Kiss of Frost Read online

Page 7

  "Gwendolyn? Is something the matter?" Nickamedes stepped out from the stacks behind me.

  My mouth opened, closed, and opened again, but no words came out. No, I'm not okay, I wanted to say.

  Someone just tried to put an arrow through my skull.

  But I couldn't tel him that. Not without proof. Nickamedes hated me. He'd never believe someone had just taken a shot at me in the library. And even if he did, wel , he might not care al that much.

  I clamped my lips together and stood there, anger, embarrassment, and fear making my cheeks burn.

  Nickamedes raised his black eyebrows in a way that clearly said he thought I'd lost what little sense I had. "Wel , I'm done with my e-mails. Go get your things together, and I'l turn off the lights and lock up for the night. " He walked back to his office, but I stayed where I was, feeling crazy, scared, and frustrated, al at the same time. I blew out a breath and turned back to the bookshelf, as if the arrow would somehow magical y reappear. It didn't, of course, but I realized that maybe I hadn't been imagining things after al .

  Because there was a nick in the wood that hadn't been there before.

  The deep, ugly, starlike shape looked like it had grooved maybe four inches into the dark, glossy wood. Whoever had shot the arrow must have yanked it out while I'd been looking around the far side of the bookshelf. That was the only explanation I could come up with. But if that was the case, why hadn't he fired another arrow at me when I'd had my back turned? Had the archer heard Nickamedes moving around in his office and had been scared off? If so, I was going to have to start being a lot nicer to the uptight librarian-a whole lot nicer.

  But right now I wanted answers, and I knew of one way to maybe get them. My hand trembling, I brought my fingers up to the groove. I hesitated a second, then pressed them to the splintered wood, knowing that my psychometry would kick in and show me exactly what had happened.

  THUNK!

  An image of the arrow slamming into the bookcase fil ed my mind-but nothing else. No clue as to who had shot it or why.

  Disappointing but not surprising. I'd need the actual arrow itself for that or the bow that it had been launched from. Those were the tools the archer had touched, the things he'd used when he'd tried to kil me. The bookshelf was just where the arrow had landed.

  That's why there weren't any emotions attached to it-just the sudden violence of the arrow slamming into the thick wood.

  Frustrated, I dropped my hand.

  "Gwendolyn!" Nickamedes cal ed out to me from one of the doors in the glass office complex. "You either come get your bag right this second or leave it here for the night!" There was nothing else I could do-not tonight, not without the bow, the arrow, or some other sort of proof-so I turned away from the splintered bookshelf and headed over to the checkout counter.

  I grabbed my messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder, but I wasn't real y thinking about what I was doing.

  Instead, I was replaying the day's events in my head. First, the SUV, and now the arrow in the bookcase. It al added up to only one conclusion.

  Someone was trying to kil me. But it wasn't in the gym this time, and it wasn't just for practice.

  No-this time, it was for real.

  Chapter 6

  "Someone's trying to kil you? Real y?" Daphne asked a half an hour later.

  I shrugged. "Kil , maim, or injure. Isn't it al the same thing to Reapers?"

  We were in my dorm room, eating the chocolate-strawberry cookies Grandma Frost had baked earlier today. Wel , Daphne was eating the cookies. I didn't have an appetite for them. Knots stil twisted and tangled together in my stomach from almost getting skewered in the library.

  After Nickamedes had locked the front doors, I'd run al the way from the Library of Antiquities on the upper quad down to Styx Hal , where my dorm room was. With every step, I'd expected an arrow to zoom out of the shadows and rip through my heart.

  But nothing had happened.

  I'd made it to my dorm in one piece, used my student ID

  card to get inside, and had gone straight up to my room, which was stuck in a separate turret on the third floor. The room featured al your standard dorm furniture-a bed, a desk, some bookshelves, a TV, a smal fridge-although I'd added my own personal touches. A couple of framed photos of my mom stood on my desk, along with a smal statue of Nike. Vic, who was currently sleeping in his scabbard, hung on the wal above the desk, right next to my posters of Wonder Woman, Karma Girl, and The Kil ers.

  Normal y, I considered my dorm room a safe haven from the craziness that was Mythos Academy. Not tonight, though. I huddled on my knees on the floor, my purple and gray plaid comforter wrapped around me, and peered through the bottom of one of the picture windows set into the wal . There didn't seem to be anyone lurking on the dorm's lawn, but then again, it was pitch-black outside now.

  "Why do you think it's a Reaper who tried to kil you?"

  Daphne asked.

  "Who else could it be? Besides, Professor Metis told me that Jasmine's family might come after me because I was involved in her death. "

  "True," Daphne agreed. "You did spectacularly piss off her family. Not to mention Reapers in general. " The Valkyrie lounged on my bed, eating a cookie with one hand while she typed on her laptop with the other. The motion made the charms on the silver bracelet around her right wrist jangle together. Carson had bought the bracelet for Daphne weeks ago, back when he was trying to work up the courage to ask out the Valkyrie. Now, it was one of her most prized possessions.

  "Reapers don't like it when one of their own dies," Daphne added. "Payback is, like, their life. Are you going to tel Professor Metis what happened?"

  Metis was my myth-history professor, and she'd sort of become my mentor. She'd also been my mom's best friend, back when they'd both gone to Mythos. The professor had told me that my mom had saved her life more times than she could count and that she owed it to my mom to look out for me while I was here.

  My eyes flicked to my desk, and I crawled over to it and grabbed a framed photo off the top. Two girls grinned up at me from underneath the glass, their arms around each other. My mom and Professor Metis, back when they'd been about my age.

  Not too long ago, Metis had given me this photo of them as teenagers. Every time I slipped the picture out from behind the glass and ran my fingers over the slick paper, I felt al the love that my mom and Metis had had for each other. They'd been more like sisters than friends. Knowing someone else had cared about my mom as much as I did made me feel a little less alone and made my grief and guilt over her death a little easier to bear.

  "What am I going to tel Metis?" I said, putting the photo back on the desk. "That somebody tried to run me over near my grandma's house and then took a shot at me in the library? I don't have any proof that either one actual y happened. I didn't get a look at the license plate on the car, and I don't have the arrow. She might just think I was being paranoid. "

  "I don't think so," Daphne said, drumming her fingers on top of her keyboard and making pink sparks flicker in the air. "Metis is more understanding than most of the profs are. I think she'd believe you. "

  I shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. You should have seen the look that Nickamedes gave me-like I'd just escaped from Ashland Asylum or something. Who knows? Maybe I have. "

  I tried to smile at my own stupid joke, but I couldn't quite make my lips turn up al the way. Knowing that someone was trying to kil me didn't put me in a smiling mood.

  Daphne shook her head, her blond hair spil ing over her shoulders. "I don't think you're crazy. If you think there's a Reaper after you, then there probably is. They pretty much live to kil us, you know, just like we do them. "

  "Great. Way to make me feel better. "

  Daphne rol ed her black eyes. "Oh, suck it up, Gwen. It's not the end of the world. We're al here learning how to fight Reapers.

  You're just getting a crash course in it,
that's al .

  Some of the kids would actual y be jealous of you. The Spartans certainly would. Sometimes I think Logan and his friends would go off hunting Reapers if Coach Ajax and the other profs would let them. "

  In addition to being the best fighters at Mythos, the Spartans also had a reputation for being the most bloodthirsty. They actual y liked to be in the thick of battle and kil ing things-it was part of their DNA or something. I guess that's just what happened when you could pick up normal, everyday objects-the cookies Daphne was noshing on, the stapler on my desk, the smal replica of Nike next to it-and automatical y know how to kil people with them.

  Logan, Kenzie, and Oliver could grab any one of those things, kil me with it, and not think twice doing it.

  Seriously. That's the kind of freaky stuff they instinctively knew how to do.

  "Wel , it's a course I'm going to flunk," I groused. "Maybe I'l just hide up here in my room until Christmas break.

  Sooner or later, the Reaper wil have to lose interest in me. "

  "Reapers never lose interest. Once you're on their hit list, they won't stop coming until you're dead-or they are. " Daphne shook her head again. "And you can't stay here, especial y not this weekend. Everyone's going to the Winter Carnival, even the professors and the academy staff. You'd be on campus al by yourself. If there is a Reaper out there gunning for you, you'd just give him an early Christmas present. You know what a total joke the dorm security is. " I sighed. "So what do you think I should do?"

  "Talk to Metis," Daphne said. "Tel her what's going on and ask her if she's heard anything about Jasmine's family.

  If they're stil in hiding or if the Pantheon has caught up to them yet and has thrown them in prison where they belong. " I nodded my head, and we were silent for a few moments.

  "You know, it's just too bad that I didn't have a bow and arrow tonight," I final y groused. "I could have thought of you and defended myself against the Reaper. "

  "What do you mean?"

  I told the Valkyrie how I'd done better during archery practice this morning just by thinking of her, by cal ing up the memories I had of her at the tournaments she'd won.

  "Real y? That's cool. " Daphne tapped her fingers against her lips, deep in thought. "I wonder if you could do that with other things, too. "

  "What do you mean?"

  She gestured at her bulging book bag on the floor. "I've been reading up on various magical theories and powers while I wait for my own magic to quicken. There are lots of stories about folks tapping into other people's powers.

  Most of them have some kind of mental magic, like you do.

  Telepathy or something that lets them see into other people's minds. So if you can cal up the memories of my archery tournaments, who's to say you couldn't do that with other things?

  Or even with other people?" I shrugged. "I don't know. I never thought of my magic like that before. Usual y I just get flashes off objects. I don't actual y do anything with the memories I see. "

  "Wel , maybe you should try to, to see if it works," Daphne said. "Either way you might as wel start packing your bags for the carnival. Because I'm not leaving you here by yourself, not with a Reaper lurking around. You're going to the carnival, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming onto the bus myself. "

  Daphne's pretty features took on a determined, stubborn look, and more pink sparks of magic flickered in the air around her. We might have only been friends for a few weeks now, but I knew she meant what she said. And with her Valkyrie strength, she'd have no problem twisting my arm-literal y-to get me to do exactly what she wanted.

  "Al right, al right," I groused again. "I'l talk to Metis tomorrow, and I'l go to the stupid Winter Carnival with you.

  Just don't expect me to like it. "

  Daphne grinned, and then stuffed another cookie into her mouth.

  I stuck to my regular schedule the next day, Thursday; weapons training, bright and early, with Logan, Kenzie, and Oliver; breakfast in the dining hal with Daphne; then a ful day of classes. I eyed al the other students, wondering which one of them might real y be a Reaper, but no one paid me any more attention than usual. Which is to say, nobody noticed me at al . I wasn't exactly one of the popular kids, and I certainly wasn't pretty enough for the guys to check me out that way. Most people-like Helena Paxton and her snotty friends in the library last night-just thought of me as Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl.

  Final y, sixth period rol ed around, and I slid into my seat in Professor Metis's myth-history class. Carson's desk was right in front of mine, and he turned around to talk to me.

  Carson was Daphne's boyfriend, but he was my friend, too, since I'd helped hook them up in the first place. He was just an al

  -around nice, sweet guy with a tal , lanky, six-foot frame and dusky brown hair and skin. He also happened to be a total band geek, and was the drum major for the Mythos Academy Marching Band, even though he was only seventeen and a second-year student, like me. Carson was a Celt, and had a magical talent for music, like some kind of warrior bard, although I'd never real y asked him about it, what kind of power he had, or what he could do with it.

  "Are you excited about the Winter Carnival?" Carson asked, pushing his black glasses up his nose and peering at me with his dark brown eyes. "This wil be your first one, right, Gwen?"

  "Yeah," I muttered. "And I'm just thril ed to death about it. "

  Carson frowned, picking up on my sour mood, but before he could say anything else, the bel rang, signaling the start of class. A few seconds later Professor Metis stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. Metis was of Greek descent, like so many of the kids and profs at Mythos. She was a short woman with a stocky body, bronze skin, and black hair that was always pul ed back into a high, tight bun. Today she wore a heavy fisherman's sweater that was the same color green as her eyes behind her silver glasses.