Killer Frost (Mythos Academy #6)(21)

After I finished with an artifact, Nickamedes would ask me about what I’d seen and felt, and I dutifully answered all of his many questions. He scribbled down page after page of notes, his face creased with concentration and his eyes bright with pleasure. Nothing made him happier than research, even if I was the one who was doing all the hard work. But I knew he would put his extensive notes to good use. No doubt some of the information he was recording would be used to make the identification cards that would be placed with the artifacts once they were put on display on the main library floor.

Minutes passed, then turned into an hour. And still, all I did was touch artifacts, get sucked into memories of the past, and then regurgitate everything for Nickamedes.

I’d gone through about half of the artifacts when I stopped and looked over at Linus. “Are you sure that what the Reapers want is on this table? That nothing was left behind at the airport? Or lost somewhere along the way? Because there is nothing here that justifies the sort of massive, full-scale attack they launched this afternoon.”

Linus’s thoughtful gaze moved from one artifact to another. “This is everything we recovered from the Reaper ski lodge in New York, as well as a few more items that we discovered and confiscated from other hiding places. It has to be here somewhere.”

I nodded, sighed again, and reached for the next artifact.

Another hour passed, and I still didn’t have any luck. I put down the latest sword I’d flashed on and looked down. Five more objects lay on the table. I sighed, a little louder and deeper this time. The way my luck was going right now, the mystery object would be the very last thing I picked up. Naturally.

So I shuffled forward and grabbed the next artifact, a small, slender, half-used candle made out of white beeswax that had belonged to Sol, the Norse goddess of the sun—

And I immediately knew that I had finally found what the Reapers were after.

For a moment, my vision went absolutely, blazingly, blindingly white, as if I were staring straight into a star. Then, heat blasted over me, so hot, searing, and scorching that I felt like I was holding the sun itself in the palm of my hand. The intense light dimmed down to a single spark—white-hot and beating steadily, almost like a heart. In fact, it seemed as if that single, solitary spark contained all of the candle’s magic, condensed down to one bright, glistening point. But it wasn’t only heat and light that the candle offered. It was power, it was strength.

It was life.

All I could do was stand there, clutching the candle, and let the intense rush of power wash over me again and again, each wave a little hotter and brighter than the one before, and sweeping more and more of me away with it, as though the violet spark at the center of my being was melting like the white wax of the candle should have been. It took my breath away. Still, try as I might, I couldn’t make myself let go of the candle, I couldn’t unwrap my fingers from the smooth wax, and I knew that I was in serious danger of falling so far down into the artifact and the immense power it contained that I might never come back to myself again. I felt like I was drowning in the heat, being burned alive from the inside out . . .

A cool bit of metal pressed into my palm, and I realized that I was clutching the silver laurel and mistletoe bracelet with my free hand. The sharp tip of one of the leaves had pricked my palm, drawing a drop of blood. Somehow, despite the intense heat, light, and power that the candle was giving off, the bracelet remained strangely cool and untouched by the other artifact’s magic . . .

But the sharp prick cut through the waves of power and helped me come back to myself. I shuddered out a breath and managed to open my eyes. Sure enough, I was clutching the candle in my right hand, but my left hand had wrapped around the laurel bracelet on my wrist. I kept one hand on the bracelet, letting the feel of the cool metal ground me, as I carefully set the candle back down onto the table. It took me several more seconds before I managed to uncurl my fingers from around the white wax and step back, out of reach of the candle. Because right now, I wanted nothing more than to pick it up again, to feel all of that heat and power and life coursing through me.

“Well, Gwendolyn?” Nickamedes asked. “What did you see?”

“This,” I said, pointing at the candle and not daring to touch it again with my bare hands. “This is what the Reapers are after.”





Chapter 7


Linus, Metis, and Nickamedes all leaned forward, peering at the candle. It looked the same as before, a slender taper of snow-white wax that had burned halfway down. I shuddered and averted my gaze from it, not even wanting to look at it right now. I’d held a lot of powerful objects since coming to Mythos, but the candle was one of the strongest—and most dangerous.

“Are you sure, Miss Frost?” Linus said. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“Trust me, looks can be deceiving, especially in this case.”

I shivered again, thinking of the immense power that had flowed through me, that steady, white, burning spark of strength. If not for the laurel leaf on my bracelet digging into my palm, I might have drowned in that intense heat, in that sense of absolute, utter, unstoppable power. I might have been lost forever, my mind trapped by the candle’s overwhelming sensations, and never been able to find my way back to myself.

I fingered one of the leaves, wondering why the bracelet had remained cool against my skin when every other part of me had felt like I was burning alive.