All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [131]
Where was Eliot?
She scanned the courtyard.
Team Wolf was in the far corner, and they all looked away when she glanced at them. Fiona was sure Donald Van Wyck was plotting something.
She moved her eyes away, searching for her brother. Eliot didn’t exactly pop out of a crowd, but she should have seen him by now. He’d skipped breakfast again this morning and left early. Was it possible he’d chickened out and wasn’t coming?
“Hey,” Eliot whispered.
He hadn’t sneaked up on her; Fiona just hadn’t seen her brother and had almost walked right over him. She didn’t jump, but for a split second she was speechless, thinking she’d seen his ghost.
Eliot stood in the shadows. Something was darker about him, and not just the ambient light.
“Where were you?” she whispered. “I was worried.”
Eliot shrugged. He glanced at her silver rose pin and frowned.
She wanted to say so much. About needing to stick together because they were stronger. How when she studied alone, it was like she had lost half her brain . . . well, maybe a quarter. How she had actually missed her brother these last few weeks—and what was he thinking always wandering off on his own?
But she could never say any of those things in public without dying of humiliation.
Why couldn’t Eliot say something? Why was it always she who had to do the talking? After all they’d been through together, he should just know how she felt.
“Let’s stick together today,” he whispered. “I have a weird feeling about this test.”
Fiona exhaled, relieved that no one had to admit to any stupid emotions—now of all times.
“Good idea,” she said. “I’ve got a funny feeling, too.”
Behind them, the archway clicked and slowly swung outward. Behind it was a doorway that so perfectly mimicked the arch in the painting, Fiona had to blink twice to make sure it had depth and was real.
Miss Westin emerged and glanced over Eliot and Fiona. “The Post twins,” she remarked. “What a pleasant surprise to find you on time for this exam.”
Fiona shivered. Beyond the now-open secret door was a passage of rough, wet granite that spiraled underground.
Miss Westin cleared her throat. “Your attention, students.”
Those in the courtyard who hadn’t noticed Miss Westin turned at the sound of her commanding voice and instantly stopped talking.
“Midterms are one third of your total grade,” she continued, “and there will be no makeups.”
Fiona swallowed and wondered what happened if you were sick today.
“There are three rules for today’s tests,” Miss Westin said. “First, your performance will be individually graded and mapped to a so-called bell curve as follows: For every one hundred students, there will be ten As, fifteen Bs, and fifty Cs.” As she said “C,” she looked as if she had just tasted one of Great-grandmother Cecilia’s home-cooked spinach casserole specialties.
“And, of course, the last twenty-five will be Ds and Fs.”
At this, the respectful silence of the gathered students crystallized into palpable terror.
And something else . . . everyone glanced suspiciously at one another.
The camaraderie that Fiona had felt a moment ago for her fellow students—the fact that they had helped one another and studied side by side for weeks—all that vanished.
It was everyone for themselves.
No, actually, it was worse than that: It was everyone against everyone. Twenty-five of them were going to fail this test, largely determined by how the best students performed, because of that bell curve.
It was bloody unfair . . . but there was no way Fiona was going to be one of those failing twenty-five.
As if a magnetic force had been turned on, the crowd of students shuffled apart from one another.
Fiona fought that feeling, though. She took a step closer to her brother.
“Second,” Miss Westin said, “students shall assemble as I call their teams before the midterm entrance.” She gestured to the now-open Picasso Arch. “This, however, is only to prevent bottlenecks during the examination.”
Fiona understood what Miss Westin said, but not