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stepped behind the counter. He’d been over to Raven’s coffee cart too, judging from the blueberry muffin and water bottle he was holding. A professor came over and asked him a question. Nickamedes took a swig of his water, then put his bottle on the counter right next to mine. I edged my bottle away from his and turned mine so that the label faced out toward the rest of the library so I would know which one was which. I had no desire to accidentally ingest his germs. I might catch something awful, like, you know, punctuality . I also noticed that the librarian didn’t wait to eat his muffin as he looked up something in the computer system for the professor.
    I was still shooting Nickamedes angry, jealous glances when Oliver Hector stepped up to the checkout counter.
    Sandy blond hair, green eyes, great smile, muscular body. The Spartan was cute, but, more important, he was my friend. Oliver watched me watching the librarian.
    “You know, if I were Nickamedes, I’d be glad that you just had touch magic, instead of the ability to shoot fire out your eyeballs,” Oliver drawled. “Because Nickamedes would be totally toasted right now.”
    I rolled my eyes, but I had to laugh. “Yeah, well, if I had that power, I’d save it to use on Reapers. I wouldn’t mind melting off Vivian’s face. Or Agrona’s.”
    “I don’t think any of us would mind that,” Oliver said.
    I thought about my recurring nightmare. Maybe next time instead of letting Logan attack me, I could try to throw myself off the amphitheater stage and fight Vivian and Agrona instead. No doubt they would still kill me in my dream, but that wouldn’t be as bad as Logan murdering me again—and having to stare into his Reaper red eyes while he did it.
    Oliver walked around the counter, slung his bag down next to mine, and hopped up on a stool that was sitting against the glass wall behind me.
    I frowned. “What are you doing?”
    He shrugged. “Alexei had some meeting with the other Protectorate guards that’s running long, so he asked me to keep an eye on you until he gets here.”
    I sighed. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, you know. I think I’ve proven that enough already.”
    “I know,” Oliver replied. “But I also know that all of the Reapers are gunning for you, Gwen. So just relax and let us watch your back, okay?”
    I sighed again. He was right, but sometimes it made me feel so helpless, so useless , always being watched over by somebody, whether it was Alexei, Oliver, Daphne, or one of my other friends. I was a target for the Reapers, and now they were too, just because they were my friends. I didn’t know what I would do if something happened to one of them because of me—because they’d taken an arrow or a dagger meant for me. But no matter what I said or did, my friends insisted on sticking by me, telling me we were all in this together. It made me want to scream at their stubbornness—and cry because of their loyalty.
    “All right, all right,” I groused. “You can stay. But only because you’re so cute, and I need some eye candy to look at.”
    His grin widened. “Oh Gypsy. You say the sweetest things.”
    I rolled my eyes again. Oliver laughed.
     
    The next two hours dragged by. I did all my usual chores. Shelved books. Helped kids locate reference material for their homework assignments. Even dusted a few of the artifact cases in the stacks.
    Cleaning off the cases made me think about Ran’s net, which I’d shoved into the bottom of my messenger bag for safekeeping. Of course, I’d shown the net to Professor Metis when Alexei, Daphne, and I had brought it back from the Crius Coliseum a few days ago, but Metis didn’t know what was so special about it any more than I did. So she’d told me to hang on to it for now. I didn’t know what good the net would do, stuffed in among my comic books and the tin I had that was shaped like a giant chocolate chip cookie, but like Metis had said, at least we’d