Midnight Frost (4 page)

I was the last one in line, and, finally, it was my turn to order. I scanned the menu tacked up beside the cash register.

“Give me a bottled water, a jumbo pretzel with nacho cheese sauce, and a dark chocolate brownie,” I said.

Silence.

I peered around a display of blueberry muffins. A woman sat on a stool behind the cash register, reading through a celebrity gossip magazine as if it was the most interesting thing ever. The woman was old—even older than Grandma Frost—with a shock of long, white hair that seemed to flow into the long, white gown she wore. Her eyes were as black, bright, and shiny as a bird’s, while dark wrinkles streaked across her face, almost like the thin grooves were filled with shadows instead of just sagging skin. She licked her thumb and turned another page in her magazine, completely ignoring me, even though I’d stepped up to the counter as soon as the Viking in front of me had left.

I sighed. Raven was here today. I should have known.

Raven ran the coffee cart, one of the many odd jobs she had at the academy, along with being on the security council, overseeing members of the Protectorate when they cleaned up crime scenes, and watching over any Reapers being kept in the prison in the math-science building. I didn’t know exactly
why
Raven had all of these jobs, since she didn’t seem particularly qualified for any of them and was always scanning through some magazine or another, but everything important always seemed to get done, and I guess that’s all the Powers That Were really cared about.

I cleared my throat, and Raven finally put down her magazine. I repeated my order, and she moved from one side of the cart to the other, heating up my pretzel and cheese sauce in the small microwave and handing them to me, along with my bottled water and brownie. I reached into my jeans pocket, drew out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it across the counter to her, careful not to let my fingers brush hers. Not only could I flash on objects, but my psychometry also kicked in whenever I touched another person. Right now, I had no desire to see how bored Raven was sitting at the coffee cart making hot peppermint chocolate for folks.

Still, as I looked at her, it seemed like her face flickered for a moment, as though there was something underneath her features the same way there was something lurking beneath all the statues on campus.

“One day I’m going to figure out what you’re hiding with all of those wrinkles,” I said.

Raven raised her bushy eyebrows at me, but she didn’t say anything. She’d never said anything to me, so I had no idea what her voice sounded like, whether it would be light and lilting or the cackle and crackle of an old crone.

She handed me my change, sat down on her stool, and stuck her nose back in her magazine. I rolled my eyes, grabbed my food, and hurried down the main aisle to the checkout counter. Nyx trotted along beside me, her toenails
click-click-clicking
against the floor.

I stepped behind the counter, laid my food down on it, and put my messenger bag on the floor next to a large gray wicker basket. Grandma Frost had given me the basket so Nyx would have a comfy place to hang out while I was working. I crouched down and unclipped the leash from around the wolf’s neck, although I left the collar on her.

“I have to go to work now, so stay in your basket, okay?” I murmured, rubbing her tiny ears between my fingers.

Nyx leaned into my hand and let out a contented sigh. Then, she plopped down on her cute, pudgy, baby belly, tucked her tail over her nose, and closed her violet-colored eyes. She’d been coming to the library with me for several days now, so she knew the drill.

“The fuzzball has the right idea,” Vic said, his half of a mouth stretching into a wide, loud yawn. “Wake me when there are Reapers to kill.”

“I wouldn’t
dream
of doing anything else.”

Vic glared at me, picking up on the sarcasm in my voice. “Hmph!” he huffed, then snapped his eye shut.

I left Vic in his scabbard and propped the sword up next to Nyx. Despite his snit, I knew that Vic would give a shout and let me know if he or Nyx needed anything, and that Nyx would come running to get me if something happened to Vic. I liked that the two of them could watch each other’s backs, especially these days, when we all knew that Reapers could attack anywhere, anytime—even in the Library of Antiquities.

I plopped down on a stool and logged in to the computer system. Then, I opened my bag of food and arranged it on the counter. I dunked my pretzel into the warm, nacho cheese sauce and was about to take a big bite when a door opened in the glass office complex behind me, and the sharp
tap-tap-tap
of wing tips on marble sounded. A moment later, a shadow fell over me, and someone cleared his throat.

“Yes, Nickamedes?”

“You are late, Gwendolyn,” he said. “At this point, do I even have to say
again
? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say
as usual
, or
as always
, or even
for the umpteenth time
.”

“I’m not late,” I protested, waving my pretzel in his direction. “I’ve been in the library for ten minutes already. I was at the coffee cart. See?”

Nickamedes sniffed. “Standing in line is not the same thing as actually being behind the counter working.”

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes, I thought the two of us were just destined to disagree.

“And will you please look at me when I am speaking to you?”

I pressed my lips together, raised my head, and looked up at him. The head librarian was handsome, for a guy in his forties, with ink-black hair and blue eyes. You could tell how lean and muscled his body was, despite the dark blue sweater vest, shirt, tie, and black corduroy pants he wore. I wasn’t trying to be rude by ignoring him and concentrating on my food. Really, I wasn’t. But Nickamedes looked so much like his nephew that it made my heart clench. Because the librarian was yet another reminder that Logan was gone.

“Thank you,” Nickamedes said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now, as I was saying, you are late
again
, and I think that . . .”

I immediately dropped my gaze back down to my food. Okay, okay, so I was totally tuning out his lecture, but only because it was the same one he’d given me a dozen times before. Besides, I was hungry. I started to lean forward to take a bite of my pretzel, when the librarian snatched it out of my hand.

“Hey!” I said. “I was eating that!”

“Correction, you
were
going to eat that,” Nickamedes said. “Right now, you are going to shelve books.”

He put my pretzel down on top of its bag on the counter, grabbed a stack of books off a metal cart, and dumped them in my arms.

“But—”

“No buts,” Nickamedes said. “Books now, food later.”

The librarian crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a pointed stare. He was standing between me and my food, so there was no way I could grab my pretzel, shove it into my mouth, and take it into the stacks with me. Even if I did, Nickamedes would complain about how I was getting crumbs all over his precious books. There was just no winning with him.

“Now, if you please, Gwendolyn.”

“Yes, master,” I sniped.

Nickamedes’s eyes narrowed at my snide tone, but I didn’t care. I gave my food one more longing look before I tightened my grip on the books and trudged back into the stacks.

I spent the next half hour shelving books. By the time I got back to my food, the warm, soft pretzel and ooey, gooey cheese sauce were a hard, cold, congealed mess. So I dumped them in the trash and made do with my brownie and bottled water.

I’d just finished licking the last of the dark chocolate crumbs off my fingers when Nickamedes 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 know where it was.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I decided to take another look at the net. I reached into my bag, drew out a small white card that had been in the artifact case with the net, and scanned through the words on the front, even though I’d read them a dozen times already.

The card went on to talk about some of the creatures Ran had supposedly caught and tamed with the net, but I skimmed over the rest of the words.

Instead, I reached back into my bag and grabbed the thin, threadbare net itself. To my surprise, it had folded up quite easily, and I’d looped it over and over again, until the whole thing was no bigger and not much thicker than a belt. I threaded my fingers through some of the loops and reached for my magic.

But the only thing I saw was the endless rise and fall of the blue-gray ocean, and the only thing I felt was a smooth, constant motion, as if I was bobbing up and down like a fishing lure riding the tops of the waves. The sharp tang of the sea filled my nose, while the sounds of the swells slapping against each other echoed in my ears. I licked my lips and tasted salt. Even more of it seemed to be crusted in my hair, and I could almost feel gritty bits of sand sticking to my skin, as though I’d spent the day at the beach.

It wasn’t unpleasant, though. In fact, the sensations were some of the nicest I’d experienced with my magic in a long time. So nice, so calm, so soothing, that I could have let the waves carry me away—and all my fears, worries, and heartache along with them.

But I had a job to do, so instead I concentrated, focusing on the net and all of the images, memories, and emotions attached to it, but the scene and the feelings didn’t change. After a few more seconds, I opened my eyes, unwound my fingers from the gray seaweed, and stuffed the net and the card back into my bag.

“Anything new?” Oliver asked, watching me.

I shook my head. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“But Nike showed it to you, so it has to be important, right?”

“I guess. Although I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with a mythological fishing net when we’re hundreds of miles away from the ocean.”

My eyes drifted upward, searching for inspiration—or some sort of clue. For months, I’d only been able to see darkness whenever I’d gazed up at the ceiling inside the Library of Antiquities. But a few weeks ago, Nike had shown me the amazing fresco hidden beneath the shadows—one of me and my friends fighting the Reapers in some great battle. Each of us had been holding a weapon or some other object, and those were the artifacts that Nike had asked me to find and keep out of the Reapers’ hands. So far, though, Ran’s net had been the only thing I’d been able to identify and track down.

But once again, shadows obscured the fresco. No help there. At least not tonight.

“But it looks like the net in my drawing, right?” Oliver asked.

I couldn’t draw to save my life, but Oliver had some mad art mojo so he’d happily sketched the fresco for me, based on my own crude drawings and descriptions. His detailed sketch was also nestled inside my messenger bag for safekeeping.

“Your drawing is perfect, and this is definitely the right net,” I said. “It’s not your fault I’m too dumb to understand what the big deal is about it.”

“Don’t worry, Gwen. You’ll figure it out. You always do. I have faith in you.”

“Well, it’s a good thing one of us does,” I grumbled.

Oliver grinned at my sarcasm.

Since I’d struck out with the net, I shelved a few more books and dusted a couple more artifact cases, but my mind wasn’t on the tasks, and I was only going through the motions, just like I had ever since Logan had left. More than once, I found myself staring off into space, wondering where he was and what he was doing. If he was okay. If he was cold or hungry or scared or tired.

If he was thinking about me.

After about two minutes of that, I’d shake off my sorrow and get angry at for myself for obsessing about him. Vic was right. I really needed to quit brooding and get on with killing Reapers. Or at the very least, finish my homework for tomorrow.

Easier said than done. Because five minutes later, instead of reading through my myth-history book like I should have been, I found myself thinking about Logan again.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I turned around on my stool and faced Oliver, who was messing with his phone.

“So . . .” I said in a light voice, trying not to let on how important this was to me. “Have you heard anything from Logan?”

Oliver froze. He looked at me, then glanced down at the screen. Guilt flickered in his green eyes.

“You’re texting with him right now, aren’t you?”

Oliver winced. He typed something else on his phone, then slid the device into his pants pocket. He didn’t answer my question.

“How is he? Where is he? Is he okay? Is he ever coming back to the academy?”

They were the same questions I’d asked everyone a hundred times already. The same ones I thought about late at night in my room, especially after I’d had one of my nightmares.

Oliver sighed. “Logan needs some time, Gwen. He needs some space, from the academy and everything that happened. But yes, to answer your question, he’s fine. At least, that’s what he says when he texts me.” He hesitated. “If it helps at all, he asks about you all the time.”

“And what do you tell him?” I asked in a soft voice.

He hesitated again. “That you miss him. That we all miss him. That we need him, and that he should get his ass back here as soon as he can.”

“And what does he say to that?”

Oliver shrugged. “Nothing. Just . . . nothing. I don’t know when he’s coming back. I don’t know if he’s
ever
coming back. Not after what the Reapers did to him. And especially not after what he did to you.”

I let out a breath. The thought that Logan might never return was one I hadn’t let myself dwell on too much, but now, it was all I could think about, like a cold fist wrapped around my heart and slowly crushing it, crushing me, from the inside out. Suddenly, it was too small behind the checkout counter. Too cramped, too cluttered, and much too crowded for me to catch my breath.

Oliver noticed my stricken expression. “I didn’t mean that, Gwen. It’s not your fault Logan’s gone.”

But it was, and we both knew it. I shook my head, grabbed some books, and disappeared into the stacks before Oliver could see how much I was hurting.

 

Thankfully, Oliver decided not to follow me. I went back to a remote part of the stacks, the spot where Vic’s case had once been. I stood there, eyes closed, books clutched to my chest, trying to breathe. In and out, in and out, in and out, like my mom had taught me to do whenever I was worried, nervous, scared, or upset.

Worried? Check. Upset? Definitely. And once again, I felt that spurt of anger at Logan for not being here, for leaving me behind to deal with everything.

It took a few minutes, but my heart stopped aching, and the pressure in my lungs slowly eased. I still felt cold inside, though—cold, dull, and empty. My anger was gone, or at least iced over for the moment, and I couldn’t even cry. My tears seemed to be as frozen as the rest of me felt deep down inside.

Once again, I went through the motions, shelving the books I’d grabbed. When that was done, I wandered up the stairs to the second floor. It was quieter here, and the only sound was the faint scuffle of my sneakers on the marble. Oliver would probably get worried and come looking for me at some point, but for now, I enjoyed the silence—and the solitude.

Eventually, I wound up in a familiar spot in the circular pantheon—in front of Nike’s statue.

The Greek goddess of victory looked the same in her marble form as when she appeared to me in real life. Her hair twisted into ringlets and falling down past her slim shoulders. A white, toga-like gown wrapped around her slender, muscled body. Wings arching up over her back. A crown of laurels resting on top of her head. Features that were somehow strong, cold, terrible, and beautiful all at the same time.

Normally, I said a few words to the goddess whenever I came up here to her statue, but I didn’t feel like it tonight. Instead, I curled up into a ball at the base of the statue and leaned my head back against the cool, smooth marble.

After a while, I felt calmer, like I had the strength to go downstairs and face the rest of the night, but I stayed where I was. Since I was on the second floor, I had a bird’s-eye view of all the students studying below—including the guy standing by the checkout counter.

I wasn’t sure what drew my attention to him. Maybe it was the way he just stood there, as though he were waiting for someone to come and help him. Maybe it was the furtive looks he kept giving Oliver, who was still sitting behind the counter and texting on his phone again, oblivious to everything else. Or maybe it was the fact that he didn’t have anything in his hands. No textbooks, no notepads, no pens, not even a tablet that he was using to idly surf the web instead of doing his homework like he should have been. But something about the guy just seemed . . . wrong.

I scooted over to the edge of the balcony so I could get a better look at him. Jeans, green sweater, brown boots, brown leather jacket. He had on the same clothes as everyone else, right down to the designer logos that covered the expensive fabrics. So I studied his face. Brown hair, dark eyes, tan skin.