MOANDAY

We got new rooms at the academy, so I didn’t have to sleep in the same place as Storey. But everything was still made of ice, so it really wasn’t much of an improvement. And One Eye assigned a guard named Icejaw to watch over me. He stood outside my door and generally made certain I didn’t try to escape or skip school.

I was a prisoner at Nightshadows North. But I have to admit, I was kind of excited for my second day of class. I couldn’t wait to hit the books. I hoped we’d learn some advanced kennings. I figured I could use them to hide all the bad stuff I planned to say when I got back to the Grimhold. I’d have bet even Bob Ogreson might enjoy a bit of it. Maybe I could just skip the whole Operation Dark Lord thing. I pictured myself as the Master of Kennings, with every grimmie asking me for creative ways to describe really gross stuff.

I even thought of two or three good ones while the guard led me to our classroom. When the door opened, I was so excited I went up to the professor and asked him about the day’s lesson. In my experience, instructors like it when students ask questions—they call it “taking initiative.” I do it sometimes just to make them feel important. This time I meant it. I really did want to learn more about The Prose Giganta. But Cold Hands (that’s what everyone called our professor) pretty much stomped on my excitement.

“Yesterday was the first day of our new year. We call it Prose and Poetry Day. Nightshadows North celebrates it once every three hundred and sixty-five days. You’re welcome to come back next year, but you’ll probably be dead by then.”

He said it just like that, “You’ll probably be dead by then.” Gotta say, the giants are a cold bunch. Literally and figuratively. I confirmed it when he shook my hand. Professor Cold Hands’s cold touch nearly froze my fingers off, so at least I learned how he got his name.

My fingers were still frozen from the handshake as I sat down at my ice desk. Storey showed up right around then and settled into the seat next to me.

“Today, we resume our study of mathematics,” Professor Cold Hands said, handing out a surprise quiz just to get things started. Like everything else at Nightshadows North, the “quiz” wasn’t exactly what I expected. As I’ve said, the frost giants tend to do things in a big way. A massive, mind-bogglingly big way. The test paper was large enough that I could have folded it up, climbed inside, and taken a nap. And it was covered in so many questions, I thought it might take days to complete.

“How long do we have with the quiz, Mr. Cold Hands?” I asked.

“Two days minimum,” he said. “It’s just a quiz.”

Now, we all know a pop quiz should not last for TWO DAYS. But apparently, for the frost giants, a real test required a week or two to complete. So things could have been worse.

Still, Nightshadows North wasn’t quite the happy place I had hoped it would be. That was when I decided I wasn’t cut out to be a giant. Let’s face it. Even the warlocks think I’m short.

Halfway through the quiz, my thoughts drifted back to Operation Dark Lord. I’d traveled to the snow-covered mountains to seek out the scepter, but it wasn’t here. And I had no way to find the thief while I was trapped in Nightshadows North. Also, I was probably going to die a terrible death as soon as One Eye made up his mind. But that might take months.

So in the meantime, while I waited for my unjust demise, I took a two-day-long math quiz.