Page 11 of Jack Frost
Jack groans. "Okay. The Horae were goddesses, sort of. They were in charge of maintaining the balance of the seasons, the weather, and the hours. The cycles of nature."
"They sound great. Why are you fighting them?"
"It's a long story. Like the gods, the Horae weakened and deteriorated over millennia. Most of them turned into air sprites, fire wisps, ice wraiths, or earth shades. The work they do now is mostly useless, a shadow of their old power. You'll probably see them around occasionally now that you have True Sight."
My thumbs pound frantically on my phone. "But I don't want to see them."
"Sorry, sweetheart. It's a side effect of the Chill. I had to give it to you, or you would have died. I think a little supernatural insight is a reasonable price to pay for your life, don't you?"
I squint balefully at him over the mask, and he looks delighted. "You're adorable, you know that?"
I don't want to be adorable. I've never liked the kind of man who tells women "You're beautiful when you're angry"—even if it's true, even if the inner fire and power is appealing. "Adorable" is demeaning, and any guy who tells a woman she's beautiful when she's angry is merely finding an excuse to dodge the topic and tonot listen.
I type, "LEAVE ME ALONE."
"Don't you want to hear more of my backstory?"
"I already said I don't want to know anything about you. I honestly don't care. Go away."
"I could keep you company. It's going to be a long flight." Uncertainty shivers in his blue eyes. He's not exactly pleading, but he's definitely asking.
"I have e-books and music on my phone. If you would shut up I could relax and enjoy them."
"Can I stay if I shut up?"
"Don't you have some Horae to fight?"
He faces forward, settling his shoulders against the seat. I cast a sidelong glance at his profile, but I dare not look at it too long or the woman across the aisle will think I'm staring at her.
"I've been working all day, and I'm tired," Jack says softly. "I need sleep, and for some reason when I'm around you, my energy replenishes faster."
"Well, that makes absolutely no sense."
"I know. But can I stay?"
I chew my lip under the mask. Then I tug it down slightly and lean close to him, until my mouth is nearly touching his ear. In my faintest whisper I say, "You will be quiet?"
"As a snowflake."
I replace the mask and relax into my own seat, conscious that his shoulder is still pressed against mine. There's no warmth from the pressure, like there would be from the body of a normal human. In fact, if I didn't have "the Chill" as he calls it, I suspect his arm would be radiating ice into mine. As it is, I can only sense a gentle coolness, not unpleasant or uncomfortable.
My sense of temperature isn't gone—that would be a problem—but it has changed. The part of the spectrum related to warmth and heat remains the same, and I can tell when a drink is cold, or the weather is chilly. But there's no physical effect of the cold on my body. I didn't shiver while I stood on the deck of the boat and watched Antarctica's broken white shoreline recede into the blue distance. There was no temporary headache when I took a giant bite of ice cream during my layover at the Paris airport. No goosebumps from an unexpected rush of air conditioning when I boarded this plane. In fact, the little nub of a vent above my seat is blasting air right on me, and I don't even mind.
I skim through the e-books loaded onto my phone, but nothing feels as compelling as the long-legged man trying to get comfortable in the seat beside me. It's comical, really, how his knees jam the back of the seat in front of him, how far his right leg extends when he stretches it out into the aisle.
"You know, you don't have to ride home in this plane," he says. "I could whisk you back home. It would be a matter of two seconds."
"Shh!" My shushing noise cracks the humming quiet of the plane. The woman across the aisle stares daggers at me.
Jack's eyes widen in mock horror and he lays a long finger across his lips.
I grit my teeth, wishing he could hear my thoughts.You're the one who talked after you said you wouldn't.
His offer of quick transport is tempting. But then I'd have to explain to Karyl why she doesn't need to pick me up from the Charlotte airport. And what about my luggage? I suppose Jack could get that too—
No! I can't disappear from a plane that's in mid-flight. I can't allow my normal routine to be disrupted by magic. I told him he could sit quietly beside me and that's all.
I type another message into my phone and poke him so he'll look at it. "You could never be a monk. You kept your vow of silence for all of two minutes."
