Well, sure, I was here at the Winter CarnivAll at a super-fancy resort, and I was having lunch tomorrow with a cute guy. Both of those were out of the ordinary, but not in a bad way. I needed to think harder, needed to go back to the day this had All started.
Wednesday. Three days ago. What had happened then? Maybe I'd done something to set off the Reaper, or maybe I'd pissed off someone else entirely. I closed my eyes and concentrated.
Okay, let's see. After weapons training with Logan, Kenzie, and Oliver in the gym, I'd gone to my classes that morning, even scoring an A+ on my English lit paper. We'd had to write about the influence of myth on superheroes and modern culture, a topic that I'd totAll y nailed, since I was such a comic book and fantasy geek. I'd had lunch with Daphne and Carson in the dining hAll , then after my afternoon classes, I'd snuck off campus to go see Grandma Frost. After I'd visited my grandma, I'd ridden the bus back to the academy and had worked my usuAll shift at the Library of Antiquities.
There was nothing there. Nothing special, nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary. Wel , besides the SUV almost mowing me down and the arrow almost splitting my skul open. I hadn't even touched anything unusuAll that day or gotten any reAll vibes with my psychometry magic, except for the fuzzy flash I'd seen of Oliver's crush when I'd picked up his notebook that morning in the gym.
My eyes snapped open. Oliver's notebook. Of course.
How could I have been so stupid? Oliver had totAll y freaked when I'd picked up his notebook, and he'd realized I was getting a flash off it. I'd thought it was just because he didn't want me to know who he was crushing on and All the teasing that would go along with that.
But what if maybe-just maybe-he had something else to hide. Like the fact that he was reAll y a Reaper of Chaos.
I'd felt Oliver's emotions when I'd touched his notebook.
He'd been everything from bored to angry to lusting after his crush. He could have totAll y had some psycho-kil er vibes or evil plans hidden in there, too. I just hadn't held on to the notebook long enough to get the lowdown on them.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It would also explain why Oliver had sat down next to me on the bus ride over to the resort and All the dirty looks he'd been shooting my way in the meantime. The Spartan had been fishing yesterday morning on the bus, trying to figure out exactly what I'd seen when I'd touched his notebook and who I might have told about it.
Except now it seemed like he wasn't going to take a chance that I hadn't seen anything since, you know, he'd tried to kil me four times already. Oliver definitely wanted me to keep quiet about whatever was in that notebook.
What else could be in there that was worth kil ing for if it wasn't information that he was a Reaper or some stupid plan he'd cooked up to serve Loki?
I had to get my hands on that notebook. That was the only way I was going to figure out what Oliver was up to-and why he felt that he needed to kil me to cover it up.
Now, All I had to do was figure out how to swipe the notebook from him-and not get murdered in the meantime.
The next morning, Daphne, Carson, and I grabbed some toasted cranberry-orange bagels, wild blueberry muffins, cream cheese Danish, and cherry-pomegranate juice from one of the hotel restaurants, then seated ourselves on a sofa in front of the massive stone fireplace in the lobby. The flames cracked and popped like fireworks, while the heat from the mini-explosions warmed the whole area. The sweet smel of cedar woodchips tickled my nose.
I gobbled down the chewy bagels, scrumptious muffins, and tart juice in record time, eager to get on with my plans for the day.
Daphne and Carson just picked at their food, though. The Valkyrie hadn't stumbled back to our room until almost one o'clock this morning, and both she and Carson had a decidedly sick, green tinge to their faces. It must have been one intense party for them both to stil be this hungover.
Daphne stuffed the remains of her half-eaten bagel back into the paper bag it had come in and put it on the table at her right elbow. "If I eat one more bite of that, I'm going to be sick."
"Me, too," Carson mumbled, staring down into his cup of juice. "Why did I drink so much last night?"
"It must have tasted reAll y, reAll y good, considering how wasted the two of you stil look," I said in a sarcastic tone.
"Please, Gwen," the band geek whispered. "Don't talk so loud. My head is kil ing me."
Daphne and Carson both shot me looks that were equAll parts annoyance and misery. Yeah, I was totAll y laughing at them, but they would have been doing the same to me if I'd been the one with the raging hangover.
"I think I should go back to my room, fAll onto the bed, and hope I don't die before lunchtime," Carson mumbled again.
"Me, too," Daphne muttered.
"You can't do that," I said, my voice sharpening.
Daphne had on oversize sunglasses to block the light in the lobby, and she squinted over the tops of them at me.
"Why not?"
Because if she and Carson were in the hotel All day, then I wouldn't be able to go through with my plan to snatch Oliver's notebook and see exactly what secrets it contained. Despite being hungover, my friends would insist on helping me-or worse, tel ing Professor Metis about my suspicions. That was something I didn't want to do without concrete proof, or at least knowing that I'd seen Oliver's true intentions for myself using my Gypsy gift.
Of course, I couldn't exactly tel the two of them that, though.
Besides, I'd already gotten myself into enough trouble by not tel ing the profs about the Reaper and Fenrir wolf. And yeah, maybe part of me stil wanted to take care of this myself, but I also didn't want to drag my friends down with me-or put them in danger if my suspicions turned out to be correct.
"Because we're leaving tonight to go back to the academy, and you haven't hit half the slopes you wanted to, much less gone tubing," I said. "Besides, the fresh air and sunshine wil do you good. Once you get out there, you won't even remember how much you had to drink last night."
Carson groaned. "Believe me, I'l remember." It took some not-so-subtle nudging on my part, but Daphne and Carson finAll y headed out to go skiing. Of course, the slopes directly above the hotel were stil off limits because of the avalanche, but there were some runs on the far side of the mountain that hadn't been affected and were open to students. The three of us agreed to hook up after lunch. Hopeful y, I could introduce them to Preston then. In the meantime, though, I had work to do-and a Reaper to catch.
As soon as Daphne and Carson were out the door, I went over to the registration desk on the far side of the lobby. There were a couple of clerks working, and I headed toward a col ege-age girl. She looked up as I approached and smiled at me.