All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [84]
Everyone seemed to like her . . . which, ironically, made Fiona suspicious.
Amanda had her face plastered to the window, gawking at the blurry scenery.
They flashed by billboards covered with the backward s of Cyrillic writing. They had to be in Russia.
“How long now?” Amanda whispered.
“Just a few minutes.” Dallas poured them both more iced tea from a silver thermos.
Earlier, when Fiona had protested that she needed to study, Dallas told her that she was right: She really didn’t need a shopping trip to Paris. She said that Fiona looked almost perfect in her Paxington uniform, and that she was nearly the flower of womanhood.
Fiona got the message.
Almost. Nearly. Two lousy adverbs that communicated loud and clear that she still was awkward and nerdy, and likely a total embarrassment to the League of Immortals.
So here she was, getting a stupid fashion makeover on a school night.
She looked over at Amanda to watch her expression at their magical journey. But she wasn’t blown away like when Fiona and Eliot had first ridden in one of Henry’s cars.
Had she driven with Uncle Henry before? Maybe when he took her home after they’d rescued her? What did Amanda’s parents think of her going to Paxington? They were probably normal people. So why did they let her go to a dangerous school full of magic and Immortals?
“So where do you live?” Fiona asked Amanda.
Amanda turned from the window and looked at the floor. She paled and twisted her hands. “In the dorms on campus,” she murmured. “It’s easier that way. For everyone.”
“We’re there,” Dallas said, and her eyes sparkled. “Driver, slow down. I want them to see absolutely everything.”
Smears of head- and taillights resolved into traffic. The limousine turned onto the Boulevard Périphérique. Strings of lights draped over manicured trees and the classic architecture of every building. Statues glowed as if dipped in silver.
They angled onto Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Fiona’s breath caught as she saw the towering Arc de Triomphe, gleaming a rosy gold in a column of illumination.
Dallas sighed. “There’s no time to see it all. And I think your mother would kill me if I got you home too late. A pity.” To the Driver she said, “Take us to Art d’air.”25
The car turned onto smaller and smaller streets. Only the occasional lamppost punctuated the darkness now as they twisted onto byways so narrow that Fiona feared they’d scrape the walls . . . although the Driver managed to squeak through somehow.
The buildings here weren’t classic architecture or decorated with gold lights; they were crumbling brick and leaning against one another as if too tired to stand by themselves.
The limo halted before a storefront, its windows partially boarded. A spot of light cast from a wrought-iron lamppost revealed a sign over the doorway with curling vapors rising about a cavorting nymph.
“We’re here!” Dallas said gleefully.
She started to get out.
“I thought we were going shopping,” Fiona said.
“My dear, I could have taken you to Gucci or Prada, but this is where those designers come to steal their best ideas. I wouldn’t dream of giving you more secondhand things to wear.”
She meant Cecilia’s clothes: hand-stitched with love but also with an amazing lack of skill . . . things she had found at deep-discount stores and then altered to fit . . . or not fit, as the case might be.
The older Driver held out a hand and helped Dallas out, then Fiona, and Amanda.
It smelled like someone had urinated on the nearby wall.
Down the street, a group of boys eyed them. There were seven of them. They looked dangerous and hungry. They spoke to one another, and one called out to them—French so gutturally accented and drunkenly slurred that Fiona couldn’t decipher a word.
Dallas shouted back—the same primitive dialect—and then made a rude gesture.
The boys all laughed at the one who had yelled at her.
“They won’t bother us,” Dallas said, and entered the store.
Her Driver remained with