All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [21]
Fiona thought this was going well, but she wished she had a watch.
She looked around but spotted no clock. She did see, however, that Miss Westin walked the aisles, and the four older student proctors watched everyone with hawklike intensity.
Fiona noticed that Eliot (now wearing his spectacles) was ahead on his test, scribbling away on some essay.
She was about to get back to her test when she saw a girl three rows over staring at her. The girl had acne and long brown hair that fell into her face. Fiona knew her . . . but couldn’t quite recall from where or when.
She turned back to her test; Fiona didn’t want anyone to think she was cheating.
She focused on the next section: English.
Fiona knew all the great authors, their themes, styles, and techniques. In her comparative essay, she quoted Shakespeare and Shelley and Shaw from memory. She paused to admire her dramatic cursive handwriting before she flipped to the next section.
All her confidence drained as she read the heading: Magic—Theory, Engineering, and History.
Magic, legends, fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction—all the things specifically forbidden in their household for the last fifteen years.
She took a deep breath, willed herself to stay calm.
The first question was, Name the four classical elements, and discuss Plato’s and Aristotle’s inclusion of the fifth element.
Five elements? There were more than one hundred elements: hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen . . . Were they talking about something else?
She wouldn’t panic. Not yet.
She skipped ahead to see if there were easier ones.
The next question was, Name seven mortal magical families. Compare and contrast. Bonus: Name three extinct families.
Mortal magical families? She knew there were Immortals, fallen angels . . . but there were more collections of magical people?
The back of Fiona’s throat burned. She paged ahead.
There were questions on alchemy, divination, and necromancy.
How was she ever going to figure any of this out?
Next to her she heard pages rustle. She saw Eliot flip back and forth through this section as well —but then he stopped, and started scribbling.
He was guessing. Had to be.
It was just like Eliot to try something reckless when he didn’t know the answer.
But why not? Miss Westin hadn’t said it was forbidden.
Fiona set the tip of her pencil on the page, but couldn’t force herself to write. It felt like a lie.
Across the classroom, she heard whispers. She ignored these voices and flipped back to the history section and King Arthur. If she had to make a guess, she’d make an educated one.
The whispers, however, got louder. There was a tiny laugh.
She looked up and saw Jeremy Covington, eyes sparkling, talking to a redheaded girl next to him—both had their test booklets closed, pencils set neatly on top. They were done already!
Jeremy had been just as rude in Purgatory: trying to kiss Fiona when he hadn’t been invited to. She had a feeling he was going to be three times the trouble alive that he had been dead.
She couldn’t waste energy thinking about him. She had to—
“Time!” Miss Westin announced, and snapped her pocket watch shut. “Pencils up.”
Every student instantly complied.
Fiona was furious. She’d never not finished a test before.
She looked over to Eliot. He gave a little apologetic shrug, as if to say, What can you do?
There had to be something. She could claim extenuating circumstances—explain to Miss Westin about their weird mother and how they were brought up.
Miss Westin and the proctors moved to the head of each row. They picked up the test and graded them right in front of everyone—marking wrong answers with a red pen.
Miss Westin finished grading first and scrawled a large D on the front.
“Insufficient,” Miss Westin told the crestfallen boy. “We allow only those with the potential for excellence into Paxington, young man. You may leave.”
The boy hung his head and skulked from the room.
This was so cruel. A trickle of molten iron anger flared within Fiona. She gripped the edge of her desk. Her nails dug into the wood, splitting the