Date: 2011-06-09 21:00:41+00:00
Keywords: General; Young Adult Fiction; Romance; Mythology; Novella; Fairy Tales & Folklore; Paranormal; Fantasy; Supernatural; Short Stories; Paranormal; Occult & Supernatural; Young Adult; Magic; Urban Fantas
Description: A teenage girl with a unique gift finds herself in a world of trouble—and a school for warriors—in this YA fantasy series prequel novella. I am Gwen Frost, and I have a Gypsy gift. It's called psychometry – that's a fancy way of saying that I see flashes of other people's memories when I touch almost anything, even guys. My gift makes me kind of nosy. Okay, maybe a lot nosy. But even I don't want to know the secrets my friend Paige is hiding or the terrible loss that will send me to a new school—Mythos Academy, where instead of preparing for the SAT’s the students prepare to battle Reapers of

FIRST FROST

A Mythos Academy Novella

Jennifer Estep

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page

“Can I borrow your hairbrush?”

Paige Forrest stared at the long mirror mounted over the row of sinks that lined one wall of the girls’ locker room. Gym class had ended three minutes ago, and all the girls were busy yanking off their sweaty T-shirts and shorts and changing back into their real clothes—the skinny jeans and tight, cropped tops they wore to impress themselves, each other and, most important, the cute boys at Ashland High School.

Everyone except for Paige, who stood frozen in front of the mirror. She was pretty with her long black hair and pale green eyes, but I didn’t think that Paige was looking at herself with the normal vanity of a sixteen-year-old girl. For one, Paige wasn’t putting on a fresh coat of lip gloss or mascara or dusting her face with sparkling powder like the other girls crowded at the mirror were. She wasn’t gossiping with the girls around her or wondering what disgusting, gray mystery meat was going to be served in the cafeteria today. She wasn’t even texting on her phone or checking her messages.

No, Paige was leaning over the sink and peering into her own eyes as if she could see something in herself that everyone else couldn’t—something horrible, from the pained, twisted expression on her face.

The look made me want to know what she was hiding.

I was kind of nosy that way. Okay, okay, so I was a lot nosy that way. Okay, okay, so I was exceptionally, exceedingly, unstoppably nosy—to the point of obsession sometimes. I wanted to know everything about everyone around me. Why? Well, I blamed it on my Gypsy gift.

I was a Gypsy with psychometry magic. A fancy way of saying that I saw images in my head and got flashes of other people’s memories and feelings off almost everything that I touched. A favorite necklace, a beloved book, a cherished photo of a family trip to the beach. I could get a vibe off anything that someone had a personal attachment or connection to, and I could see and feel exactly what that person had felt whenever she’d worn that necklace, read that book, or looked at that photo.

I didn’t know exactly why I had magic or why I was even considered a Gypsy in the first place, but I liked the power that my psychometry gave me. I liked knowing what everyone around me was really thinking, from whether a girl was truly my friend or talked about me behind my back to whether a boy was really into me or was actually thinking about another girl instead. Like Drew Squires, my one and only boyfriend. Thanks to my psychometry, I’d flashed on Drew while we were kissing and felt him pretending that I was Paige. I’d dumped him on the spot.

Yeah, sometimes the things I saw and felt hurt, but I still loved knowing other people’s secrets. And judging from the weird look on her face, Paige was hiding something—something big.

“Paige?” I asked again, a little louder this time, my voice rising over the chatter of the other girls, the squeak of shoes on the floor, and the constant slams of the locker doors.

Paige partially snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in and met my eyes in the mirror.

“Gwen? Gwen Frost?” she asked in a daze, almost as if she didn’t recognize me.

I looked at my own reflection in the mirror. Sure, my wavy brown hair was a loose, sweaty mess right now, which is why I wanted Paige’s hairbrush to start with, so I could pull my hair back into a ponytail. My winter-white skin was all flushed and splotchy from attempting to play basketball during gym class, and my violet-colored eyes were a little strange-looking to start with. Okay, okay, my eyes were very strange-looking to start with.

But Paige and I had gone to school together since kindergarten. Sometimes we even hung out when our mutual friends got together on the weekends. She should know exactly who I was—especially since she’d hired me to find her missing cell phone.

Phones, keys, wallets, laptops, crumpled bras, and bunched-up boxers. For the right price, the kids at Ashland High School hired me to find things that were lost, stolen, or otherwise not where they were supposed to be. Yeah, I used my Gypsy gift to make extra money instead of fighting some great, ancient evil with my magic. Sue me for being an entrepreneur and not wanting to work at some greasy fast-food dive like other kids did.

Thanks to my psychometry magic, it was easy for me to find stuff. Usually, all I had to do was run my fingers over a girl’s desk or look through her purse to get a good idea of where she might have left her cell phone or dropped her favorite bracelet. And if I didn’t immediately see where the lost object was, then I kept touching stuff until I did. Kind of like Nancy Drew following a trail of psychic bread crumbs to wherever they led her.

People left psychic vibes everywhere, on everything they touched, and those vibes revealed everything from what they’d had for lunch to what they really thought of their best friend’s new boyfriend. Most of the time, the girl either secretly thought the guy was a total jerk or she wanted him for herself. All I had to do to tap into those vibes, to see people’s actions, to feel their true emotions, to discover their secrets, was stretch my fingers out and touch all the objects around me, big and small.

In Paige’s case, she’d promised me twenty bucks if I could find her phone before her mom realized it was missing. So two weeks ago, after school, I went over to Paige’s house, walked around her room, and ran my fingers over her desk, bookcases, and nightstand. Mostly, images of Paige filled my mind—sitting at her desk doing homework, looking at the collections of fairy tales she loved to read, stashing some Oreos in the back of her nightstand, even though she wasn’t supposed to have sweets. All the things she did in her room on a regular basis and all the emotions that went along with them—dull boredom over the homework, bright happiness looking at the books, sly satisfaction at sneaking her favorite treat right under her mom’s nose.

Paige had thought I was a little strange, pacing back and forth across her room and poking into all her stuff, but eventually, another image had popped into my head, one of Paige’s little sister swiping the phone off the nightstand so she could snoop through Paige’s text messages. I’d told Paige what I’d seen, and sure enough, we’d gone down the hall to her sister’s room and found her using the stolen phone.

Paige blinked, finally shaking off the rest of her daze.

“Gwen Frost,” she murmured again, her voice a little stronger this time.

She turned away from the mirror, and her eyes dropped to the wooden bench I was sitting on. Paige had already fixed her hair, which looked sleek and perfect as always, and she’d put her brush down on the end of the bench, less than a foot away from my hand. Paige stared and stared at the hairbrush, her green eyes bright and glittering, and she had that weird, twisted look on her face again.

What was wrong with her? Was Paige high or something? It wasn’t unheard of for kids to get totally wasted on pot or something worse, even in our rather tame North Carolina high school. But Paige had seemed fine in gym class, shooting layup after layup, since she was one of the stars of the girls’ basketball team. I hadn’t been so lucky, because I was a total train wreck when it came to basketball. Today, I’d managed to bang myself in the head with the ball when I’d tried to shoot a freaking free throw—with the whole class watching, of course. Even the coaches had snickered and rolled their eyes at me. Yeah, I was just that kind of loser, a book-smart Gypsy girl who sucked at pretty much every sport you could think of and probably a couple that hadn’t even been invented yet.

“So can I use your hairbrush or not?” I asked, getting a little impatient.

I’d already swapped my gym clothes for my usual sneakers and jeans. I’d also unzipped my purple hoodie and put it on over my T-shirt of Karma Girl, one of my favorite superheroines. Maybe I wasn’t a budding fashionista like some of the other girls were, but I didn’t want to go back to class with my hair frizzed out to epic proportions.

Paige hesitated, and a strange emotion flashed in her eyes, almost like a warning. “Sure.”

“It’s okay, Gwen,” my friend Bethany Royal piped up from her spot on the far end of the bench. “You can borrow mine.”

Paige kept staring at me, and I looked back at her, even more suspicious now. She was definitely hiding something—something huge. Maybe it was the fact that Drew had pretended I was Paige when he’d kissed me. Maybe I was a little more angry, jealous, and hurt over that than I wanted to admit. Maybe I wanted to find some way to get back at Paige, even though I knew it wasn’t her fault that Drew liked her instead of me.

But at that moment, I wanted to know Paige’s secret more than anything else. I felt like I needed to know it for some reason. And all I had to do to discover exactly what she was hiding was just pick up her hairbrush—the one sitting oh-so-close to my fingers.

“No, that’s okay,” I told Bethany. “Paige’s brush is right here.”

Still looking at Paige, I reached out, curled my fingers around the brush’s handle, and waited for my psychometry magic to kick in, for the feelings and memories to hit me the way they always did.

An image immediately popped into my mind—one of Paige sitting on her bed, wearing a thick pink robe and clutching the hairbrush in her hand so hard that her knuckles were white against the brown wooden handle. After a moment, the door to Paige’s room opened, and her stepdad came inside. Paige had shown me a picture of him when I’d been over at her house searching for her cell phone, and he was a nice, normal-looking guy. He shut the door behind him, and Paige’s grip tightened on the brush even more.

Her stepdad came over to the bed, sat down beside Paige, and tugged the brush from her hand. Paige obediently turned to the side, and her stepdad started brushing her hair. Okay, that was a little weird. I mean, it wasn’t like Paige was a little girl who couldn’t take care of her own hair, so why would her stepdad comb it out for her? For the first time, I began to get a bad, bad feeling about what I was going to see.

It seemed like Paige’s stepdad brushed her hair forever, although it was only a second in my mind. Then, when he finished, he gave the brush back to Paige, who put it on her nightstand. Paige lay down on the bed, her hands clenched together over her stomach, her knuckles white once more.

I thought her stepdad would pull the covers up over her, tell her good night, and leave the room.

Instead, he pried Paige’s hands apart and opened her robe, almost like he was unwrapping a present. Then he took off his pants, lay down beside her, and started touching Paige in all the places that he shouldn’t.

And that’s when I started screaming.

I screamed and screamed and screamed. But I couldn’t stop the memories from filling my mind, couldn’t stop myself from seeing what Paige’s stepdad was doing to her, couldn’t stop myself from feeling all of Paige’s fear and hurt and pain and helplessness. One by one, her emotions hit me, like daggers driving deeper and deeper and deeper into my heart—into my very soul.

It was horrible.

The most horrible thing I’d ever seen and felt with my psychometry magic—and I couldn’t get it to stop. All around me, the other girls pressed themselves up against the dented metal lockers, wondering what was wrong with me. But all I could do was scream and scream and scream some more.

Paige stared at me the whole time, a grim look on her face, as if she knew exactly what I was experiencing. Maybe she did. After all, I’d used my Gypsy gift to find her phone. Maybe Paige had figured out what I could do, how I could see and feel all the things that people tried to hide.

All the terrible, terrible things.

I don’t know how long I screamed, but eventually I slipped off the wooden bench and hit the cold cement floor, the hairbrush still clenched in my fingers, my knuckles just as tight and white around it as Paige’s had been. I tried to let go of the brush and found that I couldn’t—and I couldn’t stop screaming either.

White spots started to flash in front of my eyes, then black ones. Eventually, the black spots bled together and turned into a solid wall. The wall toppled over, slamming into my mind, and I welcomed the crushing darkness.

The low, steady beep-beep-beeping woke me. I frowned. What was up with my alarm clock? It didn’t sound like that. And why was my bed suddenly so hard and lumpy? And the sheets so stiff and scratchy? I felt like my brain was stuffed with cotton, but slowly, the day came back to me. My suckitude at basketball. Changing in the locker room. Talking to Paige. Picking up her hairbrush. Seeing what her stepdad was doing to her.

A whimper slipped out of my throat before I could stop it.

“Easy, Gwen. You’re okay now. You’re fine, baby.”

A warm hand stroked my cheek, and a soft wave of love and concern washed over me, like a fleece blanket wrapping around me and keeping me safe from everything—including the horrible things I’d seen today.

“Mom,” I whispered, recognizing her gentle touch.

I opened my eyes to find Grace Frost leaning over me. My mom had the same features that I did—brown hair, pale skin, violet eyes—but she was beautiful in a way that I longed to be and knew I was not. Even wearing a simple black pantsuit, there was a, well, grace about my mom, an elegance that I just didn’t have.

“What happened?” I asked.

I sat up and realized that I was lying in a hospital bed, wearing a paper-thin gray gown covered with purple polka dots. Plastic tubes snaked from my left wrist over to some machines that beeped out my heart rate and other vital signs. Off to my right was an open door. Beyond that, nurses walked up and down a drab hallway, while patients attached to IVs shuffled along behind them.

“You had an epileptic seizure,” my mom said. “At least, that’s what the doctors think.”

I shook my head and winced as a dull ache started throbbing behind my eyes. “It wasn’t a seizure. It was my Gypsy gift. It just . . . I just . . . freaked out.”

Concern filled my mom’s eyes. She was a Gypsy just like me, which meant that she had a gift like me. In my mom’s case, she knew if someone was telling the truth or not just by listening to their words. Basically, my mom was like a living, breathing lie detector. Yeah, her magic made it hard on me whenever I wanted to get away with something that I shouldn’t. Still, my mom’s Gypsy gift came in handy, especially since she was a police detective. My mom had dedicated her life and her magic to helping people. She was the bravest person I knew, and I wanted to be just like her.

In a shaky voice, I told her about picking up Paige’s hairbrush and the terrible things that I’d seen Paige’s stepdad doing to her. My mom’s face got a little tighter and her violet eyes grew a little darker with every word I said. By the time I finished my story, I could almost feel the anger coming off her in cold waves.

“Did Paige say anything to you?” my mom asked. “Did she ever mention her stepdad to you before?”

I shook my head. “No. We’re not that close, and I didn’t see him around when I went over to her house to find her phone.”

My mom had opened her mouth to ask me another question, when a series of familiar jingle-jingle-jingles sounded. A moment later, an older woman wearing a purple silk shirt and black pants and shoes stepped into the room. At least, that’s what I thought she was wearing. It was kind of hard to tell since layers of colorful scarves covered her body, wrapping around her in a rainbow of fluttering fabric. Bright, gleaming silver coins dangled off the fringed ends of the scarves and jangled together with every step she took. Another scarf held her iron-gray hair back off her wrinkled face. The scarf was the same violet color as her eyes—as all our eyes were.

“Hello, pumpkin,” Grandma Frost said in a warm, cheery voice, coming over to stand beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, Grandma,” I said. “I have a headache, though.”

For a second, Grandma’s eyes took on an empty, glassy look, and something stirred in the air around her—something that seemed old, watchful, and knowing all at the same time.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be fine in another hour or two,” Grandma murmured in an absent tone.

I knew she was having one of her visions. Geraldine Frost had a Gypsy gift just like my mom and I did. In my grandma’s case, she could see the future, something that she used to make extra money, telling fortunes out of her house. Grandma was an entrepreneur, like me.

After a moment, Grandma Frost’s eyes focused again, and the invisible force that had been swirling around her vanished. She looked at me and smiled.

“I’m afraid we have a problem,” my mom said, staring at my grandma. “A big one.”

My mom told my grandma about Paige’s stepdad abusing her. Soon, my grandma was radiating the same cold anger as my mom.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

My mom looked at me. “I’m going to go talk to Paige, and I’m going to see what I can find out about her stepdad. Whether he has a record, whether he’s ever done this before. Don’t worry, Gwen. No matter what happens or what I find out, I’m going to help your friend. The gods wanted you to pick up Paige’s hairbrush so you could see what she was going through. Now they want me to help her.”

Mom was a little weird that way, always talking about gods and goddesses as if they were real and not just characters in the mythological stories that she’d read to me when I was a kid. Ares, Athena, some warrior chicks named Nike and Sigyn. Mom called all the gods and goddesses by name, like she knew them on a personal basis or something. Yeah, it was totally embarrassing whenever she said something about the gods in front of my friends, but I loved her too much to be mean and tell her so. Most of the time, anyway.

“I’ll stay here and deal with the doctors,” Grandma Frost said. “You go help that poor girl, Grace.”

My mom nodded and turned back to me. “Bye, baby. I’ll be home tonight as soon as I can.”

She touched my cheek, and once again, I felt the warmth of her love wash over me, taking all my troubles with it. My mom smiled, then left the room.

Grandma Frost stayed with me in the hospital. The doctors wanted to run some more tests, mainly brain scans, to try to figure out why I’d had such a freak-out in the locker room. Of course, Grandma couldn’t exactly tell them the truth—that my Gypsy gift had made me see something so awful that my brain had basically been overloaded with pain and gone haywire. They’d probably want to scan her brain then, if she started talking about my psychometry.

Mom and Grandma didn’t hide the fact that we were Gypsies who had magic, but they didn’t exactly advertise it, either. We used our gifts, but we didn’t explain them to people or brag about the things we could do. The magic was just a part of us, along with our violet eyes and the Frost family name, and no one had ever really asked many questions about our powers—except me.

It took some arguing on Grandma Frost’s part, but since the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me, they eventually discharged me that afternoon.

Grandma took me to her house, which was located a few streets over from the downtown district in Asheville. I stayed with Grandma on the nights that Mom had to work late, so I had my own room there. Grandma insisted that I stay in bed for the rest of the day, but she let me call Bethany.

“Gwen!” Bethany shrieked in my ear. “Are you okay? What was wrong with you?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m at my grandma’s house. The doctors think I had a seizure or something. They ran some tests, but they said I’ll be fine. I’ll be back at school tomorrow. I don’t even get a day off.”

“Well, whatever it was, it was freaky,” Bethany said. “Especially since you kept right on screaming even after you passed out. You were yelling and thrashing around like you were possessed or something the whole time. Everyone at school’s talking about it.”

I winced. “They are?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bethany said. “Everybody was texting about it.”

I sighed. So now I was going to be even more of a freak than I already was. Gwen Frost, the seizure girl. Great. There went any chance I had of finding a date for the sophomore prom, which was coming up in a few days. I might have dumped Drew, but I was still going to the prom, since my mom had found the perfect dress for me.

“What about Paige?” I asked.

“What about her?” I could hear the confusion in Bethany’s voice. “She was just as scared as the rest of us were.”

I wondered about that, especially when I remembered the weird look Paige had given me before I’d picked up her hairbrush, but I didn’t ask Bethany any more questions about Paige. She wouldn’t know the answers, anyway.

I talked to Bethany a few more minutes before Grandma came into my room and said that I needed to get some rest. I told Bethany I’d see her tomorrow and hung up. I spent the rest of the day lazing in bed and reading the comic books I had stashed in my messenger bag. Grandma Frost had stopped at school and picked up my bag on the way home from the hospital. She’d also gotten my homework assignments for the classes I’d missed, but I’d do those later. I figured I deserved to slack off a little.

Grandma made a great dinner of spicy, Southwestern chicken, black bean salsa, and roasted sweet potatoes. For dessert, we had sticky-sweet apple enchiladas sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and topped with vanilla bean ice cream. I didn’t eat much, though. I was too busy thinking about Paige and what might be happening to her.

My mom finally called late that night.

“It’s done,” she said in a weary voice. “I told Paige that I was your mom and got her to talk to me. She told me exactly what you saw with your psychometry, and I arrested her stepdad.”

I let out a tense breath. “So Paige is okay now?”

“She will be,” my mom said. “Paige’s mom is out of town on a business trip, so Paige and her sister are staying with some relatives. I called her mom, and she’s on her way back home right now. She was horrified by what I told her. She had no idea that was going on. Nobody did, except for Paige. Her stepdad threatened to start doing the same thing to her little sister if Paige told anyone what he was doing to her.”

We didn’t say anything for several seconds.

“You did a good thing today, Gwen,” my mom finally said in a gentle voice. “A really good thing. I’m proud of you.”

“For what? Freaking out and screaming my head off?”

“You know what I mean,” my mom said. “You used your psychometry magic to help someone else. That’s why we have our Gypsy gifts in the first place, you know. To help others—and ourselves, if we need to.”

No, I didn’t know, because Mom and Grandma Frost never talked about stuff like that. They never mentioned why we were Gypsies or where our magic came from in the first place. On the rare times when I tried to talk to them about it, they got all vague and uptight, just like they did whenever I asked about my dad, Tyr, who’d died from cancer when I was two.

I opened my mouth to ask my mom once again about who we were and why we could do the things we did, but she cut me off.

“Anyway, I’ve still got a ton of paperwork to finish,” my mom said. “Don’t wait up for me. I’ll talk to you in the morning. I love you, Gwen.”

For a second, I again thought about asking her about our magic, but I knew she wouldn’t answer me. She never did. Besides, she’d had a long day, helping Paige. My mom sounded tired, so I decided not to bother her tonight.

“Love you, too,” I said, and hung up.

I didn’t know then that this would be the last time I ever talked to her.

I took a shower, threw on my pajamas, and crawled into bed. Grandma Frost came and tucked me in, just like she used to when I was a little girl. She turned out the light, and I snuggled under the covers and went to sleep.

My dreams were strange that night, filled with swords and shadowy figures and a pair of burning red eyes that seemed to follow me no matter how hard I tried to get away from them. In my dreams, I ran and ran and ran, carrying a silver sword in my hand, but the eyes were always there, always chasing me. When I finally stopped running and turned to face them, the eyes kept coming, washing over me like clouds of choking smoke before they swallowed me whole—

I woke up sweating, a scream lodged in my throat, my legs thrashing, my heart beating crazily in my chest. Thump-thump-thump. It took me a few seconds to realize that it had just been a dream and that I was safe and warm at Grandma Frost’s house. I shivered. For some reason, the fact that it was only a dream didn’t make it any less creepy. Not tonight.

I rolled over and looked at the clock beside the bed. Three thirty-seven in the morning, but I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep, not with the image of those burning eyes still fresh in my head. The weird thing was, I couldn’t figure out where they had come from.

Whenever I touched an object, whenever I flashed on the images and feelings associated with it, they became a part of me, and I could always remember what I’d seen. It was sort of like having a photographic memory. Sometimes, when I was asleep, my mind surfed through all those memories, showing me random bits and pieces of them, like I was watching clips from a dozen movies at once.

But I’d never seen a pair of red eyes before—and I definitely would have remembered those eyes and their cruel, burning glow.

Still a little fuzzy with sleep, I got out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. Voices sounded from below, drifting up the stairs to me—low, soft, urgent. Mom must have finally made it home and was talking to Grandma. Good.

When I finished in the bathroom, I headed downstairs to the kitchen, where Mom and Grandma always had their late-night conferences over homemade hot chocolate and whatever sweet treat my grandma had baked that day.

But they weren’t in the kitchen, even though the lights were on. Weird. I didn’t hear the voices talking anymore, either, so I walked down the hallway and into the front of the house.

Grandma Frost was slumped against the front door, her hand on the knob like she’d just closed it behind someone.

“Grandma?” I whispered, a bad, bad feeling ballooning up in my stomach. “Is something wrong?”

After a moment, Grandma Frost turned to stare at me. Tears dripped down her cheeks, filling in every single wrinkle in her skin, and she suddenly looked a hundred years old.

I wasn’t psychic, not like my grandma was. I couldn’t see the future, but somehow, I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

“There’s been a terrible accident,” Grandma Frost began.

I didn’t hear the rest of her words.

I had started screaming again.

The next few days—no, the next few weeks—ground by in a grief-filled haze. My mom had been in a car wreck on her way home from the police station that night. A drunk driver had come out of nowhere and T-boned her car before driving off. Supposedly, my mom had died instantly. She’d been hurt so badly in the wreck that Grandma Frost refused to let me see her body, and the casket was closed at her funeral.

Really, though, the only thing I could think about was the fact that my mom was dead—and that it was all my fault.

If only I hadn’t picked up Paige’s hairbrush after gym class, if only I hadn’t wanted to know what she was hiding, if only I hadn’t wanted to know so badly what her secret was.

If only I’d used Bethany’s hairbrush instead, none of this would have happened. I never would have seen what Paige’s stepdad was doing to her, and my mom would never have been out so late that night. My mom would have been home with me and not in the path of that stupid drunk driver.

Of course, the flip side was that Paige’s stepdad would still have been abusing her and no one would have known about it. No one would have helped Paige.

I didn’t know which idea made me sicker: my mom dying because I’d been so damn nosy, or Paige being hurt again and again because I hadn’t been. The ugly, guilty thoughts kept spinning around and around in my head, like a crazy carousel that I couldn’t stop and couldn’t get off, no matter how much I wanted to.

I didn’t do much of anything after that. I didn’t go back to school. I didn’t do homework. I didn’t talk to my friends. I barely ate, and I hardly slept. I just stayed in my room at Grandma Frost’s house and cried.

And cried and cried and cried some more.

Grandma did everything she could to make me feel better. She cooked me special meals and baked me special desserts and held me when I cried. She told me over and over again that it wasn’t my fault, that it was just a quirk of the gods, a cruel twist of fate that even she hadn’t seen coming with all her psychic powers. Gods or not, fate or not, nothing she said changed my mind.

My mom’s death was my fault—and all the guilt and blame were mine to bear.

Alone. Forever.

One morning, about three weeks after my mom’s funeral, a knock sounded on the front door.

It was early and cold for May, so cold that a layer of frost had coated everything outside with a thin sheet of silver ice. The knock sounded again, but I was too busy staring out my bedroom window at nothing in particular to answer it. Besides, it was probably just one of my grandma’s clients, come to get their fortune told. Grandma Frost had started seeing people again this week, saying that she needed to keep busy, that she needed to do something besides sit around and think about the fact that her daughter was dead. She’d tried to get me to do the same—to do something, anything, to take my mind off things.

Grandma was hurting, too, so I did my best to please her. For starters, I helped Grandma box up everything in my old house and move it over to hers, since I was living with her now. I fixed up my room just the way I wanted it, watched TV, and pretended to read my comic books, although I couldn’t remember what happened from one colorful page to the next. And when I cried, I did so in my room late at night, where Grandma wouldn’t see or hear me, even though I knew she was doing the same thing in her room down the hall.

But nothing I did eased the ache in my heart—or helped me deal with my guilt over my mom’s death.

“Gwen!” Grandma Frost called out several minutes later. “Come downstairs, please!”

So it wasn’t one of her clients after all. Otherwise, Grandma would have been busy telling the person her fortune by now. I sighed, wiped the latest round of tears off my face, and plodded down to the kitchen.

To my surprise, two people sat at the kitchen table—Grandma Frost and the woman she was drinking tea with.

The woman lifted the blue, snowflake-covered teacup to her lips and took a small, precise sip. Then she put the cup back down, positioning it on the table just so, before looking at me. She was short, with a body that looked stocky and strong inside her black pantsuit and white shirt. Her black hair was pulled back into a bun, and her eyes were a soft green behind her silver glasses.

She stared at me for several seconds, her gaze lingering on my face, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. I couldn’t imagine what she saw in my bleary eyes and splotchy, red cheeks that interested her so much. Finally, the woman pushed back her chair, got to her feet, and stretched out her hand in my direction.

“Hello, Gwen,” she said. “I’m Professor Metis.”

I looked at her hand, hovering there in the space between us. Because of my psychometry magic, I had to be careful about touching other people or letting them touch me. I got vivid vibes off objects, but I could get major, major flashes of feeling if I touched another person’s bare skin. Sometimes I could see everything a person had ever done, from all the good things she’d accomplished to all the dark, twisted secrets she held close to her heart. As bad as it had been to see what Paige’s stepdad was doing to her, the memories, the emotions, and the intensity of them would have been that much worse if I’d grabbed Paige’s hand that day instead of her hairbrush.

“Gwen doesn’t shake hands, Professor Metis,” Grandma Frost said in what almost sounded like a warning tone.

“Of course not,” Metis said, dropping her hand. “I forgot. My mistake. I apologize.”

Grandma gestured toward the third chair at the table. “Sit down, Gwen. Please.”

I did as she asked. I’d just plopped down when I realized my grandma had used my name instead of calling me pumpkin like she usually did. I sneaked a glance at Grandma Frost and realized that her lips were pressed together into a tight, thin line. She was almost always smiling, so why did she look so serious? Even her scarves hung limp and straight around her body, the coins on the fringe still and silent, like they didn’t dare jangle together right now.

For the first time since my mom’s death, some of the dull, aching, guilty fog lifted from my head, and I started to wonder who Professor Metis was and what she was doing here. For some reason, I didn’t think I was going to like the answer.

Grandma Frost looked at me, her violet eyes as serious as the rest of her face. “Professor Metis is here to tell you about your new school, pumpkin.”

I blinked. New school? I had a school already—Ashland High School—even if I hadn’t been to class in weeks or given any thought to when I was going back.

“What new school?” I asked in a guarded tone.

Metis smiled at me, her teeth white against her bronze skin. “It’s called Mythos Academy. It’s where I teach.”

Mythos Academy? That sounded totally pretentious, like some fancy, froufrou private school that rich people sent their spoiled kids to.

“It’s up on Cypress Mountain,” Metis continued, sitting back down. “Not too far from here.”

I frowned. I’d actually heard of Cypress Mountain. It was a small community on the outskirts of Asheville, some suburb up in the North Carolina high country that tourists flocked to because it was full of high-end shops and boutiques that sold primo designer goods.

But that wasn’t all I’d heard about Cypress Mountain. Last summer, Bethany and her cousin had been to a party with some kids who went to school somewhere up there. Bethany had said that all the kids were loaded, driving expensive cars and wearing designer clothes. She’d also told me that those kids had drunk, smoked, and hooked up more than everyone else at the party—combined.

“And it’s a boarding school, so you’ll be living there on campus, come the fall,” Metis finished.

Panic rippled through me at her words, and my head snapped around to Grandma Frost, who was already shaking her head in anticipation of what I was going to say.

“Now, don’t you worry, pumpkin,” Grandma said. “I’ll be just fine, and you will, too.”

“But I don’t want to leave you. I can’t.” My words came out in a hoarse, strangled rasp. Tears started burning in the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I can’t lose you, too.”

Grandma Frost reached over and clasped my hand. Her soft, warm fingers and the matching feel of her love for me did little to drive away the cold that had suddenly seeped into my body. “You’re not going to lose me, pumpkin. I’ll be right here in this old house, telling my fortunes like normal. There’s a bus that runs from Cypress Mountain down here to Asheville every day, and you’ll be able to visit me anytime you want to. Right, Professor?”

Metis shifted in her chair. “Well, actually, students aren’t allowed to leave campus during the week, but I’m sure we can arrange some visits on the weekends.”

A spark of anger began to burn in my heart. I was being shipped off to some stupid boarding school, and the Powers That Were thought they were going to keep me away from my grandma? I didn’t think so. I’d come visit Grandma Frost any damn time I wanted to. No walls, gates, iron bars, or whatever else they might have at this Mythos Academy would keep me from doing that.

Still, I struggled to be calm. Maybe there was a chance I could get out of going to this stupid academy.

“But why do I have to go to this school?” I said. “Why can’t I just go back to my regular school? Maybe in the fall?”

“Because Mythos isn’t just any school, Gwen,” Metis said. “It’s for kids like you. Kids with magic.”

Magic. The word hung in the air between us, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right. But Metis kept staring at me, and so did Grandma Frost. It hadn’t been a mistake or a slip of the tongue. Somehow, Metis knew that I had magic.

“So you know? About my Gypsy gift?” I asked in a small voice.

Metis nodded. “I do. Your grandmother told me about it and the . . . accident that you had with it a few weeks ago. The teachers at Mythos can help you keep that from happening again. We can teach you how to fully harness your psychometry magic, Gwen. Among . . . other things.”

I thought I had a pretty good grip on my magic already. I’d freaked out and started screaming only when I’d touched Paige’s hairbrush, because the memories attached to it had been so horrible. But what were these other things Metis had mentioned? And why did she look so grim about them?

“What kinds of kids go there?” I asked. “What kind of magic do they have? Are they Gypsies like me?”

Metis looked at my grandma again. “It varies, depending on the student and her background. But the Vikings and Valkyries are very strong, while the Romans and Amazons are very quick.”

Valkyries? Amazons? What was she talking about? Metis sounded like my mom. Next thing you knew, she’d be spouting off about how the gods were real.

Despite my confusion, I focused on her words. “Strong? Quick? What do you mean? Strong like they can bench press a hundred pounds strong? Or strong like Hulk strong?” I gestured at a stack of comic books on the counter.

Metis stared at me. “Hulk strong. Supernaturally strong. Magically strong.”

“Oh.”

That was all I could say. The dull ache that had fogged my brain had burned away, but it had been replaced by a throbbing knot of worry—and more than a little curiosity, too. Even now, even after my mom’s death and my guilt over it, some small part of me wondered about these kids who could do things like me—and what kind of magic and secrets they might have.

I noticed that Metis hadn’t really answered my question about whether there were other Gypsy students at Mythos Academy, but a dozen other questions had already popped into my head.

“But how and why—”

“I’m sorry, Gwen, but it’s already been decided.” Grandma Frost cut me off. “I’ve enrolled you, and Professor Metis has set up your class schedule already.”

Metis reached under the table and pulled out a leather briefcase. She set it on her lap, popped open the lid, and rustled around inside. Then she closed the case and passed me a sheet of paper. I looked at it a second before taking it from her.

I held my breath, but I didn’t get any unwanted vibes or flashes off the paper. Just the sense of its having rolled through a laser printer somewhere before Metis put it in her briefcase. No surprise there. Most of the time, I was pretty safe when it came to touching ordinary things that had a specific function, like pens, dishes, or doorknobs. People just didn’t think much about those kinds of things or leave many vibes on them. The same was true of stuff that lots of people used every day, like the computers in the library at my school. My old school now, I thought.

Once I was sure that I wasn’t going to get any nasty, unexpected vibes off the paper, I started reading. English lit, calculus, chemistry, gym . . . My eyes scanned down the list, stopping on the final class.

“Myth-history?” I asked. “What kind of class is that?”

Metis just smiled. “You’ll see, Gwen. You’ll see. But right now, I’m afraid I have to get back to the academy. I’ve got some papers to grade, among other things. I just wanted to come by and introduce myself.”

The professor rose to her feet. “Geraldine, it was lovely to see you again. I just wish the circumstances could have been different.”

“Me too, Professor. Me too,” my grandma murmured.

The two of them shared a sad, almost wistful look before Grandma Frost stood up and shook the professor’s hand. Then my grandma turned to me.

“Pumpkin, why don’t you show Professor Metis out? I’ve got to get ready for my next client.”

“Sure,” I muttered, wondering what was going on between them and why they’d decided to exclude me from it. “This way, Professor.”

Metis followed me down the hallway and back to the front door. I opened it, and she stepped outside. Sometime while we’d been talking, the sun had come out and burned away the silvery frost, until only a trace of it remained in the shadows on the porch.

I started to shut the door behind her, but Metis turned to face me, a kind look in her green eyes.

“I was very sorry to hear about your mother,” she said in a soft voice.

Dozens of people had said the same thing to me over the past few weeks, everyone from my friends at school to the other cops who had worked with my mom. But for some reason, I felt that Metis really meant what she said—that she really was sad to hear about my mom. Almost like . . . she’d known my mom or something. But that just wasn’t possible. I’d known all of my mom’s friends, and Metis wasn’t one of them.

“I hope you’ll give Mythos Academy a chance, Gwen,” Metis continued. “I really do think it’s the best place for you right now. For you to learn how to fully master your magic . . . and other things.”

There were those pesky other things again—the ones she still hadn’t explained. I opened my mouth to ask her about them, but Metis smiled, headed down the porch stairs, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She got into a Range Rover that was parked in front of the house and drove away.

I stepped onto the porch as well and watched her turn the corner and disappear from sight. Somehow, I knew that my whole life had just changed. It wasn’t just the fact that I was getting shipped off to some new school in the fall. There was more to this than that. I could feel it.

Just the way I knew there was nothing I could do about it but go to Mythos and see what was in store for me there. Rich kids with magic, from the sound of it. Warriors maybe, since Metis had mentioned Valkyries and Amazons. But who or what could they possibly be fighting against?

For a second, that burning pair of red eyes filled my mind again. Despite the spring sunlight, a shiver slid up my spine and not just because of the creepy dream I’d had last night. No, I was worried about what I might find at Mythos Academy in the fall—all the secrets I might uncover.

Secrets about myself—and maybe my magic, too.

“Is this really necessary?” I grumbled.

A week had passed since Grandma Frost and Professor Metis had informed me that I’d be going to Mythos Academy in the fall. Earlier this morning, Metis had shown up at my grandma’s house and announced that it was time for me to take a tour of the school. Ignoring my sullen protests, the professor had driven the two of us up to Cypress Mountain, past an enormous iron gate, and onto the academy grounds.

Now we stood on the edge of what Metis was calling the upper quad—the heart of Mythos Academy. The picturesque quad looked like something you’d find at an Ivy League prep school or college campus. Enormous trees boasting thick, green, leaf-laden branches, iron benches nestled underneath them in the shade, a smooth carpet of grass rolling out in all directions.

“Can’t I just look at photos of the academy online?” I grumbled some more. “You e-mailed me the link and the password for the school Web site already.”

“Yes, Gwen, it is really necessary, and no, you cannot just look at pictures online,” Professor Metis said. “This is the same orientation we give to all the first-year students, and you’re getting it, too, even though at seventeen you’ll be classified as second year. Now, come along. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.”

Metis stepped onto a gray cobblestone pathway that made an enormous circle around the quad and started walking at a slow, leisurely pace. I sighed and trudged after her.

“These five buildings are where you’ll be spending most of your time. English-history, math-science, the dining hall, the gym, and of course, the Library of Antiquities,” Metis said.

She pointed out the appropriate structures as we passed them, but they all looked the same to me—dark gray stone buildings covered with curling green ivy vines. Each one featured a variety of towers and balconies, making them look like part of some Gothic horror movie set instead of a posh private school. I half expected jagged lightning to suddenly crackle in the sky overhead, zoom down, and slam into the top of one of the pointed towers.

That didn’t happen, but the more I stared at the buildings, the more I realized there was something . . . sinister about them. Not so much the buildings themselves, I thought, but rather the statues that covered them.

Gryphons, gargoyles, dragons, a hulking Minotaur. It took me a minute to realize that all the statues were carved into the shapes of mythological monsters right out of the bedtime stories my mom used to read me. The statues were made of the same dark gray stone as the buildings themselves, but for some reason, their teeth and claws and talons glinted in the warm spring sunshine. I thought the architect had taken the name Mythos Academy a little too literally. Mythological monsters didn’t exist, no matter how real and lifelike the statues looked or how their open, lidless eyes seemed to follow my every movement . . . right? I wasn’t so sure of the answer now. I shivered and dropped my gaze from a pair of particularly fierce-looking gryphons planted on either side of the library steps.

Before I could ask Metis what was up with the creepy statues, another professor came over and started talking to her. I dug my sneaker into a patch of grass and focused on the other things I could see on the quad—the students.

A class must have just ended because kids of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities streamed onto the quad, laughing, talking, and texting on their cell phones. Metis had told me that the Mythos kids ranged in age from the first-year, sixteen-year-old students up to the sixth-year, twenty-one-year-old students—but she hadn’t told me how rich they all were. Even the wealthiest kids at my old high school couldn’t afford the brand names I saw stitched onto the purses, shirts, jeans, and sneakers that the kids here wore and carried. Not to mention the platinum watches that gleamed on wrists and the diamond studs that winked in ears.

A girl my age stopped on the quad a few feet away from me, texting on her phone. She was pretty, with blond hair, amber-colored skin, and black eyes, but what really caught my attention were the princess-pink sparks dancing in the air around her like butterflies. Her fingers tapped across her phone’s keyboard, and I realized that the sparks were actually shooting out of her fingertips like miniature fireworks.

And she wasn’t the only one with sparking fingers and lights flickering around her body. Green, blue, gold, red. All those colors and more shimmered in the air, as if the kids around me were kicking up clouds of glittering confetti as they walked from one side of the quad to the other. Electricity hummed in the air, and I could feel the power in those flashes of color—and in the kids themselves.

Magic, I thought with a jolt. Those cracks and sizzles and sparks were magic. Not magic like I had, but supernatural power all the same. I hadn’t quite believed Metis when she’d claimed there were other kids out there like me, kids who could do amazing things, but now I was seeing it for myself.

The blond girl with the phone finished her text message and looked up, catching me staring at her with wide eyes. “What are you looking at?” she snapped.

“I—”

“Daphne!” another girl called out from across the quad.

Daphne stared at me a final time, then waved her hand at the other girl and started walking toward her. I thought about calling out to Daphne and asking her what kind of magic she had, where those princess-pink sparks came from, and what she could do with them, but I didn’t want to feel like a total idiot.

Metis finished her conversation with the other professor and turned back to me. She didn’t seem to notice the dazed look on my face. “How about a tour of the library next?”

All I could do was just nod my head and follow her.

Metis led me past the two gryphon statues, up the library steps, through the front doors, and down a short hallway. We stepped into the main part of the library, which was shaped like an enormous dome. The ceiling was cut out all the way to the top, and I arched my neck up, trying to see what was on the upper levels, but all I could really see were thick shadows.

Metis walked down a wide center aisle and past several study tables. A checkout counter divided one side of the library from the other, along with several glassed-in offices.

“This is the Library of Antiquities,” the professor said, spreading her hands out wide. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

It was kind of marvelous, although I would never admit that to her. It was the biggest library I’d ever seen, crammed with more books than I’d ever dreamed existed. Shelves and shelves and shelves of books stretched out into the farthest reaches of the domed room, along with a series of glass cases, the kind you see in museums. I squinted at the closest case, trying to figure out what was inside it. Was that a . . . sword? Strange. Why would there be weapons in a library?

But my attention was quickly captured by something else—the statues that ringed the entire second-floor balcony. Slender, fluted columns separated the statues, which were roughly thirty feet tall and made of white marble that gleamed in the dim light. To my surprise, they weren’t shaped like monsters this time.

No, these statues were of the gods.

I recognized a few of the statues from the stories and pictures my mom had told and shown me, mostly Greek gods like Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, and Norse gods like Odin with his one eye. But my gaze kept drifting back to one statue in particular—a goddess with a pair of wings arching up over her back and a crown of laurels resting on her head. The goddess’s eyes seemed to stare straight at me, just like the ones of the monsters had done out on the quad, and I had a hard time looking away from her cold beauty.

“Who’s that?” I asked Metis, pointing at the statue.

“Nike, the Greek goddess of victory,” the professor said. “You’ll be learning about her and all the other gods in my myth-history class. Now, come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Metis led me over to the checkout counter and peered into one of the glass offices that sat behind it. A man with ink-black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin sat in the largest office, talking on the phone and tapping a pen on his desk with his free hand.

“That’s Nickamedes. He’s the head librarian,” Metis said. “You’ll be working for him.”

In addition to making me change schools, the Powers That Were at the academy apparently thought I needed an after-school job, too. Metis had dropped that little bombshell on me on the way up here this morning. It was bad enough that I had to leave all my friends behind to come to Mythos, but making me get a job, too? That was so not fair. Besides, I already had a job—finding lost items for kids—although I didn’t mention that to Metis.

The professor waved at Nickamedes to get his attention, and he waved back. He smiled at Metis, but then his eyes flicked to me, and his expression completely changed. His eyes darkened, and his mouth pinched into a frown. If there was such a thing as hate at first sight, it seemed like Nickamedes had it for me, and I had no idea why. I glared back at him. I didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted me here.

“Since he’s busy, we’ll come back later,” Metis said, apparently not seeing the same look of disdain on the librarian’s face that I did. “There’s one more thing I want to show you.”

We left the library and headed over to the building that she’d pointed out earlier as the gym. It wasn’t quite as large as the library, but it was impressive all the same. Banners announcing the academy’s championships in various sports like archery, fencing, and swimming dangled down from the rafters high overhead. I eyed the colorful fabrics. Fencing? Seriously? They taught that here? Why?

I shook my head and looked at the rest of the gym. Glossy wooden bleachers jutted out from two of the walls and butted up against the thick mats that lined the floor. The mats stretched out to the far wall, which was covered with something rather surprising—weapons.

Racks and racks of weapons—swords, daggers, throwing stars, staffs, axes, a variety of bows with arrows to match. More weapons than I had ever seen before in one place.

But the really freaky thing was that the kids were using them.

A couple dozen kids stood around one of the mats, holding weapons and watching two guys fight with swords. At least, that’s what I thought was happening, as ridiculous as it seemed. Metis noticed me standing on my tiptoes, trying to see what was going on. The professor climbed halfway up the bleachers and gestured for me to do the same so I could get a better view.

I hadn’t been imagining things. Down below, two guys who seemed to be my age were trying to hack each other to pieces with long swords.

Clang-clang-clang!

The metal blades crashed together in a furious roar, so loud and sharp that it made me want to cover my ears. But I couldn’t look away from the mock battle. Back and forth, the two guys fought, attacking and retreating, each one trying to get the upper hand.

My eyes locked on to one of the guys. He had thick black hair, a totally muscled body, and he swung his sword like he knew exactly what he was doing with it. He was power and grace and elegance, and I could see the intense focus burning in his blue eyes even from up here on the bleachers. I didn’t know anything about weapons, but even I could tell that he was the better fighter. Again and again, he attacked, while all his opponent could do was try to get out of the way of his whistling sword.

Finally, the second guy wasn’t quick enough. The first guy, the fighter, knocked his opponent’s sword away, then stepped forward, his blade an inch away from the other guy’s throat. I blinked, wondering how someone could move so fast.

The other kids watching the battle started clapping, and the winner gave a little flourish with his sword and bowed to his classmates. A grin spread across his face, and I realized just how gorgeous he was—the kind of guy who could take your breath away without even trying.

“Good job, Logan.” The praise came from a big, burly man standing on the edge of the mat. He was even more muscled than Logan and looked like he could break bricks with his bare hands. He wore a white polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers, and a whistle dangled around his neck.

“That’s Coach Ajax,” Metis said, pointing to the burly man. “He’s responsible for training all the students at Mythos. And the Spartan who just won the sword fight is Logan Quinn.”

Spartan? Like an ancient warrior kind of Spartan? My mind spun, trying to latch on to all these new ideas and fit them in with what I knew of the world, but I wasn’t having much success.

Logan walked over to the bottom of the bleachers, grabbed a towel from the steps, and wiped the sweat off his face. He noticed me staring at him, and our eyes locked, his a brilliant blue and mine a confused violet. He gave me a sexy smirk before turning away to talk to one of his friends. A minute later, Logan picked up his sword again and stepped back into the ring of kids to fight someone else.

Metis and I stayed where we were and watched the Spartan win another battle. After that, the kids split up into pairs and started fighting each other with the various weapons. Coach Ajax walked from one pair to the next, offering hints, suggestions, and praise.

“So gym class is really what here? Weapons training?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because this is what you’re here for, Gwen,” Metis said in a serious voice. “What all the kids are here for. To learn how to use weapons. To learn how to fight. To learn how to protect yourself and the people you love.”

“Protect myself from what?” I asked. “What’s out there that’s so bad?”

Metis hesitated. “I think that’s a discussion best left for another day. After all, we wouldn’t want to scare you off before the fall semester starts.”

She tried to smile, but her lips wouldn’t quite turn up all the way. After a minute, she quit trying and looked away from me.

I thought of all the weird stuff I’d seen today. The dark, Gothic buildings, the kids giving off sparks of magic, the creepy statues of monsters, the ones of the gods and goddesses in the library, and now two guys hacking at each other with swords. I was starting to think that maybe Mythos Academy was exactly what Metis had claimed it was—a school for warrior whiz kids. The thought sent a shiver up my spine and filled me with confusion at the same time.

If Mythos was a school for warrior whiz kids, then what was I doing here? I wasn’t a warrior, and given how much I sucked at gym class at my old school, all the training in the world wouldn’t turn me into one.

“Come on,” Metis said, getting to her feet. “I’ll take you over to the dining hall, and then we’ll go back to the library so you can finally meet Nickamedes.”

“I can’t wait,” I muttered, but the professor didn’t hear me.

Metis started walking down the bleacher steps, and I got up and followed her. She pushed through the doors and waited, holding one open for me. Even though I knew I was dawdling, I couldn’t help sneaking one more glance over my shoulder at the Spartan guy—Logan.

He noticed me staring at him and gave me a slow, suggestive wink. Was he . . . was he flirting with me? He didn’t even know me.

“Logan!” Coach Ajax called out. “You’re up again!”

Logan tipped his head to me one more time, then turned to face his next opponent.

“Gwen?” Metis called from the doorway. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” I said, tearing my gaze from the Spartan. “I’m coming.”

I followed Professor Metis out of the gym and back to the main quad. My eyes roamed over the landscape. I saw the same things I had when I’d first stepped onto the quad. Trees. Benches. Buildings. Students. Statues.

It all looked innocent enough from a distance, but there was more here than met the eye. I didn’t have to touch anything or use my Gypsy gift to figure that out. I could feel it deep in my bones.

I didn’t know why I was being shipped off to Mythos Academy or how I was supposed to fit in with the rich kids and the weapons they wielded with such skill, but one thing was certain—my life was never, ever going to be the same.

K TEEN BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Estep

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-7582-7287-4

First Electronic Edition: July 2011