All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [75]
Why hadn’t Robert stayed with them? Had he wanted to win so badly that he’d forgotten everything else?
Looking at him as he stood panting, soaked, a faint bruise under one eye, she wondered again just what he was doing at Paxington. He wasn’t interested in books and learning. Robert lived to ride.
Before she could figure out how to even ask Robert about any of this, Mr. Ma spoke.
“Three at Scarab’s flag,” he announced. “Four for White Knight at seven minutes thirteen seconds. A moderately good time. Win for the Knights.” Mr. Ma nodded at their team, and then looked over to Fiona and Eliot. “A loss for Scarab.”
The White Knight boys and girls exchanged high fives and went to their injured teammates to help the medics dress wounds and get them off the field. None of them spared Fiona another look.
And why should they? They’d lost.
“Too many weak links on this team,” Jeremy said bitterly, and walked off the field.
Eliot looked like he’d been struck.
Fiona didn’t like the way Jeremy had said that . . . it sounded like a threat, and she wondered if the students on the other teams were the only ones she’d have to worry about.
21. Tamara Pritchard, part of the Dreaming Families, and infamous for her use of Life/Death dual magics, was born with gifts we could scarcely imagine. Had her focus been magical rather than social engineering during those early years . . . she would have been a real threat to us. The Secret Red Diaries of Sarah Covington, Third Edition, Sarah Covington, Mariposa Printers, Dublin.
20
LITTLE WHITE LIE
Eliot was sure Jeremy and Sarah Covington blamed him . . . with their averted glances and cold shoulders all week. And yet, they still spoke to Fiona, and Jeremy always tried to open doors for her.
As far as they were concerned, he was just her “little brother,” the kid with the violin who had caused half their team to lag behind and lose their first match.
He sat in the back of Miss Westin’s Mythology 101 class. This week she continued her lecture of the mortal magical families. He’d learned about the Kaleb clan and the Scalagari family.22
Everyone at Paxington was special in their own way. Some families had political clout, others had powerful magic, and some had a pedigree that stretched back to antiquity.
And while Eliot, at least in theory, had all these things, no one could know (thanks to the League’s stupid rules).
Even if there weren’t rules, Eliot wasn’t sure it would matter. If people knew who and what he was—especially if people knew who and what he was—that would just make it worse. He’d be the Immortal hero kid with all the power, family, and political connections who still lost the match for Team Scarab.
Miss Westin ended the lecture and wrote an extra-credit reading assignment on John Dee on the blackboard.
Fiona sat next to Eliot. While she was completely absorbed, scribbling this down, he grabbed his notes and slunk out of class.
“Wait a second,” Fiona hissed after him.
Eliot kept going. He wanted to be alone.
Slipping through the blackout curtains and double doors of the auditorium, he blinked in the too-bright sunlight after being in the shadows for the last two hours.
Or maybe losing the match wasn’t his fault.
What if everyone on his team shared the blame? What if losing was as much Jeremy and Sarah’s fault for not meeting ahead of time and coming up with a plan? They were the ones who were supposed to know everything.
Eliot had actually helped Fiona and Mitch find the right path before getting ambushed.
What if Team Knight had just been better prepared?
As his eyes adjusted to the noontime sun, he saw that he wasn’t the only one to have left early.
Jezebel was here as well.
Last week, when she had looked at him as he held Lady Dawn—at that particular moment—Jezebel had looked exactly like Julie . . . down to her blue eyes.
The fantasy of Jezebel being Julie vanished as Jezebel tilted her head, blinking in the sunlight, getting her bearings. Her features were too sharp, cheekbones pushed up higher . . . and, of course, she was an Infernal protégée.
Julie