Midnight Frost (7 page)

For a moment, my mind went completely, utterly, horribly blank. There was nothing but shock—and growing fear. Then, the moment passed, the gears in my mind started grinding together again, and all I could think about was the terrible thing that had happened—because of me.

“Metis!” I screamed. “Somebody get Metis!”

“Gwen?” Oliver asked, peering over the counter, still holding Nyx. “What’s wrong?”

“Nickamedes drank the poisoned water. Go get Metis! Right now!”

Oliver’s eyes widened, and he hurried away. All I could do was lean over Nickamedes again.

The librarian looked at me. “Not . . . your fault . . .” he rasped.

I shook my head. “Don’t try to talk. Save your strength. Metis will be here any second, and she’ll fix you.”

Nickamedes gave me a weak smile. “Not much . . . she can do . . . against poison . . .”

I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Instead, I made myself crouch there and talk to Nickamedes, telling him how happy he should be that I’d just chased the Reaper through the library this time, instead of knocking over some of the stacks like I’d done in the past. The librarian stared at me, but his eyes seemed to get brighter and glassier with every passing second. I didn’t know if he was hearing me or not, but I kept up my constant stream of chatter.

Fabric whispered, and I looked up from Nickamedes’s face long enough to see Coach Ajax ordering Aiko and the other Protectorate guards to form a semicircle around the counter, face outward, and draw their weapons as if more Reapers might storm into the library. But they wouldn’t—the Reapers had already done all the damage they needed to tonight. Bitter laughter bubbled up in my throat like acid, but I managed to swallow it.

I don’t know how long I huddled there, babbling nonsense to Nickamedes, but finally—
finally
—I heard footsteps hurrying across the floor. A second later, Metis was there, along with Daphne, Carson, and Alexei. Metis dropped to her knees on the other side of Nickamedes and took her hand in his. A second later, a golden glow enveloped them both as Metis channeled her healing power into the sick librarian.

Daphne put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me up and out of the way.

“C’mon, Gwen,” she said. “Let Metis do her thing.”

Daphne kept her arm around my shoulders, and we watched Metis work on Nickamedes. The librarian didn’t have any visible injuries so I couldn’t actually see his wounds knit together and disappear like I did when Metis used her magic to heal cuts and scrapes. The only thing visible was the golden glow that flowed from Metis into Nickamedes and back again.

Minutes ticked by. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Finally, Metis dropped her hand, and the golden, healing glow of her magic disappeared. I looked at Nickamedes. He wasn’t sweating anymore, and his eyes were closed, as though he were sleeping peacefully. I let out a quiet sigh of relief. So did Daphne and the rest of my friends. Nickamedes would be okay now—

Metis slumped against one of the metal book carts, her shoulders sagging and exhaustion grooving deep lines around her mouth. Her black hair drooped out of its usual bun, her bronze skin seemed unnaturally pale, and she looked almost as sick as Nickamedes had when he’d first collapsed. I frowned. I’d never seen Metis look so worn out from healing someone. Oliver must have put Nyx down sometime while Metis had been working on the librarian, because the pup tiptoed forward and gave the professor’s hand a tentative lick. Metis smiled and scratched Nyx’s head, but if anything, she looked even more weary than before.

“Professor?” I asked.

Metis stared down at Nickamedes, a troubled look on her face. “He’s stable—for now.”

That sick feeling ballooned up in my stomach again, choking the hope I’d felt a moment ago. “For now? What does that mean?”

She looked up at me, pain, weariness, and sorrow glinting in her green eyes. “It means that if we can’t figure out what kind of poison the Reapers used, then Nickamedes will die.”

Nickamedes? Die?

It didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem
real
. He couldn’t die. Not like this. Not when the Reaper had been trying to kill
me
.

For a moment, I swayed from side to side, just like the librarian had done. Then, all of my seesawing emotions, all of the pain and fear and worry I’d felt these past few weeks, disappeared into the burning ball of anger that roared to life in my chest. The Reapers had already taken my mom away from me. Nyx’s mom, Nott. Logan. They weren’t getting anyone else—not if I could help it.

I shrugged off Daphne’s arm, got down on my hands and knees, and peered under the counter.

“Gwen?” Daphne asked. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer her. There was only one thing I was focused on right now—Nickamedes’s water bottle.

I used the edge of my hoodie sleeve to fish the bottle out of the shadows, careful not to touch any of the water that had leaked out of it. The plastic rolled to a stop right beside the stool I always sat on whenever I was working in the library. Before anyone could ask me what I was doing, I grabbed the water bottle, closed my eyes, and reached for my magic.

I was dimly aware of someone, maybe Carson, gasping in surprise, but I ignored my friends’ shock and focused on the bottle. But I only saw the same things I had from the balcony—Jason Anderson dropping the poison into the water. I concentrated, and, a moment later, Nickamedes’s face filled my mind, along with the memory of him reaching for the bottle and taking a swig. He’d just started to put the bottle to his lips a second time when something caught his attention—me screaming at the Reaper. After that, all I felt was his surprise and confusion at why I was fighting a boy in the middle of the library. The final image was of me smacking the bottle out of his hand, not realizing it was already too late . . .

That was all there was. Just a chain of events. Nothing useful, like why Jason had tried to kill me or what poison he’d used.

I opened my eyes and got to my feet, the empty bottle clutched in my hand. I looked at it a moment, then turned and threw it against the glass wall as hard as I could. But, of course, the plastic only bounced off and clattered across the floor, adding to my anger and frustration.

I stood there, fuming for a moment, before I snapped around, marched past the counter, and headed toward the back of the library.

“Gwen? Gwen!” Daphne shouted. “Where are you going?”

“You’ll see.”

I drew in a breath and started to run. I knew what I had to do now, and I didn’t want my friends trying to stop me. I raced through the stacks, rammed my shoulder into one of the side doors to open it, and hurried outside. Then, I pounded down the nearest set of steps and ran across the quad.

The dead Reaper boy lay in the same position as before, although now two Protectorate guards wearing gray robes were standing over him. The guards both stopped talking at the sight of me sprinting toward them. I ignored them and fell to my knees beside Jason, the dusty snow melting into my jeans.

“Gwen!” Oliver shouted behind me. “No! It’s too dangerous! Don’t do it!”

But he was too late, and I didn’t care how dangerous it was. I reached for Jason’s hand and let the memories come.

 

Jason Anderson had been dead for the better part of twenty minutes, and much of the warmth had already fled from his body, along with his memories. But I gripped his hand that much tighter and let myself fall into the few images that remained.

Most of the flickers and flashes were of him fighting and running through the library, trying to get away from me and Oliver. I concentrated on the images, but all that filled Jason’s mind was a mix of anger that he hadn’t been able to poison me and his growing fear that he wouldn’t be able to escape and that there was only one option left to him—taking the last pouch of poison. He knew it would be kinder than what Vivian, Agrona, and the other Reapers would do to him if he reported his failure.

My stomach roiled at his grim determination to do whatever was necessary to avoid capture, but I forced myself to clutch his hand in mine and go that much deeper into what was left of his memories. It was almost like watching a movie in reverse. Jason dying, being chased through the library, poisoning the water bottles, and sidling up to the checkout counter in the first place. Once again, I didn’t see or feel anything I didn’t already know, and the memories were getting fainter and fuzzier with every passing second.

I was just about to admit defeat and let go of his hand when a final memory popped into my head—one of him sitting at a study table looking through a reference book. I almost let the ordinary image slide by and disappear into the growing darkness of his mind when a wave of emotion hit me—heart-quickening excitement.

I frowned. Why would Jason be so thrilled to look through some boring old reference book? I loved books, but even I didn’t get excited about something like that. So I zoomed in on the memory, pulling up every single detail I could.

Jason didn’t actually read the book so much as he kept shooting little glances all around him, holding his breath and hoping no one would notice the book or what he was up to. Every time he did look at the book, he would skim a few paragraphs, then nod his head, as if he’d already memorized the information and was reviewing it one more time for some important test—killing me. It almost seemed as if he were making himself look at the book and then deliberately glance away over and over again, although I couldn’t imagine why. So I forced myself to focus that much harder, trying to see each small detail and learn as much as I could from the open pages in front of him.

It was a thick book, old, dusty, and worn. Probably some obscure reference volume that got pulled off the shelf once a year when some kid needed a source for a term paper. Not exactly helpful, since there were hundreds of thousands of those in the library. I could search for a year and not come across the book.

The next time he glanced at the book, I noticed that the corner of the top right page had been turned back and that a few sentences on that page had been highlighted with a red marker. My eyes narrowed. Nickamedes would
so
not like that. I’d heard him give more than one student an ear-blistering lecture about dog-earing pages and marking passages.

My heart squeezed at the thought of Nickamedes, but I kept concentrating. Jason turned back to the book again, and I spotted some sort of plant on the left page, although I had no idea what kind of flower, herb, or weed it might be.

Jason’s heart quickened that much more, and he snapped the book shut, wincing at the loud
crack
it made. His hand was splayed across the cover, hiding the title, although I managed to pick out two words printed in dull gold foil on the worn brown leather—
Plants
and
Poison
.

No big shock there. What was a surprise was the next image that popped into my mind—one of my own face.

The sight startled me so much that I almost lost the rest of the memory, but I managed to hold on to it. I was pushing one of the squeaky metal carts down the main aisle, heading into the stacks so I could shelve some more books. Jason got to his feet, walked over, and held the book out to me.

“Would you mind putting this away?” he asked.

“Sure,” I heard myself say. “Just add it to the pile.”

More anger exploded in me. It was bad enough that Jason had tried to poison me and had succeeded in sickening Nickamedes instead. But to actually ask me to shelve the book that he’d used to plot my murder? That was cold, even for the Reapers.

In the memory, Jason smiled at me. I pushed the cart past him, but he kept watching me. After a moment, he went back to his chair, happy at the thought that I’d be hurting before the night was through . . .

The memory flickered and faded away. I kept reaching out with my psychometry, trying to go even further back into Jason’s thoughts, but there was nothing left but darkness. So I went forward, sorting through all of the images and feelings again, but there was nothing new. Just the same memories I’d seen before of me and Oliver chasing him; his last, awful act of poisoning himself; and the blaze of hot, pulsing, agonizing pain that had followed. After a few more seconds, even those thoughts and feelings faded, and I knew I wouldn’t learn anything else from the dead boy.

I opened my eyes, dropped Jason’s cold hand, got to my feet, and stalked back toward the steps. By this point, Daphne, Carson, and Alexei had joined Oliver, and the four of them followed me as I hurried up the steps, toward the side door, and back into the library.

“Gwen?” Daphne asked. “Slow down and talk to us. You’re acting like a crazy person.”

I let out a hard, brittle laugh. “Crazy? You haven’t even seen my
crazy
yet. And neither have the Reapers.”

Pink sparks of magic exploded out of the Valkyrie’s fingertips like fireworks, letting me know how worried she was about me. She bit her lip and fell in step beside me.

“You took a big risk touching the Reaper like that,” Oliver said, his voice cold, clipped, and angry. “I told you before that we didn’t know what other kind of poison he might have on him. But you went ahead and did it anyway, Gwen, just like you always do. And for what?”

I stopped and whirled around so that I was face-to-face with him. “For
Nickamedes
. That’s who I did it for. Just like I would do the same thing if it had been any one of you lying poisoned on the floor instead of him.”

Oliver winced, but he wasn’t done arguing with me. “Your killing yourself by being reckless isn’t going to help Nickamedes.”

“I’m not killing myself,” I snapped. “I am trying to figure out what sort of poison the Reaper used. And if I have to be reckless to do it, well, so be it. All that matters to me right now is saving Nickamedes. So you can either help me, or you can stay the hell out of my way. Which is it going to be, Spartan?”

Oliver took in my tight, balled fists, my stiff shoulders, my narrowed eyes, my flushed face. After a moment, his gaze softened with understanding.

“All right,” he said, holding his hands out to his sides in a placating gesture. “All right. You win. You just—you worry me, Gwen. You worry us all.”

I looked at my friends. Daphne and her crackling shower of pink sparks. Alexei and his stoic, impassive features. Carson and the concern that blackened his dark eyes. Oliver and the tension that tightened his face.

I drew in a deep breath to calm my anger and slowly let it out. “You’re right. It was reckless. I’m sorry I scared you, but it was the only way I could think of to figure out what kind of poison the Reaper used.”

“And did you figure it out?” Carson asked, peering through the snowflakes that had stuck to the lenses of his black glasses.

“Not yet,” I said. “But I’m going to. Now, come on. We’ve got work to do.”