Free Midnight Frost by Jennifer Estep Page A

him if he reported his failure.
    My stomach roiled at his grim determination to do whatever was necessary to avoid capture, but I forced myself to clutch his hand in mine and go that much deeper into what was left of his memories. It was almost like watching a movie in reverse. Jason dying, being chased through the library, poisoning the water bottles, and sidling up to the checkout counter in the first place. Once again, I didn’t see or feel anything I didn’t already know, and the memories were getting fainter and fuzzier with every passing second.
    I was just about to admit defeat and let go of his hand when a final memory popped into my head—one of him sitting at a study table looking through a reference book. I almost let the ordinary image slide by and disappear into the growing darkness of his mind when a wave of emotion hit me—heart-quickening excitement.
    I frowned. Why would Jason be so thrilled to look through some boring old reference book? I loved books, but even I didn’t get excited about something like that. So I zoomed in on the memory, pulling up every single detail I could.
    Jason didn’t actually read the book so much as he kept shooting little glances all around him, holding his breath and hoping no one would notice the book or what he was up to. Every time he did look at the book, he would skim a few paragraphs, then nod his head, as if he’d already memorized the information and was reviewing it one more time for some important test—killing me. It almost seemed as if he were making himself look at the book and then deliberately glance away over and over again, although I couldn’t imagine why. So I forced myself to focus that much harder, trying to see each small detail and learn as much as I could from the open pages in front of him.
    It was a thick book, old, dusty, and worn. Probably some obscure reference volume that got pulled off the shelf once a year when some kid needed a source for a term paper. Not exactly helpful, since there were hundreds of thousands of those in the library. I could search for a year and not come across the book.
    The next time he glanced at the book, I noticed that the corner of the top right page had been turned back and that a few sentences on that page had been highlighted with a red marker. My eyes narrowed. Nickamedes would so not like that. I’d heard him give more than one student an ear-blistering lecture about dog-earing pages and marking passages.
    My heart squeezed at the thought of Nickamedes, but I kept concentrating. Jason turned back to the book again, and I spotted some sort of plant on the left page, although I had no idea what kind of flower, herb, or weed it might be.
    Jason’s heart quickened that much more, and he snapped the book shut, wincing at the loud crack it made. His hand was splayed across the cover, hiding the title, although I managed to pick out two words printed in dull gold foil on the worn brown leather— Plants and Poison .
    No big shock there. What was a surprise was the next image that popped into my mind—one of my own face.
    The sight startled me so much that I almost lost the rest of the memory, but I managed to hold on to it. I was pushing one of the squeaky metal carts down the main aisle, heading into the stacks so I could shelve some more books. Jason got to his feet, walked over, and held the book out to me.
    “Would you mind putting this away?” he asked.
    “Sure,” I heard myself say. “Just add it to the pile.”
    More anger exploded in me. It was bad enough that Jason had tried to poison me and had succeeded in sickening Nickamedes instead. But to actually ask me to shelve the book that he’d used to plot my murder? That was cold, even for the Reapers.
    In the memory, Jason smiled at me. I pushed the cart past him, but he kept watching me. After a moment, he went back to his chair, happy at the thought that I’d be hurting before the night was through . . .
    The memory flickered and faded away. I