Carson asked.
'Yeah… '
'Well, the mountains around the ski resort are one of the places they live. A couple of kids saw some of the wolves last year, hanging around the resort. The kids tried to get close to the wolves, but they just disappeared into the trees.'
'And it's not just wolves,' Daphne added. 'There are tons of wild animals around here. Sometimes we see bears or mountain lions or elk, right at the edges of the slopes.'
My friends started talking about all the animals they'd seen last year and some of the cell phone videos and photos the other students had taken.
'But-'
I opened my mouth to tell them it wasn't just some wild Fenrir wolf that I'd seen, that it wasn't more scared of me than I was of it, that it had red eyes and had seemed to want to kill me more than anything else. But at the last second I changed my mind. Daphne and Carson looked so happy cozied up next to each other. I didn't want to ruin their day by going on and on about just how big, bad, and evil the wolf had seemed, especially when they weren't really concerned about me seeing the creature in the first place. I didn't want to be a total wimp-or worse, have my friends look at me like they didn't believe me. Besides, there was a small chance I was wrong about the wolf being here to kill me. Wild or not, the wolf was still a monster. Maybe they all had red eyes. Okay, okay, so I didn't really believe that, but it made me feel a smidge better.
Anyway, my friends had come here to have fun. If word got out there was a wolf with red eyes roaming around the mountain, the Powers That Were might cancel the whole Winter Carnival. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I didn't want to be known as Gwen Frost, that Gypsy girl who ruined everything. That would definitely make me more of a misfit freak than I already was.
But even more than that was the fact that I wanted to be like the other kids. I wanted to be a real warrior. If the wolf was here to kill me, then I wanted to take care of the monster myself. Kill it myself. Even if I had no idea exactly how I was going to do that.
So I made myself smile at my friends, even though my face felt frozen and numb. 'Let's forget about the wolf, okay? What do you say we go on up to the next slope and see if I can work my Gypsy magic again?'
'Sounds like a plan to me,' Carson said, pushing his black glasses up his nose and grinning.
'See? I told you it would work,' Daphne said in a smug tone. 'I always have the best ideas.'
'Of course you do,' Carson told her.
Daphne rolled her eyes and punched him lightly in the shoulder. Carson retaliated by trying to steal the Valkyrie's hot chocolate. She swatted his hand away, and the two of them started laughing and mock fighting.
Neither one of them saw the strained, fake smile drop from my lips or noticed that I didn't join in the fun.
For the rest of the afternoon, the three of us zoomed down the various ski slopes, then rode the chair lifts back up to the top again. All the while I kept an eye out for the Fenrir wolf, and I made sure that the three of us stayed far, far away from the trees. To my relief, I didn't spot the monster lurking in the snow-crusted pines.
The higher up the mountain we went, the more crowded the slopes were, and I relaxed a little bit. The wolf couldn't get to me out here, not with all the kids and profs around. That would be suicide for the monster. As long as I stayed with a crowd, I was safe.
For now.
To my surprise, I sort of got the hang of skiing. All I had to do was use my psychometry magic and think of Daphne skiing, and I could get down all the slopes, even the really steep ones that twisted and turned like crazy. But the second I let my concentration waver, the second I started worrying about the Fenrir wolf, my memories of Daphne vanished-along with my ability to tap into them.
I found that out the hard way-literally. One second I was swooshing over the snow just fine. The next I was looking for the wolf. And the one after that, I found myself face-first in a snowdrift and not quite sure how I had gotten there. I sat out the next few runs after that.
Finally, at around five, we called it quits for the day and skied down the mountain to the hotel. The three of us ate dinner in one of the resort restaurants, which was just as expensive as everything else. And just like at the academy, the food was all fancy, froufrou stuff, like frog legs, rabbit, and pan-seared tuna. Yucko. I settled for a filet mignon cheeseburger, Parmesan sweet potato fries, and a piece of baklava made with sourwood honey and topped with toasted, slivered almonds. The baklava wasn't nearly as good as what Grandma Frost made, but it was sugary sweet, so I scarfed it down anyway.
After dinner, the three of us split up. Carson went to his room on the seventh floor, while Daphne and I headed up to ours on thirteen. Our room was on the side of the hotel that butted up against the new construction site, but the workers must have left for the weekend already, because I didn't hear any saws, hammers, or drills, and I hadn't noticed any noise while we'd been downstairs eating dinner.
Daphne and I hung out in our room for a while, unpacking our bags and gossiping about who we'd seen on the slopes, who they'd been with, and how many people would hook up with the kids from the New York academy. One couple I hadn't spotted had been Logan and Savannah. They were probably too busy sticking their tongues down each other's throats to go skiing. The thought didn't make me happy.
I flopped down on the bed and stared out the window. Since we were on the top floor, we had a great view of the surrounding mountains and the valleys that dipped down in between the jagged peaks. Snow, trees, and sky stretched out all the way to the horizon, blurring together in soft shades of purple, gray, and wintry silver. But the beautiful vista didn't soothe me. Not now. My thoughts turned back to the Fenrir wolf. I wondered where it was right now, if it was out there in the woods that surrounded the ski resort, if it was patiently waiting for another chance to attack me-
'What's wrong?' Daphne asked, staring at me in the mirror while she brushed out her golden hair. 'You've been quiet all afternoon.'
'Nothing,' I lied. 'I'm just tired. All that skiing wore me out.'
'Tired? You can't be tired. We've got a party to go to, remember?'
I groaned and flopped back on the bed. 'You can't be serious.'
'Of course, I'm serious. Yeah, the skiing's nice and all, but we all really come here for the parties. They're
