Kiss of Frost

And I'd felt all of Daphne's feelings, too-every last one of them. I'd felt how strong she was, how fierce, how brave, how loyal. And yeah, even how she could be a total, rich-girl snob and a major bitch from time to time. But all those images, all those feelings, good and bad, added up to Daphne-and I was glad she was my best friend.

'Are you seeing anything?' Daphne asked.

Carson looked back and forth between us.

'Not yet,' I growled, tightening my grip on her hand and closing my eyes. 'Now quit talking and start concentrating.'

'But you should be able to seesomethingby now,' Daphne said, totally not listening to me. 'If you can use my memories to help you with archery, why can't you use them to help with something else? I know I'm right about this. I'm always right.'

The reason we were standing on the bunny slope and holding hands in the first place was because of Daphne's theoryabout my psychometry-her idea that I could use my magic to pick up other memories and other skills from people, just like she'd talked about in my dorm room two nights ago. Basically, the Valkyrie figured if I could use my psychometry to tap into her archery prowess, then maybe I could pick up some of her skiing skills, too. That way, she, Carson, and I could go skiing together, instead of them leaving me behind on the bunny slope all by myself.

Daphne's theory made sense, I supposed. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I remembered every single thing I'd ever seen from touching an object or another person-all the images, all the vibes, all the lights, sounds, and flashes of feeling. I'd just never really thought about using them in this specific way before, about trying to specifically call them up like this —

Suddenly an image popped into my head of Daphne standing on top of a tall slope. She let out a loud whoop, pushed off with her poles, and raced down the mountain. And I felt all the things that she had: her knees moving from side to side, the spray of snow against her legs, the cold air burning her lungs, even the blur of the ice-crusted pine trees as she zipped past them.

And then, as quickly as it had come, the image vanished, leaving nothing behind but the empty echo of the wind in my head.

I opened my eyes to find Daphne and Carson staring at me.

'Well?' Daphne asked. 'Did it work?'

'We're about to find out,' I said.

I let go of her hand, put my glove back on, and plodded over to the edge of the hill.

'Come on, Gwen. You can do it,' Carson called out in an encouraging voice.

I didn't know aboutthat,but I was going to at least try. And if I broke something on the way down, well, Daphne said the resort had awesome hot chocolate.

'Here goes nothing,' I muttered, dug my poles into the snow, and pushed off.

And immediately wished that I hadn't. Everything happened so freakingfast. The snow was so packed and slick that it seemed like I was going a hundred miles an hour down the slope the second I took off. Plus, the sun glinted on the snow just so, throwing out dazzling sprays of light in every direction.

For a moment, hot, sweaty panic filled me, but I pushed it away and forced myself to focus, to call up Daphne's image, just like I had during archery practice with Kenzie and Oliver. I could do this. Iwoulddo this.

Daphne, Daphne, Daphne-I chanted the Valkyrie's name in my head and once again pictured her in her ski suit, sliding down that steep hill and loving every second of it.

In an instant everything changed.

My legs grew stronger and steadier underneath me. My arms dropped down to where they were supposed to go instead of wildly flailing around. My knees started moving from side to side to help control my speed, and I started leaning into the turns, such as they were on the bunny slope.

I drew in a breath and realized that skiing was kind of… fun.

Before I knew it, I was at the bottom of the hill. I moved the skis first right, then left, sending up a shower of snow and sliding to a stop, like I'd been on the slopes all my life instead of just a few minutes.

At the top of the hill, Daphne and Carson jumped up and down and screamed and waved at me. I lifted a shaky hand and waved back, a crazy grin on my face. I hadn't thought it would really work, but somehow, it had. It looked like there was a little more to my Gypsy gift than I'd thought. I'd have to tell Grandma Frost about it the next time I saw her, if she didn't already know. These days, Grandma always seemed to know more than she told me- about everything.

Daphne made a motion with her hand, pointing at the ski lift. She wanted me to ride back up there, probably so we go up to the next hill and see if I could do the same thing all over again. I waved back, telling her that I understood, and trudged off in that direction.

Several lifts snaked up the mountain at Powder, hauling students, profs, and everyone else up to the various ski, snowboard, and tubing runs, but there was only one lift at the base of the bunny slope. Since it didn't have nearly as many chairs on it as the others, I had to stand there and wait for it to come back around.

And that's when a low, ominous growl whispered behind me.

I froze, my blood suddenly as cold and icy as the surrounding snow. I knew that sort of growl. I'd heard it twice before in my life now, and both times, I'd almost died.

Riding over to the resort, meeting Preston, flashing on Daphne, trying to ski. I'd had a busy morning. So busy I'd forgotten about the fact that there was a Reaper who was trying to kill me-and that he just might send a monster to do the job.

I slowly turned around. At first I didn't see it, but then a movement in the thicket of pine trees at the far edge of the slope caught my eye. I strained to spot it in the shadows and then wished that I hadn't.