All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [54]
Eliot and Fiona obeyed and ran to the bathroom.
Fiona got there first, and started washing her hands.
“This is great,” Eliot told her as he examined his new phone.
“Don’t be a dork,” she replied, scrubbing her face.
“What’s your problem now?”
“We wouldn’t be getting all these things unless we’re going to need them,” Fiona said. “Unless there was real trouble coming. Like our heroic trials this summer. Paxington, the League, our father’s family—Mr. Welmann was right: This is going to be a lot harder than we thought.”
The happiness drained from Eliot.
His sister was correct. Today with the tests, that preview of gym class, the duel they witnessed, and the ride to Hell and back—all that had happened on their first day of high school.
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Eliot realized that ahead of him was an entire year of days like this.
16. Vombatus ursinus, the common or “coarse-haired” wombat. The wombat is a marsupial indigenous to the cooler, wetter regions of Australia. They gestate a single offspring (a joey), which spends nine to eleven months within its mother’s pouch. —Editor.
SECTION
II
RIGORS OF ACADEMIC LIFE
14
BLOOD PEDIGREE
Fiona and Eliot strolled into the Hall of Plato. One hundred and twenty-six students, the entire freshman class of Paxington (minus themselves), filled the amphitheater seating of the classroom. The gaslights were lowered. It smelled of chalk dust and old books.
Miss Westin stood upon center stage and peered at them over her glasses. Her gaze chilled Fiona to the bone.
Heads turned their way, and everyone whispered.
“Master and Miss Post,” said Miss Westin. “How good of you to join us again.” She stepped to the lectern, opened a black book, and made two marks.
There had been some confusion this morning because Eliot’s rusty alarm clock had finally busted, and the grandfather clock in the dining room had been sent out for cleaning. Fiona could have sworn they were an hour early . . . which was why they had dawdled, wandering the halls of Paxington, admiring the murals and mosaics that covered the walls. The ones in Plato’s Court showed gods, their battles, and wondrous pastoral scenes with eighteenth-century ladies in flowing dresses.
“Find a seat,” Miss Westin said. She turned to blackboards suspended by chains from the ceiling. They were covered in her perfect cursive script, and one board had the title, Origins of the Modern Magical Families (Part One).
Fiona looked for seats. There were concentric circles of fold-down seats and desks, but all were taken.
In the dim light, she saw Mitch Stephenson and Robert; either boy, she bet, would have given up his seat . . . which would have been nice, but she didn’t want to make any more of a scene than they already had.
“They’re all full,” Eliot whispered. He donned his glasses and looked around the lecture hall. “Should we stand in the doorway?”
How humiliating. Their first real class, and already they looked like total dorks.
“I guess so. . . .”
As she turned, however, Fiona spotted Jeremy and Sarah Covington waving to her. They pulled off backpacks and jackets they had set in adjacent seats.
“Ugh . . . ,” Eliot said.
“Don’t be that way. Come on.”
She clambered down toward the Covingtons, but hesitated. Did she sit next to Jeremy, who had once tried to kiss her? Or next to Sarah, who, for some reason, intimidated her even more than Jeremy did?
Jeremy patted the seat next to him and smiled.
Fiona sat next to Sarah (who scooted away from her).
“Thanks,” Fiona whispered.
“You are most welcome, teammate,” Jeremy said.
Eliot and Jeremy exchanged awkward smiles, and then Eliot took the seat by him.
“About time,” said the boy in front of them, clearly annoyed by this disruption.
“Shhh.” Jeremy’s stare bored into the back of the boy’s head.
Miss Westin cleared her throat. “Before we start our lecture on the modern families, we shall review the origins of various magical lines.”
She pulled down a section of blackboard, revealing a gorgeous illustration of