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Gin palming the knife with cold, ruthless, expert precision in what must have been her barbecue restaurant, given the blue and pink booths and the matching pig tracks covering the floor. Gin throwing herself out of the back of a bullet-riddled van, then killing a couple of tall, muscled women—giants, maybe?—with the blade. Gin clutching the weapon and facing down another tall, muscled woman, along with several men, at what looked like a wedding.
But one memory was a little clearer and sharper than all the rest: Gin standing outside a beautiful mansion, part of which had been crumbled, as though someone had taken a wrecking ball to one side of the structure and knocked off parts of it. Clouds of dust cloaked the air, but Gin stalked through the swirling fog, her knife clutched in her hand. She stared down at a man trapped underneath some rubble on the ground—a man with the same wintry gray eyes she had—then coolly, calmly leaned forward and cut his throat.
I flinched, expecting to start screaming at the awful memory, as I so often did. But instead of horror or rage or some other terrible emotion, soft, soothing relief flowed through me instead—Gin’s relief that she had finally killed this man, this dangerous enemy who had caused her so much pain, and that he would never hurt her friends and family again.
I knew that feeling all too well. It was the same sort of relief I had felt when I’d realized that Agrona Quinn, Logan’s evil ex-stepmother, was dead. And that Vivian Holler, Loki’s Champion, was trapped in her own mind and my memories and no longer a threat. And of course, that Loki himself was imprisoned and would never again menace the mythological world—
“You might as well give up, Champion.” Brayden’s voice jarred me back to the here and now, and mine and Gin’s memories faded away, if not the feelings that went along with them. “You can’t beat me, Gwen. Not when I have Minerva’s Dagger. I can feel its magic flowing through me, the power, the wisdom, the history. There is literally nothing you can do, no attack you can make, that I haven’t seen before.”
He brandished the dagger at me, and the jewels embedded in the gold blade glittered like drops of ruby, topaz, citrine, and diamond blood. Even though I wasn’t touching the blade, my psychometry roared to life again, and suddenly, I could feel the hunger emanating from the dagger, its burning thirst and deep, dark, unquenchable desire to be in yet another battle and add the knowledge of that fight to all the others that were already stored inside it. The dagger wasn’t so much a weapon as it was a greedy parasite, sucking up all the life and blood that crossed its blade. My magic recoiled, and my stomach twisted with revulsion.
But Brayden was right—I couldn’t beat him. Despite all the battles I’d been in against Agrona, Vivian, and the other Reapers, I was still just eighteen. I simply hadn’t been a warrior long enough to counter all the wisdom and knowledge that had accumulated in Minerva’s Dagger over the centuries.
Brayden grinned and twirled the dagger around in his hand in a showy, taunting motion. I flinched again, and my fingers tightened around Gin’s knife. The metal was strangely cool against my skin, and something slid up against my palm. I loosened my grip and glanced down.
A symbol was stamped into the knife’s hilt—a small circle with eight thin rays, the same symbol that had been branded into both of Gin’s palms. What had she called it? Oh, yes, a spider rune, the symbol for patience. Now that I was holding her knife, I knew that every word she had said before had been true.
Gin Blanco was the Spider.
I couldn’t beat Brayden on my own. Not with my limited skills and training. But I wasn’t on my own right now. No, right now, I was holding a knife that had been used by the best assassin in all of Ashland.
So I reached out with my magic, my psychometry, and all those memories flickered through my mind again. All the bad, bad people Gin had faced down, all the life-and-death battles she’d been in, and especially all the ways she’d found to defeat her enemies over the years.
Brayden stalked toward me, slashing Minerva’s Dagger through the air. I watched him come, a cold calm settling over me—the same cold calm Gin had felt countless times before. Using my psychometry, I truly, fully, completely embraced that quiet emotion, that eerie stillness, that utter certainty, until it blotted out everything else, including my own worry that I wasn’t smart, strong, or skilled enough to win this fight.
Because I knew that Gin was smart, strong, and skilled enough, and I was holding a piece of her in my hand and even more of her in my mind and heart.
Brayden stopped, grinned, and flipped the dagger end over end in his hand. “You know what? I might keep this dagger. It’s certainly been useful in this fight. It would be nice knowing that no enemy could ever stand a chance of beating me, not even Nike’s Champion.”
I didn’t respond to his taunts. Instead, I kept focusing on that cold calm and all the memories of Gin that were still flashing through my mind.
Brayden’s grin widened, and he lunged forward, trying to cut me with the dagger. But I—or maybe Gin—had been expecting the blow, and I sidestepped his charge, whipped around, and sliced the knife across his upper arm.
Brayden hissed with pain and staggered back. He glanced down at the blood that was clearly visible through his cut coat and the T-shirt underneath. “You sneaky little bitch!” he snarled. “You’re going to pay for that!”
I held up my crudely bandaged hand. “Just paying you back for cutting me earlier. What’s wrong, Brayden? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it? Yeah, that’s how it usually goes with arrogant Reaper bullies like you.”
Brayden growled and charged forward, slashing out with the dagger over and over again. He wasn’t playing around now, and each blow was meant to be a deadly strike, but I dodged his attacks and lashed out with Gin’s knife in return.
I managed to cut Brayden’s other arm, then opened up a deep gash in his left thigh. He staggered away from me, struggling to find his balance.
“Minerva’s Dagger might make you smarter, but it doesn’t make you any more graceful,” I taunted him. “Why, you’re as clumsy and awkward as a Black roc with its wings tied together.”
Rage sparked in his eyes, making them glimmer even more brightly than the dagger’s gold blade, and Brayden charged forward. I braced myself for his attack, but he wasn’t watching where he was going—or especially where he was putting his feet down. One of his boots landed on the wooden lid that he and Winifred had removed from the artifacts crate earlier, and he skidded to the side, his arms windmilling wildly as he fought to stay upright.
I waited until he teetered in my direction, then lunged forward, shoved his flailing arm out of the way, and buried Gin’s knife in his heart.
Brayden’s eyes bulged, and he screamed with pain. He raised Minerva’s Dagger to try to kill me, but I ripped Gin’s knife out of his chest and used it to knock the artifact out of his hand. The dagger landed on the floor, and the golden glow of magic quickly winked out, faster than a star giving way to the approaching dawn.
The train jerked yet again, and Brayden toppled forward, hitting my chest and forcing my entire body to the side. My head smacked into one of the metal shelves, and gray and purple stars erupted in my eyes.
I managed to hang on to Gin’s knife, but my legs slid out from under me. I hit the floor hard, causing more stars to erupt in my eyes. Brayden dropped down onto me like the deadweight that he was, punching the air out of my lungs. Even worse, his warm, sticky blood stained my skin and seeped into my clothes.
In the front of the car, Gin was still battling Winifred. I tried to move, to yell, to tell Gin to be careful, but a third wave of stars filled my eyes, growing darker and darker until they blotted out everything else.
Chapter Nine
Gin
