Kiss of Frost

Chapter 15

Despite all the craziness that had been going on the past few days, Nickamedes's words still stunned me.

"You think it was-it was deliberate?" I asked, cold dread pooling in the bottom of my stomach. "Why?"

Nickamedes stared down his nose at me. "Mountains do not blow themselves up, Gwendolyn. After we got you down here safely to the infirmary, Ajax and I went back up the mountain. We found some burn marks and other things that indicate that someone deliberately set off an explosion at the top of the mountain, which was what caused the avalanche."

The Reaper. I knew it was the mysterious Reaper who was trying to kill me. First, the SUV outside my Grandma Frost's house, then the arrow in the library, and now, the Fenrir wolf and the avalanche. Somehow, the Reaper had seen me leave the carnival and start down the mountain. I didn't know if he'd planned the explosion and the avalanche in advance or not, but he'd seen an opportunity to kill me, and he'd taken it.

And he'd almost succeeded. If I'd hadn't run for the pine trees, if I'd been just a second or two slower in getting there, if I hadn't tied myself to the tree…

If, if, if.

If any of those things had gone wrong, the avalanche would have swept me away-forever.

What was even worse was the fact that this time the Reaper hadn't cared who else he might have hurt. If there had been anyone else going down the mountain the same time I had been, if Daphne and Carson had decided to have lunch with Preston and me… My stomach twisted, and I thought I was going to be sick.

The door to the infirmary banged open, and Daphne barged inside, pink sparks of magic flashing around her, like a thousand tiny fireflies winking on and off.

"Sorry, Aurora," Coach Ajax said, sticking his head into the room. "I couldn't keep her out any longer."

"Gwen!" Daphne said, rushing over to me.

She bumped Nickamedes out of the way, her Valkyrie strength pushing the librarian back several steps. He gave her a sour look, and his mouth pinched down into a frown.

Daphne grabbed my hand, and her concern for me flooded my body. It was a nice feeling-in a panicked, anxious kind of way.

"I'm fine," I said, squeezing her hand tight. "Really, I'm fine."

Her face relaxed a little bit. "You'd damn well better be. You're my best friend."

"And you're mine," I whispered back, hot tears stinging my eyes. "You're my best friend, too."

Daphne gripped my hand even tighter, her Valkyrie strength crunching my bones together, but I didn't pull away. I knew I'd have bruises tomorrow, but I didn't care. Right now, I was happy to let her warm, happy relief flood my body. We stayed like that for a few seconds, before the Valkyrie's gaze flicked around the room.

"What's going on?" she asked. "What's with the big professor powwow?"

Metis smoothed a stray piece of her black hair back into her bun. "Nickamedes and I were just filling Gwen in on what happened during the avalanche and what we think might have caused it."

"You mean the explosion," Daphne corrected her. "Somebody totally set a bomb off on top of the mountain, didn't they? I mean, the flames were just shooting up and up into the air like they were never going to stop."

Nickamedes and Metis exchanged another look, obviously debating how much they wanted to tell Daphne- and whether they thought the Valkyrie would spread the gossip around to all the other students. But they decided to trust her or just realized that I would tell her later anyway, because Nickamedes finally nodded.

"Yes, we do believe it was some kind of deliberate explosion meant to specifically cause the avalanche," the librarian said.

Daphne rolled her eyes. "Well, of course, it was. When Reapers try to kill people, they always bring out the big guns."

* * *

Busted. I was totally, completely busted.

I knew the second the words came out of Daphne's mouth that there was no taking them back-or wiggling my way out of an explanation.

"Reapers?" Nickamedes asked in a sharp tone. "What Reapers?"

Daphne frowned, a puzzled expression on her pretty face. "TheReaper. The one who's trying to kill Gwen. The one who almost ran her over with a car and then took a shot at her in the Library of Antiquities the other night…"

The Valkyrie's voice drifted off as she realized just how intently Nickamedes and Metis were staring at her. She looked at them a second before turning her gaze to me. "You didn't tell them about the Reaper? You told me you were going to talk to Metis!"

"And I changed my mind," I muttered. "I have the right to do that, you know. Free will and all. We talked about it just the other day in myth-history class."

Daphne put her hands on her hips and glared at me. The pink sparks flashing around her fingertips crackled and coalesced into tiny streaks of lightning, showing me just how pissed she was at me right now.

"And I told you that you don't mess around when it comes to Reapers, especially when one of them is trying to kill you," the Valkyrie snapped.

Metis stepped around the hospital bed and put a hand on Daphne's arm. "I think the two of you need to tell us what's going on. Right now."

Yep, there was no way out of this-not with the professor staring at me, her green eyes sharp and narrow behind her silver glasses. And especially not with Nickamedes glaring at me, his own gaze as blue and cold as the snow on the mountain.

I sighed and told them the whole story, from almost being run over outside Grandma Frost's house to the arrow in the library to the Fenrir wolf that had been lurking around the ski resort and finally, to the avalanche. When I was finished, Metis called Coach Ajax into the room and made me repeat the whole thing over again to him.

"Why didn't you tell anyone about this before?" Ajax asked when I was finished.

I shifted in the bed, feeling the weight of the professors' accusing stares on my chest, as hard and heavy as the wolf's paws had been earlier. "Because I didn't have any proof. Nobody saw the car, the arrow, or even the Fenrir wolf but me. I didn't want you all to think I was being hysterical or paranoid or something."

Nickamedes crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you know how much danger you've put everyone in, Gwendolyn? If you even suspected that a Reaper of Chaos was running around the academy, you should have told one of your professors immediately. Not stupidly thought that you could handle it by yourself."

I really, really wanted to point out the small fact that the mystery Reaper hadn't actually, you know,killed me yet. That in my own way, I had handled it. At least, enough to stay alive these past few days. But then I looked at Metis. I didn't have to touch her or use my Gypsy gift to see the disappointment and reproach in her face. She was upset I hadn't trusted her enough to tell her about the Reaper. Somehow that made me feel worse than anything else, even almost getting buried by the avalanche.

"I'm going to call your grandmother and tell her what's happened," Metis said in a low voice. "I'm sure she'll want to talk to you."

I was sure she would too. Grandma Frost didn't get angry at me often, but when she did, watch out. My grandma was probably going to be majorly pissed I hadn't told her what was going on. Though, in my defense, nothing had actually happened until after I'd left her house.

"Most important, you are not to leave the hotel until either we get this whole thing sorted out or head back to the academy tomorrow night," Nickamedes said. "I mean it, Gwendolyn. You are not to set one foot outside this building. Do you understand me?"

I gave him a sullen look.

"Do you understand me?" The librarian's harsh tone had so much acid in it that it actually made me flinch.

"Yes, sir," I muttered.

Nickamedes gave me another stern glare, but he didn't say anything else. He wanted to, though. Anger made his face even pastier than normal. Instead of yelling at me some more, Nickamedes turned to Ajax, and the two of them, along with Metis, moved to the other side of the infirmary and started talking in low voices. Probably trying to figure out who the Reaper might be and how they could track down him and the Fenrir wolf. Daphne stayed by my side at the bed.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I really didn't mean to rat you out."

I sighed. "I know. And you were right. I should have told Metis what was going on after class the other day, and I should have told you and Carson that I didn't think it was just a wild Fenrir wolf I'd seen. I hate to admit it, but Nickamedes and the other profs have a right to be pissed. I put myself in danger, and everyone else here, too."

"So why didn't you tell them about the Reaper? Or at least get me and Carson to believe you about the wolf?"

I threw my hands up. "Because I go to a school for warrior whiz kids. Everyone else at Mythos can take care of themselves, including you and Carson. I just wanted to be able to do the same. I bet if there was a Reaper after Logan or one of the other Spartans, the profs wouldn't make such a big deal about it. They certainly wouldn't make Logan hide in the hotel like he was a kid. Ajax would probably give him a weapon and let Logan hunt down the Reaper by himself."

Red-hot shame and miserable embarrassment tangled up together in tight knots in my stomach, overcoming the uneasy guilt I felt at keeping quiet. That was one reason why I'd hated the academy so much when I'd started going there-because everyone was so muchbetterat everything than I was. So much braver, tougher, smarter, stronger. I was a weak little freak in comparison to everyone else at Mythos Academy, with only my Gypsy gift to rely on.

"But you haven't had the training the rest of us have," Daphne pointed out. "Your mom and your grandma sheltered you from all that stuff. I started using a bow when I was three years old. It took me a long time to learn how to use it and all the other weapons we train with-and even longer to think I could actually hurt someone with them."

"Do you think you could do it?" I asked. "Do you think you could kill a Reaper if you had to?"

The Valkyrie thought about it. "I think so, after everything I've seen-all the other kids, parents, and professors who have been murdered by them over the years. I hope so, because I know that if I didn't kill the Reaper, then he would kill me-without hesitating."

Even though I was still lying under the thermal blankets, Daphne's words made me shiver, because I knew they were true. Anybody who'd gone to all the trouble to start an avalanchewouldn't hesitate to run me through with a sword if he got the chance.

"Just do what the profs want and stay in the hotel until we head back to the academy, okay, Gwen?" Daphne said, her black eyes full of concern. "I don't want you to get hurt, and I know Metis and the others don't either. Not even Nickamedes, even if he doesn't act like it."

I could have argued with her about the librarian, but I just blew out a breath and nodded. "Yeah, I'll be a good girl from now on."

Daphne smiled and took my hand again. "Good."

I smiled back, even though the fingers on my other hand were firmly crossed. Yeah, maybe it was silly, but crossing my fingers made me feel a little better about lying to my best friend. But in this case, it was necessary. Because not only was I freaked out about what had happened today, but I was seriously pissed off about it, too.

Maybe I hadn't had the warrior training the other kids had. Maybe I wasn't as good with a sword as Daphne, Logan, and the other students were. Maybe I wasn't as strong or quick or tough or brave. But I had my psychometry magic, and I was Nike's freakingChampion. Those things had to count for something. Otherwise, what was the point of me being at Mythos Academy in the first place?

But the most important thing was the fact that the Reaper was afterme. He wanted to killme. Not anyone else, just me.

I might not be able to put an arrow through his heart, but I was Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl who touched stuff and saw things. I used my magic to find things that were lost and to learn people's secrets. Well, the Reaper's real identity was just something else to uncover, just another puzzle to solve, just another secret waiting to be revealed.

No matter what I'd promised Metis, Nickamedes, and even Daphne, I was going to do everything in my power to find out who the Reaper was and take him down-before he tried to kill me again.