All That Lives Must Die

A girl in the audience snickered. “That’s ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ ” [51]

Someone shushed her.

Eliot paid them no attention and kept playing. This song, whatever it was, was his and his family’s. It was the mother he’d had, if only for a moment, before Louis left and everything changed-before Audrey severed her connection to him and Fiona. A connection he’d never get back. . that he mourned over.

The song was simple, slow, and full of that loss. Each note was leaden and painful in the still air. He felt completely alone up on the stage.

It was a stupid little baby thing. . but it was his.

He put himself into the song, all the love and happiness of his perfectly imagined family that had never been: growing up with a real father and mother. . having Audrey’s tenderness, Louis’s guidance-not 106 rules.

But that was a lie. The notes soured under his fingers, and he shifted to a minor key.

About him, the spotlight flickered and dimmed.

He’d never had real parents. Nothing about his family was normal. He cast aside his dream and faced the fact that he was the son of the Eldest Fate, Atropos, and of Lucifer, the Great Deceiver. Maybe that made Eliot a freak, or a nerd, but something in him had to be part divine and part darkness.

The simple song under his fingertips now spoke of the heavens wheeling overhead, and among them a boy. . ascending to stars-or falling like his father, crashing and forever burning.

One day he would be very much more than simple Eliot Post.

He finished, the last notes echoing throughout the grotto like the beating of his heart.

There was no clapping.

Eliot couldn’t see any faces in the dark.

He trembled from the exertion and from the humiliation that he’d put everything he was out there for strangers to see.

Ms. DuPree set one hand on his shoulder. “That was good,” she whispered. “Real good, kid.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Stick with me, and one day I’ll make you a star.”

53 CHALLENGE

Fiona followed her stupid map to the far side of the Ludus Magnus. She was irritated they thought she needed a map when she’d been wandering around here for a half a year already. . more irritated that she had needed the map.

Although she had seen the far side of the Ludus Magnus before, had even had a bird’s-eye view from the top of the obstacle course, she’d never noticed this tiny sister coliseum.

Instead of columns, giant statues stood along curve of its outer wall: an armored knight, a one-breasted Amazon, and a gladiator with trident and net.

She passed through the wide entrance. The inside training grounds were the size of a softball field, with sand and mud and grass and concrete surfaces, dotted with wooden practice dummies; steam-powered, multi-armed robots; barricades of spikes and razor wire, racks of swords and shields and spears-and lots of open space to fight.

In the center stood Mr. Ma. About him in a loose circle were ten boys in their Paxington school uniforms (not gym sweats).

Fiona’s heart skipped a beat. Of course Mr. Ma would be the combat instructor. Who else but sadistic, by- the-book Mr. Ma?

She did a double take, though, as Mr. Ma laughed and smiled and patted one of the students on the back. He seemed more at ease here than in gym class. Maybe she’d catch a break and he might actually be nice to her. Unlikely.

The boys in the class were bigger and more serious than the ones she usually saw on campus. Upperclassmen. Two of them she recognized from that first-day demonstration of the obstacle course; one had had a broken arm, but he looked no worse for the injury today.

Fiona worried that she might be late-despite having made sure that she had an early start this morning. It was one of those things that just seemed to happen to her: misreading the grandfather clock at home, class getting moved up. . Eliot doing something to mess them up, like start a small war.

She checked her phone. No, she still had ten minutes.

As Fiona walked toward them, however, she noticed one more thing different with this picture.

Robert Farmington.

He stood with the other boys (just as tall but not quite so filled out), and he looked completely at ease-as he always did. He had a black eye, but nonetheless laughed along with Mr. Ma, and grinned-until he saw her.

His smile dried up. The others turned.

Mr. Ma’s smile similarly vanished, and he was once again the same stern figure who made her life miserable in gym.

“Good morning, Miss Post,” he said.

The way he said it, though, was laced with disapproval-as if what he meant to really say was: Good morning, Miss Post, and notice that while you’re on time, you’re not early. . indicating that you don’t have the dedication to the martial arts that these other fine young men do, so why don’t you go back to bed and get your beauty sleep and not worry your not-so-pretty-little head about such things?

Imagined or not, irritation made her neck flush with heat.

“I’ve come to learn how to fight,” she told him as confidently as she could (which sounded more like a squeak to her).

“I’m sure you have,” Mr. Ma replied. He nodded to Robert. “But as you can see, I’ve already had one freshman who has contested the prerequisites for this course. I have no desire to babysit two such fledglings. It would not be fair to the others.”

Robert looked at the ground, unable to meet her gaze.

The prickly heat on her neck spread across Fiona’s chest. Anger or embarrassment or both-she wasn’t sure.

It was completely unfair. Just because Robert had gotten here a few minutes earlier and passed Mr. Ma’s stupid test? A test she was sure she could pass, too.

“Miss Westin said I could challenge your prerequisites.” Fiona had wanted to say this calmly and logically, as if Mr. Ma had just overlooked some bookkeeping error, but it came out sounding petulant.

“I’m sure she did. But Miss Westin’s influence stops at the entrance of this hall.”

Fiona pursed her lips. Something solidified in her. . a titanic, immovable mass of stubbornness.

“I will challenge your prerequisites,” she told him. She had made that sound exactly as she wanted this time-as if she were contesting Mr. Ma personally.

The other students collectively inhaled and held their breaths.

Mr. Ma narrowed his eyes slightly as he took her in, and then after a moment said, “A challenge, is it?” He chuckled. “What would be the point, Miss Post? You need a signed permission slip first.”

He turned back to the others.

“I have one.” Fiona got out the piece of paper and handed it to him.

Mr. Ma looked at the permission slip-which covered all the things she had expected: a dozen hypothetical near-fatal injuries, and the four Ds (death, decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment). . as if there weren’t already a million different ways to get beaten, broken, or killed in Paxington.

What was absolutely fascinating to Fiona, though, was that Audrey had signed it.

Fiona had gone back and forth on the best way to approach her mother-how learning to fight would actually increase the odds of her graduating-it was better to learn in a structured and supervised environment where there were medics nearby rather than doing so outside of classes where anything could happen.

Audrey hadn’t listened. She had simply taken the permission slip and signed it.

On the signature line of the page, her mother had printed Audrey Post, and then next to it she had drawn an infinity symbol with a line stricken diagonally across.