All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [117]
Eliot sat next to Fiona in the dark classroom, head propped lazily in his hands. He wasn’t taking notes. He wasn’t even paying attention.
Fiona didn’t understand him. Just last week, he’d been fascinated with stupid Hell.
Ever since their last match, he’d been moping around. He’d won the match for Team Scarab! What more did he want?
Okay, so that match hadn’t been all roses and sunshine. Gym was tough. Fiona was horrified at the carnage and mayhem. They’d all gotten cut and bruised. Sarah had a few busted ribs. Donald van Wyck and two other Team Wolf members had torn kneecaps and dislocations.
But Team Scarab’s record was now one win, one loss—50 percent, which placed them far from the bottom of the freshman team ranks. A few teams had two losses and might not graduate to their second year.
At least she wouldn’t have to worry about that . . . for a while.
Just as important to Fiona, her plan had worked. She shouldn’t feel good about it; it was really Eliot and a lot of luck that got them the win, but she couldn’t help it. Her teammates had followed her strategy. Maybe she could lead them.
“Today I end with a question,” Miss Westin said. “One that we may never find an adequate answer for, but is nonetheless worth pondering.” She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. “If so dangerous, why travel the Middle Realms at all? Why have so many tried and failed, so many tried and died, but we are all still drawn to these most exotic of places? Why . . . when it is not only life and limb in peril, but one’s very soul?”
Fiona thought the answer was obvious.
What was the point of any travel? The thrill of finding someplace no one had ever been before. You could learn new things and meet new people. Maybe someone could start some trade between realms.
But that remark about peril to one’s soul bothered Fiona.
What if she had never escaped the Valley of the New Year? Would she have gone crazy with its never-quite-done New Year’s Party? Forever stuck in Purgatory with Jeremy Covington? Ugh. She shuddered.
And how did this all fit with Mr. Welmann’s claim that even the dead didn’t stay in those places forever? Where did they all go?
“I’ll expect an essay on this,” Miss Westin told them. “Two thousand words by Friday. You are dismissed.”
The gaslights in the room warmed and the students filed out. Fiona packed up her notes.
Eliot grabbed his books and bolted out like he’d been a caged animal.
“Hey, wait!” she called after him, but he ignored her and was out the door.
Fiona finished packing and pushed her way outside.
She didn’t see Eliot . . . but Fiona did see Amanda, Sarah, and Jezebel standing together by the Picasso Arch.
Sarah beckoned her over.
Fiona approached, her eyes on Jezebel. The Infernal had fallen three stories off the jungle gym and walked away without a scratch . . . well, other than a torn uniform and deep lacerations on her shoulder (and those she claimed had been from her clan’s war in Hell).
Was being invulnerable to cuts and broken bones an Infernal thing? Fiona might have inherited some of that from her father—her blood pounded and pulsed as she remembered how she had been tossed twenty feet through the air by Beelzebub, hit a car headfirst, and had been able to shrug off her injuries.
She calmed herself. She didn’t like being able to get angry so easily. It felt powerful, but she gave up too much control.
“What’s going on?” Fiona asked.
“We need your opinion, my dear,” Sarah said with a mischievous grin. “Perhaps you can settle a difference of opinion.”
Fiona drifted closer. What dire circumstance could gather together these three who had absolutely nothing in common? It had to be trouble.
“We were just trying to figure out,” Amanda whispered, and fidgeted as if saying this was painful, “which boy on our team is the cutest.”
Fiona crinkled her nose.
They had to be kidding. Here they were, learning about dozens of new worlds, every kind of magic known, and the secret history that had shaped the entire modern