Kiss of Frost Read Online Free PDF Page B

bands clumped together in a small patch of sunlight on the kitchen table, the jewels in them flashing and winking like faceted fireflies.
    “You were expecting me,” I said, slinging my messenger bag into a chair and eyeing the gooey batter with hungry interest. “Did you get a psychic flash that I was coming over?”
    “Nah,” Grandma Frost said, her violet eyes twinkling in her wrinkled face. “It’s Wednesday. You always come to see me on Wednesdays, before you work your shift at the library. I finished a little early today, so I thought I’d make some cookies for you and Daphne.”
    I’d brought Daphne over and introduced the Valkyrie to my grandma a few weeks ago. The two of them had totally hit it off, thanks in part to the excellent applesauce cake Grandma had made that day. Daphne didn’t have a raging sweet tooth like Grandma and I did, but the cake had still knocked off her pink argyle socks. Now, every time I came over here, Grandma always sent me back to Mythos with a treat for both me and Daphne, usually packed up in a tin shaped like a giant chocolate-chip cookie. The tin matched the cookie jar on the counter.
    “So what’s going on at school this week, pumpkin?” Grandma asked, dividing the batter into small, round balls and then sliding the cookies into the oven so they could bake.
    I sat down at the table. “Not much. Classes, homework, weapons training—the usual. Although Daphne keeps asking me to go with her to this thing called the Winter Carnival. The Powers That Were at the academy are taking all the kids over to one of the ski resorts. There are supposed to be carnival games and parties and stuff all weekend long.”
    “Oh?” Grandma said. “I remember that from your mom’s days at the academy. She always seemed to have a lot of fun on those trips.”
    I shrugged. “Maybe the carnival will be fun, maybe not. I’m not even sure yet if I’m going or not.”
    Grandma looked over at me, but her violet eyes were suddenly blank and glassy, like she was seeing something very far away instead of just me sitting in her kitchen.
    “Well, I think you should go,” she murmured in that odd, absentminded voice she used whenever she was staring at something only she could see. “Get away from the academy for a while.”
    She was having one of her visions. I sat there, still and quiet, while something old, powerful, and watchful swirled in the air around us. Something familiar and almost comforting. Something that made me think of a certain goddess I’d met not too long ago.
    After a few seconds, Grandma’s eyes snapped back into focus, and she smiled at me once more. The moment and her vision had passed, and the ancient, invisible force that had been stirring in the air around her was gone. Sometimes Grandma got all sorts of details when she had one of her visions, seeing the future with sharp, crystal clarity. Sometimes, though, her psychic flashes were vague and hazy, and she only got a general sense that something good or bad was going to happen, but not exactly what it was. This must have been one of those vague and hazy times, because she didn’t say anything else about why I should go to the Winter Carnival or what might take place once I got there. Besides, Grandma had always told me that she wanted me to make my own choices and chart my own destiny, instead of acting on a possible future that might never come to pass in the first place. That’s why she rarely shared the specific things she saw whenever she had a vision about me.
    Grandma sat down beside me at the kitchen table while we waited for the chocolate-strawberry cookies to bake. “So, pumpkin, what are you on the trail of this week?” she asked, smiling. “Tracking down more lost cell phones and laptops for the other Mythos students?”
    “Nah,” I said. “Everyone’s focused on the Winter Carnival. Nobody’s hired me to find anything for them this week.”
    Cell phones, laptops, wallets, purses, car keys, jewelry,