All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [310]
Eliot held up both hands. “Don’t!” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he imagined Fiona cutting out a part of him. “I want this,” he said. “I can feel the land calling to me, making me stronger, something more than just ordinary Eliot Post.”
“Ordinary? You’re a hero in the League of Immortals, for crying out loud! Think about it. If you go back there, they’ll kill you. You saw how Sealiah and Mitch—Mephistopheles fought for their lands. What makes you think a bunch of Infernals won’t gather their armies and just take your land?”
“I don’t know,” Eliot whispered. “There’s no reason they wouldn’t. Maybe Dad can help.” This sounded unconvincing, even to himself. “But I have to be there, Fiona. I can’t help it.”
“Well, I can’t—I won’t accept that,” she told him, standing taller. “I’m not going to stand by while you fight for your life. There has to be something we can do.”
They locked stares. Eliot so wanted to communicate everything he felt—the pull of the land, and the need to prove himself. Why didn’t she get that? They used to be able to explain encyclopedic volumes of information and feelings with a single glance, but Fiona wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was trying to communicate something entirely different: her disappointment, her displeasure, her disapproval—that she knew what was right for him.
“Eliot? Fiona? My doves?” Cecilia poked her head through the open door, glancing over them both, and her eyes hardening as she took in the equipment on Eliot’s bed. “Your mother would like to see you in the dining room.” She smiled with trembling lips, but Eliot heard the iron authority of Audrey behind the polite request.
“Great,” Fiona muttered, and strode past Eliot. “We’re not done talking about this.”
She had no idea how made up his mind was . . . although, what was he going to tell Audrey? And how could he stop her from stopping him?
Cee stood waiting for him, her smile brightening. She wore pants, nineteenth-century things with flared thighs and a white canvas belt—like she was going elephant hunting with Ernest Hemingway. (For all Eliot knew, that’s precisely what she might’ve done last time she wore them.) She had on a khaki blazer and wore desert camouflage army boots.
“We better see what you mother wants,” Cee told him.
“Yeah.” Eliot had a feeling that someone in this family (other than him) was about to pull a fast one.
He marched into the dining room.
Audrey and Fiona stood side by side. It struck Eliot how much they looked alike: tall, thin, and serious, but Fiona was in gray and his mother in a neat black dress. He’d never seen his mother in black, though, and it made him stop and stare. She looked like she was going to a funeral . . . and somehow it looked good on her.
On the dining table sat three cloth sacks. They were full of bottled waters, beef jerky, boxes of cereal, vitamins, and protein bars.
Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what Eliot is doing?”
Eliot pressed his lips into a single white line, astonished that she would break their confidential trust. Technically, though, she hadn’t really snitched on him . . . but it was darned close.
How could he be mad, though? Fiona was just worried. And he was going to have to tell Audrey something.
“I know everything,” Audrey told them.
Eliot’s and Fiona’s eyes went wide.
“You do?” they asked at the same time.
“I know that Eliot has arranged for his vassal to stay at Paxington over the summer.” One of her eyebrows arched. “Very wise to attend to business first, I might add. I also know that you intend to spend the summer in the Lower Realms. You have packed, but Cee and I have taken the liberty of buying a few snacks to tide you over on your journey.”
Eliot stared at his mother, unable to read her face. How had she known all that? And more important, why wasn’t she stopping him?
“You’re just letting him go?” Fiona asked, her voice breaking.
“I must,” Audrey told her. “As a member of the League, I am forbidden to interfere in Infernal affairs.”
Fiona turned pale as this sank in.