An amazingly addictive new series. – Fresh Fiction I've seen so many freaky things since I started attending Mythos Academy last fall. I know I'm supposed to be a fearless warrior, but most of the time, I feel like I'm just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me--again. Everyone at Mythos Academy knows me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who uses her psychometry magic to find lost objects--and who just may be dating Logan Quinn, the hottest guy in school. But I'm also the girl the Reapers of Chaos want dead in the worst way. The Reapers are the baddest of the bad, the people who murdered my mom. So why do they have it in for me? It turns out my mom hid a powerful artifact called the Helheim Dagger before she died. Now, the Reapers will do anything to get it back. They think I know where the dagger is hidden, but this is one thing I can't use my magic to find. All I do know is that the Reapers are coming for me--and I'm in for the fight of my life. Praise for Touch of Frost "A great start to a new young adult paranormal series." –Night Owl Reviews "At the Mythos Academy, surviving high school means staying alive!" –Kerrelyn Sparks "It has literally everything: mystery, romance, mythology, boarding schools. What could be better?" --Simply Nerdy Book Reviews New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Estep is constantly prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea. Jennifer is the author of the Black Blade and Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington. She writes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books and is also the author of the Bigtime paranormal romance series. Jennifer is a member of Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and other writing groups. Jennifer's books have been featured in Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living , and a variety of other publications. To learn more about her, visit jenniferestep.com. You can also sign up for Jennifer's fan page on Facebook and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads. DARK FROST A Mythos Academy Novel By Jennifer Estep K TEEN BOOKS Copyright © 2012 Jennifer Estep All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7582-6696-5 Chapter One "If you guys don't stop making out, I'm going to be sick." Daphne Cruz giggled and laid another loud, smacking kiss on her boyfriend, Carson Callahan. Princess pink sparks of magic shot off my best friend's fingertips and flickered in the air around the couple, the tiny rainbows of color almost as bright as Carson's flaming cheeks. I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, seriously sick." Daphne quit kissing Carson long enough to turn and stare at me. "Oh, get over it, Gwen. We're not making out. Not in this stuffy old museum." I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Then why is Carson wearing more of your lip gloss than you are?" Carson's blush deepened, his dusky brown skin taking on a fiery, tomato tint. The band geek pushed his black glasses up his nose and swiped his hand over his mouth, trying to scrub away the remains of the lip gloss, but all he really did was get pink glitter all over his fingers. Daphne giggled, then pressed another kiss to the band geek's lips. I sighed. "C'mon, c'mon. Break it up, lovebirds. The museum closes at five, and we haven't seen half the artifacts we're supposed to for myth-history class." "Fine," Daphne pouted, stepping away from Carson. "Be a spoilsport." I rolled my eyes again. "Yeah, well, this spoilsport happens to be concerned about her grades. So, let's go to the next room. There are supposed to be some really cool weapons in there, according to the exhibit brochure." Daphne crossed her arms over her chest. She narrowed her black eyes and glared at me for interrupting her fun, but she and Carson followed me as I stepped through a doorway and left the main part of the museum behind. It was a few days after New Year's, and the three of us were in the Crius Coliseum, a museum located on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. Visiting a museum didn't exactly top my list of fun things to do, but all the second-year students at Mythos Academy were supposed to schlep over to the coliseum sometime during the winter holidays to view a special exhibit of artifacts. Since classes started back at the academy in the morning, today was our last chance to finish the assignment. It was bad enough that I and all the other warrior whiz kids at Mythos were being trained to fight the Reapers of Chaos. But homework over the holidays, too? That was so not fair. Daphne, Carson, and I had gotten here about three o'clock, and we'd been wandering around the museum for the last ninety minutes, going from one display to the next. From the outside, the Crius Coliseum looked like just another building, just another museum, tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains in and around the city. Inside, though, it was a different story. Walk