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“Because the last time Loki was free, he raised an army to try to kill the other gods, to enslave mortals, and to bend everyone to his will. Hundreds of thousands of people died, Gwen. And hundreds of thousands more will die if Loki is freed once more. The world as we know it will be utterly destroyed.”

So the Chaos was death, destruction, and blah, blah, blah, just like I’d thought. Another war, just like the one that had been fought before. Except when Professor Metis talked about it this time, a shiver swept up my spine. Like it was actually real. Like it could actually happen.

We left the main quad behind and stepped onto one of the walkways that led out to the dorms. The student dorms were smaller versions of the main academy buildings—lots of gray stone, lots of thick, green ivy, lots of creepy statues everywhere.

Somehow, Metis knew that I roomed in Styx Hall, without me even telling her. She walked me all the way up to the front door. Since the student curfew was ten o’clock on weeknights and the dorms automatically locked down after that, Metis had to swipe her professor ID badge through the scanner to get the door to open for me.

I could have told her not to bother. That there was a sturdy persimmon tree that reached up to a second-floor window on the back of the building. The window had a busted lock, and whatever magic was on it to keep students in or bad guys out had dissolved or disappeared a long time ago. Now, all the girls used it and the tree to slip out at night and see their boyfriends. Everyone except me, of course. I didn’t have a boyfriend, much less just another girlfriend to hang out with after curfew.

“Now, don’t worry,” Metis said. “Ajax and Nickamedes have already started increasing the security at the library and over the whole campus. Nickamedes is out casting more spells right now. The dorms themselves are already quite secure. They all have wards on them to ensure the students’ protection, but Nickamedes is going to increase the power and complexity of those as well.”

Her voice was so calm and matter-of-fact that it reminded me of the teachers at my old school and how they’d all tell us to patiently file outside when we were having the yearly fire drill. They’d been so calm because they’d all known that there was no real fire and they didn’t even think there was a problem to start with.

I thought of how easily I’d been able to walk down to the mai