I shake my head, because I don’t want to bring up the book unless she does. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes sharpen. “Really? Not knowing something doesn’t seem like you, Penelope.”
I swallow audibly, but I still don’t say anything. How can I? There’s no appropriate answer to being called a know-it-all. Or if there is, I haven’t run across it yet.
“Okay, then, I guess I’ll jump right in.” She smiles warmly. “I wanted to start by thanking you for encouraging our students to participate in the scavenger hunt. It’s been a long time since we’ve been this close to winning, and I know we owe a lot of that to you.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I’ve only found a couple of objects.” My voice breaks on the last word and I clear my throat, trying to also clear my nerves away.
It doesn’t work.
“Two objects out of the six found seems pretty impressive to me,” she says. “Though I have to admit, it surprised me when Calliope brought me the Hades tome.”
Even though her voice is perfectly pleasant as she says it, a full chill runs down my spine. “But it’s on the list,” I say, which is technically true.
“Actually, we made it clear that we’d made a fake version for the list. It never occurred to us that one of our students would brave the Underworld to find the real one.” She leans forward. “How did you do that, by the way? Most people who find themselves down there don’t find their way back.”
I start to tell her that Kyrian is the one who got me back, but stop myself. He helped me when he didn’t have to, and the last thing I want is for him to get into trouble for it.
“I didn’t mean to go down there,” I tell her instead, because it’s the truth. “I was out in the storm the other day and tripped on something in the forest. The next thing I knew, I was falling down some kind of hole, and I ended up there. Thankfully, there was a train running at the time and it got me back here.”
I skip over the room-with-the-books part—and the snakes. If one book has her this concerned, I can only imagine what she’ll think of me knowing where to find a room filled with thousands of ancient books.
“Thank goodness for that!” she agrees. “I’m so glad we didn’t lose you.”
I give her the best smile I can manage, which I’m pretty sure isn’t great. “Me too. It was really scary.”
“I can imagine.” She studies my face, her eyes running over every inch of it, looking for something, though I don’t know what.
“Can I go now? I’m supposed to meet my friends out front,” I fib.
“Of course. I don’t want to hold you up from the night’s festivities.” She stands up and gestures to the door. But just as I start walking, she asks, “And the book? Was that on the train with you?”
“I don’t know.” On this part I have no problem being completely honest. “It just showed up in my backpack. I didn’t even know it was there until I was back in my room.”
“Ah, so it’s a case of the randomly appearing book,” she jokes.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Good to know. How fortuitous that it just happened to be the book you’d been looking for.”
Forget shivers, a full-on icicle slides down my spine, though I can’t quite pinpoint why. Her questions are exceedingly cordial.
Then again, maybe that’s the problem. She’s so cordial that it’s making me nervous. Very, very nervous.
“It really was,” I tell her. “I totally didn’t expect it. Especially not after what I had to go through in class to get the key.”
“I guess you’re just lucky?”
Now I really do laugh, because lucky isn’t the word I would use to describe all the things that have happened to me since I got to Anaximander’s. But when I say as much to Dr. Dione, she simply tilts her head and responds, “You’ve made it through all of them, though. I’d consider that pretty lucky.”
She has a point. “Thanks!” I tell her. “I’ve never thought of it quite like that before.”
“I’m glad to help change your perspective a little.” We’re at the door now and she gestures for me to precede her through it. But once I do, she says, “Oh, Penelope. One more thing. Did you read the book?”
My whole body turns into a block of ice as I struggle to find a truthful response that won’t also get me into major trouble. I finally settle on “It’s in ancient Attic Greek” and leave it at that.
“And you don’t read ancient Greek?” She’s watching me even more closely now, which isn’t nerve-racking at all.
