All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [126]
SECTION
IV
FRESHMAN MIDTERMS
35
FATHER–DAUGHTER CHAT
Fiona walked alone down the street. She loved the blinking Christmas lights. In the early morning fog, they glowed like the ghosts of fireflies. There were no such lights on their house. That was covered by her mother’s Rule 52.
RULE 52: No Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine’s Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other religious or mass-market orchestrated celebrations that include the rituals of unnecessary gift-giving and/or decorations.
That’s what she and Eliot called the “no holiday” rule. They’d never had a Christmas tree or been on an Easter egg hunt, and they were forbidden to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day.
Her mother didn’t even like those holidays mentioned. What history was there between the League and the world’s religions to make Audrey dislike them so?
Fiona could pretty much guess what the Catholic Church would think of her father. . . .
Fiona frowned and focused her thoughts on a problem within her control—like why being popular was not what she had expected.
She was glad to be walking to school by herself this morning. As soon as she got to Paxington, all the students would want to small talk their way around what they really wanted to know: What was it like to be in the League? Did she know this god or that goddess?
Fiona had quickly learned she could use the League’s rules of secrecy to hide behind. She really didn’t know anything about the League. Nor did she know who most of its members were, with their ever-shifting aliases. She hadn’t even known her who mother truly was until a few months ago.
Still, it was nice that everyone wanted to get to know her.
Fiona had always dreamed of that kind of attention. Did it matter that it was only because of her League connections?
She knew the answer and shuffled her feet on the sidewalk.
Those people didn’t want to get to know her, share her problems or her feelings; they just wanted to be friends with a “goddess.” They just wanted to be friends with her fame.
Complicating this fame—and she was still mad at Jezebel for outing her without asking—was that now Fiona hardly saw the people she considered her real friends, like Mitch and Amanda.
And then there was Eliot.
He’d done his best to hide on campus. And lately, she didn’t even see him at home. He’d come home late from Robert’s, go straight to his room to read or practice with Lady Dawn (now with his door shut and locked). He spoke only in monosyllables . . . if at all.
Eliot hadn’t even responded when she called him a Fuligo septica.34
This morning she’d wanted to talk to Eliot, waited for him to drag himself to the breakfast table, only to find that he’d already left the house.
Eliot getting up early had to be a sign of impending disaster. The way the universe was supposed to work was that he was always late for everything.
Fiona wondered if Eliot’s evasiveness had something to do with Jezebel.
In the last few weeks, the Infernal had been to school only two or three times—and then, only to turn in her homework before she vanished again. When Jeremy asked, she had told him to mind his own business, and that it was an “internal Infernal affair.”
Fiona almost stumbled into a man. She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t seen him.
Blushing, she looked up to apologize—and stopped.
“You!” she said.
Louis wore a soft camel-hair coat, which on this foggy morning made his outline a blur. He stood tall and confident. His long dark hair was streaked with sliver. He had a smile that would have disarmed her . . . had she not known him.
“Me.” Her father held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
Fiona’s blush of embarrassment