Dark Frost (Mythos Academy #3)(14)
Author: Jennifer Estep

"I don’t think you’re the school slut, Morgan," I said in a quiet voice. "I think you kept it together today when the Reapers attacked. You knew you couldn’t fight so many of them, so you hid instead. I think that makes you really brave and really smart."

The Valkyrie stared at me in surprise. After a second, her eyes narrowed, but there was a hint of a smile on her face. "You know what? You’re actually okay, Gwen."

Morgan headed off to the other side of the coliseum. A soft snort caught my attention, and I realized that Savannah was still glaring at me. She must have heard Morgan’s comment about Logan’s being crazy about me, because anger once again twisted the Amazon’s face.

But the weirdest thing was that Savannah’s eyes were glowing red.

Okay, okay, so they weren’t really glowing, but it seemed to me like a bit of fire flickered in her eyes for the briefest second, the kind of eerie crimson color I’d come to associate with Reapers.

I blinked. As suddenly as it had appeared, the red spark was gone, and Savannah’s face was normal once more, making me wonder if I’d only imagined the whole thing. I rubbed my head, which was suddenly aching-

"Gwen!" a familiar voice called out. "Gwen!"

I stood on my tiptoes. An older woman threaded her way through the crowd of people in the coliseum. She looked out of place with her lavender silk shirt, black pants, and black shoes with toes that curled up, like a genie that had somehow escaped from her bottle. Silk scarves covered her body, flowing around her in waves of purple, gray, and green. Silver coins jingled together like musical fringe on the ends of the scarves, the noise echoing to the ceiling and back down again. A coat hung off her shoulders. It matched the iron-gray color of her thick hair, although her eyes were a bright violet in her wrinkled face-the same violet that mine were.

Yeah, my grandma, Geraldine Frost, might have looked out of place in the bloody chaos of the museum, but the sight of her couldn’t have made me happier.

Grandma spotted me and hurried in my direction.

I broke away from Logan and threw myself into her open arms. "Grandma!"

She hugged me tight. "It’s okay, pumpkin. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be all right."

I didn’t know if anything would ever be all right again, but I closed my eyes and hugged her even tighter, pretending it was just for this one moment.

Grandma hugged me for several minutes before finally letting me go. Then, she looked over at Logan, who was standing behind me.

"I take it this is the Spartan boy you’ve been telling me so much about?" She smiled. "Why, he’s even more handsome than you said. You’ve been holding out on me, pumpkin."

A fierce blush flooded my cheeks. "Grandma!"

She gave me an amused look. "He was going to meet me sooner or later, pumpkin. Trust me on that. I just didn’t think it would be today-or in this awful way."

She was right, and there was nothing I could do now but make the introductions. "Logan Quinn this is my grandma, Geraldine Frost. Grandma, this is Logan. My, uh, friend."

I winced as I said the last word. I didn’t know that we were just friends, but Logan hadn’t exactly declared me to be his true love either. Or even just his girlfriend. We hadn’t even been out on a date yet.

The two of them shook hands. Logan started to let go, but Grandma Frost clasped both of her hands around his. After a second, her violet eyes took on an empty, glassy look, like she was staring at something very far away, and I felt this presence stir in the air around her-something old, watchful, and knowing.

Grandma Frost was a Gypsy like me, which meant that she had a gift just like I did. In grandma’s case, she was psychic and could see the future. Now, it looked like she was getting a glimpse of Logan’s.

"It’s not your fault, Logan," Grandma murmured to the Spartan. "It wasn’t back then, and it won’t be in the future."

Logan’s face paled at her words, like he knew exactly what she was talking about. He opened his mouth like he wanted to ask my grandma a question but then clamped his lips shut.

After a moment, the invisible force swirling around Grandma faded and so did the vacant look in her eyes. She dropped Logan’s hand and stepped back.

"What did you see?" I asked her.

For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to answer me, but Grandma finally turned to me and smiled.

"Nothing to worry about, pumpkin," she said. "Besides, you know I don’t share other people’s fortunes. Client confidentiality and all that."

Client confidentiality? Grandma was a fortune-teller, not a lawyer. She almost always told me about her psychic visions-unless they had something to do with me. It was hard for Grandma to have visions about family members and friends, since the closer she was to a person, the more her feelings for them clouded and influenced what she saw. Even when she did see something about me, she didn’t often share what it was. Grandma always said that she wanted me to make my own decisions and follow my own path, instead of relying on a future event that might or might not come to pass. Still, something about the tightness in Grandma’s face made me wonder exactly what she’d seen-and how terrible it had been.

Logan stared at my grandma, a wary, almost hurt look in his eyes, like she’d just shared his deepest, darkest secret with the whole world. I wondered if Grandma had seen what I had when I’d touched Logan a few weeks ago-the Spartan standing over the bodies of a woman and a girl. I’d been concentrating on his fighting skills when we’d kissed, but I’d seen that image as well, even though I hadn’t been actively searching for it. I wondered if what Grandma Frost had said to Logan had something to do with that memory, if maybe she’d figured out what secret he was keeping from me, the terrible thing he thought would change the way I felt about him. The secret I was bound to discover when my fingers, when my skin, touched his.

I didn’t get the chance to figure out what they were keeping from me since we split up after that. Carson headed back to Mythos Academy with Logan and Nickamedes, while Grandma Frost drove Daphne and me to her house a few streets over from downtown Asheville. The separation wouldn’t be for long, though, since classes started in the morning, despite the tragedy today. Apparently, the Powers That Were at the academy had decided that being on campus was the safest thing for students right now. After what had happened at the coliseum, I couldn’t blame them. For once, I’d be happy to see the stone sphinxes that guarded the school gates.

Grandma parked her car on the street, and the three of us trooped up the gray, concrete steps to her lavender-painted house. A brass sign beside the front door read PSYCHIC READINGS HERE, which was how Grandma used her Gypsy gift to make extra money. Side jobs were sort of a habit in the Frost family, and I used my psychometry magic to find things the other kids at Mythos lost-laptops, cell phones, keys, purses, wallets, jewelry, bras, briefs and boxers.