. Keeping one eye on Logan Quinn, I carefully skirted around him and hurried on my way.
    But for some reason, his soft laughter followed me all the way across the quad.
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    I left the smooth, grassy quad behind, strolled by the dorms and other smaller outbuildings, and walked to the edge of campus, where a twelve-foot-high stone wall separated Mythos Academy from the outside world. Two sphinxes perched on top of the wall on either side of the entrance, staring down at the black iron gate that lay between them.
    Supposedly, the wall and the gate were enchanted, imbued with spells and other magic mumbo jumbo so that only people who were supposed to be at the academy—students, teachers, and the like—could pass through. When I’d come to Mythos, at the beginning of the fall semester, Professor Metis had made me stand in the entrance right between the two sphinxes while she’d said a few words in a low voice. The statues hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked, hadn’t done anything but sit on their high perches, but I’d still felt like there was something inside the stone figures—some old, ancient, violent force that would rip me to pieces if I so much as breathed wrong. That had been the first creepy thing that I’d experienced at Mythos. Too bad it hadn’t been the last.
    After Metis had finished her chant, spell, or whatever it had been, she’d told me that I was now free to enter the academy grounds, like I’d been given the password to the supersecret Fearless Five superhero lair or something. I didn’t know exactly what would happen if someone who wasn’t supposed to be at the academy—like, say, a Reaper bad guy—tried to slip through the gate or climb the wall, but surely those sphinxes and their long, curved claws weren’t just for decoration.
    I wondered about a lot of things that I would have been better off forgetting about entirely.
    Metis had also told me that the sphinxes were only designed to keep people out—not trap students inside—and that I shouldn’t be afraid of them. It was kind of hard to be afraid of something that you didn’t really believe in. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself every time I snuck off campus.
    I glanced around to make sure no one else was in sight, then jogged up to the gate, turned sideways, sucked in my stomach, and slipped through one of the gaps in the bars. I didn’t look up at the sphinxes, but I could almost feel their watchful eyes on me. They’re just statues, I told myself. Just statues. Ugly ones at that. They can’t hurt me. Not really.
    A second later, I slid free of the bars to the other side. I let out a breath and kept walking. I didn’t turn around and look back at the statues to see if they were really watching me or not. Whether I believed in the sphinxes’ magic or not, I knew better than to tempt fate.
    Students weren’t supposed to leave the academy during weekdays, which was why the gate was shut. Professor Metis and the other Powers That Were at the school liked all the warrior whiz kids to stay close by so they could keep an eye on them, at least during school nights.
    But I’d been sneaking out ever since I’d gotten here two months ago, and I’d seen other kids do the same, usually on beer or cigarette runs. What was the worst they could do to me? Kick me out? After all the freaky stuff that I’d seen here, I’d be thrilled to go back to public high school. I wouldn’t even complain about the crappy cafeteria food—much.
    Mythos might be its own little world, but what lay beyond the wall was surprisingly normal, since Cypress Mountain was a charming little suburb in its own right. A two-lane road curved around in front of the school, and a variety of shops clustered on the other side,