Midnight Frost (Mythos Academy #5)(33)
Author: Jennifer Estep

"I know. But she knows something about my dad – something important. Grandma Frost said as much, and I want to know what it is. Besides, it beats sitting in the library all day, doesn’t it?"

Daphne shrugged. She couldn’t argue with that.

We followed Rory around the quad. She made a long, slow circuit, taking us past all of the buildings. Through the windows, I could see other students sitting in their classes, their heads bent over their books, or their eyes fixed on the professors lecturing in front of them. They were doing the same things the kids at the North Carolina academy would be doing – the same things we should have been doing right now. I was surprised at how homesick the sights made me.

I started to ask Rory if we were going to walk around in circles all day, when a series of bells chimed. A few moments later, students started streaming out of the buildings. A few kids headed down the hill toward their dorms, but the majority made a beeline for the dining hall.

"Come on," Rory said. "Time for lunch. Oh, joy."

She led us over to the dining hall. My friends looked at me, but I shrugged. I didn’t know what Rory was up to, but we could at least get something to eat.

We entered the dining hall, but I didn’t get the same sense of deja vu that I had from the rest of the buildings. I’d expected the area to be filled with round tables covered with white linens, fine china, and gleaming silverware like at home. But instead, the tables were long rectangles made out of the same large logs I’d noticed inside the library. More of the lumber made up the walls, interspersed with those familiar, blackish boulders. Only a few paintings decorated the walls, most of them mountainous landscapes, once again giving everything a rustic Western vibe.

The only thing that was sort of similar to home was the open-air garden in the middle of the enormous room. But instead of grapevines, the garden here featured a variety of evergreen trees that somehow grew in the middle of dense boulder formations. A narrow creek ribboned through the garden, tumbling down a tower of rocks before forming a small pool at the bottom. A variety of stone statues hovered around the edge of the water. Animals, mostly, bears, rabbits, and ducks, although I also spotted an image of Coyote in the mix. A pair of gryphons perched on either side of the top of the waterfall, looking down at the many figures below as though they were protecting the other creatures from harm.

Rory led us over to the far right side of the room, where the lunch line was. We’d come in behind all of the other kids, so we were at the very back. My friends and I grabbed some glass trays and fell in line. We went down the line, and the others filled up their trays with one dish after another, but mine remained empty.

Liver, veal, escargot, some sort of seafood salad with steamed clams. All of it artfully arranged in small white china bowls and garnished with carrots cut into the shapes of sunflowers, green peppers that had been curlicued like ivy vines, and pepper flakes that looked like bits of red snow resting on top of the mounds of steaming food.

I sighed. I’d hoped that the food here would be a little more, well, normal, but it was the same fancy stuff they served at home. For some reason, the Mythos kids loved to eat caviar and other froufrou food like that. Finally, I spotted some cheeseburgers, although technically, the sign said they were bison burgers. I didn’t really want to eat bison, but since it was the closest thing to recognizable food on the menu, I grabbed a burger, along with some cheese fries, a buttermilk ranch dipping sauce, a bottle of cranberry juice, and a big piece of dark chocolate fudge for dessert.

Finally, we made it to the end of the line. All of my other friends had already paid and were waiting for Rory and me to do the same. The Spartan girl was in front of me, and she slowed her steps, as though she didn’t actually want to pay for her food, but she eventually made it over to the cash register.

The woman sitting behind the register perked up at the sight of Rory. She wasn’t that much older than us – probably in her mid-twenties – but she was exceptionally pretty, with long, glossy black hair, green eyes, and porcelain skin. She wore a white chef’s uniform, and I wondered if she’d helped cook the food.

"Hi, Rory," the woman said. "How’s school going today?"

"Hey, Aunt Rachel," Rory muttered. "Everything’s fine."

Aunt Rachel? This must be the aunt whom Grandma Frost had told me about – the one Rory lived with. Her mother’s sister. The only family she had left. Well, besides me.

Rachel’s eyes flicked to me, and she noticed how close I was standing to her niece. Her face brightened a little more. "Who’s your new friend?"

"Hi there," I said in a cheery voice, just to needle Rory. "I’m Gwen."

Rory shot me another dirty look, but Rachel didn’t notice it. Instead, she reached over and took my hand in hers.

Her feelings and emotions hit me a moment later.

Normally, I was careful about touching people, since my psychometry kicked in the second my hand brushed across someone else’s, but Rachel caught me off guard with her impromptu, enthusiastic handshake. I thought about pulling back but decided not to. I had a lot of questions and not a lot of time to get answers to them since we’d be leaving in the morning to trek to the ruins. I wanted to know more about Rory, and flashing on Rachel was one way to find out. Besides, worst-case scenario, it would tell me whether or not they were Reapers and how much I could trust them.

Rachel’s feelings blazed into my mind. For a moment, I was overwhelmed by images of her. Laughing, talking, smiling, growing up over the years, even learning how to fight as a Spartan. But the deeper I sank into her memories, the more I noticed another person in them – an older girl who resembled her. That must be her sister – Rory’s mom. All three of them looked just alike. I could also feel all of Rachel’s love for her older sister – and how much she looked up to her.

But there was a darkness in the other girl – a darkness that Rachel worried about more and more as the years passed. A darkness that only intensified when she met a boy her own age, and the two of them had Rory. At first, Rachel thought that Rory would be enough to pull her sister out of the darkness – but she wasn’t. The images grew more and more disjointed after that, turning into a wall of solid red in Rachel’s mind – a wall of blood.

Her sister’s blood.

In front of me, I was dimly aware of Rachel looking at Rory. Suddenly, the memories and feelings changed, and I saw Rory growing up over the years – and all the love that Rachel had for her niece.

But the main thing I felt was how tired Rachel was – and how very sad. She was trying to do the best she could with Rory, but she was constantly worrying that she wasn’t doing a good enough job, that her love wasn’t enough for Rory, that it wasn’t enough to help ease the pain of losing her parents.