All That Lives Must Die

SECTION II. RIGORS OF ACADEMIC LIFE

Fiona and Eliot strolled into the Hall of Plato. One hundred and twenty-six students, the entire freshman class of Paxington (minus themselves), filled the amphitheater seating of the classroom. The gaslights were lowered. It smelled of chalk dust and old books.

Miss Westin stood upon center stage and peered at them over her glasses. Her gaze chilled Fiona to the bone.

Heads turned their way, and everyone whispered.

“Master and Miss Post,” said Miss Westin. “How good of you to join us again.” She stepped to the lectern, opened a black book, and made two marks.

There had been some confusion this morning because Eliot’s rusty alarm clock had finally busted, and the grandfather clock in the dining room had been sent out for cleaning. Fiona could have sworn they were an hour early. . which was why they had dawdled, wandering the halls of Paxington, admiring the murals and mosaics that covered the walls. The ones in Plato’s Court showed gods, their battles, and wondrous pastoral scenes with eighteenth-century ladies in flowing dresses.

“Find a seat,” Miss Westin said. She turned to blackboards suspended by chains from the ceiling. They were covered in her perfect cursive script, and one board had the title, Origins of the Modern Magical Families (Part One).

Fiona looked for seats. There were concentric circles of fold-down seats and desks, but all were taken.

In the dim light, she saw Mitch Stephenson and Robert; either boy, she bet, would have given up his seat. . which would have been nice, but she didn’t want to make any more of a scene than they already had.

“They’re all full,” Eliot whispered. He donned his glasses and looked around the lecture hall. “Should we stand in the doorway?”

How humiliating. Their first real class, and already they looked like total dorks.

“I guess so. . ”

As she turned, however, Fiona spotted Jeremy and Sarah Covington waving to her. They pulled off backpacks and jackets they had set in adjacent seats.

“Ugh. .,” Eliot said.

“Don’t be that way. Come on.”

She clambered down toward the Covingtons, but hesitated. Did she sit next to Jeremy, who had once tried to kiss her? Or next to Sarah, who, for some reason, intimidated her even more than Jeremy did?

Jeremy patted the seat next to him and smiled.

Fiona sat next to Sarah (who scooted away from her).

“Thanks,” Fiona whispered.

“You are most welcome, teammate,” Jeremy said.

Eliot and Jeremy exchanged awkward smiles, and then Eliot took the seat by him.

“About time,” said the boy in front of them, clearly annoyed by this disruption.

“Shhh.” Jeremy’s stare bored into the back of the boy’s head.

Miss Westin cleared her throat. “Before we start our lecture on the modern families, we shall review the origins of various magical lines.”

She pulled down a section of blackboard, revealing a gorgeous illustration of an oak tree in cross section-like those diagrams showing the evolution of protozoa, dinosaur, bird, chimpanzee, and finally modern man.

In this diagram, however, Fiona saw leaves and intricate wood grain, and upon the tips of the upper branches were neatly printed names, and on the lower branches Greek symbols, cuneiform. . and then older unrecognizable symbols.

“The ancient forces,” Miss Westin lectured, “the Old Ones, the gods, Infernals, and the Fey-these are our murky past, and much of what we know of it are lies. As you review the texts, note the obvious embellishments and question all ‘truths.’ ”

She gestured at the lowest branches, the ones gnarled and clearly dead. “We merely mention the existence of the Primordial Ones from before time. All are dead or forever banished-incomprehensible now and forever-more to mortals and Immortals alike. We leave their delicate and dangerous studies for your junior and senior years.”

The symbols on those lower branches were lines and dots and tangles of geometries that compressed to points as Fiona stared at them. She felt suffocated-strangled. She blinked, and the symbols were once more flat and plain chalk.

She should be writing this all down. Fiona fumbled out her notebook, accidentally nudging the boy in front of her.

The boy turned around. “Do you mind?” He was pale; his hair, dark and straight and falling in a neat angle across his glare.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Eyes up front, cad,” Jeremy spat back.

The boy snorted, but nonetheless turned back to face the lecture.

Fiona’s face burned. She was glad she was in the shadows. She nudged Eliot so he, too, could take notes, but his eyes were riveted on the blackboard to where Miss Westin next pointed.

“The Titans,” Miss Westin said. “Their origin and connection to the Old Ones is murky at best. This branch, with one notable exception, is now extinct.”

Fiona squinted. She read crossed-out names on that branch: Oceanus, Hyperion, and Tethys. The one not crossed out was Cronos, the Harvester, Keeper of the Sands of Time, founding member of the League of Immortals, aka Cornelius Nikitimitus.[17]

Uncle Cornelius? The frail old man on the Council was one of the oldest living things in the world?

Fiona scanned the other names, followed a side branch, and her breath caught in her throat as she read: (Son of Iapeuts) Prometheus, Bringer of Fire, aka Perry Millhouse.

Perry Millhouse had been a Titan, too. Nausea rolled inside her as she remembered how it had felt to cut through him.

“The Titans,” Miss Westin continued, “were the progenitors of many of the gods of the prehistoric and classical eras. Their children rose up to challenge them, recruiting some to their cause-but in most cases eliminating their parents altogether.”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open, horrified. Uncle Henry, her mother-they had murdered their own mothers and fathers? Was that what they were afraid Eliot and she might do one day? Was that the reason Immortals treated their offspring so badly? Because they were afraid of them?

“This transition from Titan to the Immortals,” Miss Westin said, “occurred circa eight thousand years B.C.E.”

That was ten thousand years ago. They were all so old. Fiona felt suddenly insignificant. Was that what she glimpsed when she looked into her mother’s eyes? The experience and knowledge of millennia judging her fifteen years of attitude and arrogance?

She searched the next branch-the Immortals-and found two familiar names: Hermes, messenger/spymaster for the League of Immortals, aka Henry Mimes; Ares, League of Immortals Warlord, aka Dr. Aaron Sears.

There was another branch next to this-connected only by a dotted line and punctuated by a question mark.

On this offshoot were three names: Atropos, Lachesis, Clothos.[18]

“Atropos,” Fiona whispered to Eliot. “Audrey. . Post.”

He nodded.

She wanted to ask Miss Westin what that dotted connecting line meant. Fiona started to raise her hand, but she hadn’t seen anyone else interrupt the lecture. She’d wait until the end of class.

Miss Westin indicated another branch. This one coiled up from the base, a snaking vine with a dozen names, like Sealiah, Leviathan, and several that had been crossed out, such as Satan and Beelzebub (which sent shivers down Fiona’s back).

One name was most peculiar in that it had been written, crossed out, and then rewritten: Lucifer-the Prince of Darkness, the Morning Star, aka Louis Piper, her father. .

“The Infernals are the exception to the preclassical cutoff date for living immortal beings,” Miss Westin explained. “Many of the fallen angels are still active in their Lower Realms. . and occasionally venture to the Middle Realms as well.

“Other immortal branches”-Miss Westin gestured to a half dozen others, grayed out-“the Fairies or Folk of the Aire, the King’s Men, Atlanteans, and the Heavenly Angels are all thought dead or departed.”

Jeremy leaned over Eliot’s lap, closer to Fiona. “The Fairies be hardly gone,” he said. “I’ve seen them-chased the little buggers, even held their gold. That’s how I came to find myself in the Valley.”

Sarah sighed as if she had heard this a hundred times.

Fiona nodded to be polite, but she really wanted to hear Miss Westin’s lecture, and wished he would shut up.

“Now,” Miss Westin said, “on to the mortal magical families.”

She pulled down a section of the adjacent blackboard. On it was a detailed expansion of the younger, topmost branches with dozens of names, including Van Wyck, Covington, Kaleb, and Scalagari. There were also more cryptic titles like “The Dreaming Families” and “Isla Blue Tribe.”[19]

“The thing about Fairies,” Jeremy continued to tell Fiona, oblivious of the lecture, “is that they didn’t want anyone to know they’re still alive. They had it in for me because I knew. Lured me with a trail of gold. . just to shut me mouth. What they didn’t know was-”

The pale boy in front of them turned and quietly but firmly told Jeremy, “Too bad they couldn’t keep it shut, Covington. Close your piehole, before I close it for you.”

Jeremy considered this threat, and his lips curled into a cruel smile.

“Here we go,” murmured Sarah. She closed her notebook and set down her pen.

Jeremy eased back in his seat and held up both hands. “Of course, laddie. My apologies.”

The boy glared at him a moment and then turned back to the lecture.

Jeremy picked up his copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology-and slammed it into the back of the boy’s head.

The boy reeled forward, scattering his papers onto the floor.

Fiona was stunned. She knew there could be fights at Paxington; she’d seen that duel the very first day. . but in class?

Miss Westin clapped her hands once. That instantly got the entire room’s attention. Even the boy who’d been clobbered looked at her, and didn’t move or say a word.

Miss Westin took a deep breath and in an even voice said, “Mr. Covington, Mr. Van Wyck-if you have differences to work out, do so outside my classroom.” She looked them over a moment, a gaze that reminded Fiona of glacier ice, utterly cold and unstoppably crushing. “I sense your blood is up, however, so the lecture will be suspended for ten minutes. Resolve this. Now.”

“Suits me perfectly,” Jeremy said, and stood. “This Van Wyck cad should be taught some manners, using such language before a lady.” He gave a quick bow in Fiona’s direction.

Fiona pushed herself deeper into her seat. She felt as if everyone were staring at her.

Jeremy hit him on her account? Or was that just an excuse?

The other boy got up.

Although he was on a lower row in front of them, he stood taller than Jeremy by a full head and was so bulky, it looked like he could, and would, pick up Jeremy with one meaty hand and crush him. “Okay, Covington, you’re on.” He stalked out of the lecture hall.

Jeremy pushed past Fiona. Sarah got up to follow her cousin.

So did Eliot. . and then Fiona. . and then everyone in the class.

Outside they all crowded about Jeremy and the Van Wyck boy. Looking at the ludicrous size difference between the two, Fiona was seriously worried Jeremy was going to get killed.

The Van Wyck boy looked down on Jeremy, pausing. . because perhaps he was wondering what it would prove to beat up someone in such a mismatch?

“Why don’t we forget about this,” the Van Wyck boy offered. “There’s no point in fighting. Unless you were going to use only magic.”

Robert Farmington sidled up next to Fiona. At first she didn’t recognize him in his neatly pressed school uniform. He had gotten a haircut, too.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Robert whispered to her.

“Me, too,” she said. “But now’s not the time.”

“Right.”

Robert sounded disappointed. But how did he expect her to talk when Jeremy was about to get pounded flat?

Jeremy stuck his face a hand’s span from the other boy’s. “You want to see me magic? Well, here’s some.”

Jeremy spit into his face.

The Van Wyck boy turned red. He stepped back, cleaning off the spittle with one quick angry wipe. “Okay, Covington-you asked for it!”

Jeremy backed off, smiled, and danced back and forth as the other boy started shrugging off his jacket.

Jeremy didn’t wait. He socked him in the nose.

Bone and cartilage cracked.

The Van Wyck boy fell backwards into the wall, both hands covering his face, tears gushing from his eyes.

The students cheered and yelled.

Jeremy punched him in the gut. He lashed out with his foot, connecting with the other boy’s knee.

The Van Wyck boy doubled over. His leg crumpled.

Jeremy kicked him once, twice.

Fiona felt something greasy in the back of her throat and thought she might be sick.

Miss Westin watched impassively, arms folded over her chest, almost as if she were grading the boys on a test.

If no one was going to stop this-Fiona would.

She pushed her way through the crowd.

Jezebel, though, got there first. The other students let her pass, seeming to fear getting in the way of an Infernal. She stepped between Jeremy and the Van Wyck boy just as Jeremy brought back his foot for another kick.

“You’ve won,” Jezebel said.

Jeremy blinked, and the rage faded from his eyes. “Do you think so?” He drew back, smiling, for one final coup de grâce.

“First blood”-Jezebel nodded to the downed boy-“is as far as they allow in campus duels.”

Jeremy lost his smile as he watched his opponent cough a globule of blood and snot from his face.

“Continue if you want,” Jezebel nonchalantly told him, “but it would be a shame to have a team member suspended over such a trivial rule.” She glanced at Fiona. “And over such a slight reason.”

Jeremy straightened his jacket and brushed back his silky blond hair. He knelt and told the boy, “That should teach you a lesson. Next time, mind your manners when in the presence of a lady.”

Jeremy then bowed to Fiona, and although he faced her, he seemed to be performing for the watching crowd. “Your honor be upheld, fair maid.”

A few girls giggled.

Fiona wanted to slap Jeremy’s grin off his face. . but there’d been enough violence for one day.

Miss Westin, without comment, turned and marched back to class. Most of the students took this as their cue to leave as well.

Fiona went to the Van Wyck boy to help him up, and even though it wasn’t her fault, she thought she should apologize.

The boy’s bloodshot eyes stopped her cold, however; it was pure spitting-cobra venom.

He blamed her. And there’d be no explaining or apologizing it away.

Fiona also knew that somehow, one day, he was going to get even with Jeremy… and with her.

Jezebel stepped off the Night Train, slipped off her loafers, and set her bare feet upon the black loam of the Poppy Lands of Hell.

She wriggled her toes, felt her blood pulse, and felt the warmth and life flow back into her bones.

Although she wore the uniform of a Paxington schoolgirl (not the pantyhose, however; there were limits to what she would endure), and although she looked much like a mortal girl (albeit one of extraordinary and enchanting beauty), within her heart beat pure poison and hellfire.

She was Infernal. This was her domain.

They belonged to each other.

Jezebel inhaled the pollen-laden air, tasted the odors of vanilla and honeysuckle, the sweet decay and mold spore.

Behind her, the train hissed and screamed and pulled out of the station house.

Jezebel picked up her book bag and strolled to the adjacent stables.

Servants bowed and scraped before the Duchess of the Many-Colored Jungle and Handmaiden to the Mistress of Pain.

They handed her the reins of the readied Andalusian mare.

The snow-white beast neighed, stomped with razor-shod hooves, and then bowed its head as well, recognizing her status.

Jezebel mounted, wheeled about, and galloped toward the Twelve Towers to make her report.

The Poppy Lands lay in perpetual twilight. Luxuriant fields of color spread in all directions; opium flowers and orchids looked like a galaxy of fallen stars. Between thunderous hoofbeats, she heard the endless churning of worm and cockroach through the rich soil. In the distant hills rose the jungle, thick and dark, covered with vines and moldering with resplendent fungus.

She dimly remembered what it was to be mortal in this realm, and she recalled being repelled by the narcotic decay and the overwhelming vapors.

This was a dim memory, though-the vestiges of her hope-filled human soul.

It hurt to remember.

Her Queen had told her if she ignored it, it would soon go away-like the summer sniffles.

Indeed. She was Jezebel now, filled with the power of Hell, primordial and more intoxicating than the opium to which she had once been so addicted.

The serfs of the fields genuflected as she rode past.

They did not tend to the poppy harvest as usual, but rather cultivated spear and pike thickets, rolled spore cannons upon the backs of the giant bats as the animals hissed and squeaked in protest, and propped suits of plate armor among the twining bramble. . which would coil and fill them and bring them to life.

As she neared the cliffs of the Twelve Towers, she saw engineers strengthening its fortifications. Antiaircraft artillery squatted upon the ramparts. The walls were heavy with creeping death vines, which bristled with thorns and oozed a flesh-corrosive toxin.

Even the land prepared for inevitable war. The Laudanum River that wound through the valley rainbowed with oily slicks as the jungle that had overgrown its banks wept poison to make it a moat of death.

Jezebel clattered up the cobblestone road and through the castle’s raised portcullis.

Guards in thorn armor and flower-laden lances saluted her and helped her dismount. The Captain bowed and indicated the Queen awaited her pleasure in the Chamber of Maps.

She raced up the stairs of the Sixth Tower, the so-called Oaken Keeper of Secrets.

It was not wise to keep the Queen waiting. Ever.

She paused outside the chamber to adjust her skirt and smooth her Paxington jacket, to make sure her hair was just right.

Jezebel sensed Sealiah near. They were connected through the Pact of Indomitable Servitude, the oath that broken and damned Julie Marks had taken to transform herself into Jezebel. It made her a part of Sealiah’s will, Julie’s soul consumed and replaced by the shadow of the Queen of Poppies. Jezebel felt this in her very atoms. She did not struggle against it. One might as well try to struggle against breathing.

She entered the chamber, bowing low, not daring to look upon her Queen before instructed to.

“I shall tend to you in a moment,” Sealiah said. “And rise. Submission becomes most young girls. . but not you.”

The Queen of Poppies had dressed to kill today. A sheath of gossamer metal clung to her curves-liquid dark-matter silver that had been in existence before the mortal Earth had been dust gathering in void.

Jezebel’s gaze settled on the emerald that sat in the delicate V of Sealiah’s collarbone. This stone was the personal symbol of Sealiah’s power. It pulsed, daring any who desired it to try to rip it from her.

Jezebel had a sliver of that stone within her left palm-a gift and living link to her Queen.

Her fingers rolled into a fist. How she would love to taste more.

She averted her eyes from this obvious temptation, however, and her gaze landed upon the curved daggers, Exarp and Omebb, strapped to Sealiah’s thighs. . as well as the broken Sword of Dread, Saliceran, sheathed on her hip.

That terrible blade was said to have been broken as it struck the Immovable One in the Great War with Heaven. It had killed thousand of mortals and Immortals. The metal wept venom equal to the rage of the one who wielded it.

Jezebel then turned her attentions to the map table. It was a model of the Poppy Lands from the Valley of the Shadow of Death across the Dusk End of Rainbow to Venom-Tangle Thicket. Miniature infantry and fungus bat squadrons, Lancers of the Wild Rose, and Longbow of the Order of Whispering Death guarded key strategic locations. . waiting for the enemy to make its move.

Bumblebees flew from open windows and landed upon the table. Covered in pollen and sticky with nectar, they waddled, buzzing among the unit markers and pushing them to their latest positions.

Sealiah plucked up one black-and-amber insect, its stinger half the length of its squirming body. “Tell the Lancers to pull back to the Western Ridge. Bury antipersonnel mines as they go.” She then blew on the creature, and it took to the air.

“Now,” Sealiah said, and finally turned to Jezebel, “how was school?”

Her Queen was, as always, breathtaking: bronze skin, her hair gleaming copper and streaked with platinum, and eyes that knew the depths of seduction and addiction.

Jezebel had to resist the urge to fall down in worship. “I passed entrance and placement exams without incident, my Queen.”

The entrance to the Paxington Institute had been obvious to her Infernal senses. And between the answers provided for her, as well as weeks of intensive study from tutors, Jezebel had earned a B+ on the written exam, of which she was extremely proud.

Her former incarnation, Julie Marks-when she bothered to go to high school at all-had scraped by with Cs.

“Of course you passed.” Sealiah arched one delicate eyebrow. “Or you would dare not show your face here.”

Jezebel felt her cheeks heat, and she carefully averted her eyes so her Queen did not see the hate within.

“Tell me about the twins,” Sealiah ordered.

On a side table, the Queen unrolled the circular mat for a game of Towers, a game that to Jezebel seemed part checkers, part chess, and had a long list of rules that seemed improvised half the time.

“They passed their tests, too. We are on the same team: Scarab.” Jezebel continued with a narration of their first day, explaining the composition of their team (including a report on Robert Farmington, who surely worked for the League), their tour of the Paxington campus, and the Ludus Magnus.

She told Sealiah how Fiona and Eliot reacted to it all. How they were so naïve about everything. It was pathetic.

“You think your Eliot Post is weak, then?”

“No, my Queen. There is something still to the boy. I can feel it growing within him. Something that. .”

Jezebel couldn’t find the words. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him. . something no doubt left over from her weaker, mortal self.

“You are drawn to the boy?” Sealiah narrowed her eyes at Jezebel as she searched her heart. “Beyond his mere power?”

Jezebel opened her mouth to deny any attraction.

But that would be a lie. One her Queen would instantly detect. Such simple deceptions were the greatest insult one Infernal could give to another.

So she said nothing.

Sealiah inspected her nails: bloodred and pointed. She then set a handful of white cubes upon the Towers game mat. “Does he suspect who you were?”

“He may.” Jezebel fidgeted. “He looks at me-I mean, like all the boys, of course. But, I think he sees a shadow of. . she who I was.” Jezebel couldn’t speak her former name aloud. She loathed the weak creature she had been. “It shall not be a problem. It will be child’s play to deflect his questions.”

Sealiah stroked Jezebel’s cheek with one fingernail, cutting the flesh. The sensation sent shivers through Jezebel. “You will tell him the truth if he asks,” Sealiah said. “All of it. Even, and especially, about Julie Marks.”

Jezebel inhaled and took an involuntary step back.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought I was to get close to the twins. Help them so they would be sympathetic to our cause. Wasn’t I going to be friends with Fiona? With Eliot? How will the truth help that?”

Jezebel realized too late that withdrawal from her Queen’s presence, questioning her orders-either could be reason to be annihilated.

Sealiah, however, merely smiled and tilted her head. “These are still our goals, my pet. But Eliot is far more Infernal than any yet suspect. I have reports of his music quelling the borders of the disputed Blasted Lands.”

Eliot had been to Hell? Jezebel wanted to ask how and when and what he had played.

For a terrible moment, she was Julie Marks again, yearning to hear her song once more. Her heart filled with hope and love and light.

She quickly snuffed those weaknesses before Sealiah saw them-and ripped them from her chest.

Still. . she didn’t understand.

Sealiah must have seen the confusion on her face, because she said, “If the boy continues to develop his stronger, Infernal nature, then he will certainly be able to do what any young lord of Hell can: sort lies from truth.”

Jezebel wrestled with her Queen’s command to tell the truth. Deception had been the entire basis of her relationship with Eliot. He had fallen for sweet, innocent, and vulnerable Julie Marks, the new manager at Ringo’s Pizza-not runaway, died-of-a-heroin-overdose Julie Marks from the alleyways of Atlanta, not Julie Marks who had made a deal for her life and soul in exchange for seducing him into damnation everlasting.

“Shhh,” Sealiah said, “quiet your thoughts.” She looked down upon her, her features a mix of pity and disgust. “Since you have yet to be trained on the higher arts of trickery, our young Eliot will sense any attempt to hide the truth-so do not. It would backfire and further alienate you from him.”

“I shall do as you say, my Queen,” Jezebel said. “But. . won’t he hate me?”

“Oh, my precious dear-of course he will. How much you have yet to learn of men.”

Sealiah drew Jezebel closer and slipped her arms about her shoulder. This felt wonderfully warm and comforting and yet terribly dangerous at the same time.

“Eliot will hate you, at first. But you will then have the boy’s interest. . which, when mixed with his good intentions and budding manly concerns, will curdle into love.”

Jezebel understood. She didn’t like her part it in, but she nonetheless appreciated the cleverness of the ploy-both dreaming of and dreading what would happen to her and Eliot when it came to fruition.

“Then,” Sealiah said, glancing at her game of Towers, “we will have him.”

Eliot ran along the sidewalk. Fiona raced him to the spot on the granite wall where the entrance to Paxington hid in plain sight.

He’d gotten a few paces ahead of her because she had to dodge a flower cart parked on the sidewalk (and she was too prissy to run around it on the street-even a few feet).

He stopped at the wall, touched it, and panted.

She shrugged as if to say, Whatever-I let you, but couldn’t speak because she was breathing too heavily.

Eliot knew they wouldn’t be late today-absolutely not.

He’d learned how to set the alarm on his new phone and gotten up extra early. He hadn’t wanted to take any chances, though, so he and Fiona raced all the way from the breakfast table down through Pacific Heights, onto Lombard Street to here.

Eliot opened his phone, double-checking that they had plenty of time to make it to class. They did.

He found the crack in the wall, focused on it, and this time it was easy to slip around the corner that shouldn’t exist.

It still felt weird.

Fiona came in right behind him.

The alley to Paxington was shaded, and the ivy-covered walls cooled the already chilly air. Café Eridanus was full, the outdoor tables taken by older students eating pastries and drinking lattes before school started.

Eliot paused and inhaled scents wafting from the café: freshly ground coffee and steamed milk, a slightly charred citrus odor from flaming crêpes suzettes, melting butter, bacon, and sourdough bread just out of the oven.

“Come on,” Fiona said, and moved toward the gate.

Eliot’s stomach complained, and he lingered. He would die if he had to sit through an entire lecture, or at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to hear Miss Westin speaking over his grumbling digestive tract.

“Just a sec,” he said. “I’ll grab a bite-”

Eliot’s mind halted mid-thought. Even his stomach stopped rumbling.

His father sat at one of the outdoor café tables under the sky blue canopy. Three older Paxington boys stood around him, so Eliot hadn’t seen him at first.

The plates and coffee cups at his table had been shoved aside. Louis moved his hands over the tablecloth, shuffling three cards.

“Don’t take your eyes off it this time,” Louis told the boys. “Not for an instant!”

Eliot edged closer. Fiona was right behind him.

Louis’s cards were facedown on the table, and each creased down the center so they could be easily manipulated. One was dog-eared. Another had a water spot in the center.

Eliot felt something off. . and understood Louis was trying to fool the boys by making the shuffling look so simple and the cards so easy to identify.

“Now,” Louis asked the boys. “Where is the Queen of Spades?”

“That one.” A boy pointed to the center card.

Another told him, “No, it’s the one on the right.”

Louis smiled. “Are you sure?”

He looked up as he said this, and caught Eliot’s eyes. Something passed between them, a slight tilt of the head, recognition, and an invitation to watch and learn.

“I’m sure,” the boy said, “the center card. Flip it already and pay up.”

Louis obliged. The card was the three of hearts.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, genuinely sounding sad. “You’ll get it next time, I’m sure.” He scooped their money off the table.

The boys asked for one more game, but Louis said no. “I have other customers this morning.” He gestured at Eliot and Fiona.

The three boys left, muttering and arguing over how they had lost track of the queen.

Eliot and Fiona moved to the table.

“You came here to see us, didn’t you?” Eliot asked.

“Of course, my boy.” Louis clasped him warmly by the shoulder. “You look dashing in that uniform, by the way. The girls shall swoon.”

Eliot felt instantly two feet taller.

Louis turned to Fiona. “And you, my dearest Fiona, you look. .” He gesticulated with his hands, but couldn’t find the right words as he looked her over. “So nice.”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“True,” Louis said. “I am often not where I am supposed to be. And your mother has promised to kill me if I ever came near you again.” He shrugged. “But she does not know of this meeting, so the point is moot.” He stood, pulled out a chair, and gallantly offered it to Fiona.

Fiona remained standing and glared at him.

Louis was unfazed by this. He looked for the waiter, saying, “Let us not dwell on the ugly past and all these wretched parental custody issues, shall we? Let us just forgive one another, order breakfast, and chat. There’s so much lost time to make up for.”

“Forgive each other?” Fiona said. “What have we done that needs your forgiveness?”

Louis raised a finger. “Tut-tut. I won’t hear of it. All is forgotten and pardoned.”

Eliot sat.

Sure, he was still mad at Louis for using them as bait to lure Beelzebub into a trap (a trap, by the way, that hadn’t worked). Only by the narrowest of scrapes had they not been killed. And sure, Louis was an Infernal, the Prince of Darkness, and perhaps evil incarnate. But he was their only relation who had ever given them straight answers. Something in very sort supply these days.

Besides, Eliot was hungry.

A waiter came and took out a notepad.

“Shall it be two or three specials?” Louis asked Fiona.

She toyed with the rubber band on her wrist, and then reluctantly settled into the chair.

“Ten minutes,” she told Eliot. “No more. If we’re late again for class. .”

“Yes,” Louis purred, “Miss Westin once had a guillotine for her tardy students.” He looked utterly serious and he made a chopping motion onto the table. “Three specials,” he told the waiter. “Make it a rush.”

“Oui, Monsieur Piper.”

Eliot studied his father. He looked so different from the dirty homeless person he’d been just a few months ago. . and definitely different from the bat-winged fallen-angel woodcuts he’d seen in Paradise Lost (part of last night’s reading assignment). Louis wore black slacks and a black silk dress shirt undone to his sternum (with buttons that looked like real diamonds). Eliot thought this might be what a stage magician would look like.

But it was Louis’s face that fascinated Eliot most. His eyes sparkled as if he had just been laughing; his nose was crooked and hooked at the end; his thin mustache and goatee were immaculately trimmed and pointed; and his silver-streaked hair had been pulled back. It gave him an air of casual grace, elegance, and above all else. . mischief.

“What do you want?” Fiona asked their father.

“What I want?” Louis got a faraway look in his eyes and stroked his chin. “I want my family to be whole and happy. I want you two to graduate from Paxington maxima cum laude, bar none, merito puro! I want to sail a galleon of solid gold upon a lake of jewels in my treasure kingdom the size of Nevada! I want the love of a beautiful woman. All women! I want the respect and adulation of billions. I want the world to be my pearl-stuffed oyster!”

Louis made eye contact with the waiter. “Although,” he said with a sigh, “I’d settle for a cup of this establishment’s wonderful Turkish coffee. What about you, darling daughter?”

“I want you to stop calling me that,” she said.

“I want answers,” Eliot chimed in before his sister worked up a head of steam.

Louis brightened and turned to him. “And so you shall have them, my boy. Ask! Anything. I shall be your unbiased oracle.”

The waiter brought coffee and orange juice and a basket of steaming blueberry muffins drizzled with butter.

Eliot tore into a muffin, drank half a glass of juice, and then said, “Uncle Kino drove us to the Gates of Perdition. To show us where Infernals come from. Was it really Hell? Is that where you live?”

Louis considered for a moment, and slipped four sugar cubes into his coffee. “He showed you. . yes, but only the absolutely most wretched part. It’s like driving through the worst sections of Detroit and being told that is America. Why, you’d miss out entirely on Disneyland and Las Vegas.”

“Please,” Fiona scoffed. “Are you saying there are nice parts of Hell?”

“There are forests, jungles, and cities filled with exotic delights,” Louis said. “There are circuses, meadows of flowers, castles filled with lords and ladies-realms beyond imagination.”

Eliot leaned forward.

He half hoped Louis would invite him to see for himself. He’d never take him up on such an offer, not after they’d seen what lay beyond the gate in the Borderlands. . but still, it’d be wonderful to learn a little bit more about his father’s side of the family.

And just for a moment, Eliot considered the possibility of life beyond his mother’s influence. He and Louis could be adventurers, pirates on the high seas, travelers and explorers.

Fiona, however, looked unconvinced.

“None of that matters to us,” she told Louis. “We’re in the League now.” She kicked Eliot under the table. “Both of us. I’m in the Order of the Celestial Rose. And Eliot is an Immortal hero.”

“Congratulations,” Louis said without enthusiasm.

Breakfast arrived: plates with a stack of crêpes drenched with brandied sauce, a side of sizzling bacon, and steaming fresh croissants. The waiter set the bill next to Louis’s plate. . which Louis ignored.

Eliot tasted the bacon. It was crisp and salty and wonderful. But something stopped him from enjoying it: Fiona’s assertion that they were in the League. Around a mouthful, he said to her, “Okay-so we’re part of the League of Immortals. . but why does that mean we’re not part of the other family? That makes no sense from a biological point of view.”

Fiona glared at him, but for the moment, she had no answer.

It occurred to Eliot that he was breaking a rule by talking of the League in public. Then again, no one here seemed to be listening. Nor could this alley outside Paxington truly be considered a public place.

Or was it just easier for Eliot to break rules when his father was near? Louis had once told him: Everything was made to be broken, especially rules.

Right now, Eliot didn’t care; he just wanted answers.

“You are both,” Louis told them. “Immortal and Infernal.”

“That’s not what the League’s decided,” Fiona said.

“I’m afraid the facts speak louder. You, my darling daughter-” Louis stopped, remembering that Fiona didn’t like him calling her that. “You killed Beelzebub.”

Fiona paled.

Eliot lost his appetite as well when he remembered how she had severed Beelzebub’s head.

“There’s a neutrality treaty between the League and us,” Louis said, “which prevents any such physical interventions.”

“But it was self-defense,” Eliot said.

“Of course it was,” Louis replied. “The reason is irrelevant. My point is that you must be an Infernal to kill another Infernal. And you must be an Immortal to be legally accepted into the League of Immortals. These are immutable facts with a single conclusion. . ”

“That we’re both?” Eliot tentatively offered.

A faint smile spread across Louis’s face.

“So what?” Fiona said. “We decided to stick with the League. It’s our choice.”

“And an admirable choice it is,” Louis replied. “But I’m afraid there are those who will not care what you have chosen. Some think you are the means to unravel our neutrality treaty. Some believe that one day you will lead one side to war against the other.”

War? Louis had to be joking.

But for once, he looked absolutely serious.

“We would never do such a thing,” Eliot whispered.

“Never? Really?” Louis asked. “Not even in self-defense? Could you envision some unscrupulous character manipulating you into a situation where conflict might be inevitable?”

Fiona was quiet, probably reliving that moment in the alley when she had decapitated the Lord of All That Flies.

Eliot wanted to say that he’d never kill anything or anybody. . but then he remembered that to save Fiona, he had summoned a fog filled with the wandering dead. It was a mistake the first time, but he’d known what he was doing the second time, and he’d still done it. He had killed. And it’d been his choice.

Eliot knew he would do it again if Fiona’s life were at stake.

He pushed his plate away, no longer hungry.

“So what do we do?” Eliot asked.

“What you think is right,” Louis told him, leaning closer. “You two are smarter and stronger than anyone in the families knows. You would do best not to listen to deceitful characters who would try to influence you. Besides, of course, your father.”

When Louis turned to Fiona, his expression sobered, and he searched for the right words, finally saying, “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable. . and yet you somehow manage to rein in that power. Truly impressive, my daughter.”

“Thank you,” Fiona said. “I think.”

He turned to Eliot. “And you, my son, have a talent the likes of which the world has never before seen. Not even my humble abilities come close. When you play, the universe holds its breath. . and listens.”

Eliot wanted to say so much more, ask Louis so many things, but it felt as if he’d just swallowed too much information, and it stuck in his windpipe.

Louis stood. “You two are going to be late if we sit all day chitchatting like sparrows over crumbs.” He dug into his pockets. “Before I depart, I wanted to give you some trinkets I had lying about.”

He tossed one of the playing cards to Eliot.

It fluttered, and to Eliot’s utter astonishment, he snatched it out of the air with nimble fingers.

The card was the Queen of Spades, but not a normal one. This queen held a sword like a suicide king-stuck through the side of her head. Most intriguing, though, there were tiny lines and dots scribbled upon it.

Notes. Musical notes.

“ ‘The March of the Suicide Queen,’ ” Louis told him. “It’s an old song that you may find useful.”

Eliot touched the notes, and heard them whisper their tune to him.

He tucked the card into his pocket for a closer look later. He wanted to thank Louis, but then remembered that the other songs he’d gotten from his father had led to death and destruction.

He kept his mouth shut and simply nodded.

“And for you, Fiona. .” Louis smoothed a silver bracelet over the tablecloth. Its slender twisted links reminded Eliot of a snake. “This was made from the last bit of metal that fell from the sky millennia ago. Archon iron.”[20]

Fiona picked up the bracelet and examined it. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you!” She frowned. “Is it supposed to be rusty?”

“The price of antiquity, I am afraid,” Louis assured her.

Their father bowed, clasped Eliot’s shoulder once more, and gently patted Fiona’s hand. “We will meet again soon, I hope. Now you must pardon your poor misremembering father, but he has other business to attend to.”

And with that, Louis plucked up his jacket, strode out of the café, turned onto the main street, and was gone.

Fiona gazed at the chain. “We need to think about what he said. . everything.”

“So maybe Louis isn’t all bad?” Eliot asked her.

She looped the bracelet around her wrist and did the clasp. “Maybe,” Fiona said.

Was it possible this was the beginning of a real relationship with their father? So what if he was an Infernal? Maybe even a man who was supposed to be living, breathing evil could still care for his son.

Eliot and Fiona got up to leave. They miraculously still had plenty of time to get to class.

As they started to go, however, the waiter followed them, clearing his throat. In his hand was the bill that had been left untouched on the table.

Fiona’s face darkened, and Eliot took back all the nice things he had thought about Louis.

He’d stiffed them for breakfast.

Fiona was mortified. Nothing like this ever happened in homeschooling. She’d never had to undress in front of other people.

She was grateful she hadn’t worn her gym shorts and T-shirt under her school uniform. That’s how she thought it might work. She’d tried it at home, but the extra layers only added to the wrinkled appearance of her jacket and skirt.

The Paxington girls’ locker room had only the illusion of privacy. There were rows of benches and lockers so you couldn’t see everyone at the same time. But still, within the range of a casual glance, dozens of girls laughed and chatted as they stripped out of their uniforms like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Fiona didn’t think she could blush any harder as she struggled with the buttons on her shirt.

Maybe it was a lifetime of eating Cee’s home cooking, maybe it was her severed appetite, but she felt so skinny, so. . unendowed, compared with the other girls.

Plus all these other girls had perfect manes of hair. Fiona’s hair (thanks to the foggy morning) was all frizz.

Not to mention they all wore makeup. They had purses bulging with lipstick and powders, liners and every brush imaginable.

Fiona had used Cee’s homemade soap, which efficiently removed dirt (and your first layer of skin), but didn’t really enhance anyone’s beauty.

Fortunately no one noticed her.

She looked at her feet and focused on slipping out of her skirt and into her gym shorts as fast as she could.

Fiona would have done it with her eyes closed if she wasn’t afraid she might have done something dorky like put them on backwards.

She’d never look like these girls. They’d had fifteen years to perfect their looks. They had every modern product and advantage.

She’d just have to be happy with who she was and how she looked. . though that was easier said than done. Who was she, really? Immortal? A goddess-in-training with the League of Immortals? Or an Infernal? The daughter of the Prince of Darkness?

Both?

But then why did she still look like Fiona Post, shut-in, social and beauty moron?

Louis showing up this morning had thrown her off. She hadn’t expected to feel anything for him. . or if she had, she expected it would have been contempt. He still sounded half crazy, but there was something else there: a spark of wit and intelligence.

He was her father, and she wanted to feel a bond with him. She wanted to have something approaching a normal relationship. . at least with one of her parents. Was that too much to ask?

Jezebel sauntered into the locker room. The girls fell silent.

The Infernal stepped up to the locker next to Fiona’s, opened it, and removed her jacket.

Fiona started to say hi, but Jezebel (although she had to see her; she was standing right there) acted like she was completely alone in the locker room.

Jezebel shrugged out of her top and bra.

Fiona quickly turned away.

But not before she caught a glimpse of Jezebel’s snow-white porcelain skin, ample curves, and taut stomach. Like pictures Fiona had seen recently in her mythology books-that’s how goddesses were supposed to look. Or demons.

A girl approached Jezebel and cleared her throat.

Jezebel ignored her.

The girl was tall, tan, blond, and athletic. Fiona remembered her from team selection. She was on White Knight.

“Hey.” The girl confidently leaned on a nearby locker. “I’m Tamara. A bunch of us were going to grab coffee after class today. You want to hang out?”

“I don’t care who you are,” Jezebel told her. “What makes you think that I have need for coffee. . or the company of mortals?”

Tamara’s features bunched together in outrage. “Why, you little bit-!”

Jezebel turned.

The air was charged with tension. The hair on the back of Fiona’s neck prickled.

Jezebel’s shadow crossed Tamara, darkening her face.

But that was wrong. Fiona checked her own shadow-yes, the overhead lights cast several weak shadows in various directions. Jezebel’s shadow somehow defied the optics of the situation, and had collected into a single slice of dark.

Whatever Tamara was going to say, she didn’t. The breath seemed to have evaporated from her lungs.

“You will find that I have no tolerance for trifling,” Jezebel said. “Decide now if you wish to live.”

Tamara took two steps back. “Never mind,” she whispered.

Jezebel’s shadow returned to normal.

Fiona exhaled.

Tamara managed to regain a bit of her composure, although her healthy tan seemed to have drained away. “Whatever. .” She walked off-banging her shin on a bench.

Jezebel gave a stifled laugh, then opened her locker and primped the curls of her hair (although it didn’t need it), and then continued ignoring the rest of the world.

Fiona made a mental note: Do not make small talk with an Infernal.

She smelled mint and turned. Sarah Covington stood next to her. Sarah’s red hair had been pulled back and tucked up under a white baseball cap. “Don’t worry about that,” Sarah said conspiratorially. “Tamara’s just sussing out the pecking order.”

Sarah offered Fiona a stick of gum, which she accepted to be polite, but didn’t unwrap.

“I’m dying to know about the girl who saved my cousin,” Sarah said. “No one is supposed to come back from the Valley of the New Year. You said your family name was. .”

“Post,” Fiona said, nervous, as if this were the answer to a pop quiz.

“As in ‘as dumb as’?” Sarah smiled and laughed. “I’m just jesting, my dear. You must take care not to take any of that nonsense from the other girls, or they’ll walk all over you for the next four years.”

Fiona didn’t like being called dumb-even as a joke. Especially as a joke.

Despite Sarah Covington’s outward kindness, Fiona didn’t think that’s what her teammate had in mind by coming over here and chatting. Her instincts told her this was another test. Not an official Paxington-sanctioned pencil-and-paper test. One more important.

Fiona straightened. “The last person who tried to ‘walk all over’ me and Eliot. . didn’t do any walking afterwards.”

Fiona had to soothe the anger coiled within her like a sleeping dragon, knowing how easily it could be aroused. . knowing, too, that despite her dorky appearance, she was special. . powerful. . and if she had to be, dangerous, too.

The smile on Sarah’s freckled face faded. “Yes, I can indeed see a bit of the spark that got you and my cousin out of Purgatory.” She looked as if she had more to say to Fiona, but her gaze then caught something intriguing across the locker room. “Excuse me. There’s a bit of unfinished business to take care of.”

Fiona watched Sarah flounce off.

Jezebel glanced at Fiona-with neither approval nor disdain-which Fiona guessed was what passed for a friendly gesture in Infernal circles.

Sarah moved to where Amanda Lane was awkwardly trying to tuck her T-shirt (which was three sizes too big) into her baggy shorts.

Fiona hadn’t seen Amanda when she came in. She had mastered social invisibility, and Fiona understood why. If no one ever saw you, you didn’t have to struggle to find the right words, and then stumble and stutter them out in the unlikely case someone actually spoke to you.

She knew all this because that’s just the silent subspecies of nerd she had been only a few months ago.

In many ways, she still was, and everything she was trying to be-poised, confident, and likable-was just an act.

“I don’t recall inviting you to Team Scarab,” Sarah told Amanda so sweetly that she could have been talking about the weather.

“I didn’t. .,” Amanda started. She swiped her straggly hair out of her face, but it fell immediately back. She looked at the ground. “I mean, my name was on the roster posted outside.”

“Then that’s a mistake,” Sarah said, jabbing at her for emphasis. “You need to find another team. And quickly, so we can find a suitable replacement.”

“But, I thought. .” Amanda’s voice faded to nothing.

“You said you were sponsored to Paxington by the League?” Sarah asked. “Of Immortals? Truly? Not the League of Losers? Or is this one of the gods’ practical jokes?” Sarah grabbed a handful of Amanda’s T-shirt, yanked it out of her shorts-then shoved her. “Or are you just a liar?”

Amanda banged into her locker and winced.

Fiona took an involuntary step closer. Her first instinct was to rush over there and stop this.

But she halted. Part of her wanted to know why Amanda was here, too. She knew Amanda wouldn’t lie about the League sponsorship. Why had they sent her here?

Sarah pressed on, however, before Fiona could act. She grasped Amanda by her arm and shoved her into the showers.

The other girls watched, some laughed, but most just kept doing what they were doing.

“No,” Amanda whimpered. She didn’t even look up, her eyes firmly glued to her feet, unwilling-or maybe unable-to stand up for herself.

Amanda stumbled onto the tiled stalls. “Please don’t,” she whispered to Sarah.

“ ‘Please’?” Sarah said, mocking her. “Please help you get clean? Help you wash that rat’s nest hair? Why, certainly.”

Sarah twisted on a cold water spigot. A shower nozzle sputtered and shot forth streams of water.

It hit Amanda, and she yelped, then jumped out of the way.

Sarah tapped the pipe. All the cold water spigots turned by themselves. Icy water rained and filled the entire shower section of the locker room.

Amanda backed into the corner, but still got drenched.

“St-st-stop it,” Amanda sobbed. “Please.”

Fiona had watched enough. Someone had to stand up for Amanda. And someone had to take that horrid Sarah Covington down a few notches.

She marched over to them. “Turn it off,” Fiona told Sarah.

Sarah looked around the gym, pursed her lips, and appeared for a split second as uneasy with this cruel prank as Fiona. . but then she shook her head.

Fiona reached for the water faucet-Sarah stepped in front of her.

Fiona wanted to punch Sarah right in her petite button nose, freckles and all.

But she checked the impulse as she remembered how she had fought Beelzebub. She’d hit and been hit with enough force to smash concrete. If she hit Sarah that hard, the girl might not survive.

And as tempting as that was, at this particular moment, Fiona knew violence was wrong.

So instead she reached for the main pipe, her fingers slipped over the beads of condensation on the metal, and she closed her hand-crushing the steel as if it were an empty aluminum can.

The water in the pipe squeaked and squealed and shuttered to a stop.

Louis had told her: “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable. . and yet you somehow manage to rein in that power.”

. . Maybe not entirely reined in at this moment.

Fiona released the mashed pipe and turned to Sarah. Her hand slowly clenched into a fist in front of Sarah’s face. “She’s on our team,” Fiona told her. “But if you don’t like it-you don’t have to be.”

Sarah glanced at the crushed pipe, seemingly unimpressed, then looked at Fiona’s fist. Her eyes narrowed a tad. She didn’t look frightened, but nonetheless she snorted and backed off a step, then returned to her locker.

“ ‘Just sussing out the pecking order,’ ” Fiona muttered after her.

Fiona might never be Sarah’s social equal at Paxington-but if she could help it, she wasn’t going to be bullied or let her bully anyone else.

Fiona went to Amanda.

The girl stood shivering in the corner, wet hair plastered over her face. She tried to control her sobs, but they still came out in little gasps.

Fiona was about to offer her hand to the girl. . but then thought better of it. Probably not the smartest thing to do after she had just crushed the pipe in front of her.

For a moment she wondered if Sarah hadn’t been right in one sense: Amanda didn’t belong here. She was going to get hurt. Or worse.

Why had the League sent her here anyway?

“It’s going to be okay,” Fiona said, amazingly sounding like she meant this.

“Th-th-thanks.” The word shuddered out of Amanda’s body.

“Let’s get you toweled off,” Fiona suggested. “I have an extra set of gym clothes you can borrow.”

Amanda nodded and skittered out of the showers.

Fiona considered what she had done by saving Amanda: she’d have to watch out not only for herself and her brother-but now a third clueless person as well. That was going to be trouble.

These thoughts came skidding to a halt, however.

The water at Fiona’s feet steamed.

It wasn’t cold the way it should have been. It bubbled, boiling hot.

Eliot had changed into his shorts and gym T-shirt (which had a nifty gold scarab embroidered on the right breast) and now stood on the field before the six-story-high obstacle course in the Ludus Magnus coliseum.

If there’d ever been a jungle gym event in the Olympics, this would have been it.

There were simple things like stairs, slides, and monkey bars-most of which were fifty feet high, though. There were less childlike things: rope bridges, balance beams, and zip lines. Then there were the things that looked dangerous: barbed wire mazes, and platforms held by single poles that swayed (even in no wind).

Eliot took a deep breath. He wasn’t afraid of heights. . but even unafraid, you’d have to be nuts to climb this thing.

He’d had a week to prepare for his first gym class, a week he had spent with his nose stuck in books on myths, gods, and demons. He’d learned tons, but he should have been jogging, or doing push-ups or something to get ready for this.

One good fall and a busted neck. . and all that reading would be moot.

Next to him, Jeremy Covington droned on to Mitch Stephenson about classic winning strategies on the Ludus Magnus course.

Mitch caught Eliot’s uneasy look and, with a flick of his head, invited him to join them.

Eliot waved back but didn’t approach.

In the last week, Jeremy had barely said five words to him. The Scotsman was a bully. He’d been in three fights-won them all with kicks to the groin and thumb jabs to the eyes. Eliot was also pretty sure he smelled whiskey on his breath yesterday, too.

Mitch, on the other hand, got along with everyone. He always said hi, had something cool to say, paid attention in class-he’d even protected poor clueless Amanda from getting hassled. But Mitch also kept everyone at arm’s length, like he used his friendliness as an invisible shield.

Standing to Eliot’s left were four boys. Eliot had seen them on campus, but didn’t know them.

On these boys’ black shirts was a different symbol: a white sword crossed over a white lance. They were Team White Knight.

Eliot had read that White Knights were supposed to be the good guys. The polite thing to do would have been to introduce himself. . but from the boys’ cold assessing looks, he didn’t think they were here to rescue any damsels or do good deeds.

They whispered and nodded at the jungle gym-from the snippets Eliot overheard, coming up with a strategy to beat Team Scarab.

Eliot kept his distance. He wanted to be friends with everyone, but something told him that being friends might get in the way of winning.

It seemed Paxington had been engineered to promote a philosophy of “win at any cost” with its duels, academic bell curve, gym class, and social pecking order. But Eliot didn’t want to win if so many others had to lose.

Robert came out of the boys’ locker room and jogged over to Eliot. “Almost didn’t get here today,” he said. “Slept in.”

He had a faded bruise around one eye, like he’d been in a fight recently. His T-shirt was taut and flexed with muscle. He must be working out.

“I’ve been trying to catch you all week,” Eliot said, “but you’re gone as soon as the class bell rings.”

“Just studying,” he said without meeting Eliot’s gaze. “That reading stuff comes easy for you. . not so much for a guy like me.”

All this was true, but it felt a bit off, like Robert had left out one important fact.

Eliot guessed what it was. “Are you avoiding Fiona on purpose?”

Robert took a big breath and sighed. “Probably,” he said. “Some folks in the League think I got off too light for breaking their rules. I could get Fiona in trouble just being seen with her.”

Eliot had figured as much. He wanted to have a long talk with Robert. Partially because he thought of him as a friend. Partially because Eliot needed someone to talk to. . someone who wasn’t getting more and more concerned with how they looked, staying locked inside the bathroom every morning. It was like Fiona thought her hair was more important than school.

Before he could say more to Robert, however, four girls marched onto the field. They stood with the White Knight boys and eyed Eliot and Robert with a mix of curiosity and contempt. The White Knight boys spoke to the girls, pointing up the gym structure.

Jezebel then emerged from the girls’ locker room, followed a moment later by Sarah Covington.

“We’ll talk,” Robert said, “but later. Catch me after gym today, okay?”

Eliot nodded.

“Does the Infernal. .,” Robert whispered. “I know this sounds nuts, but she looks like that girl you hung out with this summer. What was her name?”

“Julie Marks.”

Eliot had thought it was just him, but she really did look like Julie. Uncurl her hair, add a little color to the dead white skin, and she could have been Julie’s twin.

But believing that was wishful thinking. Julie had been mortal; the only extraordinary thing about her was that she had liked Eliot. She even kissed him, before she’d left Del Sombra for Hollywood. Remembering made Eliot feel wonderful and miserable all at the same time.

Sarah Covington waved Eliot and Robert over to where the girls, Jeremy, and Mitch now stood.

Eliot grabbed his pack off the grass and they joined his teammates.

“Where’s Fiona and Amanda?” Eliot asked.

“There was a wee issue,” Sarah told him, and tucked a strand of red hair into her cap. “A girl thing. They’ll be out in a jiffy.”

Jeremy cleared his throat. “We need to be thinking up a strategy,” he told them. “First, we pick the Team Captain.”

“You?” Robert snorted.

“Who else?” Jeremy said. “I’ve studied freshman gym extensively. I know all the tactics.”

The thought of taking orders from Jeremy made Eliot’s skin crawl. “Seems simple to me,” Eliot countered. “Get to your flag before the others do.”

Sarah looked at Eliot like he was a bug. “You think it so simple? I can’t wait to see how you do up there.”

Eliot matched her stare. “Sure, it’s going to be harder than that. But what about Robert or Mitch. . or Jezebel? It’d be nice to have someone leading us who-I don’t know-knows something about modern technology, like cell phones, for instance?”

Jeremy’s smile vanished.

“What do cell phones have to do with gym?” Mitch asked.

“Field communications,” Robert said, nodding. “We can get a conference call going. We should get headsets, too.”

“Perhaps,” Jezebel told Eliot, “you should be Team Captain.”

She said this without inflection. Eliot wasn’t sure if it was a joke. Her jade green eyes were not like Julie’s clear blue eyes at all. . yet they had the same sparkle.

“Please m’lady,” Jeremy said. “We need someone with experience in these matters. Someone maybe who has struck another in anger before?. . In case such a far-fetched possibility occurs.”

“So fighting’s the goal?” Eliot spat back. “Or getting to our flag and winning?”

If Jeremy wanted his résumé on fighting, he could tell him about the ten thousand rats he and Fiona had faced in the sewers, or Perry Millhouse, or an entire air force base, or the Infernal Lord of All That Flies.

Fiona and Amanda stepped out of the girls’ locker room, and seeing those two halted Eliot’s thoughts.

Amanda wore a stunned expression. Her hair was wet as if she’d just taken a shower. But before gym class?

Eliot caught Fiona’s eyes and she gave a shake of her head. Something had happened, but she couldn’t tell him-not now.

He met Fiona halfway and said, “We’re trying to figure out a strategy. Jeremy wants to pick a Captain first. It’s so stupid.”

“He’s so stupid,” Fiona said. She turned to Amanda. “Can you do this? Maybe you better sit it out.”

“No.” A spark of life returned to Amanda’s dark eyes. “I’m okay.”

Fiona stalked over to the rest of their team. She was mad, at whom Eliot didn’t know, but he felt the anger coming off his sister in waves.

“Ah, Fiona, me darling,” Jeremy said, “we be ready to vote for a Captain. I know I can count on your support.”

“You don’t have a Team Captain yet?” one of the girls from White Knight said. She was tall, tan, and stood with her hands on her hips-and she had obviously been eavesdropping. “What a bunch of losers.”

“Mind your own business, Tamara,” Sarah told her. “We’ll see who’ll be losing soon enough.”

“What do you expect?” one of the White Knight boys with a shaven head remarked. “They have an Infernal on their team. They’ve got to be disorganized.”

Jezebel turned to see who had said this, but her expression didn’t change, nor did she say a thing.

Somehow this scared Eliot more than if she had threatened him with hellfire.

“Hey!” Robert yelled back. “You’re going to sound pretty funny with a mouthful of fist, buddy.”

“Bring it,” the boy said, taking a step forward.

Mitch set a hand on Robert’s arm. “Save it for class,” he advised.

The air stilled and Eliot felt something. Felt, however, wasn’t quiet right, because this was just an itch below his threshold of conscious detection. . a whispered warning that danger was near.

He, Fiona, and Jezebel turned.

A man walked onto the field. He held a clipboard and stopwatch. He wore black sweats with the Paxington crest. He moved with strength, confidence, and grace. He was darkly tanned and trim and very old. Deep laugh lines and wrinkles made a spiderweb of his face. His hair was white, thick, and gathered into a long tail.

Eliot felt the weight of the Ages on this old man. As if he’d seen everything and that nothing Eliot could do would ever impress him.

“I am Mr. Benjamin Ma,” the old man said. “You shall call me Mr. Ma or simply Coach.” He didn’t speak loud, but his voice was commanding. “I shall review the rules. Team Scarab and White Knight will then mount the course for their first match of the year.”

A lump of ice materialized in Eliot’s stomach. A match on their first day? He’d expected a warm-up.

“That’s not fair,” Mitch told Mr. Ma. “No one told us. We’re not ready.”

Some of the students on Team White Knight snickered.

Mr. Ma looked Mitch over, and then replied, “That is too bad, young man. In life we often find ourselves unprepared. How you perform in such circumstances is the only true test of one’s abilities.”

Mitch looked like he wanted to protest more, but he only nodded.

“Rule one,” Mr. Ma told both groups. “Half of your team members must get to their flag to win. These four must be moving under their own power.”

He nodded at the jungle gym. On the very top, two flags unfurled and fluttered, one with a golden scarab, the other with the helmet and lance of White Knight.

They were at least forty feet off the ground.

“Rule two,” Mr. Ma said. “You have ten minutes to reach your flag. If neither team gets four members to their flag, then both teams record a loss. If both teams get four across, then the team with the lowest time wins.”

Eliot knew that winning meant more than just bragging rights. The lowest-ranked teams were cut, and didn’t go on to their sophomore year.

“Rule three,” Mr. Ma continued. “You may use any means to cross the course. You may use any means to prevent your opponents from doing the same. Magic is allowed, but no weapons, specifically no guns, no blades, and no explosives.” His black eyes bored into them. “If I find such contraband, I shall use it on the offender.”

Eliot was sure he wasn’t kidding.

“Questions?” Mr. Ma asked.

“I have a question, sir,” Eliot said. He shifted his backpack and unzipped it.

He was the only student who’d brought a pack. He’d had to. At first he’d left Lady Dawn in his locker, but that felt wrong, and when he tried to walk away, his hand burned with pain and the old line of infection reappeared up to his elbow.

Eliot pulled out the battered violin case and opened it for Mr. Ma. “Is this a weapon?”

Jeremy and Sarah rolled their eyes.

The people on Team Knight laughed. “Going to play ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’?” one of them asked.

Mr. Ma reached to touch the wood grain, but hesitated.

“Powerful.” He assessed Eliot with a look that made him feel like all his secrets were being turned inside out. “But not a weapon, technically, in my class, Mr. Post. She is approved.”

The chuckles from the White Knights died.

Eliot took Lady Dawn out. That Queen of Spades playing card was tucked inside the case. He’d put his father’s gift there for safekeeping.

He retrieved it and scanned the notes written on it. “The March of the Suicide Queen,” Louis had called it.

Eliot hadn’t had a chance to play it yet, but the song nonetheless came unbidden to his mind: a fanfare of horns, a swell of strings, and bass kettledrums. It was a military march. He imagined troops gathered upon a field of battle, soldiers with bayoneted rifles and horse-drawn cannon.

He unthinkingly plucked Lady Dawn’s strings.

The Ludus Magnus and the rest of the world fell away, and Eliot was alone in the darkness of his imagination, a single spot light illuminating him. A choir of baritone men joined, singing:

Off we go and march to war

sing our song to bloody chore

shoot and stab and rend and kill

Live to march o’er one more hill

Eliot stilled the strings, and the world came back into focus.

The gym structure swayed to the march’s rhythm, and then the entire thing leaned toward him as if it wanted him to play more.

Eliot wouldn’t, though. That song was too dark. It was about war and killing. . and while he was certain it could help Team Scarab, it’d be like using artillery at a game of darts.

Everyone stood speechless, staring at him.

The White Knight boy with the shaven head whispered to his teammates, and they nodded-all of them watching Eliot like he was the most dangerous thing they’d ever seen.

Eliot had a bad feeling about that.

Jezebel had held out one hand to Eliot. She retracted the gesture, curling her fingers inward to her chest, and she quickly looked away-but not before Eliot saw her eyes. They were now blue, the color of clear water. Like Julie Marks’s had been.

“Team Knight and Team Scarab, ready yourselves,” Mr. Ma said. He took out his stopwatch. “Get set. Go!”

Team Knight and Team Scarab ran for the jungle gym.

Adrenaline pulsed and pounded through Fiona’s blood. She raced ahead, and she easily outdistanced them all, except Robert.

He got to the obstacle course first, clambered up a ladder, and turned to make sure she was right behind him.

Fiona grabbed the ladder, but then looked back.

Jeremy and Sarah Covington, Jezebel, Mitch Stephenson, Eliot, and Amanda Lane had scattered across the field. It was total chaos. Eliot had a hard time running with that stupid pack of his.

Team Knight was different. They ran in formation-two four-person teams. One angled left, and one split off to the right side. They had a plan.

“Come on,” Robert said. “We need to get up as fast as we can.” He scrambled up the ladder.

Sarah and Jeremy ran up to her but ignored the ladder. Instead they tromped along the adjacent spiral that went up a ways and then wormed into the center of the structure.

“Hey!” Fiona said. “Stick together!”

“Middle path, me dearie,” Jeremy called back. “Hurry. Knights be taking the high and low paths.”

Fiona saw the Knights had done precisely that. One group ran up along a zigzag of stairs-almost as high as Robert now despite his head start. The other team-she just caught a glimpse of them in the lower portion of the course, and then lost them in a tangle of hanging chains.

Jezebel, Mitch, then Eliot, and finally Amanda caught up to her.

“It’s a maze,” Jezebel said, scrutinizing the structure. “Not all paths lead to our goal, I bet.”

“Then which way?” Mitch asked, looking up and squinting.

Amanda was so out of breath, she couldn’t speak. She knelt and panted.

Eliot hefted Lady Dawn, and said, “I’ve got an idea.”

Fiona’s gut reaction was to tell him to stop playing with that silly violin, that they didn’t have time. But with everything she’d seen Eliot do with his music, she figured it was worth the gamble of a few seconds to see what he had in mind.

Jezebel didn’t wait, however. She found a knotted rope and pulled herself up hand over hand.

Mitch glanced at her and then to Fiona, indecisive which way to go. He smiled and took a step closer to her. “I’ll stay with you guys, if that’s okay.”

“Great.” Mitch hadn’t said much to her since school started, but whenever he was around, he had a way of making her feel comfortable. She was glad he was here now.

Eliot ran a thumb over the Lady Dawn’s strings and then plucked out a whimsical tune.

Fiona smelled popcorn and the burned sugar scent of cotton candy, and then heard on the wind a distant calliope join Eliot’s song.

This had something to do with that carnival they’d been in, where they’d fought Perry Millhouse, and where they rescued Amanda.

Amanda went white. Her eyes widened. She backed away from Eliot.

The song was a little musical phrase that repeated and then reflected and inverted and bounced around in Fiona’s head. A wonderful invention.

“Where did he learn to play like that?” Mitch asked in awe.

Fiona didn’t have an answer for him.

She saw multiples of Eliot prism, as if her eyes were full of tears. She saw the obstacle course blur with a hundred different twisting paths. It was like the mirror maze in the carnival; that’s what Eliot’s music was about.

The jungle gym creaked and pinged. The scuffed aluminum ladder shone like it was new-and then a dozen rungs up, there was a set of monkey bars whose tarnished brass cleared and gleamed as if just polished-and where those ended, a balance beam of scuffed and scratched wood smoothed into gleaming mahogany as she watched.

He was finding the path through the course.

“The quickest way to the flag,” Eliot said as he played. “Go. Quick. I’ll keep playing.”

Mitch started up the ladder, and then waited for Fiona and Amanda.

Fiona wasn’t sure. It was a great idea, but she didn’t like leaving Eliot by himself.

How else were they going to win, though?

She and Eliot locked eyes. It’d be okay; they both knew how to take care of themselves if they had to.

“I can’t do this,” Amanda whispered. She looked miserable, sick from the brief sprint, terrified at the height of the imposing course, one hand clutching the side of her head, trying to block out Eliot’s music. “Let me stay. I’d just slow you down.”

“Keep your eyes open at least,” Fiona told her. . a little more nastily than she had intended.

Fiona and Mitch then mounted the ladder, climbed up-and then swung onto the monkey bars, following Eliot’s gleaming path.

Mitch got onto the balance beam, braced one hand on a railing, and extended his other hand to Fiona.

She took it and felt perfectly safe with him here-she looked down-even though “here” was a precarious twenty feet high.

They stepped across the beam, followed its arc shape up and then down in a half-moon trajectory and landed on a platform held by a steel pole. The thing swayed but held their weight.

Eliot looked small on the ground, his music tinny and far away. . but it still worked: Among the tangles of woven rope netting that went up from the platform, one section looked new, its knots squared and firm and sturdy.

“Your brother’s a miracle worker,” Mitch said, and started up.

“He’s something, that’s for sure,” she replied.

If they’d been smart, they would have had Eliot find the path ahead of time, and they could all have gone up together.

Fiona scanned the course and spotted Jezebel ten feet higher, where her rope ended in a solid concrete ceiling. She was stuck.

Robert was very high now. . almost to their flag. Good for him.

Should she have gone with him in the first place? That would have given them two at their goal. Nearly half a win. She didn’t see Jeremy or Sarah.

Half of Team White Knight, though, were almost to their flag. They worked together, helping each other along, and they were all looking for the best path. . keeping an eye out for an attack from Team Scarab as well? It was a smart strategy.

Fiona clambered over the top of the cargo netting and into a tube made of chain link. It was rickety, sloped down and then up and then sideways, spilling out into a series of hand-powered lifts: a bucket and rope and pulleys that would carry them almost to Robert’s position.

In a minute, they could be all caught up.

A breeze rocked the gym. Fiona clutched onto the chain and felt her stomach in her throat.

She looked down, for a moment not being able to see Eliot. . then she found him. Tiny and playing and still there.

But she saw something else that made her heart skip a beat: the missing half of Team White Knight. They were on the ground and moving toward her bother.

In a flash, she understood. Their strategy was to send one half up-fast sprinters-and let one half lag behind to slow down the opposition. And right now, the most vulnerable target was her trouble-magnet of a brother.

They were going to clobber him.

“Eliot!” she yelled.

Her voice was lost in the breeze. Eliot kept his head down, playing.

“I see them, too,” Mitch said, his normally reassuring tone heavy with concern. “There’s no way to get to him in time.”

The Knights moved carefully. . probably because they knew magic when they heard it and didn’t want to give Eliot a chance to turn on them.

Amanda just sat there, listening. Utterly useless.

Fiona’s anger came. It spilled through her blood, molten and pulsing and erupting along every nerve.

She turned to Mitch. “Get to the flag. You can’t follow the way I’m going.”

Fiona stretched the rubber band on her wrist and sliced through the wire cage.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped-free fall for a heartbeat-then impacted on the platform below.

The wood splintered and cracked. Pain exploded along her shins, and her shirt ripped.

These distractions were quickly blotted out by her swelling anger.

Her father’s words echoed in her mind once more: “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable.”

She flipped around to the underside of the platform, grabbed the supporting pole, and slid thirty feet down. She landed so hard, her sneakers made craters.

She stalked onto the field.

“Hey!” Fiona shouted at two closest Knights, a boy and a girl.

They turned, shock on their faces; then the boy regained his wits and spoke to the girl. It was Tamara from the locker room. She smiled and moved to Fiona while the boy continued toward Eliot.

Amanda heard Fiona’s shout, however. She glanced about wildly, now seeing the danger: three White Knight boys had her and Eliot surrounded. She screamed.

That scream broke Eliot out of his trance. He looked up, turned all around, taking in the three boys closing in. He hesitated; his fingers twitched.

Meanwhile, Tamara blocked Fiona’s path and set one hand on the ground. The grass where she touched turned gray and crumpled to dust-a circle of death that spread outward.

Around Fiona, however, the yellowed grass greened, wiggled, bursting forth with life, and growing in thick tangles about her feet.

She took one step, but the grass snaked and laced about her, holding fast.

Tamara laughed.

Fiona knelt to cut the offending runners, but as soon as she did, shoots gripped her thigh, pulled the one hand she’d set onto the ground, holding it.

She tugged. The grass ripped out. . but immediately grew new, stronger roots.

Tendrils wormed along her wrist and up to her elbow. She yanked as hard as she could, but she felt the anger slipping from her. . becoming panic, hot in her throat.

Fiona glanced up. The three boys were almost on Eliot.

Eliot flicked his fingers over his violin, and a dissonant chord distorted the air between him and the closest boy-throwing the boy backwards as if he’d been swatted with a giant invisible hand.

But that’s all the chance the other two needed to rush in.

One tackled Eliot; the other kicked Lady Dawn from his grasp.

Tamara walked near Fiona. As she did so, the grass pulled harder, pulled her closer to the ground, and twined about her neck. Tamara was going to make her eat dirt. . or strangle her.[21]

“Remember, little dung scarab,” Tamara said, “in gym class, we can use any means to stop our opponents-even if that means killing them. Bet you wish you had that Infernal with you now.”

She was bluffing. Had to be.

Try as she might, though, Fiona couldn’t summon her hate again; it was like trying to make herself hiccup.

She strained against the pulling grass. . helpless.

Fiona heard a girl’s voice: “The Infernal is here, fool.”

She turned her head. Jezebel was five paces away. Her expression was cool and implacable-save her eyes, which boiled with caustic venom. The grass around her, instead of grabbing, bent toward her and bowed in supplication.

Jezebel crossed the distance to Tamara in two quick strides and backhanded her, sending the girl end over end through the air.

Tamara landed in the sod and didn’t move.

“Help,” Fiona whispered.

Jezebel looked down with contempt. “Help yourself. You have all you need at your fingertips.” She moved toward Eliot. “Do what you do best and cut.”

Cut? There was nothing at her fingertips besides grass.

. . Which were very much like threads. Heck, they were even called blades of grass. She’d been such an idiot.

Fiona focused, felt the edges of every grass shoot touching her, saw their delicate edges-and pressed until they sharpened and focused to a laser-thin line-

— that cut-each other-the ground-everything, slicing itself into a million wriggling shreds of confetti.

Fiona got up and ran to Eliot.

One of the boys sat with his full weight on her brother’s shoulders, pinning him facefirst in the grass. The other boy strode to Lady Dawn. And the third boy moved toward Amanda. . who, to her credit, was at least trying to outmaneuver the bully around a pole and get to Eliot.

The boy on Eliot reared back to hit his head.

Jezebel got to him first-tackled the boy-a blur of motion-they rolled together once on the ground. There was the snap of breaking bone.

The Infernal got up. The boy didn’t move.

Eliot shakily got to his feet.

Fiona joined him. “You okay?”

“I think so,” Eliot grunted, rubbing the back of his neck. “If my head’s still on straight.” He gazed riveted on his violin. “Hey! Don’t touch her!”

The other boy picked up Lady Dawn.

A string snapped and sliced the boy’s arm-cutting the vein at his wrist.

“Holy-!” The boy dropped her and clutched his wrist, blood dribbling out.

A whistle trilled, and that sent shivers down Fiona’s spine.

Mr. Ma had appeared on the field (although Fiona had not seen him anywhere close). “That is the match,” he declared. “Halt all activities.”

Mr. Ma pulled out a handheld radio and called for medics. He went to the bleeding White Knight student and sprinkled a powder on his wrist, which staunched the flow of blood.

“Thank goodness it’s over,” Fiona breathed.

She turned to thank Jezebel, but the Infernal was already walking off the field.

“Did we win?” Eliot asked.

Mr. Ma now had an extinguisher in hand. He blasted a jet of frozen carbon dioxide at a fire licking a wooden pole on the obstacle course.

Had one of the White Knights tried to burn something? Fiona hadn’t seen any of them set it, but who else? What wouldn’t these people do to win?

The other four White Knight boys and girls slid down ropes in formation.

Robert, Mitch, Jeremy, and Sarah clambered down along different routes. . and from the long looks on their faces, Mr. Ma didn’t have to say who’d won.

How could this have gone so wrong?

“What happened?” she asked Mitch.

“Didn’t get there in time,” he said with a shrug, but otherwise seemed unfazed. “Once the music stopped, it took me longer than I thought to find the right way.”

Sarah stalked up to her. “Next time you be halfway to the flag, I suggest-strongly suggest-you keep going. The match would have been over in a blink if you’d let them have your brother a wee bit.” She trounced off.

Fiona was too shocked to reply.

She couldn’t image what those four White Knights would have done to Eliot. They would have put him in the hospital for sure.

Maybe that was the point.

A few broken arms, and you could reduce the number of opponents on the other team-maybe permanently, so if you had to play that team again, there’d be fewer of them, and a better chance to win.

Logical. And horrifying.

Robert, covered in sweat, came up to her and Eliot. “You guys all right?”

“We’re fine,” she told him.

Why hadn’t Robert stayed with them? Had he wanted to win so badly that he’d forgotten everything else?

Looking at him as he stood panting, soaked, a faint bruise under one eye, she wondered again just what he was doing at Paxington. He wasn’t interested in books and learning. Robert lived to ride.

Before she could figure out how to even ask Robert about any of this, Mr. Ma spoke.

“Three at Scarab’s flag,” he announced. “Four for White Knight at seven minutes thirteen seconds. A moderately good time. Win for the Knights.” Mr. Ma nodded at their team, and then looked over to Fiona and Eliot. “A loss for Scarab.”

The White Knight boys and girls exchanged high fives and went to their injured teammates to help the medics dress wounds and get them off the field. None of them spared Fiona another look.

And why should they? They’d lost.

“Too many weak links on this team,” Jeremy said bitterly, and walked off the field.

Eliot looked like he’d been struck.

Fiona didn’t like the way Jeremy had said that. . it sounded like a threat, and she wondered if the students on the other teams were the only ones she’d have to worry about.

Eliot was sure Jeremy and Sarah Covington blamed him. . with their averted glances and cold shoulders all week. And yet, they still spoke to Fiona, and Jeremy always tried to open doors for her.

As far as they were concerned, he was just her “little brother,” the kid with the violin who had caused half their team to lag behind and lose their first match.

He sat in the back of Miss Westin’s Mythology 101 class. This week she continued her lecture of the mortal magical families. He’d learned about the Kaleb clan and the Scalagari family.[22]

Everyone at Paxington was special in their own way. Some families had political clout, others had powerful magic, and some had a pedigree that stretched back to antiquity.

And while Eliot, at least in theory, had all these things, no one could know (thanks to the League’s stupid rules).

Even if there weren’t rules, Eliot wasn’t sure it would matter. If people knew who and what he was-especially if people knew who and what he was-that would just make it worse. He’d be the Immortal hero kid with all the power, family, and political connections who still lost the match for Team Scarab.

Miss Westin ended the lecture and wrote an extra-credit reading assignment on John Dee on the blackboard.

Fiona sat next to Eliot. While she was completely absorbed, scribbling this down, he grabbed his notes and slunk out of class.

“Wait a second,” Fiona hissed after him.

Eliot kept going. He wanted to be alone.

Slipping through the blackout curtains and double doors of the auditorium, he blinked in the too-bright sunlight after being in the shadows for the last two hours.

Or maybe losing the match wasn’t his fault.

What if everyone on his team shared the blame? What if losing was as much Jeremy and Sarah’s fault for not meeting ahead of time and coming up with a plan? They were the ones who were supposed to know everything.

Eliot had actually helped Fiona and Mitch find the right path before getting ambushed.

What if Team Knight had just been better prepared?

As his eyes adjusted to the noontime sun, he saw that he wasn’t the only one to have left early.

Jezebel was here as well.

Last week, when she had looked at him as he held Lady Dawn-at that particular moment-Jezebel had looked exactly like Julie. . down to her blue eyes.

The fantasy of Jezebel being Julie vanished as Jezebel tilted her head, blinking in the sunlight, getting her bearings. Her features were too sharp, cheekbones pushed up higher. . and, of course, she was an Infernal protégée.

Julie had just been. . well, Julie. Normal. Mortal. Nice.

Concern creased Jezebel’s otherwise smooth forehead as if she was worried she would be seen. Then she spotted him. Her eyes narrowed with disgust. She turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

But that look-it was the same annoyed, you’re-under-my-skin-look that Julie had given him. . just before she had kissed him the first time.

Eliot was totally confused now.

He followed her. “Jezebel!” he called out.

Her stride faltered, only a single step, but it was enough to know she’d heard him.

She continued walking, increasing her pace.

Eliot trotted behind her. “Thanks for the other day. You know. . gym class. You saved my neck.”

“Begone, wormfood.” Her voice was full of icy indifference. “I’ve nothing to say to you.”

He’d expected this. He’d be defensive, too, if everyone treated him the way the other students had treated her-all the whispering, the leering, and the innuendo-just because of her family.

Eliot had, however, seen Hell for himself. Maybe there was a good reason to treat her differently.

But wasn’t he like her, too? At least part Infernal?

Maybe it was time to trust someone. . introduce himself. There were no stupid League rules that prevented him from telling anyone about his Infernal side. He and Jezebel might even be distant cousins, for all he knew.

“I’m Eliot Post,” he said, this time quietly. “I’m half Infernal. On my father’s side.”

Jezebel slowed. She still didn’t look his way, but she pursed her lips as if deciding something.

“Lucifer’s son,” he said.

They entered the corridor that led to the quartz-paved quad. Columns of veined marble cast crisscrossing shadows along their path.

“You are a fool, Eliot Post.” She quickened her stride.

Eliot’s strength left him. How much rejection was a guy supposed to take before he finally got the hint?

“Okay, no problem,” he said. Then so softly that even he barely heard: “You just reminded me of someone I cared about. A lot. Someone I miss.”

Jezebel halted half in and half out of the shadows.

She trembled. One hand made a fist. One hand reached out, fingers splayed.

Eliot felt a tug in his center: a connection.

Something inside him was drawn to something within her. .

“Julie?” He took a tentative step toward her. “It is you, somehow, isn’t it?”

A shuddering breath escaped her, and she turned to him. Her fist clenched tighter, knuckles popping. But her open hand reached for him. Her face quavered with rage and longing; one eye was green-the other blue, and from it, a single tear marked her cheek.

“Maybe,” she said.

The effort of that one word seemed to quench her anger. “Once I might have been Julie, but you don’t know what I’ve done since then-or plan to do,” she said, her words intensifying. “Or what I really am now.”

Eliot met her hand with his, and took it. Her flesh was warm and soft and yielding.

Her face was a mix of Infernal and mortal, Jezebel and the Julie Marks he knew.

He wanted to tell her how much he had missed her. How wonderful that she was here now with him.

The thing in his center, pulling him closer to her, however, cooled and curled inward-repulsed.

“You lied to me.” He dropped her hand. “I mean, you are Infernal. There’s no way you could have lied about that in front of Miss Westin and got away with it. So that means in Del Sombra you weren’t really Julie Marks?”

Her blue eye dissolved into translucent green once more. The tear upon her human flesh evaporated.

“There is no Julie Marks,” she told him, her voice hoarse.

“You pretended to be the manager at Ringo’s,” he said, “and said we’d run away together to Hollywood.” Eliot’s tone hardened. “Was everything a lie, then? Did you ever even like me?”

Jezebel’s open hand closed, and trembled, as if barely restraining it from violence. Her gaze dropped to the floor.

“Tell me the truth,” Eliot demanded.

The shadows in the corridor deepened and angled-became bands of absolute dark slashed by golden sunlight. Eliot stood half in and half out of the shade. Jezebel, however, was now fully immersed in the darkness.

“You want the truth?” she whispered sweetly, but there was cruelty in her voice as well.

Eliot had a feeling this was much more than a simple question. It was something Infernal. A ritual he didn’t understand, like signing a contract in blood. It was dangerous.

He couldn’t stop himself, though. He had to know.

“I do,” he said.

She glared at him for a heartbeat. Her hands dropped to her side. The air chilled. “How can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?”

Eliot had often wondered this very thing, but wasn’t about to admit it.

“I was Julie Marks long ago,” she told him. “I lived in Atlanta, ran away, made many foolish choices, and died of a heroin overdose. I wasted my life.”

To hear her speak of her death so casually horrified Eliot.

A boy and girl from their Mythology 101 class passed by, shot curious glances their way, and hurried along.

“I died,” she continued, “and I went to Hell, the Poppy Lands of Queen Sealiah. I won’t bore you with the torment heaped upon my unworthy mortal soul there, but just know that I was picked by my Queen and given a chance to live again.”

The chill from the shadows made Eliot shiver.

This was the truth, though-he sensed that much-and it tasted addictively sweet to him.

More students passed them, and gave Jezebel a wide berth, wanting to avoid those preternaturally cold shadows.

“That is when I came to you, Eliot, darling.” She inched closer, the shadows dragged along with her, and her voice rose over the murmurs in the corridor. “I was sent to seduce you, to trick you to come back to the lightless realms. I was bait, which you so eagerly tasted.”

Eliot took a step back.

“But you left. . without me.”

She paused; confusion crossed her features, then it cleared. “Yes, another in a long string of mistakes I’ve made. Instead of seducing, I was seduced by your music. . into believing there was something more, something better.”

“It’s not too late,” Eliot told her. “There’s still hope. There’s always hope.”

“Like there was hope when I ran away to protect you? When they caught me and dragged me back to Hell? Like there was hope when they did so many unpleasant, unspeakable things to me to repay my hope-filled kindness?”

Jezebel laughed. It was the sound of breaking glass and ancient glacier ice crackling. It was a thousand prancing, dancing booted feet that crushed dreams.

“There is no hope in Hell, Eliot Post. And there is no longer hope in my heart. I am a creature of the Lower Realms, reborn into the Clan Sealiah. The venomous blood of the Queen of Poppies forever flows through my veins. Dare not tempt me with your vile hope ever again, if you desire to draw another breath.”

Every student in the hall had stopped to listen to this.

Eliot retreated another step and backed into a column.

Jezebel leaned closer. “You are a complete, utter moron. A fool of such sterling caliber, you could be the Prince of Incompetence. I wish I’d never met you.”

Eliot felt as if he’d been struck-not because of her stinging words, but because of her declaration. Her words had been like Cee’s were that one time: backward sounding, turned inside out, made of smoke, and reflected in the mirrors in his thoughts.

A lie.

“That’s not right,” he said. “I mean, probably not that other stuff you just said, but that last bit. .”

“What are you babbling about?”

Jezebel appeared outwardly confident; however, the shadows about her had lost some of their chilled solidity.

“You said you wished you never met me,” Eliot whispered, ignoring the gathering students. “That was a lie.”

Jezebel flushed and locked gazes with him.

The crowd about them fell silent, and stepped back.

“You dare accuse me of. . of. . lying?” she breathed.

Her skin reddened, both hands arched into claws, the air about her shimmered like a mirage.

Eliot held his ground, though.

He was tired of being lied to. Everyone had lied to him his entire life. And now he had this gift to hear pathetic, lousy mistruths. He wasn’t about to let it pass.

“It was obvious,” he said louder, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jezebel shook with rage.

The people around them backed away, some tripping over one another.

Jezebel screamed, drew back her fist, and punched the marble column over Eliot’s head. A spiderweb of cracks shattered its polished surface and blasted chunks out the other side.

Eliot flinched.

She turned and, without another word, stomped off.

The students around him spoke to one another. Eliot ignored them all, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Should it even matter? Eliot should just stay far away from Jezebel-Julie Marks-or whatever she was. He couldn’t believe he’d really cared for her. She was trouble. Sent first to trick him to Hell. And now what was she doing at Paxington?

Eliot hated the fact that he’d been so easily manipulated. Whatever was going on. . he swore he’d get to the bottom of it.

The gaslights brightened, and class was over. Fiona gathered her things and left.

She blinked once in the strong sunlight, but welcomed the warmth after sitting in that chilled room for the last two hours. Miss Westin kept the place like a tomb.

Fiona walked away quickly. The Headmistress gave her the creeps-more even than Uncle Kino. Something inside that woman was a lot colder than her classroom.

Despite the gloom of the place, Fiona had wanted to linger, though. She had yet to talk to Robert and find out how he was coping now that he wasn’t in the League. He could be so stoically stubborn sometimes. Where was he living? How did he eat?

But maybe it was better to stay apart a little longer. . as painful as it might be. If Robert attracted any League attention, she had a feeling that even Uncle Henry wouldn’t be able to get him off the hook this time.

Beside, she had to catch Eliot. He bolted before he’d written down tonight’s reading assignment-something he never forgot. He was so distracted lately.

As she tromped down the corridors, one archway caught her eye. It wasn’t a real passage, but rather a mural that gave the illusion of depth. The mural was a Picasso: cubist students with too many arms and legs, their faceted heads listening with disjointed ears to a lecturing stick figure Plato.[23]

The real reason she had to find her brother, though, was that he-without fail-got into trouble without her watching out for him.

Like in gym class. She should have known better than to leave him behind.

“Fiona?” a voice squeaked behind her.

She turned. Amanda Lane trotted up to her. Ever since Fiona had stopped Sarah from tormenting her in the locker room, Amanda had decided they were best friends and stuck close.

Like Fiona needed another person to look after.

Amanda’s school uniform was a mass of wrinkles. She carried a pile of books, and her backpack was filled to the bursting point. Fiona felt bad for her. Amanda’s eyes rarely left the ground, she wasn’t able to talk to anyone, and her hair has half tangle, half cowlick.

“Hey,” Fiona said. “What’s up?”

Amanda tried to brush the hair from her face, but couldn’t with her arms full. “Headed to the library?” she asked. “Maybe we could compare notes? I’m in the middle of Lovecraft’s unpublished Languorous Lullabies. His histories of the Dreaming Families are so poetical. Did you know that parts can be read backwards for an entirely different meaning? It’s called reflective/reflective style.”[24]

For someone never exposed to magic before, Amanda seem to have a knack, if not for its practice, then at least its study.

“I read those,” Fiona told her. “Eliot and I still needed to tackle the Canticles of the Clan.”

Fiona had to study the canticles, not only for Miss Westin’s class, but also because it was practical knowledge. They told (in excruciating minutia and with endless commentary) the political intrigues among from the nineteenth-and twentieth-century mortal magical families.

Covingtons, Scalagaris, Pritchards, Kalebs-these families taught their children fencing, etiquette, the art of small talk, poisons, and assassination from the time they were toilet trained. Politics that translated into duels and alliances and vendettas here at Paxington.

She had a lot of catching up to do.

Fiona snapped her fingers. “There’s one thing, though, we have to do before we hit the homework: find the others on our team and talk strategy.”

“Oh. .” Amanda drew her books closer and dropped her head.

“Slip too far in the rankings,” Fiona explained, “and all the studying in the world won’t matter.”

Amanda curled even farther behind her books and said, “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fiona said. “We’ll all do better next time.”

Amanda brightened.

She was a real liability. If only Fiona could boost the girl’s confidence, she might actually get her onto the obstacle course next time. Funny how Amanda seemed to have no trouble relating to Eliot. Maybe they had an equivalent nerd quotient.

Amanda glanced past Fiona. “There’s your brother and that Jezebel. Let’s go say hi.”

“Jezebel?” Fiona whirled about. She squinted through archways and spotted them in the adjacent corridor.

Just as she had feared: Eliot in trouble again.

This was 100 percent weirdness. Why was he pushing his luck and talking to that thing? And why was Jezebel even listening to him?

And yet there they were.

This was typical Eliot: making well-intentioned but stupid friendly overtures. Probably still thought she was related to Julie Marks. He’d be lucky if the Infernal didn’t kill him. But what could Jezebel do to him here out in the open? Challenge him to a duel? Even her brother wasn’t foolish enough to accept an invitation to fight an Infernal.

The worst that might happen is a wounding of her brother’s ego.

But they were still just talking. It felt like a private moment between them, though. . almost intimate.

Fiona’s face heated. “I guess it’s him,” she told Amanda. “Whatever.”

She turned away and marched toward the gate.

“I thought you wanted to talk about gym. .,” Amanda said, running after her.

“Sure-with Robert or Mitch, even Sarah or Jeremy. But I can talk to Eliot anytime. And I’m not going to waste time with Jezebel. Not with a million things to read.”

They crossed the quad, and the sparkling quartz flagstones dazzled her. Fiona veered by the fountain of Poseidon and let the spray cool her face.

“You never said why you’re here,” Amanda said. “You and Eliot, your Uncle Henry. . you’re not part of any of the magical families we’re studying.” She continued with difficulty, forcing the words out: “But you’re not normal, either, are you?”

Fiona glanced at the fountain and the marble face of the dead god who had the same high forehead as her mother and her. “Not exactly,” she told Amanda. “It’s complicated.”

“So what isn’t?” Amanda said, and retreated behind her disheveled hair.

Maybe it was time to open up-not break any League rules, of course, but just share stories about families. It’d be a breath of fresh air to talk to someone other than her brother.

“Let’s grab something to drink at the café,” Fiona said. “We can talk.”

Amanda tilted her head up. “Really?”

“Sure. Iced Thai coffees. My treat.”

Eliot could waste his time with the Infernal all day if he wanted to-and he could figure out the reading assignment on his own, too.

Fiona turned. She felt a cold sensation at her back, like the shadows behind them had somehow darkened. She resisted the urge to look, however, and mounted the steps, making her away along the path to the front gate.

Mr. Harlan Dells stood there. The large man wore a suit that matched his blond beard and hair. He smiled at her and Amanda.

“Miss Post. . Miss Lane, I hope you girls are doing well with your studies. Not letting too many boys distract you?”

Amanda convulsed with what might have been a silent giggle.

Fiona felt like he’d stabbed her in the heart, and her lifeblood pumped out there in front of the iron gates, spattering over the cobblestones. She thought about Robert. Deep inside, she wanted to be with him. . but not if it got him into trouble. . or killed.

“No,” she told him, “no boys. Just books.”

He looked into her eyes and said, “That is for the best. Trust me.”

“Yes, sir.”

She took a little step toward the gate, but Mr. Dells didn’t open it.

“One more thing, Miss Post.” His voice deepened. Fiona sensed a weight settle about his person like he could’ve halted her and Amanda and an entire army with one upraised hand. “Please tell your family not to block my driveway again. There is a fire code, and I will have them towed.”

Fiona glanced around his massive bulk.

A sleek black ultra-modern Mercedes limousine sat in the alleyway. It looked like one of Uncle Henry’s.

“Pass along my deepest and warmest regards to your relation,” Mr. Dells told her.

“Sure,” Fiona said.

He flicked a switch and the gate rolled back.

Fiona ran to the limo.

The driver’s door opened and a man in a black jacket and cap climbed out. It was the same uniform Robert had worn when he’d been Uncle Henry’s Driver. But this man wasn’t Robert. He was old and wrinkled. He bowed to Fiona and opened the back door for her.

“Thank you,” she said. She leaned into the back section. “Uncle Hen-”

Inside, Fiona saw slender toes slipped from a high-heel sandal, attached to a shapely tanned calf, and a leg and a black skirt. A smile and dimples flashed from the shadows, and a tousle of honey blond hair shook free. A woman grinned at her.

“Aunt Dallas?”

“I hope you weren’t expecting someone else,” Dallas said. “I have a surprise for you this afternoon.” She tilted her head and looked out the window. “And your friend, too. If you’re game.”

Eliot watched Jezebel tromp down the corridor. The students who had gathered to watch them fight moved on as well.

He had to find Fiona and tell her everything. They were smarter together. They could figure out what Jezebel, Infernal protégée, once Julie Marks, was doing here at Paxington.

He backtracked to the lecture hall and spotted familiar faces from class, but no Fiona. Maybe she had gone to the library. He turned and marched toward the Hall of Wisdom.

He thought about calling her, but remembered the “no cell phone” rule in the library. The staff confiscated them if they rang, and he wasn’t sure Fiona would have turned hers off.

There were so many little things like their phones they still had to get used to. . let alone the big things.

Like Jezebel being Julie.

Eliot’s instincts about her had been right all along. But she wasn’t really Julie anymore. She was an Infernal. Dangerous.

But was all of the Julie he’d known gone? There was hope, wasn’t there, that there was still something between them?

Or was he just an extreme loser, and that was nothing but wishful thinking?

Eliot sat on a bench. He set his roiling emotions aside-he’d try to sort through the facts.

First, Jezebel was an Infernal. That’s how she’d announced herself at Paxington, and he believed Miss Westin wouldn’t let her lie about something like that.

Second, she admitted she’d been Julie Marks.

Third, she had told him the truth. . except when she told him she wished she’d never met him.

Eliot knew it was a lie. How he knew exactly, he wasn’t sure. But from her reaction when he’d accused her, he was certain.

All this left him with one solid speculation: The Infernal families were involved again in his and Fiona’s lives. They were using Jezebel. . or Julie as a piece in some game whose rules he didn’t know.

And he knew this game could be deadly. Julie had been punished for her failure with him: killed again, dragged to Hell. . and tortured.

Eliot’s mouth went dry.

His first priority had to be to learn something about the Infernals’ game. Then he’d move a few pieces of his own. Defensive moves. And maybe, just maybe, learn how to capture Julie and bring her over to his side of the board.

He got up and strode to the library to find Fiona.

A few students had gathered to chat by the Little Faun Pool, where several bronze statues of dancing fauns and satyrs, giant mushrooms and gigantic flowers were artfully placed about a reflection pool filed with lotus and koi.

Eliot recognized students from Team Wolf there. They’d won their first match in gym in six minutes four seconds, and inflicted three broken limbs on the other team to do so.

He hoped Team Scarab got their act together before they faced them.

Eliot veered away, not wanting any more confrontation today, and angled toward the House of Wisdom.

Within the library’s twin sandstone pyramids and under its glittering golden dome, Eliot and Fiona had gotten lost twice so far this year in the stacks. Someone should have handed out maps. There were hundreds of thousands of medieval books; illuminated manuscripts; ancient Roman, Greek, Chinese, and Egyptian scrolls; and first-edition Shakespeare folios with stories Eliot had never even seen cataloged.

They’d found weirder things, too: thin volumes that wavered as if they were mirages (he didn’t touch those), one room with marble busts whose eyes definitely followed him, and plenty of off-limits sections. Eliot wondered if there was a section of Infernal books.

Eliot spotted Robert Farmington on the long sweep of library stairs. He spoke to a girl (not Fiona) who had her back to Eliot.

He flashed Eliot a look of recognition and a warning to not interrupt.

Eliot nodded, understanding as he saw the girl’s hair: a tangerine color that could belong only to Sarah Covington.

Eliot didn’t want to cross paths with her. She’d been nothing but mean to him. He wondered how she had any friends at all-and yet, maybe being cruel was the secret to popularity at Paxington, because Sarah had dozens of admirers who surrounded her, smiled at her jokes, and hung on her every word.

Eliot could pass Immortal heroic trials and survive Infernal plots, but he flunked the basics of how to get along with people.

Robert and Sarah finished their conversation. She laughed and waved good-bye, and wandered up to the library without turning to acknowledge Eliot.

Robert trotted over to him.

“Hey,” Eliot said.

“What happened to you?” Robert asked. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“It’s complicated.” Eliot glanced up the stairs at Sarah Covington. She joined with a group of girls, and laughing, they entered the library. “Why were you talking to her? She’s not. . very nice.”

Robert wriggled uncomfortably inside his Paxington jacket. “You’d be surprised. She acts one way in public. I think it has to do with her family-so prestigious, they’re not supposed to bother with lesser people like me. Get her alone, though, and she’s nice enough.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Eliot replied. “You think Jeremy’s like that?”

“No way. That guy is pure grade-A jerk.”

“Agreed,” Eliot said. “Have you seen Fiona?”

“No. .” Robert looked around, uneasy, and Eliot knew there was something wrong between those two.

Apparently even Robert, who had been all over the world, and probably had had a dozen girlfriends, still had problems with girls. Somehow, it was reassuring.

“You headed out?” Robert nodded toward the front gate. “I’ve got to go. Too many people around for me to think.”

Eliot decided he could talk to Fiona tonight about Jezebel. Finding Robert in a talkative mood was a rare thing, and he wouldn’t waste the opportunity.

“Sure,” Eliot said. They walked together down the steps. “Maybe you can help me out. You ever been with a girl you thought hated you. . but she really liked you?”

Robert laughed. “All the time.” He sobered. “Very recently, in fact-”

“You mean Fiona. She’s just worried about how the League would react if, you know, they found out about you.”

“I figured that out,” Robert said. “Figured, too, that there might no way for me to be with her. . and keep my skin in one piece. It sucks.”

Eliot felt weird talking about his sister this way. Romance and boys and Fiona weren’t supposed to go together.

Maybe everyone had trouble when it came to intimate relations. Heck, if supercool Robert got his heart stomped. . what chance did Eliot have?

They walked in silence, crossed the quad, and approached the main gate.

“So,” Eliot started again, “what do you do if you think you found the one special girl?”

Robert halted and looked him, one eyebrow arched. “We’re not talking about Fiona anymore, are we?” He smiled-but that vanished quickly when he saw the seriousness on Eliot’s face.

“Not Fiona,” Eliot admitted.

Robert started walking again, his hand cupped to his chin. “I’ve found lots of girls I’ve liked, and a few who have even liked me back. Nothing has to be complicated about it.”

Eliot wanted to believe that, but given his recent experience with girls-all one of them-he wasn’t sure.

“But,” Robert continued, “the problem is, I’ve never figured out how to get the ‘one special’ girl. That always ends up complicated.” He sighed. “But it’s the complicated ones who get you going, huh? The ones that keep you up at night thinking about them. Maybe that’s the way it supposed to be, I don’t know.”

Mr. Harlan Dells stood by the gatehouse. “Gentlemen,” he said, and flicked the switch that made the gate roll back.

As they walked through, Mr. Dells remarked to no one in particular, “There are some problems never meant to be solved: the philosophical struggle between good and evil, the many-body problem in classical mechanics. . and women.”

He shut the gate behind them, leaving them to ponder this.

“Need a ride?” Robert looked at Eliot, decided something, and then added, “I’m headed to my place. Why don’t you come with me? We could burn a few hours on video games or something.”

Eliot started to say no; he had enough homework to drown in.

But who was he fooling? His brain couldn’t focus on mythologies and ancient families no matter how hard he tried. Not with Jezebel rattling about inside his head.

“Sure,” Eliot said.

Robert nodded down the alley in front of Xybek’s Jewelers, where he’d parked his motorcycle. The double-twined exhausts of his bike were mirrored chrome. The rest of the machine was a curve of black steel, looking like it was ready to pounce on prey.

Robert opened a saddlebag and pulled out a spare helmet for Eliot.

Eliot wormed the helmet on, which mashed his ears, then got on to the Harley.

Robert kicked over the motor and the bike thundered to life.

Everyone in the alley looked their way, startled-then annoyed at the ruckus.

Robert revved the engine in defiance and peeled out.

They rocketed out of the alley and onto the street-so fast that the air in Eliot’s chest got squeezed out.

At the intersection Robert turned on a red light without pause, leaning so low Eliot thought they were going to scrape asphalt.

It was terrifying. And fun.

Up a hill they raced-airborne for two wild heartbeats. . in which Eliot believed he’d left his internal organs behind-then they were back on the ground, tearing down the street.

Before Eliot could get used to the neck-snapping acceleration, however, Robert slowed and turned into a driveway. Robert reached into his jacket, clicked a garage door opener, and the rolltop door before them squealed up, revealing a freight elevator.

Robert drove in, turned the bike around, and killed the engine.

“Hit six,” Robert told Eliot.

Eliot removed his helmet (almost scraping off his ears) and tapped the top button.

They rode up in that awkward elevator silence; then the car wrenched to a halt and the safety door rolled up.

Robert pushed his bike into a corner of his loft, which was combination parking stall, motorcycle lift, and machine shop. A thousand chrome tools glistened on racks.

In the center of the apartment was an entertainment center bolted to the brick wall. It held the biggest television Eliot had ever seen, music equipment he didn’t have a clue about, and a dozen speakers-from tiny cubes to floor-to-ceiling towers.

The kitchen beyond was all stainless steel and littered with empty energy-drink cans, chips bags, and pizza boxes.

One wall had three wide windows that overlooked rolling hills, the Transamerica Pyramid, and sailboats in the distance.

The place was open, and light, and there wasn’t a bookshelf in sight.

Eliot stepped off the elevator-an instant before the safety door slammed shut and the car simultaneously lowered.

“Grab a bean bag,” Robert said, kicking one toward him, and moved to the television. “I got all the latest, greatest games. Martial arts stuff, first-person shooters-whatever floats your boat.”

Something else caught Eliot’s notice, though. Tucked in the far corner were punching and speed bags. The floor was padded. There was a pole with wood arms and legs jutting out from its center. On the wall was a rack of free weights. . along with swords, clubs, knives, and shuriken.

“You work out?” Eliot asked.

“A little,” Robert replied.

Eliot felt drawn to the equipment. His blood raced. His hands clenched into fists, and it felt good.

“And you’re training to. . fight?”

Robert was silent a moment then carefully said, “Paxington’s a dangerous place.”

Why hadn’t Eliot figured this out before? He didn’t have to be the smallest, weakest, dorkiest kid. Why not study how to move and fight just like he studied ancient Roman history? Could boxing be any harder than trigonometry?

Eliot turned to Robert. “Forget the games. Can you show me? I mean how to make myself stronger. How to fight?”

The cautious look on Robert’s face broke into a grin. “I’d love to.”

Eliot grinned back. He had a feeling he was going to leave here bruised and battered tonight-and he very much looked forward to it.

Paris. That’s where they were going.

Fiona had always wanted to see the City of Lights. She’d dreamed she would go one day as a college student, alone in a city filled with art and style and wonderful romance.

But not with her aunt as chaperone.

And definitely not with Amanda Lane tagging along.

They rocketed through forest and over roads barely visible on tundra plains, past oil-drilling derricks, and then back again into Sitka spruces. . only the stars wheeled overhead instead of the sun.

“This is one of Uncle Henry’s limousines, isn’t it?” Fiona asked Dallas.

No other car could break a half dozen laws of physics, drive faster than the speed of sound while being whisper quiet, and get you from one side of the world to the other in a few hours.

Dallas shrugged. “He lent it to me,” she said. “Henry’s a darling and does whatever I ask.”

Fiona imagined that no man could refuse her aunt Dallas anything. She had a perfect geometry of dimples, cheekbones, and mouth-which all animated into a dancing smile that made you want to smile along with her.

Everyone seemed to like her. . which, ironically, made Fiona suspicious.

Amanda had her face plastered to the window, gawking at the blurry scenery.

They flashed by billboards covered with the backward s of Cyrillic writing. They had to be in Russia.

“How long now?” Amanda whispered.

“Just a few minutes.” Dallas poured them both more iced tea from a silver thermos.

Earlier, when Fiona had protested that she needed to study, Dallas told her that she was right: She really didn’t need a shopping trip to Paris. She said that Fiona looked almost perfect in her Paxington uniform, and that she was nearly the flower of womanhood.

Fiona got the message.

Almost. Nearly. Two lousy adverbs that communicated loud and clear that she still was awkward and nerdy, and likely a total embarrassment to the League of Immortals.

So here she was, getting a stupid fashion makeover on a school night.

She looked over at Amanda to watch her expression at their magical journey. But she wasn’t blown away like when Fiona and Eliot had first ridden in one of Henry’s cars.

Had she driven with Uncle Henry before? Maybe when he took her home after they’d rescued her? What did Amanda’s parents think of her going to Paxington? They were probably normal people. So why did they let her go to a dangerous school full of magic and Immortals?

“So where do you live?” Fiona asked Amanda.

Amanda turned from the window and looked at the floor. She paled and twisted her hands. “In the dorms on campus,” she murmured. “It’s easier that way. For everyone.”

“We’re there,” Dallas said, and her eyes sparkled. “Driver, slow down. I want them to see absolutely everything.”

Smears of head-and taillights resolved into traffic. The limousine turned onto the Boulevard Périphérique. Strings of lights draped over manicured trees and the classic architecture of every building. Statues glowed as if dipped in silver.

They angled onto Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Fiona’s breath caught as she saw the towering Arc de Triomphe, gleaming a rosy gold in a column of illumination.

Dallas sighed. “There’s no time to see it all. And I think your mother would kill me if I got you home too late. A pity.” To the Driver she said, “Take us to Art d’air.”[25]

The car turned onto smaller and smaller streets. Only the occasional lamppost punctuated the darkness now as they twisted onto byways so narrow that Fiona feared they’d scrape the walls. . although the Driver managed to squeak through somehow.

The buildings here weren’t classic architecture or decorated with gold lights; they were crumbling brick and leaning against one another as if too tired to stand by themselves.

The limo halted before a storefront, its windows partially boarded. A spot of light cast from a wrought-iron lamppost revealed a sign over the doorway with curling vapors rising about a cavorting nymph.

“We’re here!” Dallas said gleefully.

She started to get out.

“I thought we were going shopping,” Fiona said.

“My dear, I could have taken you to Gucci or Prada, but this is where those designers come to steal their best ideas. I wouldn’t dream of giving you more secondhand things to wear.”

She meant Cecilia’s clothes: hand-stitched with love but also with an amazing lack of skill. . things she had found at deep-discount stores and then altered to fit. . or not fit, as the case might be.

The older Driver held out a hand and helped Dallas out, then Fiona, and Amanda.

It smelled like someone had urinated on the nearby wall.

Down the street, a group of boys eyed them. There were seven of them. They looked dangerous and hungry. They spoke to one another, and one called out to them-French so gutturally accented and drunkenly slurred that Fiona couldn’t decipher a word.

Dallas shouted back-the same primitive dialect-and then made a rude gesture.

The boys all laughed at the one who had yelled at her.

“They won’t bother us,” Dallas said, and entered the store.

Her Driver remained with the car and polished the side mirror.

Fiona glanced one last time at the gang-she didn’t like their looks-and then hurried Amanda in front of her into the shop.

Inside were mirrors: silver dusted and gold variegated, lit with soft lighting and angled so Fiona couldn’t help but look at a dozen copies of herself and Amanda. Aunt Dallas smiled at herself and preened.

Between the mirrors hung red curtains and velvet wallpaper. There were racks of clothes as far back as Fiona could see. Everything emitted a faint flowery perfume.

A model runway ran down the length of the store. Floor lights flickered on, and an old woman hobbled down the raised platform. She was impeccably dressed in black slacks and shirt and high heels that barely brought her up to Fiona’s chin.

“We’re closed,” she croaked in a thickly accented voice and shooed them away. “Forever closed! Go away.”

Her scowl dropped as she saw Aunt Dallas. “Oh, it’s you, Lady. A thousand apologies. Come in, come in.” She smiled and bowed. “Can I have coffee or tea or perhaps some Kirschwasser brought out for you?”

“Nothing for me, Madame Cobweb. We are working on my niece tonight.” She nodded at Fiona. “And her charming friend, Miss Lane.”

The old woman’s eyes grew wide. “The Fiona Post? Yes. . I see the resemblance. To the mother as well. Stunning. Grace and beauty just now budding.” She fumbled the glasses on a silver chain about her neck and donned them, taking a more careful, much longer look.

Fiona felt like she’d been set under a microscope and every pimple and too-large pore exposed.

“Yeeees. Exquisite material. Both of them. But Paxington girls? Those uniforms-something must be done.” Madame Cobweb said Paxington like it was a rare tropical disease. Like she and Amanda needed to be quarantined.

“Maybe this wasn’t a great idea,” Amanda whispered, and took a step back. “I’ll just wait in the car. . ”

“We shall hear none of that,” the old woman said. “Beautiful girls must wear beautiful things. Come, I measure you.”

Dallas wrapped her arms around Amanda and Fiona and drew them along to Madame Cobweb. “It won’t hurt,” she said. “Much. Probably.”

Madame Cobweb took out a tape measure and zipped it across Fiona’s shoulders and down her back, making tut-tut noises. “They should not have been let out in these rags.” She turned her about and measured her chest-first above, then directly over, and then she measured under as well. “Needs lifting and definition,” she said.

Fiona’s face burned, but she endured the handling rather than letting any of them see how self-conscious she was.

“You know how that horrid Miss Westin is with her tweed and slavish devotion to Victorian styles,” Dallas said, rolling her eyes. “We’re lucky they’re not in whalebone corsets.”

Madame Cobweb measured Amanda, who let her move and pose her like a doll.

She then examined the numbers on her notepad. “I have many things in their sizes. My latest creations.”

“Very well,” Dallas said, and tiny frown appeared on her lips. “But you will make a few things, just for them, no?”

“But of course, M’lady. Originals. Only the best.” Madame Cobweb moved to the back of the shop. “One moment, please.”

Fiona turned. “Aunt Dallas, this is great. Really. But we’re wearing uniforms all day. When are we going to need anything else?” She made a little frustrated motion with her hands.

“And their wretched uniforms!” Dallas shouted back to the old woman. “They will need three new ones that actually fit.”

“Oui, mademoiselle,” Madame Cobweb called back.

Dallas turned her attention back to Fiona. “There are always occasions to dress up, darling. Dances and parties. I’ll see to that.”

“Maybe we should just try on a few things,” Amanda whispered. “It could be fun.” She brushed her hair to one side.

Dallas stepped closer. “Let me, please.” She grabbed a clip off a nearby rack of rhinestone encrusted hairpins and tucked Amanda’s hair back and fussed over it. She did the other side of her head then and turned her back to face Fiona. Amanda’s hair was finally out of her face, artfully swept up, and highlighted with tiny sparks.

“Why, Miss Lane,” Dallas said. “You are lovely. The world can be such a dreary place; you should help light it.”

Amanda blushed so hard, Fiona felt the heat on her skin three paces away.

Before Fiona could figure out how that was possible, there was a great crash outside.

She went to the window and glanced between the boards.

That gang of boys threw rocks at a tiny car that sputtered by on the street. They shouted after it, and then all laughed and took swigs from bottles wrapped in paper bags. What a bunch of creeps!

Amanda, however, was too busy admiring her new hair to even notice.

Madame Cobweb returned then, wheeling a rack loaded with dresses and slacks, gossamer blouses, and carrying a separate tray of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

“Pour les belles jeunes dames. Miss Post”-she gestured to the right side of the rack-“and Miss Lane”-she waved to the left side. “Please, help yourselves. The dressing rooms are this way.”

Fiona and Amanda exchanged a look and then shrugged, grabbed an armload of clothes each, and stepped into the dressing rooms.

If Fiona tried on a few things to appease Dallas, then maybe they could find a moment to have a serious talk with her aunt about the League and what it meant to be a goddess. . surely more than fancy clothes.

She got out of her uniform and wriggled into a gown of gray silk that flared about her ankles.

A perfect fit.

Fiona had never had clothes like this-no puckering, not too long or too short, no binding in all the wrong places. It felt better than her own skin.

She added a string of jade beads and turned to the full-length mirror. Her breath hiccupped in her throat. She looked great. Like a model.

Sure, she was still stuck with her unmanageable hair and her face. . but that almost didn’t matter with this dress. The silver made her skin look luminous.

She wanted it. And she wanted to wear clothes like this all the time.

She twirled, and smiled, and then stopped.

So why did it also feel so weird? So wasteful?

“This is great,” Amanda whispered from the adjacent changing room.

“Let me see.”

They both stepped out. Fiona was dumbstruck.

Amanda wore spike red heels and a red skirt that fell to her knees and clung about her slender waist, a white silk blouse, raw rubies that flashed against her skin, and a smart little jacket to match. She had auburn highlights in her hair that Fiona had never noticed before. When she smiled, she looked like a princess or a model on the cover of a magazine. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she had something that had eluded Fiona.

“Wonderful!” Dallas clapped her hands. She hugged them both. “Try something else.”

There was a scratch at Fiona’s wrist: the price tag.

She looked and gasped. Dollar or euros, it wouldn’t matter, this one dress cost more than she made working all last summer at Ringo’s Pizza Palace.

She had the credit card Audrey had given her. That was supposed to be for school supplies and emergencies. Did this qualify as school supplies? Hadn’t Aunt Dallas said there might be school dances? Maybe her clothes were a justifiable fashion emergency?

No. It’d be breaking a rule.

“I’ll just change back,” she murmured, so softly that she thought only she heard.

“Oh no no no,” Dallas said. “Don’t worry about price.” She waved her hand toward Madame Cobweb. “Put it on my account.”

“Oui, mademoiselle. Very generous.”

Amanda trembled with joy and took Dallas’s hands. She looked like she was going to cry.

“Thanks, Aunt Dallas,” Fiona replied. “I don’t know what to say. . ”

She really didn’t know what to say. She was grateful, more than she could express, and she did want the clothes-all of them-but wanting them felt a little like those truffles that she had gotten this summer-delicious and sweet. . and poisoned. It was too much, too perfect.

Audrey’s often-repeated mantra came to her: Too-generous presents come with strings.

Outside the store came muted shouts.

Fiona moved to the window as Dallas and Amanda fell on the rack of clothes, riffling for a new selection.

Those boys again-only this time, their attentions were focused on an old woman carrying two bags of groceries.

They pushed her down. One boy grabbed her bag and scattered vegetables across the sidewalk, stomping on tomatoes, laughing.

Fiona was horrified.

Dallas came to Fiona’s side.

“We have to do something,” Fiona told her.

“Why?” Dallas said. “I told you those boys wouldn’t bother us.”

“But that old woman. .”

“She will be fine,” Dallas reassured her, and gently tugged on her arm. “It’s just a few tomatoes.”

Fiona pulled away.

Her anger kindled. It had been banked and ready to be blown into a full raging inferno. . and this time Fiona welcomed it.

She was mad.

She’d been mad for a while, and it was time she admitted it. She was mad that Team Scarab had lost their first match. Mad at her brother for always getting into trouble. Mad at Amanda for being sad, pathetic, and looking better than her in her dress. And most of all mad at Aunt Dallas for wasting her time and not doing anything to help that old woman.

“Is this what the League does?” Fiona whispered. “Let people get hurt. . while they shop?”

Dallas gave her a look as if to say she should grow up. “My sweet, the ‘people’ always get hurt, and they never appreciate help. There is nothing that can be done for them.”

“Yes, there is.”

Fiona stalked out of the shop.

Only distantly did she realize she must look ridiculous in this wispy little dress and in her bare feet. The cool night air whipped about her. She crunched over broken glass, and it didn’t hurt.

The boys hadn’t seen her-they still taunted the old woman while she wept on the ground.

“Hey!” Fiona yelled.

Fiona shoved the limo out of her way. It had to weigh two tons, but it felt like cardboard.

The boys turned, shocked to see her push aside a car, more shocked to see the look of pure hatred in her eyes.

“You want to fight a woman? Try me.”

In her hand, she clutched the slightly rusted chain Louis had given her. One moment, it had been on her wrist, an ordinary bracelet; the next, a real chain-six feet long and heavy. It scraped and sparked along the ground, every link twisted to lie flat, angled to a fine sharpened edge-the entire length feeling like an extension of her arm.

She hadn’t recalled unclasping the thing, but there it was. It felt like it had always been there, too: a part of her.

Fiona whipped the chain around her once-and then lashed it toward the lamppost.

It wrapped around the sculpted wrought iron.

She glared at the boys, who, astonished and openmouthed and frozen, could only stare back.

She imagined her chain wrapped about their necks-and then yanked.

The metal cleanly severed.

The light went dark. The lamppost twisted and fell into the street with a deafening wrench.

The gang of boys stood for a heartbeat. . then ran-almost knocking each other over to get away from her.

Fiona smiled. That had felt good. Not just saving the old woman from further indignity, but the primeval urge to cut something, too. To tear and rip and rend; she felt it surge and sing through her blood. She wanted more.

The old woman got shakily to her feet. Her eyes were wide and dark, like some deer about to be eaten, as she stared at Fiona. . like she was looking into the face of Death.

She backed away, then turned and ran, crossing herself, whimpering. . leaving her groceries scattered on the street.

Aunt Dallas, Madame Cobweb, and Amanda stood behind Fiona in the doorway of the shop.

“That was the most amazingly cool thing I’ve ever seen!” Amanda cried, clapping her hands.

“That’s what you could have done,” Fiona told Dallas.

Dallas sighed and shook her head, but nonetheless looked the tiniest bit impressed. “Just like your mother,” she whispered.

Fiona stood taller. Dallas’s words-obviously not a compliment-for some reason made Fiona feel better than any new clothes ever could.