Kiss of Frost Read Free

wasn’t a warrior like the other kids at Mythos—not exactly—but I wasn’t completely without skills, either. I was a Gypsy, a person gifted with magic by one of the gods. In my case, that magic was psychometry, or the ability to touch an object and immediately know, see, and feel its history.
    My Gypsy gift, my psychometry, was actually cooler—and a little scarier—than it sounded. Not only could I see who had once worn a bracelet or read a book, no matter how long ago it had been, but I also could feel that person’s emotions. Everything she’d been thinking, feeling, and experiencing when she’d been wearing that bracelet or reading that book. Sometimes everything she’d ever felt, seen, or done over a whole lifetime, if her attachment to the object was strong enough. I could tell if a person had been happy or sad, good or bad, smart or dumb, or a thousand other things.
    My magic let me know people’s secrets—let me see and feel all the things they kept hidden from others and even themselves sometimes. All their conflicting emotions, all the sly things they’d done, all the things they only dreamed about doing in the deepest, blackest parts of their hearts.
    Maybe it was dark and twisted of me, but I liked knowing other people’s secrets. I liked the power that the knowledge gave me, especially since I didn’t have any of the wicked cool fighting skills the other kids at Mythos did. Knowing other people’s secrets was sort of an obsession of mine—one that had almost led to me getting killed a few weeks ago.
    It was also the reason I held on to Oliver’s notebook now. I’d totally expected the boredom and the frustration I’d sensed. Those were both emotions I’d felt many times before when I’d touched other kids’ notebooks, computers, pens, and all the other ordinary, everyday objects they used to do their schoolwork.
    But that warm, soft, fizzy feeling? Not so much. I knew what it was though: love. Or at least like— serious like. Oliver had a major, major crush on someone, enough to write about that person in his notebook, and I wanted to know who it was. Since, you know, secrets were my own form of crack.
    I concentrated on the notebook again, on that soft, fizzy, hopeful feeling, and a hazy image started to form in my mind, someone with dark hair, black hair—
    “I said that was mine,” Oliver growled, yanking the notebook out of my hand and breaking my connection to it.
    The half-formed image abruptly vanished, along with that warm, fizzy sensation. My fingers grabbed for the notebook, but I only came up with empty air. Another second, and I would have seen who Oliver’s mystery crush was. But the Spartan held the notebook up out of my reach, then grabbed his bag and shoved the notebook inside it. He was in such a hurry that he ripped the side of the bag’s fabric. Oliver glanced up at me to see if I’d noticed.
    I smirked at him in the same cocky, knowing way he had smirked at me a few minutes ago, when he’d been making fun of my T-shirt. Oliver’s face darkened.
    “What are you two doing?” Kenzie asked, coming out of one of the side doors and drinking from a bottle of water in his hand.
    “Nothing,” Oliver muttered, shooting me another cold look.
    I rolled my eyes and ignored him. Since coming to Mythos, I’d almost been run through with a sword and mauled to death by a killer kitty cat. Dirty looks didn’t faze me anymore.
    “Where’s Logan?” I asked.
    “He’ll be back in a minute. He said to get started without him,” Kenzie said, his black eyes flicking back and forth between me and Oliver, wondering what was going on.
    Oliver turned and stalked down to the other end of the bleachers, taking his bag along with him. Kenzie gave me another curious look, then went over to Oliver. The two of them started talking in low voices, with Oliver still glaring in my direction.
    The Spartan was clearly angry at me for touching his precious notebook and teasing him about who