All That Lives Must Die

SECTION III. ADVERSARIES

Eliot walked alone to school on Halloween morning. Most houses in Pacific Heights had carved pumpkins on their doorsteps, leering at him as he passed.

He was sure no one was going to let him dress up in costume and go out this evening. It was a school night and candy wasn’t allowed in the house. There wasn’t a rule about candy, per se, but Cecilia claimed her peanut brittle was better than anything you could buy. . and if you liked eating reinforced concrete, she was right.

Eliot tromped along, doing his best to ignore the festive decorations. He was by himself because Fiona was still taking her time trying on all her new clothes-not just the new dresses Aunt Dallas had bought her, but her new custom-tailored Paxington uniforms.

He tugged on his own Paxington jacket. Still too big.

But it was starting to fit better.

For two weeks he’d gone to Robert’s after school. Eliot was on a new physical regime of tai chi, calisthenics, and free weights. Robert had also taught him the basics of fighting. Every muscle ached, and the ribs on Eliot’s left side hurt where Robert had left a tattooing of bruises.

Eliot curled his hands into fist and flexed his forearms. It’d been worth it, though. He felt stronger.

Near school, Eliot saw more students. Some walked alone like he did, although most collected in groups of three or four, chatting along the way. Others sputtered by on motor scooters.

Funny how on that first day he’d seen only one or two other students-now he saw them everywhere. Had they all been here and he’d never noticed? Was it something about the uniform that made them blend in?

He spotted the Paxington entrance half a block away and went to it. He touched the rough granite blocks. . and hesitated.

He should go inside. He’d heard there might be a field trip today. He also had to cram for a rumored pop quiz in Miss Westin’s class. But it didn’t feel right entering without Fiona.

Then there was the matter of Jezebel, which remained completely unresolved. The revelation that she had been Julie Marks, and was now an Infernal. . he hadn’t told anyone.

The problem was he still didn’t know much about Infernals. Their studies in Miss Westin’s class hadn’t covered them in detail.

And Eliot hadn’t had a chance to talk again with Jezebel. She disappeared after class. And in gym-they’d been so busy drilling for the handful of remaining all-important matches, there’d never been a chance to get her alone.

If this was some Infernal game of chess with Jezebel as a living pawn. . he had to make sure he made the right move.

Telling Fiona would be a move; it would set her in motion, possibly provoking a confrontation between the two girls.

He wasn’t ready for that.

And telling Robert? He’d wanted to at first. But now it felt like a family matter. . dangerous. . and private.

He sighed, feeling completely alone-and walked through the there-but-not entrance to school.

Off the main street there, Paxington students browsed store windows, ogling the jewelry, watches, and latest computers. There were fashion boutiques with gaudy dresses and flashy tuxedos and the zombie, vampire, and robot costumes for Halloween. Café Eridanus was packed.

A man sat at one of the café’s outdoor tables. He waved Eliot closer.

Eliot’s spirits soared as he recognized him.

“Louis!”

He was the one person he could talk to about this stuff.

Eliot tried to sit next to his father, but as he pulled out a chair, he saw a black cat curled upon it. Amber eyes blinked at him. It didn’t move, and returned to its nap.

Eliot thought about petting it or lifting it over to the next chair.

“Ignore that wretched animal.” Louis gestured to the seat on his left.

Eliot sat there. “I’m glad to see you.”

Louis smiled warmly, but that happiness faded as he gazed at Eliot. “What has happened?”

“There’s so much,” Eliot replied. “But I don’t want to be late for class.”

He took out his phone and set it on the table where he could watch the time. “You’re just not late for Miss Westin’s class more than once.”

“A new phone? A gift from your mother? Or, perhaps the League?” Louis reached for it. “Do you mind?

“Sure,” Eliot said, pushed it closer. “It does everything.”

Eliot regretted letting the phone out of his grasp the second Louis touched it. If anything happened to it, Audrey would kill him.

Louis poked and turned it this way and that. For an instant the phone seemed to vanish-but that was just a trick of the light, because then Louis immediately set it back on the table.

“I must upgrade mine one of these days. Now, explain what weighs so heavy upon your heart.”

Eliot told Louis about Jezebel-that she was an Infernal like him-then backtracked to when she’d been mortal Julie Marks at Ringo’s Pizza Parlor, and how she’d been nice to him, and how they’d been at the Pink Rabbit and he’d serenaded her.

“I have heard that melody,” Louis said, wistful. “A lovely thing. Ripe with hope. So tragic.”

“Yeah,” Eliot whispered.

Thinking about her song made him sad. Like there was no longer any hope for the Julie Marks he’d known. . and there was even less hope for them now that she was the Infernal Jezebel.

Louis made an encouraging gesture, indicating that he go on.

Eliot then told how Jezebel had arrived at Paxington, her titles, how she looked so much like Julie, and so much not like her, how she fought and saved him in gym class. . and then how he had confronted her about the truth, and how she had revealed everything.

“She lied to you?” Louis asked, bemused. “And you told her as much? You know, there is no greater offense for an Infernal to be caught in a lie.” He smiled, but there was a hint of malice to it.

“Her lie. .,” Eliot said. “The words sounded hollow. I don’t know. I could just tell.”

“Of course,” Louis replied. “Any Infernal can hear obvious lies.”

The black cat seated next to Louis looked up and glanced at Eliot, ears flicking forward.

“How is that possible?” Eliot asked.

“How does a dog hear the faintest whisper? How do bees see ultraviolet? Superior senses, my boy.”

Eliot remembered what his father had told him long ago: that the truth would be best between them. He wondered now if the reason for that was entirely moral. . or if it was just good Infernal politics.

“Can the others, the Immortals, hear lies, too?”

“No more than any other person with a modicum of wit.” Louis chuckled. “They are entirely different creatures.”

This halted Eliot’s thoughts cold.

“Wait-if you’re different species, how’d you and my mother. .? I mean, Fiona and me. . how’d you. .?”

Eliot blushed, unable to finish.

Louis held up both hands. “How foolish of me! I am sorry, Eliot. I should have realized your education in this would have been conveniently ‘forgotten’ by Audrey. I shall give you all the details.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled forth a string of individually wrapped foil packets, each the size of a half dollar.

Condoms.

Eliot’s blush heated to a blazing intensity, and he quickly waved them away. “That’s okay,” he said. “Cecilia covered basic, uh. . reproduction last year.”

“A pity.” Louis looked disappointed as he shoved the condoms back into his pocket.

Not that any contact with the opposite sex had been possible with Rule 106, the “no dating” rule in effect. Still, Eliot had had to learn everything about reproduction: earthworm sex organs, chromosomes, and the inherited hemophiliac anomalies of Russian royalty.

“So. . I’m a mule?” Eliot whispered. Mules were a sterile hybrid and a genetic dead end.

Louis frowned, and sparks danced in his eyes. “No. You and your sister are hybrids akin to the mighty griffon-half eagle and half lion-noble, powerful, and awe-inspiring. No Infernal has ever been anything less!”

Eliot’s pulse quickened as he listened, almost believing that he could be special. “So why are Infernals different? I’ve seen Miss Westin’s family tree. Infernal, Immortals, even the mortal magical families, they all have a common origin.”

“Oh. . that,” Louis said, and sniffed. “Well, we have evolved. We have land. The others do not.”

Eliot crinkled his forehead. “Land? Like office buildings? Uncle Henry has land.”

“No,” Louis said, drawing out the o. “We are monarchs of the domains of Hell, the benevolent kings and queens over the countless souls who are drawn there to worship us. That gives us true power. Without land, we would be the lowest of the low.”

Eliot pondered this comparison of formidable Uncle Aaron or even Audrey to the “lowest of the low.”

And yet, he sensed no outright lie in Louis’s words.

But if true, why didn’t the Infernals overthrow the Immortals? Rule everyone? Why have a neutrality treaty at all?

And who ruled that blasted landscape and all those people who had rushed the gate in Uncle Kino’s Borderlands? None of them seemed “benevolently ruled.” Something wasn’t right with Louis’s picture.

“Do you have one of these domains in Hell?” Eliot asked.

Louis eased back. “Ah, well, regrettably there were setbacks to my personal portfolio when I was demoted to mortal status.” He set a long hand atop Eliot’s and patted it. “Worry not. I have plans in motion to reclaim what was once mine.

“But let us talk more of your problem,” Louis said. He twisted off his pinkie ring. It was a battered gold band with a clear crystal cabochon. He held it up to the light and squinted. “I believe I have met your Jezebel once before. Observe.”

A tiny figure appeared in the ring’s stone. . which reflected and wavered in the water glasses on their table. . then in the curves of the spoons and forks. . and then along the inner curve of Eliot’s glasses.

Everywhere Eliot looked: there was Jezebel.

She stood with head lowered, wearing a black velvet cloak that highlighted her pale skin and platinum locks.

Eliot stopped breathing.

“I see the reason for your interest,” Louis whispered. “But there is another to focus your attentions upon.”

A second woman appeared in the ring. And as impossible as it seemed to Eliot, she was more beautiful than Jezebel, with copper red hair and feral eyes. She radiated power-waves of the stuff that made Eliot’s pulse quicken.

She was intoxicating and overwhelming.

“That creature,” Louis explained, “is Sealiah, Queen of the Poppy Realms and your poor unfortunate Jezebel’s mistress. She is the reason for her being at Paxington. A rather clumsy attempt to seduce you. . one that I fear is working, however.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eliot sighed. “But there has to be a way to save Jezebel while not falling into the trap.” He gazed up at his father, every fiber of his being hoping Louis could help.

Louis tapped his pointed chin, thinking. “I admire you wanting it all. . I shall consider the situation and concoct something.”

Eliot nodded, truly grateful. He was completely out of his depth. Any advice would be welcome.

He tried to envision that family tree Miss Westin had drawn in class and where this Sealiah, Queen of Poppies fit. He couldn’t remember-although now that he reimagined it, there was something else that had nagged him about the Infernal family tree.

“I keep seeing this name come up in class,” Eliot said. “One Infernal who might or might not be dead? No one seems sure. Satan?”

Louis’s face went rigid. “Oh. . him.” An eyebrow twitched in irritation. “Do you know people still confuse the two of us?”

“What happened? His name was scratched off the family tree, not erased like if he’d died.”

Louis shrugged. “He left. Said he grew tired of the endless bickering. Can you imagine?” He picked up a napkin and made a great show of wiping his hands. “Who can say if he lives or not? When a puppy goes missing for ten years, one assumes it was run over by a truck, no?”

Eliot remembered what Mr. Welmann had said: That the dead grew restless and moved on. If Satan were dead, where would he move on to? Did Infernals go to Hell if they died?

Louis tapped the table. “Remain focused on our relations in the here and now, my boy. The ones trying to stab you in the back, eh?”

Eliot nodded.

“For now,” Louis said, “watch your Jezebel, but keep your distance. Neither be cool nor solicit her attentions. And tell no one of my involvement. I fear your sister and mother would not understand what is clearly an Infernal family matter.”

Not telling Audrey-that would be easy. She might take the matter of Jezebel up with the League. That could get messy, fast. But not telling Fiona felt wrong.

He decided, though: He’d trust Louis this once.

Eliot held out his hand for his father to shake. “Deal.”

Louis’s face split into a crooked smile, and he grasped Eliot’s hand.

It felt as if Eliot grasped lightning and raw pumping blood and had a tiger by the tail all at once.

But it also felt good-like he and his father were now in this together.

Sure, it was stupid and dangerous to trust his father, the self-admitted Prince of Darkness, but at the same time, it also felt like the smartest, most important thing Eliot had ever done.

Fiona stepped off the bus with the rest of Team Scarab.

It had been an awkward hour-long ride from Paxington through hills of central California.

First, on this small bus, she had had to sit behind Miss Westin-not the ideal location for gossiping or discussing with Eliot the politics of their Immortal relatives.

Second, Miss Westin had segregated the boys from the girls. Amanda was on Fiona’s right, face plastered to the window, alternately too shy to speak, and then exploding in rapid bursts of enthusiasm over her new clothes and Aunt Dallas, and when was she going to show up again after school?

Behind her sat Sarah Covington and Jezebel, who exuded icy silence at one another.

Thank goodness Mitch Stephenson had the seat across the aisle-and while not daring to cross the gender boundary that ran down the center of the bus, he nonetheless managed to occasionally communicate with her with a smile and roll of his eyes as Jeremy Covington went on and on next to him about his life and exploits in the nineteenth century and how the twenty-first century had gone to the dogs without servants and a rigid social order.

Robert and Eliot seemed to be having a normal conversation in back. Fiona caught only snatches of what they said. She thought they might have been talking about a video game because there were lots of gesticulations with fists and karate chops.

Sometimes they could be so foolish.

Eventually Fiona opened her copy of Homer’s Odyssey. She read (or rather tried), managing to reread the same paragraph about Circe about twenty times over the bumpy roads.

She gave up when the bus pulled onto a dirt road. They bumped along for a few more minutes and eased to a halt.

The door folded open, and Fiona stepped off after Miss Westin.

There was nothing here, just rolling hills, golden grass, and the occasional orange poppy that trembled in the breeze. The bent black oaks seemed to wave to her.

“Clear the bus,” Miss Westin instructed. “We have another group coming through.”

Fiona marched out the door, to the rear of the bus, and leaned against it. Another group of students marched toward them, escorted by Mr. Ma, who held his usual clipboard. It was Team White Knight. They queued in front of the bus’s doors.

The Knights glared at Fiona and the rest of Team Scarab; Fiona returned the favor.

Tamara Pritchard still sported a black eye from their match. Good.

Miss Westin and Mr. Ma carefully checked off names in her black book and on his clipboard, comparing notes. . as if someone was going to get lost in all this open expanse of nowhere.

Fiona wanted to ask again what this was all about. She’d tried before when they’d been herded onto this bus from Miss Westin’s classroom earlier that morning.

Miss Westin had told her: “Words are. . insufficient.”

Eliot was last to tromp off the bus.

Miss Westin then instructed Team White Knight to board the bus.

Mr. Ma moved between the two groups and crossed his arms (Fiona suspected, to make sure there was no trouble of outside of gym class between Team Scarab and the Knights).

Tamara Pritchard snorted as she passed Jezebel. “We told the Wolves all about your little tricks.” She sneered. “They’ll be ready for you.”

“Oh, really now?” Jeremy quipped. “We face Team Wolf next?” He tilted his head in mock appreciation. “Thank you very much, lassie, for the information. We’ll be well prepared, then.”

Tamara’s face contorted into a scowl as she got onto the bus.

The slightest smile appeared on Jezebel’s lip, and she told Jeremy, “I am so glad you are on our side.”

Fiona wished the freshman teams weren’t kept so isolated. Surely they could all learn better together.

Why make everything so competitive?

Or was there a reason? What if the mortal magical families were just as aggressive outside school? Then it made sense that Paxington had to prepare its students not only for magic-but also for cutthroat business and political realities.

It all seemed endlessly Machiavellian.

She sighed and made a mental note, however, to find out more on this Team Wolf.

Mr. Ma and Miss Westin spoke in hushed tones. The two teachers couldn’t look more different.

The Headmistress had on a black dress with a lacy collar. She wore a hat with mesh across her face, held a tiny black parasol, and had donned dark sunglasses.

Mr. Ma wore slacks and a polo shirt, and looked like he had spent his entire life playing golf, with dark golden skin and a picture-perfect physique (even at his advanced age).

Eliot sidled next to her. “Hey,” he whispered.

“You hear what this is about?”

He shook his head.

Fiona was relieved that Eliot wasn’t holding a grudge for this morning. Something had felt a little “off” between them for the last couple of days-actually since their first gym match. This morning hadn’t helped matters.

Fiona had had to try on all six uniforms that Aunt Dallas couriered over. Each fit, but had been designed for a different look. . some scandalous, with how short the skirt had been raised and the jacket engineered to push up her chest. She settled on a “normal” uniform that simply fit. It was a huge improvement over her too-small uniform, and gave her an enormous confidence boost. She hadn’t realized how little she’d been able to breathe.

Also, she got a bit distracted with all the other clothes that Dallas had sent: dresses and new jeans and twenty pairs of shoes (none of which Fiona seemed to be able to balance in).

It’d been fun to look at them, even try a few on, but it all reminded her how trivial her aunt could be.

Weren’t Immortals supposed to do heroic, important things? Why was Aunt Dallas wasting time and money on that stuff?

“About me being late this morning,” she murmured to Eliot. “Won’t happen again.”

“It’s cool,” he whispered back.

He sounded like he meant it, too. No quips. No vocabulary insults.

“We have a special All Hallow’s Eve treat for you,” Miss Westin said to them. She tilted her parasol so her pale face revealed itself. “Today we conjure the dead.”

Fiona shivered.

“Not a literal summoning of the deceased,” Mr. Ma added. “But a recreation of memories. We shall watch the last great battle between the Infernals and a collection of Immortals that would precipitate the founding of the League of Immortals-circa 336 C.E.”

Fiona’s heart jumped. They were actually going to see Immortals fighting?

Robert raised his hand and asked, “It’s like a movie, then?”

“No.” Miss Westin pointed to the hill behind her. “We have transported stones from the ancient battlefield. They remember all that occurred, and on All Hallow’s Eve, we can coax them to share their recollections.” She nodded to Mr. Ma.

“Let us talk as we walk,” Mr. Ma said, and strode up the hill along a faint path.

Grasshoppers took to the air and whined about him.

Fiona and the others fell in behind him.

Mr. Ma explained, “The stones are said to be ancient beings, petrified and set to guard some priceless treasure-or some unspeakable horror-from ages long past. Or maybe they are just stones, who can say?”

She squinted. There were yellow rocks on the hilltop, nothing extraordinary like the monolithic Easter Island carvings, although some were the size of a car, and a few did stand upright.

“We will stand in the center to start,” Mr. Ma said. “Then I shall awaken our friends, and the battle will occur on the far side of this hill. We shall watch and not interfere.”

They mounted the hilltop.

“Feel free to examine the stones,” Mr. Ma told them.

Fiona noted that the stones made a rough ring. No grass grew between them. The earth there was hard and cracked. It reminded her of the sterilized dirt in Hell, and she suppressed a shudder.

Jeremy went to one stone and reached out to touch it. . hesitated, then pulled his hand back.

Mitch took out an art pad and, and examining one severely cracked stone, started sketching. Amanda stood close and admired his work.

Jezebel bowed to one of the monoliths with grave solemnity.

Fiona and Eliot inspected one that stood upright, a pillar that could have been a sandblasted termite mound.

“I feel something,” Eliot whispered.

Fiona took a deep breath and inched closer. There was something. Almost not there. . something. . sleeping?

She held out her hand.

She had no intention of actually touching the stone, and yet her fingertips pulled closer and did just that.

The rough texture became smooth like polished marble, then yielding like flesh. For a moment, Fiona could make out features, faded and forgotten and dreamlike: the suggestion of a cheek and eye where she touched, and there a leg, part of an armored chest, the barest outline of a broken, square-tipped sword.

This felt older than stone.

She blinked, and the stone was just rough sandstone. And she wasn’t touching it, either.

Yet the feeling of its different smoothness lingered on her fingertips.

“Weird,” she murmured.

“You heard it, too?” Eliot whispered. “The crying?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind,” Eliot whispered. He looked pale in the sunlight.

Before she could ask him to explain, Mr. Ma came to them. He smelled of exotic black tea. “I ask that you keep your violin in its case,” he said to Eliot in a hushed voice. “These memories need no further coaxing.” Although his voice was friendly, his eyes were dark and deadly earnest.

“Yes, sir,” Eliot immediately replied.

“You are a good boy,” he said.

Fiona and Eliot shared a confused look.

Mr. Ma went to center of the circle. “We begin,” he announced. “Stay within the circle as I awaken them.” His spread wide his callused hands.

Team Scarab gathered closer around Mr. Ma.

Fiona noted that Robert stood opposite her, trying not to look her way. With his hair wind-tousled and in his eyes, he appeared every bit the rebel despite the Paxington uniform.

Was this where they were now-not even looking at each other?

She had done everything this week to avoid thinking about Robert-even reorganized the books in her room thematically instead of alphabetically.

Maybe there wasn’t a solution to the problem of her being in the League of Immortals and Robert being an outcast from the League.

Best to rip their relationship apart-quick, like a Band-Aid off a fresh scrape.

Sarah Covington moved closer to Robert. “How exciting,” she whispered to him with that slight Scottish accent that all the guys went crazy over (and Fiona bet wasn’t even real). She was standing way too close to him.

But if Fiona was letting go of Robert, then what did that matter? She narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Sarah took no notice.

Mr. Ma inhaled and held his breath. The wind stilled.

A sound started from the inside of Mr. Ma, a deep bass hum that he twisted into some eastern Indian dialect that was part song, part funeral dirge, part wail. It made the hairs on her arm stir.

Clouds covered the sky. They boiled away and left night overhead, stars shining, but not the ones Fiona recognized in the normal summer sky; these were brighter and a hundred times more numerous.

Fiona heard crying. She cast about to see who it was, but it was no one from Team Scarab.

The sound came from the stones.

She felt their sorrow and the pain wash through her. It was the first time in months since she had felt so much or so deeply. Droplets of rain appeared and trickled down the sides of the rocks.

Fiona wanted to go to them, touch the stones, and comfort them. . but she felt to do so would break the spell.

So she waited and watched.

The sky lightened. The sun broke over the horizon.

Mr. Ma ceased his chant and drew in a long breath. “We now share their dream,” he whispered. He went to the edge of the circle of stones and pointed. “The memory of the memory of the Great Battle at Ultima Thule.”[26], [27]

In the valley stood rows and ranks of a thousand men in ancient armor. There were chariots and phalanxes, their long spears gleaming in the dawn. There were armored elephants, companies of archers, and catapults.

Standing front and center of all this was a man-even at this distance, unmistakable to Fiona, his breastplate dull rusted iron, his thick mustache drooping, just as it had been when she last saw him.

“Uncle Aaron,” she whispered.

There were others she recognized. Cousin Gilbert wore a robe of gold and carried a gold shield that caught the sun’s warmth.

She squinted. Three women stood together at the far edge of the army. One had long glowing golden hair that flowed from her helmet. One held three lions on the leashes. The last wore armor made of bones; her white hair fell to her waist, and she wielded curved knives.

“Dallas?” she murmured so softly that only Eliot heard.

“And Lucia,” Eliot breathed.

And together they whispered, “Mother?”

Fiona struggled to make sense of this. Intellectually, she understood the possibility that their mother and their relations were old, even ancient. But to see her here like this-in this page from history come to life-it was more than she could fathom.

“Observe.” Mr. Ma pointed to the far side of the valley. “The opposition takes the field.”

A crack parted the earth. Steam hissed forth as a dozen figures emerged.

They looked like men and women. . although it was hard to tell because they were obscured by the mist.

Jeremy said with a little laugh, “A dozen against hundreds? Those unfortunate souls are going to be trounced.”

“Incorrect on many counts,” Jezebel replied. “Those are the Infernal Lords of Eld.”

“How can the Immortals lose?” Amanda asked Jezebel and Mr. Ma, twisting the ends of her hair. “I mean. . they are gods down there, aren’t they?”

“Some are gods, so-called,” Mr. Ma answered. “Some heroes. Some merely brave fools. But there is one thing that you have yet to appreciate, Miss Lane. The Infernals are led by the Great Satan himself.”

The man in front of the Infernals screamed. Talons grew from his hands; curved ram horns burst forth from his head; skeletal bat wings cracked and popped from his spine.

He grew. . taller and larger than any man could be. . grew until he was six stories tall. . skin darkening to amber and orange and finally electric crimson. . and then he burst into flame.

The Great Satan roared a deafening challenge to the army of gods. Then he charged.

It happened fast.

Fiona was so filled with raw adrenaline, though, that her mind slowed everything.

Satan crashed toward the Immortals on the field.

The only thing she had ever witnessed to compare to this creature was seeing the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex in a museum. But the dinosaur was close only in size and the head full of teeth-it wasn’t moving, screaming, and filled with flaming violence.

Satan was a true nightmare.

Seeing it made her wanted to whimper and hide.

As he ran, the fire in one hand solidified into an iron lance, pitchfork tipped and white hot.

Following his lead, the other Infernals took shape.

One lay down and transformed into a serpent, longer and fatter, and swelled into a form that dwarfed Satan. . corpulent coils of scaled flesh that wormed forward, crushing the rocks before it to dust.

Another strode forth, each step growing in size until it was a giant that cast shadows in all directions; at its center darkness that defied the sunlight. Fiona saw its smile, however, swimming suspended in the black nothingness, fanged and full of malice. It dragged a chain whip the size of a tank tread with fishhook barbs.

Mitch stepped next to Fiona and furiously scribbled this into his sketchbook. “It’s not real,” he whispered. His voice wavered, unsure.

But Fiona couldn’t answer. It felt like there was no oxygen in her lungs.

A bat-shape cloud took to the air, screaming, and leaving a trail of crows and insect clouds and smog.

There was a clockwork man with bladed arms, a woman who dripped boiling poison and left a sizzling trail of lava in her wake, a three-headed hound with black eyes, a dragon, some shapeless tentacled horror, and centipede with a million needle legs.

Fiona forced herself to look away-or she would have frozen completely solid with terror.

She turned to the Immortals.

They stood tall and held their formation. They braced lance and spear and held their shields before them, ready for the onslaught. None broke ranks.

Uncle Aaron shouted orders and raised an impossibly large sword. His army cheered.

Fiona’s heart leaped with joy. Yes! She felt the courage and the power and the nobility flowing though her blood as well. Her fear evaporated. She gathered herself and stood taller. She would have given anything to be with her family on that field.

Immortal archers loosened arrows; a cloud of spines filled the air, arcing up and toward the enemy.

One archer held back his shot, however. He wore silver armor, so mirror-polished that he blended with the background. He ran onto the field, bow held out before him.

He launched a sliver of light from his bow-its trajectory flat and so fast, it streaked under the other arrows.

The Great Satan dodged-surprisingly even faster than this arrow-although the projectile grazed his side and left a scar of blue flames.

The arrow continued on course, rocketed toward the Infernals, and struck the monstrous serpent in the right eye-obliterating the socket and exploding out the back of the angular viper head.

The serpent hissed and thrashed, its coils smashed trees and hills, blocking the advance of the other Infernals.

The other arrows landed, some sticking the Infernals and drawing blood, most harmlessly bouncing off or shattering upon their bare skin.

“One lucky shot,” Mr. Ma said, “or perhaps it was not luck, may have decided the battle before it started. The mighty Leviathan was distracted. The Immortals would have not survived a direct confrontation with the Beast. Learn the lesson: Remove your largest opponent if you are able. You might be as lucky.”

Fiona spotted a man in the chariot by Uncle Aaron’s side. He was older, handsome, with a curled white beard. He shouted orders, and Aaron nodded with grim determination, looked once upon Satan bearing down on them, and stepped aside, ordering the soldiers nearby to do the same.

She saw now that the older man was larger than Aaron, muscular, and regal. Four white stallions drew his chariot. Within the chariot’s carriage were metal coils and spinning armatures that sparked and arced electricity and connected to the lance held by the man.

The apparatus spun faster, and the air about the chariot wavered and smoked.

The man spoke to his horses and they snorted with fear, but nonetheless pulled the chariot ahead.

He shouted and flipped a switch on his lance.

Electricity chained along the length of metal.

A flash. The air cracked. Lightning leaped from the lance’s tip and struck Satan.

The monster writhed in agony, dropped its pitchfork, and fell to its knees.

But then the lightning diminished and sputtered and died.

Satan was smaller now, perhaps only three times the size of an ordinary man. The warrior in the chariot barked orders, and Uncle Aaron and soldiers ran forward.

Satan looked up, smiling, and from his knees jumped upon them.

The monster ripped limbs from men and tossed broken bodies about like toys.

Uncle Aaron deflected claw and lashing tail and bat wing with his sword, but even he was driven back.

The man in the chariot fired his weapon once more, but the charge was a fraction of the original blast, and it only momentarily slowed Satan. . before the monster turned and came for him.

The charioteer snapped the reins, and his warhorses galloped forward. He swerved at the last moment and jumped from the chariot-

— as it crashed headlong into Satan.

The electrical apparatus exploded in a cloud of sparks and arcs and gears and coils and chariot wheels, and left a cloud of dust, obscuring all. Four horses emerged unscathed and bolted across the field.

The charioteer, spear held before him, moved forward into the cloud.

“What’s going on?” Fiona cried. “I can’t see any more.”

“Something I have never seen,” Mr. Ma remarked as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The angle is different this time. This is when Zeus and Satan met in deadly combat. Later, leaderless, both sides were too disorganized to continue their war. It was the single most important factor responsible for their neutrality treaty.”

“Wait,” Eliot said. “You’re telling us those two are going to die? I mean, they did die?”

Fiona had been so engrossed, she hadn’t even noticed Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab pressed close around her.

Mr. Ma nodded as he squinted into the rising clouds of dust on the battlefield. “Observe how both sides now engage.”

Infernals clambered or flew over the bulk of the writhing Leviathan, and attacked the army of Immortals.

Dozens of heroes enveloped Infernals, but the fallen angels were too powerful and they killed many, leaving a trail of broken and wounded gods and goddesses.

Across the field, one group of Immortals rallied. Aunt Dallas led them, a golden sword in each hand, fending off a giantess Infernal with flaming hair and dripping poison from her claws.

The warriors at Dallas’s side fell one by one, but she fought on, determined and fearless.

This was not the Dallas that Fiona knew-not the shoe-shopping, care-about-nothing socialite. This was Dallas the goddess.

More wind and dust whipped across the field, and Fiona couldn’t see her anymore.

“Curious. .,” Mr. Ma remarked. “This is not like the other times.”

“I have to know what’s going on,” Fiona whispered. She moved toward the ring of weeping stones.

Mr. Ma set a hand on her arm. His flesh was immovable iron, and he checked her motion.

Fiona turned to him. Mr. Ma’s eyes were unyielding-but so were hers. In her veins raced the blood of the Immortals. She felt ten feet tall. She felt a sense of pride and purpose that she had never before experienced.

“I have to go to them,” she whispered. “And I will.” Her gaze dropped to his hand.

Mr. Ma looked about. . perhaps to see where Miss Westin was, but not seeing her anywhere, he sighed and released Fiona.

Did he know what she was? Surely the teachers at Paxington had to know that she and Eliot were half Immortal. He had to know that it was her family out on that battlefield.

“Very well,” he said. “I, too, wish to see what is happening. We shall investigate this anomaly together. You will stay behind at all times. . or I can and will carry you back here, child. You understand?”

She nodded.

They started down the hill.

“Hey!” Eliot said, trotting after them. “If you’re going, so am I.”

“I will accompany you as well,” Jezebel declared, stepping forward.

“I’ll go, too, if that’s okay.” Mitch flipped over a new page in his sketchbook.

Mr. Ma sighed, shook his head, then looked to the rest of Team Scarab.

Amanda stood behind one of the stones, barely peeking out, trembling.

Robert sighed and looked at Amanda, then said, “I’ll stay here and watch.”

Jeremy crossed his arms. “I have no desire to see the blood and guts of gods and devils, up close, thank you very much.”

Sarah Covington glanced uneasily from the battlefield, to Mr. Ma, to her cousin, and then whispered, “I guess I’ll be staying here as well.”

Mr. Ma turned to the rest of them. “Stay close to me, then, and always behind. I will tolerate no wandering off.” Then more to himself, he said, “Something is very wrong.”

He strode down the hill, and they followed.

Eliot trotted next to Fiona, apparently just as curious about their family, although he was looking more at the Infernals. She was fascinated with them, too. . in a grotesque, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it-because-it’s-so-horrific way.

How could she and Eliot be related to them? And how could they look so human one moment and so completely monstrous the next? Which was their real form?

Overhead, flocks of crows and vultures circled.

Was their father a man or that thing they’d caught a glimpse of standing over Beelzebub as Del Sombra burned down around them? A bat-winged nightmare?

Mr. Ma led them past heroes who fought valiantly, picking a path through the debris of broken catapults, and gingerly avoiding where the earth smoldered as cooling lava.

The fog parted before them.

Immortals and Infernals clashed in combat, but moved out of their way with perfect timing as if these memories were squeezed aside by the presence of real people.

Fiona wanted to touch something, pick up a sword and fight-help her family somehow. But if this was just a memory from the weeping stones, she couldn’t interact with anything here-and vice versa.

So why, then, was Mr. Ma looking so concerned? He paused and surveyed the battle through the mist and smoke.

A stone’s throw away, Aunt Dallas battled for her life against the Infernal with flaming hair. Her enemy was smaller now, but Dallas fought alone. Every soldier that had been in her group lay in the dirt with throats and arms and chests torn out.

“That is Abaddon, a Destroyer,” Jezebel dryly commented. “A match for any god.”

The Infernal slashed. Her nails scraped down the length of one of Dallas’s swords as she parried. The metal sparked and shattered at the hilt.

Dallas stabbed with the other sword, and penetrated the monster’s heart. It didn’t slow her down.

Abaddon drove her back against jagged rocks, forcing her to her knees. Dallas fought on, tears of rage streaking her face, and would not give up.

The Infernal was going to kill her.

Fiona had to do something.

She glanced back at Mr. Ma, who had his back turned, surveying the far side of the battlefield.

Fiona wasn’t stupid enough to break her promise and run off on her own, but she had to do something.

She knelt, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and threw it.

The stone hit Abaddon on the side of her head and bounced harmlessly off. . but it did connect.

And it got her attention. She turned.

“You shouldn’t have been able to that,” Mitch whispered.

The Infernal turned back to Dallas. . then halted again and cocked her head as if hearing something.

Fiona felt motion in the air-like an arrow’s whistle or a blade just before it cuts.

The woman in bone armor emerged from the mist. Audrey was wide-eyed, long white hair flowing over her shoulders, teeth bared, and holding twin curved daggers of sharpened tooth and tusk.

She slashed at the Infernal so fast, feinting and weaving a razor pattern in the air.

Abaddon hissed fire.

Audrey ducked, rolled, the flames unfurling over her head, and then she bounded forward again-slashing.

The Infernal held out a hand to block.

Her pinkie severed and wriggled upon the ground. She screamed and took three strides backwards. Abaddon glared at her opponent. . then turned and fled into the smoke.

Audrey helped Dallas to her feet.

They hugged-then Audrey wheeled about, staring straight at Fiona.

Mitch stepped next to Fiona, touched her lightly on the shoulder, and whispered, “Don’t move. You hit that Infernal with a rock. . maybe they can interact with us.”

She raised her jawbone visor and stared at Fiona and Mitch, Eliot and Jezebel. Really seeing them.

To witness her mother like this. . Not Audrey Post, but Atropos, a primitive goddess, fighting, full of life and battle lust. It was so unlike the stately woman she thought she knew, and yet so like her mother, all her iron will and inner strength.

Fiona reached out-stopped.

Her mother’s eyes hardened into a cold deadly glare.

Mr. Ma stepped in front of Fiona.

The connection broke.

Audrey shook her head as if clearing a dream and returned to her sister’s side. They joined Uncle Aaron and other Immortals that formed a phalanx against a single Infernal, the mechanical man with bladed arms.

Mr. Ma gave Fiona a look that promised a long lecture about following the meaning of his instructions.

“Observe,” he said, nodding toward the regrouped Immortals. “They work collectively against a superior foe. Alone, the Infernal-even though it has more power-cannot penetrate the formation. This is the one of the key philosophical difference between them.”

The battle slowed.

The Infernals retreated back to their hellhole.

Heroes gathered wounded comrades and limped toward the hills.

Fiona felt the dream begin to fade, the ancient memories submerging into shadow and silence.

“I lost Zeus and Satan,” Eliot said, looking around. “Mr. Ma, you said they died? Where are their bodies? Satan should have left a big smoking crater.”

Mr. Ma cast his gaze about. “Indeed. Not this time. .” His voice trailed off as he pondered. “Come.” He indicated they follow him deeper into the fog.

Fiona would have given anything to see Zeus one more time. She’d look up everything there was on him in her books tonight. How had one Immortal ever led the League when the modern Council of Seven Elders could barely decide anything?

Things were different back then-that’s why. Even Dallas had been a real warrior.

Mr. Ma found Zeus’s broken chariot: coils and copper-wound armatures still arcing and smoldering. There were great gashes in the earth, and blood-splashes of crimson and tar-black ooze everywhere.

But no trace of either Satan or Zeus.

“History tells us they did die,” Mr. Ma whispered. “At this very spot.” He knelt and touched the earth and blood. “And yet so much is different-more real-in this version of the dream.” He looked at Fiona and Eliot. “I wonder. .”

He stood.

“The demonstration is over.” Mr. Ma strode back toward the hill and the circle of stones.

The fog cleared, and overhead it was a sunny California afternoon again.

“You will each write a three-thousand-word paper,” Mr. Ma told them, “comparing and contrasting the fighting and philosophical styles of the two sides. Due Wednesday.”

They’d just relived one of the most important battles ever. . and he was assigning homework? Fiona wanted to do something significant: wage a battle, lead an army, change the world, be a real goddess.

Fiona kicked the dirt in a futile act of rebellion.

Mitch trotted alongside her. “I sketched their formations,” he said. “You want to hang out after school? Have some coffee and compare notes?”

Fiona’s thoughts completely derailed. She almost tripped. “Coffee?”

“Sure.” Mitch smiled his reassuring smile that made Fiona feel like she’d known him forever. A smile that could even make her forget she was mad.

She glanced at the hilltop where Robert was, and that ruined her mood again. He wasn’t going to ask her out for coffee any time soon. Things were so different now between them.

Her analysis of how she was so not like the ancient gods would have to wait. So would obsessing about how she and Robert could fit together with the League always between them.

The real world had to take priority, and right now that meant homework. . and maybe being friends with Mitch.

“I’d love coffee,” she said.

Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab got on the bus and got driven back to Plato’s Hall.

There Miss Westin lectured on the ramifications of the Battle of Ultima Thule. . how the then leaderless Immortals and Infernals signed a neutrality treaty (the Pactum Pax Immortalis) in 326 C.E. . which provided stability for the mortal magical families to surface and thrive. . and prompted a fragile cooperation between mortals, fallen angels, and Immortals to preserve the ancient knowledge in Emperor Constantine’s Court of God’s Peace. . which made the Paxington Institute possible. . and was the indirect cause of the modern political balance between mortals and Immortals everywhere. . and the reason they were all here today.

The Pactum Pax Immortalis was the treaty that Louis had mentioned, the one he said Eliot and Fiona might unravel.

If they undid that, what happened to the world?

On top of all that, Eliot couldn’t stop thinking about Jezebel. Compared to everything else, his personal problems shouldn’t matter.

And yet, Jezebel sat just a few seats away. . and it very much did matter.

The scent from the battlefield was still with Eliot-all the smoke and blood and dust, but Jezebel’s perfume-vanilla with hints of cinnamon-overwhelmed him.

All he could focus on was how she had lied about wishing she’d never met him.

Miss Westin dismissed class. Everyone filed out; even Robert and Fiona left without him.

Eliot lagged behind.

Miss Westin gave him a long look, nodded behind her glasses as if she understood everything. . and then left the room as well.

He was alone.

That suited Eliot fine. He’d slink home and get that paper done for Mr. Ma-maybe even dig out his old Mythica Improbiba and see what it said about old Satan and Zeus. It would feel good to do almost normal homework for once.

He wandered out of the classroom and across campus, not looking where he was going until he was near the front gate.

Jezebel was there, walking along the same trajectory. . but not alone.

Dante Scalagari and that tall Van Wyck boy Jeremy had trounced the first day (who still had his broken nose taped), walked with her. They showed great interest in everything she said.

Well, of course, every boy at Paxington would be interested in her.

Something sleeping stirred inside Eliot, however: a heat that sparked and kindled. His hands curled into fists.

He took a deep breath.

There was no way he was going to march over there and try to insert himself in their conversation. . and yet, he found himself doing precisely that.

“Hey. .,” he said.

The boys’ smiles faded, and Jezebel’s face turned to stony disdain.

“It’s our young Master Post,” Dante said with a polite tilt of his head.

“I was wondering if we could talk,” he said to Jezebel. Eliot’s ears burned, but somehow he pressed on, getting the rest of the awkward words out as quickly as he could. “About gym class. Strategies for our next match, I mean.”

“The way I heard it,” Van Wyck said, flicking his angle-cut hair from his face, “a good strategy might be for you to sit out the next match.”

“Donald, there’s no need for that,” Dante said to his friend, and gave an apologetic shrug to Eliot.

Jezebel’s gaze fell upon Eliot. “I must speak with the boy,” she said. “If you two wouldn’t mind.” She flashed them her patented hundred-watt smile.

“As you wish, lady,” Dante said. He and Donald van Wyck bowed, and they left (although not before Van Wyck gave Eliot a withering look).

Jezebel’s smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “For being the son of the Great Deceiver,” she whispered, “you, Eliot Post, are a rotten lair.”

His head snapped up, and he returned her hateful stare. He wasn’t lying-well, he was. . about wanting to talk about gym class. But hearing how pathetic a liar he was coming from her-that just fanned the flames inside him.

Eliot flushed, but it wasn’t from embarrassment. This was some animal instinct to move and take her in his arms and. . what? It was so much darker than his normal high-adventured daydreams, it startled him back to normal.

Louis had said how Infernals could easily tell lies from the truth. He must have just insulted Jezebel with that little white lie.

He exhaled. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Sorry about that. The truth between us would be best.”

Jezebel’s eyebrows flicked up. Her glare eased a notch and she was silent a moment.

“No,” she said, turned, and headed for the gate. “I believe that it would be best if there were nothing between us.” She didn’t say this cruelly, but as if it broke her heart.

Eliot watched her leave.

He should drop this and let her go. How much clearer could she be on what she wanted?

But that wasn’t the issue. It wasn’t what she wanted that he needed to know; he had to know how she felt about him.

Eliot followed after her to the gate.

Jezebel walked faster. . but then they both had to stop.

Harlan Dells, as ever, stood at the gate. He looked them both over with that microscopically penetrating gaze that made Eliot feel naked and helpless.

“Hey, Mr. Dells,” Eliot said.

Jezebel curtsied, lowered her eyes, and said, “Hail, Keeper of the Gates.”

Mr. Dells smoothed his tasseled beard, then turned and gazed into the alley.

“Something wrong?” Jezebel asked.

“The shadows a moment ago,” Mr. Dells replied. “Just a flicker. Half a wavelength. A trick of the fog and light. . perhaps.” He turned back to them, his face clouded. “Take care to walk the straight and narrow on the way home today, children.”

Eliot wasn’t sure what that was all about, but he replied, “Yes, sir.”

Harlan Dells opened the gate and watched them pass.

“Look. .,” Eliot said, trying to keep up with Jezebel.

She ignored him and trotted ahead.

He knew it was rude, and he knew she could probably knock his head off if she wanted to, but he had to talk to her. Eliot reached out and touched her hand.

The effect was immediate.

She whirled on him, the hand he had touched curled into a clawed strike.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “For everything. And I mean everything. How you got involved with the Infernals. How I should have figured it all out in Del Sombra and done something more to help. And how you gave up your freedom for me, and had to go back. . to Hell.”

Jezebel’s mouth dropped open. “How can you be such a fool?” she breathed.

“Fiona asks the same thing,” he said. “Maybe I am a fool to want to help you. I know you’re part of some plot involving me. But that doesn’t matter. We had something real in Del Sombra. My song for you didn’t come from nowhere. I could never have composed that on the spot for you if there hadn’t been a connection between us.”

“There was no connection,” she whispered.

Eliot sensed that lie.

And she knew that he knew, too.

“I can help you.” Eliot held out his hand.

She looked at him and then at his proffered hand.

Jezebel slowly turned away and continued down the alley. “You understand nothing.”

Although the alley had been full of students just a second ago, it was empty now. . which was fine, because Eliot wanted to be alone with Jezebel.

Still, it was strange. Where’d everyone go?

He walked alongside her, and this time she let him.

Jezebel kept her head lowered, not looking at him, and edged closer until their shoulders almost touched.

“This is not a game with the Infernal clans,” she said. “My Queen is at war with Mephistopheles. Only one side will survive. Help me and you become his enemy. He will destroy you.” In the tiniest whisper, she added: “I cannot let that happen.”

“None of that matters,” he told her.

That fire that had been inside him before rekindled through his body, burning away his fear and doubt.

He spoke in a deeper voice: “It matters not if all the demons in Hell, every angel in Heaven, or the gods themselves stand between you and me. Nothing will keep us apart.” The heat inside Eliot cooled-but it had been there. It was real. His Immortal side. . or his Infernal blood surfacing?

He felt the old connection between him and Julie-like the day he had played her her song, when she had poured her soul into his.

Overhead, however, electrical lines hummed, and Eliot felt vertigo. . like he was in a falling elevator. . a sensation not unlike the first time he and Fiona had found the sideways passage into this alley.

He looked about.

They were still in the alley-but it was wrong.

He and Jezebel stood in a deserted side passage off the main thoroughfare. Eliot hadn’t seen this before.

And he sure didn’t recall turning down it.

Jezebel whirled around. “A trap!”

She glared at Eliot, angry, then took her eyes off him and searched the passage. . whose entrance now turned away at a right angle. . an angle that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

The shadows in the alley grew longer.

The buildings leaned toward one another, limiting how much light filtered down. It was as if the space around them was as pliable as molding clay.

“See?” Jezebel said. “I told you! They’ve come for me. Run-while you can.”

He reached into his pack, flipped open his violin case, and grabbed Lady Dawn. Eliot set bow to strings, and the air stilled.

“I’m sticking with you,” he told her.

“I cannot believe how stubborn. .,” she muttered under her breath, gritting her teeth until they ground out the rest of her words.

They were no longer alone. Eliot could feel the presence in the shadows surrounding them.

A dozen black eyes stared from the dark-pulling themselves from the flat dimensionless shadow planes.

These things had long limbs that terminated into chitinous points. Where they touched brick and asphalt, they left gouges and sounded like a herd of cats running over blackboards. Their heads were smooth and tapered and split open to reveal a grin of countless shark teeth.

Jezebel faced them. Her hands up in a fighting stance, she stepped next to Eliot so they stood back to back.

“Droogan-dors,” she whispered. “Do not let them pierce you. Their poison turns flesh into smoke.”

For a heartbeat, Eliot froze, wanted to do nothing but run-but there was no way he was leaving Jezebel to fight alone.

He played the first thing that sprang into his mind, the “The March of the Suicide Queen.” He jumped to a part about a third of the way into the piece-allegro-bowing until his fingers blurred-the battle charge: it spoke of horses racing toward the enemy line, knights with lances leveled-impacting upon the enemy and breaking bodies, splintering wood, shattering bone, trampling deeper into the fray.

In his mind he heard those soldiers sing:

We shall never show mercy

We shall ask no quarter.

We spill rivers of blood

Gallop through blade and mortar.

Hoofbeats echoed off the alley walls. The dust stirred and white ghost horses appeared with headless riders charging at a full gallop-passed through Eliot and Jezebel-but solidly tramped over the nearest creatures.

The Droogan-dors went down, stabbing the phantom horses and knights.

The horses screamed as gaping holes of darkness appeared, consuming them. . but not before they trampled the creatures, with shell-splitting crunches and wet grinding splats.

Two of the creatures jumped at Jezebel. She slashed out-her fingernails now long claws.

The Droogan-dors reared back, the cuts along their bodies swelled and blistered from poison. They writhed on the ground, screaming, and turned to smoke.

The remaining Droogan-dors backed off, whispering among themselves.

“They’re leaving,” Eliot said. “We can get out.”

“No,” Jezebel said, “there are never so few. That was merely a test. There is no way to survive this.”

The shadows multiplied with blinking eyes, scraping, rasping points, and leering smiles. . and Eliot saw a hundred more of them. . all smiling from the dark.

Fiona returned from the girls’ restroom and found Mitch where she’d left him on the library steps. Robert was there talking to him.

Her first instinct was to walk away. She and Mitch were supposed to get some coffee and swap notes-all innocent enough, but how could she do that in front of Robert, with him and her all tangled up in League politics? He’d get the wrong idea.

But maybe it wasn’t the wrong idea.

She did like Mitch. . although at this point, it was more of a theoretical “like” than anything else, because they’d never really had a chance to talk.

And there was an ugly reality that neither she nor Robert was facing: With her in the League, and him out, there was no way they could be more than friends. Even that might end up being dangerous for Robert.

She tried to smile as she walked up to them, but couldn’t quite make herself.

“Fiona.” Mitch looked up and smiled. “Robert and I were going over the battle. He’s got some insights into the Immortals’ tactics. Did you know that he actually worked for the League for a time?”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Fiona said.

Robert looked away and took a deep breath.

Mitch sensed something wrong. He missed only a single beat, though, and then set a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “You want to join us? Fiona and I were going to grab coffee and compare notes.”

“You had plans. . together?” Robert looked up, unable to hide the surprise on his face-then quickly recovered. “That’s cool, uh, but no, I’ve got places to be this afternoon. Thanks anyway.” He nodded to Fiona (without looking at her) and made a hasty exit.

Fiona watched him go, her heart breaking. That had been necessary, hadn’t it?

She realized that her posture had slumped over and she looked, and felt, very much like the old always-too-shy Fiona Post.

Yeah, it was necessary.

Robert had to know they couldn’t be together anymore. The sooner they both adjusted to that reality, the better for everyone.

She stood tall again.

“There’s something between you two?” Mitch asked, an uneasy expression crossing his face. “I like Robert. He’s a good guy.”

“Ancient history,” Fiona replied. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

Mitch smiled again, and Fiona knew it was going to be okay. Eventually.

They walked across the quad, close, but not touching. Mitch smelled faintly of cloves.

He paused at the fountain of Poseidon and tossed a quarter into the waters. “Tribute for dead gods,” he told her. “Brings luck-at least, that’s what my father told me.”

Poseidon was dead? Fiona filed that fact next to the possibly dead Zeus, and kept moving.

“You believe in luck, then?”

“Not really, but the Stephenson family can’t afford to take chances.”

They started to walk again side by side.

“The Stephensons-Miss Westin hasn’t covered them in lecture yet.”

Mitch chuckled. “She probably won’t. We’re not that important. Never been politically connected or financial powerhouses like the other clans.”

“Your family’s name sure managed to impress Jeremy and Sarah Covington, though, at team selection. That’s no small trick.”

“Oh, that. I guess that’s the one thing we Stephensons have going for us: a reputation. It’s no big deal. My many-times great-grandfather was Dr. Faust.”[28]

Fiona nodded, like she got this “Faust” reference. Thankfully, Mitch continued, so she didn’t have to ask a slew of embarrassing questions.

“Everyone thinks Faust really did make the best deal ever with the devil-if that’s not an oxymoron-and became the most powerful sorcerer of the age. Of course, he then squandered that power showing off.”

“So,” Fiona said, growing concerned, “what kind of reputation does your family have?”

“That’s a fair question.” Mitch sobered as if Fiona had touched a nerve. “After Faust died, some of his power passed to his children. They had a hard time, persecuted as witches, and then hunted by the Vatican. That changed when the Inquisition recruited them and trained them to use their power to fight evil. Since then, they’ve become the greatest practitioners of white magic in the world.”

This fascinated Fiona. Not just his story, although it was interesting, but also that Mitch knew so much about his family. It must have given him a sense of stability to know where he came from. It was something she envied.

“Is that why you were so interested in the Infernals at Ultima Thule?” she asked. “Taking notes on how to fight them?”

“Not exactly,” Mitch said, mounting the steps before the front gate. “It was more like being a marine biologist swimming in a tank with a megalodon. I never imagined that I’d get close to a real Infernal like Jezebel.”

Fiona tried to puzzle this out, but couldn’t. “Shouldn’t you two be mortal enemies?”

“No, thank goodness. All that devil-fighting stuff stopped centuries ago. Probably extended the longevity of my family. We still have a talent for white magic, exorcisms and stuff like that, but as far as the Infernal Lords are concerned-and certainly Jezebel, a real Duchess of the Poppy Lands-we’re small fry.”

Fiona studied Mitch. There were nobility and kindness in his face: high cheekbones, straight nose, hair the color of mahogany, and smoky eyes she could drown in.

They halted at the front gate.

Harlan Dells had his back to them, staring into the alley.

Mitch cleared his throat.

“I know you are there,” Mr. Dells grumbled. “Be quiet.” He took in a deep breath and held it, waited, and then finally said: “I can no longer hear them.”

“Who?” Fiona asked

Mr. Dells turned, his face more serious than usual. “Your brother, Miss Post. He and the Jezebel girl entered the alley. . and they have taken a wrong turn beyond my senses.”

“Wait a second,” Fiona said. “I thought you said you could ‘hear grass grow on the other side of the world’?”

Mr. Dells stiffened. “I can, young lady.” His eyes narrowed. “In this world.” He flicked the switch that operated the iron gate, and it rolled aside. “I suggest you find him.”

Fiona and Mitch shared a glance wrought with concern.

The wrongness she had felt a second ago crystallized into fear. First, Eliot was with Jezebel. She couldn’t begin to count all the things that could go wrong with that situation. And second, there was no place to make a “turn” in the alley. It led straight out into the street.

This was just the kind of trouble only her stupid brother could get into.

“Please come with us,” Fiona asked Mr. Dells.

“My duties do not permit me to leave the campus.” Mr. Dells looked into the sun without blinking. “You need to hurry. . before their light goes out altogether.”

Fiona wasn’t sure what he meant, because the sun was nowhere near setting, but it chilled her blood.

She and Mitch ran out into the alley where Mr. Dell had stared.

There was Xybek’s Jewelry and an Apple computer store for Paxington students-but no place where Eliot could have turned.

“How can you turn on a straight line?” she whispered.

Mitch cocked his head as if listening. “You add another line-another dimension.” He moved to the brick wall and touched it.

Fiona followed, hearing something, too: a violin, distant dull explosions, thundering horse hooves, the crash of metal, and screams.

Fiona swallowed. She understood now.

Eliot had taken a “wrong turn” as they had that first day when they found this alley. Normally, you weren’t supposed to be able to see the entrance, because it was hidden “sideways” from the perspective of normal three dimensions.

But there was no reason strange extradimensional passages couldn’t be hidden anywhere. . everywhere, right in plain sight.

Maybe even ones you could’ve stumbled upon without wanting to.

She ran her fingers over the wall, searching.

She brushed over Mitch’s fingers and felt an electric thrill. Embarrassed, she almost jerked her hand away, but the sensation had been real. . and not just because she’d touched Mitch. There was something there, underneath.

Fiona pressed harder, feeling a bump in the fabric of existence.

She let her vision drift out of focus; she felt a loose thread and pulled it out.

Fiona’s ears popped. She fumbled for Mitch’s hand and grabbed it.

She felt as if she were descending fast in an elevator.

Behind her, a long brick-lined passage stretched back toward the alley-and stretched farther as she watched, curving out of sight. Overhead buildings leaned closer.

Shadows were everywhere.

Fiona couldn’t see a thing. She felt like she was suffocating.

Mitch held his free hand up. A ball of light appeared in his palm-as brilliant as an arc welder. He gritted his teeth in pain.

The shadows retreated about them. . screaming.

Mitch’s light revealed hundreds of creatures climbing over one another to retreat from the brilliance.

There were more of them, pushing and oozing to a point a quarter block ahead.

That’s where Fiona spied Jezebel and her brother.

The darkness crowded about them and obscured her view. She heard Eliot, though, playing Lady Dawn. . something muffled by the smothering layers of shadow.

She and Mitch shuffled carefully forward.

The shadow creatures looked like man-sized bats (specifically the pug-nosed Desmodus rotundus, vampire bat). They dragged themselves on too-long skeletal limbs that ended in three curved talons. Their claws trailed an oily darkness like squid ink in water. When they smacked open their mouths, more teeth than should have been possible to fit inside their heads flexed outward.

One rushed Fiona, despite Mitch’s light, claws reaching.

Fiona lashed forward-finding her father’s gift, the bracelet about her wrist, once more transformed into a full length of real chain.

She cut the creature in half.

It hit the pavement with a wet splat. . apparently more than mere shadow, reeking of hot gasoline and ozone.

Fiona gazed at the partially rusted chain and vowed to thank Louis if she ever saw him again.

She turned to Eliot. They had to get out before they got lost in the encroaching darkness.

Next to her, Mitch stared openmouthed at the severed monstrosity that oozed black blood at her feet. . then to the chain she held. The color drained from his face.

She nodded to his upheld hand and the ball of intense light. “Can you make it brighter?”

“I can try,” he whispered. He licked his lips and concentrated.

The light blazed like a tiny sun. He grunted in pain and his hand blistered.

The shadows about them backed away, their edges sizzling in the intense illumination. . clearing a path to Jezebel and Eliot.

Fiona now clearly heard Eliot’s music. It was the song he’d played at their first gym match. Only then, he had cautiously plunked out the song. Now he bowed with vibrato, and Fiona felt the music resonate in her bones; it made her want to march forward.

She resisted, though, because she didn’t understand what she saw.

Eliot and Jezebel stood in the center of a hundred shadow creatures that wheeled about them, circling closer.

Jezebel’s hands had finger-length needle claws that dripped venom. Where it spattered on the ground, the asphalt dissolved. Her arms were still slender and porcelain white, but her veins stood out, vinelike and pulsing. Her face was drawn, mouth filled with serrated teeth. But her eyes-they were wild and solid green, glimmered as if faceted emeralds. . and reminded Fiona of the emotionless gaze of a praying mantis.

A shadow rushed Jezebel, its mouth extended in a gruesome smile.

Jezebel struck-so fast, Fiona barely saw the motion.

The creature fell screaming, withering, clutching at the holes that once contained its eyes, and then it died.

Only then did Fiona see dozens of liquefying corpses about the Infernal Jezebel, dribbling away to the drain in the center of the alley.

An overpowering scent of vanilla reached Fiona’s nostrils. She almost gagged.

Fiona had seen Infernals more disgusting at the Ultima Thule battle, even faced horrific Beelzebub in combat, but she hadn’t seen one part transformed, half human and half nightmare. . and definitely not someone who sat next to her in class.

Maybe as Louis had said “the fires of Hell” burned in Fiona’s blood as well-but if being Infernal meant unleashing the monster within, then Fiona never wanted to let that side of her take control.

But more than Jezebel. . it was Eliot that really threw her.

Eliot’s hands were blurs as he played. His eyes were unblinking, staring off into space. About him fog swirled, and Fiona glimpsed a battlefield beyond and hundreds of red-coated soldiers stepping into the alley, bayonets fixed upon rifles, firing in time with the music, and marching forward to battle the shadows. The soldiers fought blade to claw. They died, dozens of them-and still they materialized from the music, never broke ranks, never cried out or showed any emotion. . like windup toys.

And they sang:

We live to fight until we die

Queen and country and flags to fly.

Brothers and sons a’glory sought

Our silent graves what we wrought.

Eliot bowed faster, his head bobbing. Horses rode from the fog into the alley. Their headless riders were armored, holding shield and lance. They charged into the fray, scattered the shadow monsters, impaling some, then slowed as they faced overwhelming numbers, switching to sword, horse rearing. . but all falling in the darkness.

Eliot tapped his bow upon the strings.

Black iron cannon mounted on wagon-wheel bases maneuvered to the front-and fired!

Six flashes of thunder and smoke filled the alley. Blasts that blew shadow and flesh and claw to bits, battered brick walls down. . and revealed more darkness beyond. . a thousand shark-tooth grins. . and an endless starless night.

Fiona had never seen her brother like this before. He’d been stupidly brave, sure. But not the center of a battle and conducting troops like some general. It was like one of his daydream fantasies come to life.

But it was strategically stupid to fight here.

It wasn’t just the shadow monsters-although their numbers seemed endless, and certainly any one of them looked like they could tear them to pieces.

It was this alley. It was a sideways passage through nothing. A void in space that, if they weren’t careful, they’d get lost in and never find the way out.

Already Fiona felt her sense of direction swimming.

“Eliot!” she shouted.

Eliot jerked away from the reloading cannon crews, squinted as he finally noticed Mitch’s light, nodded, but kept playing.

“This way,” Fiona called.

The shadows about them pushed in.

Fiona wouldn’t let them stop her-not when she was so close.

She turned to Mitch and told him: “Duck.”

Confusion washed over his face-but only for a moment-then he understood. He crouched and held the ball of light before his body.

Fiona spun her chain overhead and let out the full length.

Where whirling metal touched shadow and flesh, there was smoke and blood and shrills of pain. . and the enemy moved back.

Fiona and Mitch crept forward past outstretched talons and hissing maws.

Jezebel moved to the other side of Eliot, her pale arms reddening as if severely sunburned by Mitch’s white-magic light.

“You can’t keep fighting,” Fiona told Eliot. “We’ve got to get out-while we still can.”

Rather than be delighted at his rescue, Eliot looked annoyed.

“She is right,” Jezebel said, blinking in the strong light. “The Shadow Legions are endless in their realms. . which are near. I can feel them, and I can feel us getting pulled deeper into the darkness.”

Eliot looked around them. “Okay. But which way is out?”

Fiona turned and couldn’t see the exit.

She had, however, left a trail of fallen monsters. Connect any two points, and you had a straight line. In theory, anyway. . in normal space. She wasn’t sure if the geometry she knew applied here.

“Back this way.”

Fiona led them-Mitch next to her, his light brighter than ever; Eliot next, who continued to play (although his music changed, sounding like a retreat now); and Jezebel last, walking backward so she faced the tide of creatures that followed.

Eliot left his cannon crews behind.

They fired together once more-a storm of smoke and screams and shouts-then shadows covered them, coinciding with the end of Eliot’s song.

Fiona saw a sliver of light overhead, and the buildings tilted back to their proper standing positions. Then the passage straightened and she spied the Paxington alley.

She broke into a trot and they followed, emerging in the warm afternoon.

Jezebel looked as she had in class: no claws, her praying mantis eyes back to normal.

Fiona, though, would never forget the monster inside the girl.

Mitch closed his hand and his light winked out. “Apologies,” he said to Jezebel.

“No need. Your white magic was necessary to keep the Droogan-dors at bay,” Jezebel replied, unperturbed. “I am in your debt, Stephenson.”

“Those creatures were from the Shadow Legions,” Mitch told her. “Beelzebub’s operatives, right?”

“Your intelligence on Infernal affairs is outdated,” Jezebel replied. “Urakabarameel and Beelzebub are dead”-she paused to make eye contact with Fiona-“and with these forces leaderless, any Infernal Lord could now command them.”

“But why attack you and Eliot at all?” Fiona asked.

“I was their target,” Jezebel said. “I tried to explain to Eliot that my Queen is at war with Mephistopheles. It is not wise to be near me-save on the Paxington campus, where the school’s magics keep all but students and instructors out.”

Eliot set Lady Dawn back in her case and shut it. His eyes were ringed with dark circles. “None of that matters,” he said. “We’re all safe.” He turned to the side passage-or rather where the side passage had been-and touched the solid brick wall.

“Thanks,” he said to Fiona. “Another few minutes. . I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

He looked like Eliot again, her little brother, normal and nerdy.

But in battle, he’d reminded Fiona of how the Immortals had been as they faced overwhelming power of the Infernals at Ultima Thule, and she felt a surge of admiration for his courage-however stupid he’d acted.

“I must take my leave,” Jezebel said. “Again, my thanks.” She nodded to Fiona and Mitch. To Eliot she said, “This incident should prove how much of a fool you are. Stay away from me.”

With that, she turned and marched out of the alley.

“What’s her problem?” Fiona asked.

Eliot shook his head. “A lot’s happened,” he whispered. “A lot I need to tell you.”

“Sounds like you two need to talk,” Mitch said, and his easy smile returned, like nothing had ever happened. “How about a rain check on our date?”

Date?

That caught Fiona off guard. They were going to have a date? It was not an unwelcome surprise. . it just complicated everything.

“S-sure, that would be nice,” Fiona managed.

“Let me walk you to the street,” Mitch said, glancing over at the still-solid brick wall. “Just in case.”

“Thanks,” Fiona said, feeling a blush color her face. Then she turned and whispered so only Eliot could hear: “Whatever is going on-whatever you need to talk about-it’d better be good!”

Eliot explained everything to Fiona as they walked home: how Jezebel had been Julie Marks in Del Sombra; how the Infernal Queen, Sealiah, had used her to try to get to him-but instead Julie had saved Eliot. . got dragged back to Hell and punished for it, too.

He went on telling how Sealiah was probably trying again to use Jezebel to get to him. Eliot owed it to Jezebel this time to help her, save her somehow.

It felt good to share this with someone. Fiona would, of course, believe him. And she had to sympathize with Jezebel; see that she was as much victim as they were in the Infernals’ schemes.

Fiona listened, looking shocked, angry, and incredulous by turns.

As they rounded the corner to their street, Fiona said, “I think Jezebel. . Julie-whatever you’re calling her-was right.”

“Jezebel,” Eliot told her. “Right about what?”

“That you’re an idiot, and you should stay away from her.”

Eliot halted and crossed his arms.

He detected no lie in Fiona’s statements-which really irritated him-but Eliot didn’t think his half-blooded Infernal lie detector covered insults from a sibling (which would have been half of what Fiona said).

“She was bait for the Infernals,” Fiona said slowly as if she were explaining this to a moron. “She admitted it. You saw what it’s like in Hell. How can you want to get mixed up in that?”

“Because she needs our help,” Eliot said.

Fiona looked unbelievingly at him. “It’s just part of their plan. Make you feel sorry for her. Draw you in deeper.”

“Maybe,” Eliot whispered. “But I can’t ignore the other side of our family any longer. I want to learn their game and play it to my advantage.”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “It’s no game. And they’ve been doing this for thousands of years. You can’t ‘play’ with them. Stay clear of Jezebel or”-Fiona hesitated, choking her words out-“or I’ll tell Audrey.”

Eliot stared at Fiona, shocked.

She stared back.

The world felt as if it had stopped spinning. Birds ceased singing. The traffic quieted.

Don’t tattle to Audrey or Cecilia: this was the one brother-sister protocol that they had never, ever violated. Why bother? Audrey always found out anyway.

“Do that, and I’ll tell about you and Robert,” Eliot blurted out.

Fiona shrugged. “What’s to tell? It’s over. Probably best for Robert if the League knows we’re not together, anyway.”

“So, I’ll tell Audrey about Mitch and your ‘date’ today. You could bring him home for her to meet.”

Fiona paled.

That hit a nerve. Eliot would never really have mentioned Robert or Mitch. He liked them both, and drawing either to Mother’s attention was dangerous. But it had been worth lying to see Fiona’s face, let her know how it felt to have people you care for get in the way of Infernal, or Immortal, forces.

“Okay!” She held up her hands. “You win. Do what you want-just leave me out of it.”

“Whatever,” Eliot muttered, and then because he still couldn’t believe she had seriously considering telling on him, added, “Onychophagist Phasmida.”

That was a not-so-clever opener for vocabulary insult.

Onychophagist meant “nail biter,” a reference to the old pre-goddess, nerdy Fiona. She used to bite her nails all the time. And Phasmida was the order of stick bugs, a shot at her too-slim figure.

Fiona reddened, angry and embarrassed, as she puzzled out the meanings. She narrowed her eyes and told him, “I wouldn’t talk with your mouth full, merdivorous Microcebus myoxinus.”

Okay, Eliot admitted his insult had been a little mean. Fiona’s, though, was cruel.

Merdivorous meant “dung eating” (he’d seen that one a bunch of times, looking up scarab references recently). And Microcebus myoxinus was the pygmy mouse lemur, the smallest primate in the world-with eyes so large, they looked as if they wore oversized glasses. Most lemurs were herbivorous, or occasionally insectivores, so that dung eater was just gratuitous. . although the alliteration was a skillful twist.

He scoured his brain for some word he’d saved for a special occasion to blast Fiona back-then he spotted a Brinks armored truck in front of their house.

Two guards got out and walked up to the front door. One carried a box.

Eliot and Fiona glanced at each other-communicating this game of vocabulary insult was now paused-and raced toward them.

They met the guards on the porch just as Audrey open the front door.

Audrey eyed the men suspiciously, and then stared at the package.

Both guards looked uneasy. “Delivery for Ms. Audrey Post?” one said.

“I am she,” Audrey told them.

“Would you sign, ma’am?” One guard offered a clipboard with forms in triplicate.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Special delivery,” the other guard said, looking at Eliot and Fiona as if this explained everything.

Audrey continued to stare at the package and signed without looking at the forms. “Set it on the stoop, please.”

They did so and the guards left, practically running back to their armored car.

Audrey waited until the truck drove off. She then asked Fiona and Eliot, “How was school today, children?”

“Fine,” Fiona said, and shot a glance at Eliot.

It was a lot weirder than “fine,” but how could Eliot even start to explain? Even for them, it had been an unusual day.

Eliot decided to add nothing by way of explanation, and instead asked, “Is that package for us?”

Audrey continued staring at the box as if she could see through it. On it were labels with Cyrillic lettering and a dozen overlapping customs stamps. “No,” she said. “For me.”

“Are you going to open it?” Fiona asked.

Audrey picked it up, shook it gently, and turned it over and over. “I believe so.” She went inside.

Eliot and Fiona followed her upstairs.

Audrey set it on the dining table, took out a pair of scissors, and sliced through tape and paper.

Inside were Styrofoam peanuts and a tiny egg.

It was a Fabergé. Eliot had seen pictures of them in encyclopedias. This one was the size of a hen’s egg. It had to be authentic, because it glimmered with inlaid diamonds and flowing sinews of sapphires, which gave the impression of water flowing over its surface.

Audrey inhaled and her eyes widened. “Lovely. .,” she whispered.

Fiona, also apparently touched by its beauty, reached for it.

Audrey moved it away.

“Sorry,” Fiona whispered. “It’s just so. .”

“Yes,” Audrey replied. “Too entrancing, I’m afraid.” She frowned and removed the manifest from the box, scanning it.

“Who’s it from?” Eliot asked.

“A private collection in Bangkok,” Audrey relayed, reading the manifest, “the director of antiquities in Moscow, and then to an art house in Paris. . but these are just half truths.”

She returned to the egg and touched a sapphire on its equator. There was a click, and the top portion hinged into seven slices that opened like the petals of a lotus.

Within was a minutely crafted scene of a gondola sailing down a canal-the entire thing made of gold and silver, lapis lazuli and aquamarine, and sparkling diamonds everywhere, so it looked like moonlight and stars reflecting on nighttime waters, tiny fish frolicking alongside the boat, a boatman with pole in one hand, his passengers a man and woman embracing.

There was a tiny whir, and music tinkled from within the egg.

Audrey stared somewhere else, far away and long ago. Emotion trembled upon her lips. She whispered, “Quasi una fantasia.”[29]

She looked on the verge of tears, but she blinked and was back in the present.

Audrey snapped the egg shut. “It is from your father,” she said, her tone frigid.

Uncle Henry had once told them how their mother and father met at the Carnival in Venice. Both masked, they had fallen in love before they knew each other’s true identities.

Audrey tore through the pages of the invoice. “How did he find us?” Her finger traced through shipping codes and credit card information-halting at a phone number. She slammed the pages onto the table.

Eliot jumped, startled by the sudden violence.

“This. .,” Audrey said in a deliberately calm voice, “is our phone number. Our very unlisted phone number. Only those in the League have it.” She cocked her head, thinking, then turned to Fiona and Eliot. “May I see your phones?”

A peculiar numbness tingled through Eliot’s extremities, and it felt like the floor dropped from under him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?

“Uh, sure,” he said.

He and Fiona got their phones and set them on the table.

Audrey glanced at Fiona’s, then nodded, and made a little take it away gesture.

She stared at Eliot’s twice as long, then picked it up with two fingers as if it were a stinging insect. After looking at it, this way and that, she set it on the table and grasped her scissors.

Faster than Eliot could follow, she snipped at the phone-cutting it in half.

He felt something pass through him as well, a sensation of lightning from his throat to the base of his spine, followed by a nerve-jangling shudder. His heart pounded in his chest, and he found himself unable to take a breath.

And his phone. . it wasn’t his.

The two halves on the table were from a smaller, older phone. The beige plastic was well-worn, dirty, and missing half its number buttons.

“Your phone was stolen,” Audrey explained. “This is a cloned copy, from, I’m almost certain, Louis.” She spat out his name and turned her glare fully upon Eliot. “Where and when did you see him?”

Eliot had seen Audrey serious, maybe even angry before, but not like this. The world closed in around him. There was a gravity to her words that he seemed to fall into. But he managed to take up a breath and gather his courage. He wouldn’t let himself be bullied.

“At the café,” he told her, “just outside Paxington.”

Next to Eliot, Fiona shifted nervously as if he might mention she was with them.

But Eliot was talking about this morning when he’d been alone with the Prince of Darkness.

Eliot remembered how fascinated Louis had been with his new cell phone, too. . how he had picked it up.

That’s when he must have made the switch.

Louis had played him for a fool as easily as he had so many others.

“Eliot,” Audrey said, her words softer now. “You must be careful. Louis speaks the most delicate mix of lies and truths. You will not be able to discern one from the other with him. He is called the Great Deceiver for good reason.”

Eliot nodded. Louis obviously hadn’t lied to him. He of all people would know Eliot would be able to sense outright lies. He’d known Eliot would rely on his new ability. . and completely fall for his more sophisticated mistruths.

Audrey turned to Fiona, asking, “How could you let your brother talk to that creature? I thought you knew better.”

Fiona inhaled, but before she could answer, Eliot cut her off. “She wasn’t there,” he said.

If anyone was going to get into trouble for talking to Louis, it would be him. Just him. Fiona had encouraged him not to speak to their father.

“Very well,” Audrey said with a sigh, “let me see your credit cards.”

Eliot and Fiona dug through their bags and retrieved their platinum charge cards.

Audrey scrutinized Fiona’s, then flicked it back to her. She examined Eliot’s. “Both are real. At least Louis did not gain access to the League’s discretionary funds. That is some conciliation.”

With her scissors she cut Eliot’s credit card into a dozen pieces.

“What did you do that for?” he cried.

Audrey arched one of her eyebrows at his outburst. “Because you have let your father take advantage of you. You should never have spoken to him against my wishes. You should not have any interaction with that side of your family. They will destroy you. Or worse, they would use you to destroy others.”

Eliot’s outrage cooled.

Use him to destroy others? Isn’t that what Louis had told him, too? That both Infernal and Immortal families would try to use Eliot and Fiona to circumvent their neutrality treaty and start a war?

Could some of what he’d said been the truth?

Audrey swept the credit card fragments into her palm. “You have a great deal to learn. And until such time, you cannot be trusted with such valuable League assets.”

Like Eliot had even used the stupid credit card-like he ever would have a chance between all his studies, gym class, getting dragged to Hell, and fighting in alleys.

Audrey plucked up the priceless Fabergé egg, stormed in the kitchen, and came back with the trash can. She hesitated only a moment as she gazed once more at the egg-then dumped it.

Eliot glared so hard at her, with so much anger, that it felt like his gaze bored right through his mother.

For one moment, Eliot let his anger take him, and the blood burned through every vein and artery. . and then he cooled it and contained it all, compressing it to a white hot spark deep within his core.

“I’m going to my room,” he muttered. “I’ve got homework.”

Fiona tried to say something, but Eliot walked away.

Once in his room, he closed the door and slid a few boxes of still-unpacked books against it.

Then he fumed.

But what good was getting angry, unless you did something with it?

He set his pack on his bed, pulled out Lady Dawn, and tried a few notes of that song the egg played. They flowed like water over his hand and strings; moonlight danced and reflected off his walls. The song was a little sad.

It soothed his soul.

He was about to grab the bow and really play, when his eyes lit up on his bookshelf. Wedged between volume seven of The Golden Bough and Languorous Lullabies was a thick segmented book spine covered in dark gray leather.

Mythica Improbiba.

He was sure he’d deliberately not unpacked this book. He’d found it in their old basement, just before their first heroic trial. It was the most unusual collection of fairy tales, maps, poems, and anecdotes from all history-and he had very much wanted to keep it hidden.

He was certain Cee or Audrey hadn’t unpacked it for him. That would be cleaning up his mess for him (which never happened in this household).

Eliot moved toward it, drawn to the mysteries between its covers. . remembering the hand-scrawled note on the first page: “mostly lies.”

Well, that’s all either side of his family seemed capable of.

Eliot had work to do. He had his Paxington homework, learning about the mortal magical families, and the immortals that were his family.

He grabbed Mythica Improbiba and flipped through the pages until he found that medieval woodcut of the Great Satan.

He also had to learn everything he could about the other side of his family because the game was on. . and he’d lost the first move.

Fiona waited alone on the field and studied the jungle gym. She was aghast.

The last two weeks in gym, they’d drilled: going up ropes, sliding down poles, balancing on narrow beams, and scrambling over cargo nets like monkeys. She had memorized five different ways to the top.

All useless now.

Mr. Ma had changed everything: ladders and spirals and chain-link climbing walls had been jumbled-some gone altogether and replaced with new features; there were spinning tubes; a chasm with a rope dangling in the middle (with an impossible reach from either side); and ramps too steep to climb without rappel lines.

Like they needed to make it harder for Team Scarab after their first loss.

Fiona hadn’t had a lot of time to dwell upon their failure. She’d been busy. Miss Westin had piled on the homework. And with gym practice three times a week, she was mentally and physically exhausted.

She’d also been by herself. Amanda and Mitch had been just as busy.

Eliot had become a recluse as well. He went over to Robert’s every day after school. He said to help him study. . which could have been true, but Fiona sensed it wasn’t all of the truth. When he came home, he locked himself in his room.

Maybe that rebuke from Audrey over the stolen phone had pushed him away. Fiona should’ve said something, but it had been stupid to talk to their father alone.

She took in a deep breath.

Her thoughts focused back upon the imposing six-story structure, and the fact that Team Scarab had its second match today. Mr. Ma hadn’t told them against whom, just to “be ready.”

They needed a win. Two losses would drop them to the last quarter of the standings. . well on their way to flunking out.

She checked the tension of the rubber band on her wrist. Taut.

She’d removed the bracelet her father had given her because she wasn’t sure if Mr. Ma would classify it as a weapon, and she didn’t trust anything from Louis anymore.

Fiona was as ready as she’d ever be. It was the rest of her team, how’d they work together (or not), that had her worried.

Amanda, Sarah, and Jezebel marched out from the girls’ locker room.

Sarah looked ultra-confident as usual. Was that just an act? Fiona doubted it; Sarah seemed to be good at everything.

Jezebel limped onto the field. She hadn’t been injured in that fight in the alley, so this was something new. Fiona wanted to speak with her about leaving Eliot alone-but Jezebel seemed to be doing that all by herself these last two weeks, so maybe it was better to have as little contact as necessary with the Infernal.

Amanda bounced on the field last, looking better than she ever had, her hair pinned up, and her face freshly scrubbed. . deflating only a little at the sight of the newly configured gym structure.

The boys then walked out.

Mitch was first. His eyes instantly found Fiona and lit with delight. Fiona smiled back. She was looking forward to their rain-checked coffee study date (if they ever got a break in their schedules).

Jeremy jogged onto the grass after him. He mistook Fiona’s smile for him and waved to her.

What a jerk. He probably thought she liked him.

Robert was right behind Jeremy and took no notice of her.

Eliot came out last. He stopped and studied the new gym structure. He looked a little scared, as he had that first day. She hoped he was up for this.

She didn’t understand her brother. She never had, really, but this was a different level of not understanding. How could he fend off an army of shadow creatures almost single-handedly with Lady Dawn. . be so heroic one moment. . and then at times like now seem like her little brother, nerdy, vulnerable, so. . Eliot?

They gathered in a loose circle.

“First things first,” Jeremy said. “We need a Team Captain. We can’t ignore it.” He puffed out his chest, tried-and didn’t entirely fail-to look dashing.

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Do we really need to go through this? We have a new jungle gym to figure out before the match starts.”

Mitch shrugged. “We lost the first time because we had no leadership.”

“We could pick a captain randomly,” Eliot suggested. “Roll dice. That’d be fair.”

Sarah scoffed. “We choose based on qualifications. I suggest the Lady Jezebel. She is the strongest amongst us, no?”

“Not today.” Jezebel rubbed her elbow. She cast a warning glance at them all. “There’s been. . trouble at home.”

“Trouble” like the war she’d mentioned before between her clan and Mephistopheles? How did the Infernal even get to Paxington from Hell with a war going on? Certainly not the way she and Eliot had: the Gates of Perdition and the Elysium Fields-it would take her half the day to get to school.

Fiona almost asked how hurt she was, and if she was up for gym today-then stopped. It was probably an act to get Eliot’s sympathy. That’d be a very Infernal thing to do.

“I suggest Fiona,” Jezebel said.

Fiona blinked, surprised. “What? Me? Why?”

Jezebel assessed her in a slightly less than condescending manner. “You are now the strongest here. You think clearly in battle. And there is no fear in your heart.”

“She gets my vote,” Eliot chimed in.

Eliot and Fiona hadn’t been on the best of terms lately, so for him to so openly support her (even though being Captain was the last thing Fiona wanted) meant a lot to her.

“Mine, too!” Amanda added.

“I agree,” Mitch said. “Fiona can think on her feet.”

“Why not?” Robert added, and kicked the sod.

Fiona wanted to say thanks to Robert, but things had been so strange between them lately. So awkward. She simply nodded at him, unable to say anything.

With a sigh, Jeremy said, “Very well, Fiona it be for this match. But should we lose, we revisit who’s Captain.”

Fiona held up her hands. “Hey, I didn’t say I wanted to be Captain.”

Eliot pointed to the top of the gym structure. “Has anyone noticed those?”

Two flags had unfurled on opposite top corners of the jungle gym. One was their golden scarab on a black background. The other was white with a red leaping wolf.

“Team Wolf,” Jezebel whispered.

“That be trouble,” Jeremy added. “Wolf won their last match with very aggressive tactics. Some say they cheat.”

“We’ve taken the liberty of learning a bit about the other teams,” Sarah said. “Wolf wastes no time eliminating their weakest opponents.” She cast a quick look at Amanda and Eliot, then to Fiona and said, “And immediately target their enemy’s Captain.”

Fiona was about to protest again that she wasn’t Captain-but then something clicked in the social order on the field. They all looked at her expectantly, like she was supposed to come up with some winning strategy on the spot.

“There be one more wee thing,” Jeremy said. “Wolf may have a grudge to settle with Scarab.”

“Why would anyone have a grudge against us?” Fiona asked.

Team Wolf strode onto the field and she had her answer.

The student leading them was tall and pale, and his dark hair fell at an angle over his eyes. . the same person Jeremy had challenged that first day in class: Donald van Wyck. His nose was slightly crooked from where it’d been broken. He smiled a predatory grin as he saw Jeremy and the rest of them.

And more trouble: The others in Team Wolf were tall, lean, and looked like they could run circles around them.

Except one boy. He was smaller and had a long scar on his face. This was the student she’d seen duel by the fountain on the first day of school. Fiona recalled how he had won and twisted the rapier that had skewered his enemy’s hand. . and had enjoyed it.

“So what’s the plan?” Robert whispered. “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds before Mr. Ma gets out here.”

Fiona struggled with the notion of her being Captain. She could argue the point and waste their time-or she could lead. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted to do ever since she’d seen the Battle at Ultima Thule?

Her mind embraced the problem: a team of superior opponents and a new and dangerous terrain. Her hands flexed. She could almost feel it under her fingertips: the weave of a tapestry.

Scarab had one advantage: No one knew who their Captain was.

If Sarah’s data was right, Wolf had one potential disadvantage, too: they predictably went after weak members of the opposing team.

Fiona had studied every battle from Agincourt to Waterloo, thanks to Audrey and Cee’s homeschooling. She knew about passive lures and overlapping fire-and something more than tactics whirled inside her. . as if she had done this a thousand times before.

A plan crystallized in her mind.

She motioned them closer, and they huddled together. “Okay, this is it. Just listen. We don’t have time to argue. Mitch, Jezebel, Amanda, and Robert go high as fast as you can. You might get lucky and find a quick way to our flag. If you do-go for it. Four is a win.”

Fiona didn’t explain that their real purpose was to move Amanda along and keep her safe. While she’d be an obvious target, Wolf wouldn’t go after one so well protected.

She turned to Jezebel and told her, “Keep on eye on the rest of us. Drop back when trouble starts, and stop as many Wolves as you can.”

Jezebel tilted her head. “A pleasure.”

“Our second unit will be Jeremy and Eliot.”

They both recoiled and looked at each other with disdain.

“Don’t complain,” Fiona told them. “Just pick any path. And Eliot, don’t play your violin. I need you to keep moving fast.”

Fiona knew that Wolf would go after their other obvious weak target: Eliot. And with Jeremy being marked for revenge, it was a safe bet that they’d draw three, maybe more, of the Wolves. . which was precisely what she wanted.

They were bait.

Fiona loathed using Eliot as bait, but it was the best plan. Besides, she was going to be there, too.

“Sarah and I will be the third unit,” she told them. “We’ll circle around, and when Wolf comes, we’ll close ranks. Jezebel has our backs.” Fiona chewed over the irony of trusting her and continued. “That gives us three going straight for the goal, a sizable rear defensive force”-she looked at Jeremy, Eliot, Sarah, and Jezebel-“and one of us should be able to break out and get to the flag for the win.”

That was it: the best, most flexible thing she could come up with on the spot.

Her team digested the strategy.

Mitch grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. Amanda swallowed, looked frightened, but nonetheless nodded. Robert scanned the jungle gym, looking for a route to the top.

“Bloody hell,” Jeremy said with a sigh, and then added, “okay, we’ll give it go.”

Mr. Ma walked onto the field and blew his whistle. “Teams, make two lines!” he shouted. “Prepare to start.”

“We can do this,” she told them.

They lined up.

Eliot moved close to her. The look in his eyes was pure concentration. Fiona had seen him like this before-in that alley as he fought a hundred shadows, and when he had faced the Infernal Lord of All That Flies, Beelzebub.

He looked like a hero.

Eliot set his pack down on the sidelines.

Inside was Lady Dawn. Fiona was right-speed would be the key to winning this match. Playing a violin while balancing on some platform didn’t make a lot of sense.

As he let go of the pack, though, his hand twinged. He tried to will the pain away, telling himself that he’d be close to his violin soon. It ebbed, not entirely subsiding, though.

He ran back to Team Scarab.

Mr. Ma gave him a look, communicating volumes of irritation.

Jeremy muttered, “Try to keep up with me, Post.”

“Just worry about yourself,” Eliot snapped back.

He had confidence, thanks to Robert. Training every day after school had more benefits than new muscles and learning how to throw a punch. Sure, Eliot did know how to hit and kick and stand without getting knocked down-but there was a lot more to fighting. Mainly not being scared.

He glanced at Team Wolf. A rough bunch. Mean and lean, and that near-albino Donald van Wyck snapped his teeth at them like they were fresh meat.

Whatever. Psyching the other side out was obviously part of this game, too.

He smiled back. . and Van Wyck’s grin faded.

Mr. Ma raised his starting pistol and fired.

They ran.

Robert, Mitch, Jezebel, and even Amanda sprinted ahead of everyone else.

Sarah and Fiona circled to his left, clambering up a cargo net.

They were bit too far away for comfort, but Eliot trusted Fiona. She’d get to him quickly, when he needed help.

Jeremy took the lead and Eliot followed him to a wooden ladder. It was a good choice, because it was a straight shot halfway up through the jungle gym. . but the end dangled three body lengths over their heads.

“What’re you doing?” Eliot asked, panting. “We-can’t-reach that.”

Jeremy’s hands moved fast, fluid motions like the sleight of hand Louis had made with his three playing cards-then he pulled a hemp rope. . from nothing.

Eliot blinked as he remembered the Covingtons were conjurers.[30]

Jeremy threw the rope and it swished over the lowest ladder rung, lashed about, and knotted itself with a bowline. Jeremy flicked it once and the rope knotted for climbing as well.

“Hurry,” Eliot whispered.

Jeremy scrambled up the rope.

Two remaining members of Team Wolf spotted Eliot and ran toward him.

He went up the rope while Jeremy was still on, and sent the line spinning.

His progress wasn’t great, but he got up out of the reach of the boy and girl from Team Wolf just as they got to the rope.

They started up after him.

Fiona and Sarah, however, had circled around to intercept them.

Eliot focused on climbing. He couldn’t stop and help. As much as he wanted to fight (for the first time in his life) and test himself, that wasn’t his job. He was supposed to draw as many of Team Wolf away as possible, let the rear defenders take them out. . and if he got the chance, get to the flag.

He grasped the lowest ladder rung and scrambled up to the top.

Jeremy gave him a hand onto a platform connected by four chains.

It swayed and tilted. Eliot grabbed one of the chains for balance. He looked down.

Sarah had conjured a web of ropes spread between her and the other students. Fiona grasped handfuls of the lines. Where strands wrapped about beams, they severed, collapsing in a heap before the other students, blocking them.

“That way.” Jeremy pointed to a series of platforms similarly hung by chains.

Each was an easy jump, no more that a body length apart. Landing would be tricky. Those platforms would swing all over the place.

Eliot glanced up, but saw no sign of Robert or the others.

A quick glance down; he couldn’t see Fiona or Sarah, either. . but he did notice then that he was three stories up. A chill ran along his spine, and he got angry at himself for it, and stepped forward.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Be quick about it.” He nodded to another sequence of platforms. Three from Team Wolf jumped along them, moving to catch up, Donald van Wyck in the lead.

Eliot bolted off their platform-fast, before he lost his nerve.

The platform shot backwards as he pushed off.

What an idiot! Newton’s third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

He bounced onto the edge of the next platform, half on, half off.

Luckily it had swung toward him. . or he would have missed.

As he pulled himself up, Jeremy landed next to him. He didn’t help Eliot, but kept running, jumped off, and landed on the next platform.

This left Eliot behind on a crazily gyrating platform.

Not nice. But it was an effective tactic.

By the time he got to his feet, Jeremy was two jumps ahead, and the three Team Wolf interceptors were halfway to Eliot.

Eliot had to figure how to move fast, or he’d get taken out.

But everything moved-this way and that, up and down, ropes and platforms and chains. It seemed like the entire jungle gym was alive.

Eliot heard it, too. The squeaks and groans and clinkings and rattles. . they sang to him. Each motion, the vibrating ropes, the pendulum arcs. . those were beats, plucked notes, all combining into the phrases of a chaotic clash of noise. A symphony.

The gym was an instrument. Not one that Eliot could play by himself, but he could play a part like one person in a larger orchestra.

His body moved in time to this motion, and in response the platform under him synched and swung harmoniously.

He jumped-the action timed at the precise moment dictated by the gym’s song-landed perfectly on the next platform-jumped easily to the next, and again, until he had covered half the distance along the platforms.

Team Wolf was right behind him, however.

He ignored their curses and threats and kept moving.

They’d catch up; he was dead unless he did something. But without Lady Dawn, what could he do? Fight three against one? Robert had taught him that even fighting two on one, no matter how good you thought you were, was a bad idea.

Eliot landed on the last platform-one bolted to massive timbers that went all the way to the ground and was rock solid.

A curve of chain-link fencing arced up from this. Jeremy had already scrambled partway up. It was loose and swayed, however, so Jeremy’s progress was slow.

But he was ahead of Eliot, and that was the only thing that mattered.

The three boys from Team Wolf, led by Donald van Wyck, were one jump away.

Something thudded softly next to Eliot-he turned.

Jezebel. Beautiful, radiant, and utterly unperturbed.

Eliot froze, shocked speechless at her sudden appearance.

This seemed to please her because a slightest smile flickered on her lips.

She had landed so quietly and with such grace that it almost seemed as if she had stepped down, instead of-Eliot glanced overhead three stories-made a jump that would have broken an ordinary person’s legs.

“This fight is my job,” she told him.

The Team Wolf boys hesitated at the sight of her. They whispered to one another.

“No way,” Eliot said. “I’m staying with you. Like in the alley.”

“One day you will no longer be a fool,” she muttered. “I hope I live to see it.” She turned to him, glowering. “I have no wish to lose another match. Go and win it. Win it for me, if you need a reason.”

Jezebel touched his arm. A simple thing, but to Eliot it was electric. It was like they were back in Del Sombra, that he was just normal, nerdy Eliot, and she was sweet, mortal Julie Marks.

She withdrew and was hard, cruel Jezebel again. She turned to Team Wolf. “Or stay,” she hissed. “I shall not be responsible.”

Although it went against every instinct, Eliot climbed the chain link. He’d trust Fiona’s plan. . and Jezebel’s ability to take care of herself.

The Team Wolf boys jumped, landed on the platform, and circled her.

Eliot scampered up to Jeremy, who flashed him a look of annoyance.

“Come on,” Eliot urged. “We’re almost to the top.”

The ribbon of chain link had been nailed to a wooden beam overhead. That beam, in turn, ran straight to a zigzag of stairs. . that would take them to the top, and Team Scarab’s flag.

Robert, Mitch, and Amanda, already limped up those stairs.

They were close to winning. Once they got to their flag, all it would take was either him or Jeremy-it didn’t matter who-to get there as well.

That would make four. The match would end.

Maybe Eliot could stop this before anyone else got hurt.

He glanced down.

The Wolf boys had Jezebel surrounded. She held her hands up in a martial arts stance.

A thin fog blew in and vapors swirled around her.

The smallest Wolf boy (Eliot recognized him from the duel by the fountain) had a wooden club. He darted in, struck her leg-and danced out of her reach.

She fell to one knee, but didn’t cry out.

“Jezebel!” Eliot cried.

Another boy stepped closer, grabbed her injured shoulder.

Jezebel winced, shrugged off the boy’s hold, and backhanded him-off the platform.

She whirled toward Eliot. “Stick to the plan!” she shouted.

Van Wyck moved in-his hand ghostly insubstantial, the bones within visible, his motion trailing increasingly thick fog vapors.

Jezebel deftly avoided his grasp.

She shot Eliot a hate-filled glare. “Go!”

Nothing was worth this, Eliot decided-not winning-not even if it meant flunking out of gym class. Seeing Jezebel fight alone, already injured, he couldn’t stand it.

He started back.

The chain link that Eliot and Jeremy clung to, however, pinged, and the nails holding it to the beam popped out.

They plunged-jerked to a halt and dangled. . one corner tenuously secured by three nails in the beam overhead.

Eliot’s heart hammered in his throat, but still all he could think of was Jezebel.

He searched for her. The fog below, however, made it impossible to see the platform. He heard the Wolf boys moving, grunting; there was the cracking of wood.

There was no choice on which way to go for him, though; he was certain he wasn’t over the platform anymore. Eliot pulled himself up, hand over hand.

Jeremy hauled himself up, too. “I’ll be first to the flag,” Jeremy whispered.

Eliot straddled the beam and offered Jeremy his hand.

A curious look narrowed Jeremy’s eyes as he reached forward and clasped Eliot’s hand.

Eliot pulled.

Jeremy gripped the beam with his other hand and pulled himself up-yanking Eliot hard.

The unexpected motion threw Eliot. His hand slipped from Jeremy’s sweat-slick grasp. . and Eliot tumbled off.

Airborne, panic spiked through Eliot. He was in free fall, arms and legs thrashing.

Three fingers dragged along the chain link-grabbed-and he whipped around, slamming into it.

Overhead, two more nails screeched out.

Jeremy had pulled him off deliberately.

He’d said he had to “be first to the flag.” Was winning so important to Jeremy he was willing to murder Eliot? Maybe. Then he could find a replacement for Eliot on the team, too.

Eliot scrambled up onto the beam.

Jeremy had already made it halfway across the beam to the stairs. He had his hands outstretched for balance.

Eliot ran. He didn’t worry about balance. He was concerned only with momentum. He plowed shoulder-first into Jeremy-shoved him off the beam. Not so hard, however, that he’d go flying off as Eliot had, but enough so he fell down.

Eliot stepped in the middle of his back and ran over him.

He didn’t look back. He’d wasted enough time and breath on Jeremy Covington.

Eliot bounded the stairs three at a time-just like he was racing Fiona at home-until he emerged at the top of the jungle gym.

Wind whipped his face. There were layers fog and cloud, and far overhead, crows circled and cawed. Eliot saw the entire campus, and beyond, all the way to Pacific Heights and the bay.

Robert, Mitch, and Amanda yelled to him and waved.

Eliot snapped out of it and sprinted for the flag.

It seemed like he ran forever. . never quite making it to his goal. . never getting closer. . like some nightmare. Then his hands brushed the black silk.

Far away on the ground was a gunshot: Mr. Ma’s signal to end the match.

Mitch clapped him on the back. “Well done! You won it for us, Eliot.”

Amanda gave him a hug, blushed, and withdrew.

Robert nodded to Eliot. His eyes, however, warily locked on Jeremy as he climbed the last of the stairs and joined them.

Jeremy smiled like nothing had happened. “Excellent,” he said, and then added softer, “Sorry we got bunched up back there. No hard feelings, eh?”

“Sure,” Eliot said with a smug shrug.

“As long as we won,” Jeremy murmured, “what does it matter.”

Eliot didn’t need any Infernal senses to weigh Jeremy’s sincerity. It did matter. There was something driving Jeremy far beyond healthy competitiveness.

This wasn’t over between them. Not by a long shot.

Eliot glanced down through the jungle gym. His heart ached, hoping Jezebel was okay.

If he could have, he would gladly have taken her place-fought Van Wyck and the others-knowing he’d lose. It’d be worth it to spare her.

He could almost hear Jezebel telling him he was a “fool” for such thoughts.

But Eliot couldn’t help it. The only reason he’d come up here was to stop the match by winning it. To keep her safe.

She mattered to him. . more than any stupid gym match. . even more than Paxington.

Fiona sat on the edge of her seat. This was the most fascinating stuff in the world. . no, that wasn’t right; it was the most fascinating stuff out of this world.

Miss Westin had finished her lectures on the magical families yesterday, and today had moved on to a new topic in Mythology 101. On the blackboards of Plato’s Hall were maps of the Purgatories, the Borderlands, and more places that she called the “Middle Realms” between Earth and the end of places known.

Fiona had always wanted to travel, and last summer she had seen Greece and the Bahamas. She’d even been in Paris.

These places were different, however. What would it be like to go to wander among the Lost Floating Gardens of Babylon? Snorkel among the ruins of Atlantis? Or find the Temple of the Fountain of Youth? Or glimpse dread R’lyeh?

Or maybe not. Her enthusiasm was tempered by her recent visit to the Valley of the New Year, where she’d almost gotten stuck forever. And her visit to the Borderlands near the Blasted Kingdom of Hell-that was a place she could do without ever seeing again.

“Travel to the Middle Realms is perilous for mortals,” Miss Westin lectured. “Humans were not meant to exist there. An analogy would be deep-sea diving or a journey to the moon. These things are possible, but complicated. . and if mistakes are made, lethal.”

Fiona struggled to keep up, take quick notes while she tried to copy the map of the Butterfly Vales of the Fairylands.

She imagined herself there, splashing her toes in Gabriel’s Wishing Well and exploring the Cavern of Floating Lights that connected their world to hers-places just on the edge of imagination that beckoned.

“Some realms,” Miss Westin said, indicating the map, “are mere legend. For example, the Fairylands or the Land of Gray and Gold has never been visited by any human. . or if they have, they have not returned.”

Fiona frowned at this and made a note.

Miss Westin pulled down a new blackboard covered with mountains among a Milky Way’s worth of stars. “Others, such as Heaven, seen here as portrayed by Dante Alighieri’s first crude map in his Paradiso-have not been visited by mortals since the fourteenth century, and may be forever closed to two-way, living travelers.”

Eliot sat next to Fiona in the dark classroom, head propped lazily in his hands. He wasn’t taking notes. He wasn’t even paying attention.

Fiona didn’t understand him. Just last week, he’d been fascinated with stupid Hell.

Ever since their last match, he’d been moping around. He’d won the match for Team Scarab! What more did he want?

Okay, so that match hadn’t been all roses and sunshine. Gym was tough. Fiona was horrified at the carnage and mayhem. They’d all gotten cut and bruised. Sarah had a few busted ribs. Donald van Wyck and two other Team Wolf members had torn kneecaps and dislocations.

But Team Scarab’s record was now one win, one loss-50 percent, which placed them far from the bottom of the freshman team ranks. A few teams had two losses and might not graduate to their second year.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about that. . for a while.

Just as important to Fiona, her plan had worked. She shouldn’t feel good about it; it was really Eliot and a lot of luck that got them the win, but she couldn’t help it. Her teammates had followed her strategy. Maybe she could lead them.

“Today I end with a question,” Miss Westin said. “One that we may never find an adequate answer for, but is nonetheless worth pondering.” She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. “If so dangerous, why travel the Middle Realms at all? Why have so many tried and failed, so many tried and died, but we are all still drawn to these most exotic of places? Why. . when it is not only life and limb in peril, but one’s very soul?”

Fiona thought the answer was obvious.

What was the point of any travel? The thrill of finding someplace no one had ever been before. You could learn new things and meet new people. Maybe someone could start some trade between realms.

But that remark about peril to one’s soul bothered Fiona.

What if she had never escaped the Valley of the New Year? Would she have gone crazy with its never-quite-done New Year’s Party? Forever stuck in Purgatory with Jeremy Covington? Ugh. She shuddered.

And how did this all fit with Mr. Welmann’s claim that even the dead didn’t stay in those places forever? Where did they all go?

“I’ll expect an essay on this,” Miss Westin told them. “Two thousand words by Friday. You are dismissed.”

The gaslights in the room warmed and the students filed out. Fiona packed up her notes.

Eliot grabbed his books and bolted out like he’d been a caged animal.

“Hey, wait!” she called after him, but he ignored her and was out the door.

Fiona finished packing and pushed her way outside.

She didn’t see Eliot. . but Fiona did see Amanda, Sarah, and Jezebel standing together by the Picasso Arch.

Sarah beckoned her over.

Fiona approached, her eyes on Jezebel. The Infernal had fallen three stories off the jungle gym and walked away without a scratch. . well, other than a torn uniform and deep lacerations on her shoulder (and those she claimed had been from her clan’s war in Hell).

Was being invulnerable to cuts and broken bones an Infernal thing? Fiona might have inherited some of that from her father-her blood pounded and pulsed as she remembered how she had been tossed twenty feet through the air by Beelzebub, hit a car headfirst, and had been able to shrug off her injuries.

She calmed herself. She didn’t like being able to get angry so easily. It felt powerful, but she gave up too much control.

“What’s going on?” Fiona asked.

“We need your opinion, my dear,” Sarah said with a mischievous grin. “Perhaps you can settle a difference of opinion.”

Fiona drifted closer. What dire circumstance could gather together these three who had absolutely nothing in common? It had to be trouble.

“We were just trying to figure out,” Amanda whispered, and fidgeted as if saying this was painful, “which boy on our team is the cutest.”

Fiona crinkled her nose.

They had to be kidding. Here they were, learning about dozens of new worlds, every kind of magic known, and the secret history that had shaped the entire modern world. . and they were worried about boys?

“Well, you can forget Eliot,” Sarah remarked. “Obviously.”

“Why?” Amanda asked, her dark eyes smoldering. “I think he’s nice. Cute, even.”

Someone thought Eliot was cute? Fiona might have believed dorky or clueless. . but cute? She wasn’t sure what was more shocking: hearing this. . or hearing it from Amanda. She sure had come out of her shell since that shopping trip to Paris.

“If you like a puppy dog that trips over its own paws,” Jezebel remarked. “Perhaps when he grows up. . No, for pure aesthetics, I have to stick with Jeremy.”

Sarah tilted her head appreciatively. “But for attitude and old-fashioned chivalry,” she said, “I’d take Robert Farmington. There’s something about him so deliciously rugged. Wouldn’t you agree, Fiona?”

Fiona opened her mouth, but found herself unable to speak. With Sarah’s perfectly styled red hair and her oh-so-cute freckled peaches-and-cream features. . she was so not Robert’s type. But while Fiona knew Robert could outdrive and outfight any boy on campus, when it came to Sarah, would he be able to recognize that she was a viper in disguise?

Sarah’s eyes widened a fraction. “Oh, I didn’t know, dearie. Are you and he-?”

Fiona blushed, both embarrassed and angry-fought to control it-which only made it worse.

After an awkward moment, Fiona whispered, “Last summer there was something. But it’s over now.”

The three girls exchanged looks of curiosity, disbelief, and envy.

Fiona didn’t want to talk anymore. This entire conversation was disgusting.

But she couldn’t just walk away. It would seem like she was running away because Sarah had asked her about Robert, so she added, “Mitch gets my vote. Everytime he smiles, I don’t know, it makes me happy.”

Jezebel scoffed. “A man’s smile is like a dog wagging its tail-before it bites.”

“No.” Sarah held up a finger. “I have to agree with Fiona. I’ve seen that smile-devilishly charming, it is. Mitch is handsome. Oh, perhaps in need of a haircut and a bit of grooming, but a fine specimen nonetheless.”

“Eliot still gets my vote,” Amanda muttered, now looking at her feet. “He’s so. . deep, you know?”

Jezebel nodded across the courtyard. “Speaking of our young Master Post. It looks like he is deep. In trouble.”

A crowd of students had gathered around the Contemplation Pool of the Faun, a koi pond with bronze statues of fauns and satyrs and enchanted mushrooms.

Fiona spotted Eliot there-face-to-face with Donald van Wyck.

Donald still had his left arm in a sling from their last gym match. That didn’t stop him from shoving Eliot.

“Oh no.” Fiona marched toward them.

Jezebel, Sarah, and Amanda trotted behind her.

Fiona hoped Eliot wasn’t stupid enough to get baited into a duel.

But Fiona caught the look in Eliot’s eyes-pure hatred-and she knew there’d be a fight.

Another boy from Team Wolf, however, the dangerous short one with a scar on his face, joined Van Wyck and they both faced Eliot.

Fiona was too far away to stop whatever was about to happen.

But Robert wasn’t. He appeared from the crowd and stepped next to Eliot. He dropped his pack and halted the approaching boys with his no-nonsense glare.

“Two on two, then?” Van Wyck laughed.

“Why not?” Robert said, flexed his fist, and popped his knuckles.

But the other six from Team Wolf then appeared behind Van Wyck, making sure Robert and Eliot stayed outnumbered.

Fiona and the girls finally got to them.

Donald Van Wyck looked them over, swallowing at the sight of Jezebel. “So you need your girlfriends to help you out?” he asked.

Fiona stepped up before either Eliot or Robert could answer. “No one’s doing anything,” she told him. “You can’t make anyone fight on campus. Duels are by mutual consent.”

Van Wyck snorted. “So they are. Fine, we don’t settle this here. It’s a short walk to the gate. We’ll wait outside for you. . where there are no rules about stopping at first blood.” A smile spread over his thin, pale lips.

Fiona went cold.

He was threatening her, her brother. . everyone on their team. Could he get away with that?

She knew people like Donald van Wyck; they always got away with things like this.

Unless she did something to stop him. Now.

Fiona took a step back and peeled off her jacket. She no longer felt cold. Her blood was hot and pounded through every cell. “Fine,” she said. “You have to fight? You fight me then.”

“I don’t think so,” Robert said, looking just as mad.

“Yes,” Fiona told him. “You voted me Team Captain. Well this is a team decision.”

“Let her fight,” Jezebel told Robert, looking pleased at the potential for violence. “I shall be her second.”

The glee on Van Wyck’s face drained at this. He glanced at his team, and they nodded back. “Okay,” he said. “Suits me. A Captains’ Duel.”[31]

Robert gritted his teeth, but said nothing more.

Eliot stood by Robert, looking ready to kill. . either Van Wyck or her, Fiona wasn’t sure.

She’d intervened in his behalf to save him, but Fiona also knew that Eliot probably resented it, thinking he was “man” enough to handle this himself.

Sure, he could have handled it.

To win against Van Wyck and his wolf pack, though, Eliot would use his music. And if he pulled Lady Dawn out and played it on campus-Fiona was sure something bad would happen as it had at Groom Lake. . something that would have ended with more than first blood. People might get killed.

This fight required force, but the right amount of it. It had to be swift and decisive, but more than anything, controlled. First blood, that’s all.

One cut.

A girl from Team Wolf opened a case and handed Van Wyck the gilded rapier within. It glistened needle sharp.

Fiona unzipped her book bag. She undid the clasp on her bracelet and dropped it inside. She didn’t want to use the chain. It cut too easily-almost like it wanted blood.

She touched the rubber band on her wrist and shuddered, recalling how she had used it to slice Perry Millhouse in half. That wouldn’t do, either.

Fiona spotted something round and wooden at the bottom of her pack: a yo-yo.

Uncle Aaron had made a gift of it last summer. It was the first weapon she’d ever used in a fight; its string had taught her how to cut.

That would do.

She looped the yo-yo’s string about her middle finger and faced her opponent.

Several students laughed.

Van Wyck looked at her and blinked. “Are you kidding?”

Fiona flicked the yo-yo. It ran down the string and twanged-for a split second she felt the urge to cut run though her and along its taut length. The air pulsed with raw energy.

That shut them all up.

“Try me,” she whispered.

All mirth vanished from Van Wyck’s face. He slashed his rapier back and forth-and attacked.

Van Wyck struck at her.

It was a crude attack; Fiona easily sidestepped. She’d sparred with her uncle Aaron, the supposed God of War, Ares. Van Wyck was no master swordsman.

Almost too quick to follow, however, he angled his rapier up and it plunged straight at her heart.

Her last step had left her flat-footed, off balance.

Fiona twisted awkwardly aside.

The tip of the rapier grazed her jacket, neatly puncturing the heavy wool. Van Wyck ripped it free.

Too close. Fiona wouldn’t underestimate him again.

Sure this was to first blood. . and if his one and only “first blood” wound pierced her heart, it might be okay as far as the rules covering Paxington freshman duels were concerned. . but Fiona would be dead.

A smiled flickered over his face.

He was toying with her. Enjoying this.

Well, Fiona wasn’t about to let him play a lengthy game of cat and mouse.

She flicked out her yo-yo.

The smirk on his face vanished when he saw how fast it came at his head. He parried the wooden disk expertly. . with the precise minimal deflection require so his rapier still pointed at her. This made the yo-yo’s string slide alongside his blade.

As Fiona had hoped.

She yanked the yo-yo. The string caught and wrapped about the blade at the guard.

Fiona focused her mind along the string’s length; it narrowed, almost vanished to a one-dimensional edge that left a wake in the air-as the string cut through the steel blade.

The students around them gasped.

Van Wyck, eyes wide, stared at his lovely weapon. . now a useless stub.

Fiona stepped back three paces and took the opportunity to rewind her yo-yo.

She saw a crowd had gathered.

Van Wyck shook off his surprise, tossed the rapier aside, and raised his hands.

The color faded from the world about him. His fingertips went ghostly, and Fiona glimpsed flickers of his bones as if they were being X-rayed.

Technically, magic was permitted within the Paxington duel guidelines, but Fiona felt a lance of fear stab at her resolve because he was using the magic of the Van Wyck family: necromancy.[32]

Whatever happened, Fiona couldn’t let him touch her. Miss Westin had been explicit on this point when she had lectured on the necromancers: it was simple for them to drain a person’s entire life force. . easier, in fact, than draining a little.

They circled each other.

Fiona refocused her thoughts. . not just on the yo-yo’s string. . she became aware of the bumps and slick patches of cobblestones under her feet. . of the air flowing over her sweaty skin. . of her tensing muscles. . of her quickening breath.

Van Wyck feigned right, then left.

Fiona moved in-straight.

His hand grazed her chest.

It was a cold the likes of which she had never experienced-not even the bone-numbing cold of the Valley of the New Year. This chill went beyond physical. It touched her soul. It fired every instinct within her to curl into a ball and shiver. To give up.

But her blood heated, resisting.

She blinked and regained her focus.

Fiona punched him in the jaw. Pain exploded down her hand and arm, and she stumbled back.

So did he.

She hadn’t hit him hard-but hard enough to break his concentration.

Before he recovered, before he could touch her with that awful magic again, she lashed out with her yo-yo.

It whipped forward.

Donald reacted, instinctively reaching to stop it with an outstretched hand.

And did so, catching the string.

Fiona jerked it. The string whipped through two of his fingers-severed them at the knuckles. She felt no resistance as it passed though his flesh and bones. . but something vibrated though the string as it cut away the magic in his hand.

Fiona then swung the yo-yo and looped it about Van Wyck’s neck.

And then she stood stock-still, held her breath. . and they faced each other.

He clutched his wounded hand. Blood streamed from it.

His magic was gone. His eyes were wild.

The crowd of students fell silent.

“That’s first blood,” Fiona whispered. “Now, you leave me and my brother, and my team alone. . or I will end this. Permanently.”

She gave a tiny tug at the string about his neck.

Van Wyck didn’t flinch. Amazingly, he smiled weakly through his pain.

Did he think she wouldn’t go through with it?

Fiona wasn’t sure, either. She had killed before to defend herself and Eliot. This was different, though. Van Wyck was human. And the Paxington rules said she couldn’t go further than first blood.

On the other hand, she had to end this here and now.

Van Wyck didn’t sense her equivocation, or maybe he just wanted to live, because he finally sighed and said, “Very well, Fiona Post. I accept your terms. I pledge a truce between myself and your team.” His faint smile vanished as he clutched his maimed hand tighter. “Until, of course, we meet in gym.”

The students around them jeered and groaned. . a few chanted, “Cut-cut!”

Fiona exhaled and relaxed her grip.

The small boy on Team Wolf grabbed the severed fingers off the ground. Others from Team Wolf wrapped Van Wyck’s hand, and they hurried him away.

As she watched them leave, she wondered if this would really be the end of their conflict.

She hoped so. . but had a nasty feeling the answer was no.

Before she could figure it all out, everyone pressed closer, asking how she’d cut like that-what kind of magic it was-where her family came from-they’d never heard of the Post family before.

Eliot pushed closer to rescue her from all these impossible-to-answer questions.

Jezebel cleared her throat and said, “You’ve never heard of her family before?”

Everyone turned to her.

“Oh, you are all such idiots!” Jezebel continued, a sneaky grin creeping across her face. “Don’t you know? She’s a goddess.”

The students stood stunned and looked back at Fiona, examining her, some nodding, others mouths open.

Fiona couldn’t believe she had said that.

Jezebel knew? Of course, if she was working with the Infernals-they knew. And no League rules prevented her from just blurting out the very thing that would have landed Fiona or Eliot into serious trouble.

“Fiona Post,” Jezebel said with theatrical flair. “The daughter of Atropos, the Eldest Fate, the Cutter of All Things.”

Fiona started to protest, but everyone began talking at once, suddenly fascinated with her.

Jezebel, with those three words, “She’s a goddess,” had forever changed Fiona’s life.

And, having gotten over the initial shock of this deepest secret uncovered, feeling the admiration and instant popularity from all the students. . Fiona thought that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

Until she saw Eliot.

Fiona tried to move toward him-but Tamara Pritchard and group of her girlfriends cut her off.

Completely ignored by the other students, he skulked away. The expression on his face was one of wounded pride. . and something else. . something dark.

Eliot left campus but didn’t walk home. He picked a direction at random-crossing two busy streets, down an alley between houses, and then angled north until he smelled the ocean.

He took this route so Fiona wouldn’t be able to catch him. Not that she was trying. She had been swamped by students-all asking questions and looking at her as if they’d just seen her for the first time, enamored by her presence.

Eliot hadn’t been able to stand it.

He tromped down a staircase and onto a smaller street, where the houses had tiny co-op gardens for front lawns. It was November and the squash and peas had long been harvested. A vine-strangled scarecrow with button eyes stared at him.

This afternoon had been nothing but one disaster after another. It started when Van Wyck had called Jezebel Team Scarab’s “succubus.”

Eliot had studied enough in Miss Westin’s class, and read the “Tale of the Amber Vixen” in Mythica Improbiba, to understand the reference. Succubi were demons that used love and sex to steal souls and make people do terrible things (although the succubus in the “Amber Vixen” had turned to ash rather than betray the human she’d fallen in love with).[33]

He’d let Van Wyck’s casual, non-vocabulary insult get to him.

Eliot paused to admire an antique white car parked a half block away. It was one of those long-nosed things from the 1930s. It was sleek and the silver trim gleamed like liquid mercury.

He shuddered, dismissing the sudden chill from the encroaching fog, and he moved on.

Eliot should likewise have ignored Van Wyck’s rude comment, but he’d seen himself as a knight riding to the defense of a lady’s honor.

Jezebel was no lady, though. She was Infernal and certainly capable of defending herself.

Eliot had been no knight, either.

He would’ve used his music, and who knew what would have happened. While his power seemed to increase every time he played, his control hadn’t. He’d probably have summoned a skeletal dinosaur or something equally weird, hurt lots of people, and gotten expelled.

But then the worst thing was that Fiona had stepped in and fought for him.

Eliot wasn’t buying her “Team Captain” excuse. She was trying to protect him, her little brother.

It was humiliating.

And to top it all off, Jezebel spilled the beans about Fiona being an Immortal.

Fiona’s social status had gone from nobody to instant celebrity.

They’d all made so much over her. Nobody even made the connection that he might be an Immortal, too. Maybe if he’d stuck around to bask in her glow, someone would’ve noticed-but he hadn’t been able to stomach all those fawning people.

Eliot glanced about. He’d lost sight of the bay. He was surrounded by old warehouses, and nothing looked familiar.

Great, add to his list of things gone wrong today: getting lost.

He reached for his cell phone. He’d use the global positioning to find out where he was. . only Louis had stolen his phone, and Audrey had declared him too irresponsible to be given another.

He sighed. Could this day get any worse?

As if in answer, Eliot spotted that weird white car, parked ahead on the corner.

What were the odds of seeing two identical antique cars within a block? And even more astronomically impossible-what were they odds of two long vehicles like that finding parking spots in San Francisco?

Eliot marched toward it, suddenly angry.

Whoever it was-Immortal, Infernal-it didn’t matter. He’d demand to know what they wanted. He was tired of not being able to stand up for himself.

As he got closer, he saw the silver figure on the car’s hood: a woman with wings swept back and arms held forward. His eyes slid off the snow white surfaces, unable to find any angular features.

He blinked, strode up, and rapped on the driver’s window.

A window in back thunked down.

“Eliot.” Uncle Henry’s voice drifted from inside. “Get in.”

Eliot relaxed a notch. He didn’t trust Uncle Henry; he always seemed to be up to something, but he had tried to bend the League’s rules for him and Fiona. And although Eliot would never guess at the motives of a god, he believed Henry actually liked him.

The back door opened and Uncle Henry sat inside, wearing a white linen suit that matched the white leather interior. He smiled. “I was looking for you. . but I sensed you needed time with your thoughts.”

“Yeah.” Eliot shrugged. “Not so much anymore, though.”

He glanced down the impossibly smooth length of this car, remembering how Robert had destroyed Henry’s last limousine, the black Maybach-crashing it into Beelzebub.

“Do you like it?” Henry asked. “She is my 1933 Rolls-Royce. We call her Laurabelle. I’ve given the girl a tad of engine and body work so she could keep up.” He patted the car lovingly.

“She’s great,” Eliot said. “Could you give me a lift home?”

“Unquestioningly. If you don’t mind a slight detour?”

“As long as it’s not like last time-Uncle Kino drove me to the edge of Hell.”

Henry tilted his head. “No. It’s not far. And it’s nothing dangerous.”

Eliot believed him. He got inside and sat opposite, facing Uncle Henry.

The Rolls-Royce accelerated and the streets became a blur-and then they were speeding though rolling hills of gold.

“So how are you?” Uncle Henry said. “Tell me everything-absolutely everything.”

Eliot did. He sketched his school year so far: the exams, gym class, his girl troubles (although he was vague about who and what Jezebel was), how Fiona was now Team Captain, and how Eliot seemed to be the social equivalent of a flaming leper.

Uncle Henry nodded and made sympathetic noises, but asked no questions.

Outside, coastal waters flashed. The road then plunged into green shadows.

“The worst thing,” Eliot said, “is all the fighting.”

He struggled with his words. Eliot wanted to talk about this, but he didn’t want to sound like a whiny kid.

“I mean, I know the Immortals and Infernals were at war, then there was the battle at Ultima Thule, and then the treaty, the Pactum Pax Immortalis, but there’s still violence and plots. . as if both sides want to fight. Like it’s part of what they are.”

Eliot was careful not to say “what we are” because he still wasn’t sure how he fit within the Immortal and Infernal families.

Henry leaned forward. “Go on. . ”

“It’s not only the families,” Eliot whispered. “It’s Paxington, too. Gym class is a battlefield. There are duels every day, and the other students are beyond competitive. Why is it that way?”

Henry considered this, tapping his lower lip. “We are creatures of struggle and strife, my dear Eliot. We kill to live, and some of us live to kill. Many have tried to make a lasting peace, but they perish, their words soon all but dusty histories. Those who fight, win and survive.”

Eliot sensed this to be true. Why then did it feel so wrong?

“We have to fight?” he asked. “There’s no other way?”

Henry eased back. “All living things fight to survive. Even gods.” He sighed. “Especially gods. Or perhaps”-a sly smile appeared on Henry’s lips-“there is another undiscovered way? Waiting for someone to find it?”

Eliot didn’t understand this, but he didn’t immediately ask what Henry meant. Something secret and powerful echoed in his words just then. Something that was part puzzle, part prophecy, and part, Eliot was sure, something even Henry didn’t quite understand.

The Rolls-Royce slowed.

Outside were palm trees and white sands, and a flock of red parrots took to the wing. The air conditioner kicked on.

Eliot had ridden with Uncle Henry before. His car could get anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. They could be in Florida, or Mexico, or farther.

Henry looked up. “We’ve arrived.”

Smears of the surrounding countryside resolved into sand dunes, plantain trees, and a wide river. Laurabelle ran along a four-lane road crowded with chemical tankers and older sedans-all of them bearing a molecular logo that had planet Earth as one of its atoms.

They turned a corner and the world changed.

A chunk had been ripped from the tropical landscape. For miles in every direction were stumps and smoldering fields.

Nestled in the center of this hell on earth (and Eliot thought he was qualified to make that distinction having recently been there) squatted a refinery. A multitude of towers shot flames and oily smoke into the air. Pipes wormed from every crevice, leaked sludge, and tinged the nearby ocean red.

The Rolls-Royce turned into a parking lot and pulled into a space marked DIRECTOR MUY ESPECIAL.

Eliot opened the door.

The smell overwhelmed him: burning plastic and sulfur and something so repugnant that his nose shut and he gagged. He was barely able to get out and stand.

“Ah,” Uncle Henry said, “that.” He covered his face with a handkerchief. “A rather unfortunate side effect of the manufacturing process. Come, let us retire to my office. My secretary makes the most wonderful iced tea.”

It was so hot, the pavement stuck under Eliot’s loafers. He shrugged out of his wool Paxington blazer, his shirt beneath already soaked with perspiration.

“Wait,” Eliot said. “Why’d you bring me here?”

Henry waved dramatically about. “For what every young man needs: a part-time job.”

Eliot blinked rapidly. “I don’t understand.” He had the same feeling he had had as he watched Louis shuffle his three cards at the café, like some misdirection was occurring.

Uncle Henry slipped out of his white jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. “I know you feel bad about Fiona’s rising prestige, especially within the League. I also heard from your mother how you lost your phone. So, I wanted to give you a chance to restore your confidence. ‘Step up to the plate,’ as the Americans say. I do love all their wonderful sports metaphors. . and let you ‘knock it out of the park.’ ”

“Still not understanding,” Eliot said, getting annoyed.

“This place makes things,” Uncle Henry said. “Oh, I don’t know all the specifics-petrochemicals, pasta, plastics-something that begins with a p that the world simply cannot do without. It employs thousands of workers whose families would otherwise starve. And I am giving it all to you, my boy.”

Eliot stared at the place, revolted by the mess, the odor, and the devastation of the land. . but trying nonetheless to see the good that Uncle Henry spoke of.

“Run it on behalf of the League,” Uncle Henry whispered. “Use its profits to buy a yacht or two-or reinvest the capital and transform it into whatever you desire.” He patted him on the shoulder. “I have faith in you.”

“Thanks. .,” Eliot reflexively said. Audrey had taught him to always thank everyone for everything, no matter if he wanted it or not. “I’m busy with school, though.”

“Oh, you don’t actually run it.” Uncle Henry laughed. “You have other people do that for you. You just make the big decisions.”

Eliot imagined himself sitting in a boardroom wearing a white suit and executives hanging on his every instruction.

Why not? Maybe he could turn this place into something better. Prove to the League that he was. . what?

Responsible? Capable? One of them?

Like Fiona?

Something inside Eliot writhed and rebelled against this idea.

Eliot didn’t want to be molded into someone else’s notion of what they thought he should be.

He wanted. . What? He wasn’t sure. But this factory wasn’t it.

And yet, he couldn’t just refuse and leave this place as it was. Uncle Henry was right on one count: It needed help.

“I appreciate the offer,” Eliot said, “but it’s not going to work for me.”

Uncle Henry’s face fell. “My boy, this corporation is worth a great deal. Millions. . or billions. . I forget.”

Money didn’t mean much to Eliot. When did he have time to spend money?

“I’m still saying no, Uncle Henry, but”-Eliot returned to the Rolls-Royce and got his backpack-“I think I can do something for you.”

“Oh?” Uncle Henry’s eyebrows quirked.

“Just come with me and listen.”

Eliot marched to the corner of the parking lot and mounted a sand dune to get a better view. The land was surrounded by a fringe of burning jungle. There were acres of plastic-lined pits holding pools of fluorescent lime and yellow chemicals. Eliot set one foot on a pipe that jutted from the earth and got his violin case.

He pulled out Lady Dawn and stroked her amber grain. “This time,” he whispered to her, “we work together.”

“Eliot?” Uncle Henry said, a slight unease creeping into his voice. “What are you doing?”

Eliot held his violin bow between Henry and himself, brandishing it like a conductor’s baton. “You said you wanted me to ‘step up to the plate’ and ‘knock it out of the park.’ That’s what I’m going to do.”

Eliot turned his back to him and focused.

He’d only been able to make little things happen on purpose: finding the crocodile, Sobek, in the sewers and Amanda Lane in that burning carnival-that dissonant chord he’d struck and sent a Team Knight student flying backwards.

The big things he’d done. . summoning the dead, battling Beelzebub, and calling forth an army. . those were from songs already written: “Mortal’s Coil,” “The Symphony of Existence,” and “The March of the Suicide Queen.”

He closed his eyes and set his bow to Lady Dawn’s strings. Under his fingertips, she pulsed.

For what he wanted to do now, Eliot would have to use bits and pieces of songs he knew, and invent new musical phrases as well.

He took a deep breath. He could do this.

First, the poisonous air, the layers and lakes of toxic chemicals-they had to go.

But not merely moved somewhere else. That would just poison another place. Eliot had to destroy the stuff. . unmake it.

There was only one thing that would do: “The Symphony of Existence.” There was a bit toward the end about the death of the universe-where matter compressed and heated, atoms disassociated into mist and void.

It was powerful music to start with, perhaps too powerful.

Eliot banished that thought. There would be no room for doubt.

He played notes so low, they trembled on the subsonic threshold, notes so terrible and bloodcurdling, the earth cracked in a spiderweb pattern about him. Clouds covered the sky and cycloned about Eliot. Lightning flashed.

Eliot felt poison drawn from the air, water, and the earth. Rivers of the stuff flowed into the freshly created fissures, steaming and hissing and dissolving soil as it went.

He pushed the notes deeper and darker, pulled the material down-past surface layers and bedrock-he bowed faster, and the heat and subterranean pressure rose-burning and decomposing what it could, oxidizing the remaining toxic metals.

The music wanted Eliot to keep playing. . to the very end. . like a swimmer caught in a river rushing toward a waterfall.

He resisted, though, and deftly transitioned to a major key.

Lady Dawn heated under his fingers. He felt tiny crackles along her length.

The notes sweetened as he wove in strands of “Julie’s Song.”

The land had to be cleaned, but it also needed more. It had to be nurtured. “Julie’s Song” was the only thing he knew that so sounded full of love and light and hope.

He’d composed that song, however, when he was a different person. A boy in love.

He tried to be that again and gave his heart to the land, felt its suffering, and soothed its wounds.

It started to rain, pelting dust and sand, washing away debris, and extinguished distant jungle fires.

Eliot’s thoughts drifted from the land. . to Julie. . and then to what she had become. . Jezebel.

The music shifted, a subtle dissent into a minor key, something that spoke of wild growth and decay, jungle loam and running creepers and opening blossoms-a cycle of life and death.

Eliot smelled fresh vegetation, rich turned earth, and honeysuckle.

He pulled the song back. . sensing something diabolical in the mix.

He was angry. Eliot didn’t want to depend on trivial musical phrases, silly love songs, and music others had written. He wanted his own grand music-sonatas where air and light and birds mixed in fantastical aerobatics, symphonies that touched the stars and spoke of love and loss and the redemption of gods and angels.

He played with fury-the notes nothing he’d ever dreamed of before.

He put his soul into his music.

Live, he urged the land.

And the lands that had once been beautiful called back to him: the phantom songs of a hundred birds and a million insect chirps and whines, the breeze and every rustling leaf that had once lived beckoned, wanting to be once more.

Eliot mourned it all, and he knew then that he had to bring it back.

Somehow. No matter what it took.

He felt a part of himself slip into the land. . and made a connection.

He lost himself, played until he turned everything he was inside out-cast it forth-gave it all.

And then he slowed. . and plunked out the last notes. . and stopped.

Eliot fell to his knees.

Sweat dripped from him, tears streamed from his eyes. . and all mingled with the blood that ran freely from his fingers.

Eliot barely felt Henry’s hand on his shoulder.

The earth was black, and mangrove trees sprouted and grew as he watched, vines wrapped around trunk and branch. There was a rich scent of cut grass. Orchids bloomed. Beetles buzzed. With a rainbow of fluttering feathers, flocks of birds alighted in the treetops, twittering with excitement. Shadow and sunlight angled under the rising jungle.

The factory had changed as well. Rust and corruption had become gleaming stainless steel and green plastic.

Workers ran out and looked with fascination, many making the sign of the cross.

“That. . should. . do,” Eliot breathed, barely able to get out the words, he was so exhausted.

He fell and Henry caught him.

“Do?” Henry’s voice was full of wonder. “Indeed that shall.”

Eliot tried to laugh, but ended up coughing.

He had done something the entire League had been unable-or more likely, unwilling-to do. They were all too selfish to act beyond their personal interests.

And Eliot, at that very moment, realized he would never be one of them.