Midnight Frost

stopped it. Are you out of your mind?”
    “Have you met Gwen?” Daphne sniped. “Because crazy is kind of her thing. Believe me, this is mild compared to some of the stunts she’s pulled.”
    I shot her a dirty look, then turned back to the gryphon. “It’s just scared and confused,” I said. “That’s why it tried to attack me. I’m not going to leave it here for the Reapers to find. You know what they did to Nott. You know what they’ll do to this little guy too.”
    “Fine, fine. Be all brave and heroic,” Daphne muttered. “But don’t blame me if it backfires.”
    I handed Vic to the Valkyrie. Then, I dropped down on my hands and knees, putting myself on the gryphon’s level, and slowly crawled toward it. The creature sat on its back haunches and watched me approach, even more wary than before. Its claws started digging into the snow-covered ground as if it was thinking about springing at me again. I could see the suspicion in the gryphon’s eyes, but I wasn’t leaving it there—even if it did lash out at me again.
    Closer and closer, I crept. By this point, the gryphon could have surged forward and swiped at me with its claws—quite easily. But instead, the creature watched me. Maybe it sensed I wasn’t an enemy. Maybe it realized I wanted to help. Or maybe it just wanted me to get as close as possible so it could do the most amount of damage to me. I was about to find out. I was three feet away from it, two, one . . .
    I drew in a breath, surged forward, and put my hand on the gryphon’s front paw.

Chapter 22
    The first thing that filled my mind was the baby gryphon’s pain.
    Every slight movement, every small shift, every shallow breath it took seemed to twist the trap’s teeth a little deeper into the creature’s back leg, like rows of needles slowly digging into its skin. I grimaced and pushed the feeling aside, sinking deeper into the gryphon’s mind, trying to figure out some way to get the creature to trust me long enough for me, Daphne, and Rory to pry the trap off its—his—leg.
    The gryphon tried to pull away from me, but I held on, being as gentle as I could with him. I was dimly aware of his face next to mine, his beak snapping close to my nose in a warning to let go or else , but still, I held on. If I took my hand from the gryphon’s paw, I doubted he would let me touch him again, and then, we’d never be able to help him.
    So I tightened my grip and reached for my psychometry again. Image after image flooded my mind, like I was watching a high-speed movie of the gryphon’s life. Most of the memories involved the gryphon soaring through the clear blue sky, and a sense of wonder and wildness surged through me—along with one of peace. There was nothing he liked better than spreading his wings wide and drifting up and down on the currents that whipped around the mountaintops. But there were other sights and sounds, as well, mostly of adult gryphons doing the same thing, as if they were flying together in some sort of fancy formation. And finally, there was another gryphon, one who looked larger, stronger, and fiercer than all the others. The leader of the group—and the father of the baby before me. More than anything else, the baby gryphon wanted to grow up to be as big, strong, and tough as his dad. The thoughts, the feelings, the images, made me smile.
    Slowly, very slowly, I pushed my thoughts at the gryphon, trying to let him know that I was a friend and not a Reaper who wanted to trap him and take him away from his family forever. I showed the creature images of me fighting Reapers in the Library of Antiquities, the Crius Coliseum, and all the other places I’d battled them. But the images seemed to confuse the gryphon, so instead, I concentrated on my memories of Nott and showed those to him.
    But that didn’t work either. The gryphon started screeching in my ear and batting his wings against my body, trying to drive me away, as if he thought the Fenrir wolf was going to jump out of my mind and somehow attack him. So I tried showing him images of me playing with Nyx instead, but nothing eased the gryphon’s suspicions, and I could tell he was thinking about trying to claw me again.
    Finally, in desperation, I called up all the memories I had of the gryphons on the steps outside the Library of Antiquities back home. The baby gryphon immediately stilled, and I let him feel how beautiful I thought the statues were, how noble, how regal, how brave and strong