All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [64]
He pushed his plate away, no longer hungry.
“So what do we do?” Eliot asked.
“What you think is right,” Louis told him, leaning closer. “You two are smarter and stronger than anyone in the families knows. You would do best not to listen to deceitful characters who would try to influence you. Besides, of course, your father.”
When Louis turned to Fiona, his expression sobered, and he searched for the right words, finally saying, “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable . . . and yet you somehow manage to rein in that power. Truly impressive, my daughter.”
“Thank you,” Fiona said. “I think.”
He turned to Eliot. “And you, my son, have a talent the likes of which the world has never before seen. Not even my humble abilities come close. When you play, the universe holds its breath . . . and listens.”
Eliot wanted to say so much more, ask Louis so many things, but it felt as if he’d just swallowed too much information, and it stuck in his windpipe.
Louis stood. “You two are going to be late if we sit all day chitchatting like sparrows over crumbs.” He dug into his pockets. “Before I depart, I wanted to give you some trinkets I had lying about.”
He tossed one of the playing cards to Eliot.
It fluttered, and to Eliot’s utter astonishment, he snatched it out of the air with nimble fingers.
The card was the Queen of Spades, but not a normal one. This queen held a sword like a suicide king—stuck through the side of her head. Most intriguing, though, there were tiny lines and dots scribbled upon it.
Notes. Musical notes.
“ ‘The March of the Suicide Queen,’ ” Louis told him. “It’s an old song that you may find useful.”
Eliot touched the notes, and heard them whisper their tune to him.
He tucked the card into his pocket for a closer look later. He wanted to thank Louis, but then remembered that the other songs he’d gotten from his father had led to death and destruction.
He kept his mouth shut and simply nodded.
“And for you, Fiona . . .” Louis smoothed a silver bracelet over the tablecloth. Its slender twisted links reminded Eliot of a snake. “This was made from the last bit of metal that fell from the sky millennia ago. Archon iron.”20
Fiona picked up the bracelet and examined it. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you!” She frowned. “Is it supposed to be rusty?”
“The price of antiquity, I am afraid,” Louis assured her.
Their father bowed, clasped Eliot’s shoulder once more, and gently patted Fiona’s hand. “We will meet again soon, I hope. Now you must pardon your poor misremembering father, but he has other business to attend to.”
And with that, Louis plucked up his jacket, strode out of the café, turned onto the main street, and was gone.
Fiona gazed at the chain. “We need to think about what he said . . . everything.”
“So maybe Louis isn’t all bad?” Eliot asked her.
She looped the bracelet around her wrist and did the clasp. “Maybe,” Fiona said.
Was it possible this was the beginning of a real relationship with their father? So what if he was an Infernal? Maybe even a man who was supposed to be living, breathing evil could still care for his son.
Eliot and Fiona got up to leave. They miraculously still had plenty of time to get to class.
As they started to go, however, the waiter followed them, clearing his throat. In his hand was the bill that had been left untouched on the table.
Fiona’s face darkened, and Eliot took back all the nice things he had thought about Louis.
He’d stiffed them for breakfast.
20. Archon iron. A mythohistorical metal said to have fallen from Heaven—literally fallout from the war between God and his rebellious angels, preceding their fall from grace. The metal was an ingredient in the manufacture of the chain binding the wolf Fenrir (prior to its release during Ragnarök). See also Volume 11, the Post Family Mythology, for more on this wondrous and terrible element wielded by Fiona Post during the Last Judgment War, which ended the Fifth Age. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 4, Core Myths (Part 1). Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.