All That Lives Must Die

flicker of fear in his eyes.

Her bokken passed through his as if it weren’t there, cleaving the wood in two.

Mr. Ma leaned back.

Not far enough, though.

The tip of Fiona’s bokken crossed his face. . and she felt resistance along her cutting edge-something hard, so she pushed harder with her arms and her mind-and his flesh yielded.

It was nothing serious. She hadn’t wanted to cut off his head. It was just a reminder that he should never turn his back on her again: a nearly microscopic slash curved from his cheek to chin.

She stepped back.

Mr. Ma felt the wound, and his fingers came away a tiny smear of red. He stared at it for the longest time.

The other students stared, too.

Fiona no longer felt the anger; she wasn’t even glad that she’d given Mr. Ma a taste of his own medicine.

Something was wrong.

It felt as was if she’d broken a rule-and not just some Paxington rule that might get her expelled. This rule felt like it should not have been able to be broken, like gravity. The entire universe felt as if it might unravel because of what she’d just done. . starting from where Mr. Ma stood. . from that one tiny cut.

Mr. Ma curled his fingers into a fist and took a breath. The wound on his chin stopped bleeding.

He moved toward Fiona.

The bokken slipped from her grasp. She started to say she was sorry-but halted herself. She wasn’t sorry, and she wouldn’t lie about it.

Mr. Ma gazed into her eyes. He wasn’t angry. It was as if he were searching for something that he’d misplaced a thousand years ago.

And then he blinked and nodded. “Very nicely done, Miss Post. Come, we were covering the basic fighting stance. . which I note you could use some improvement on.” He motioned for her to join the other boys, and very much made a point of not turning his back on her.

Fiona hid her surprise. So now he was actually inviting her to join the class? She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t going to question it, either.

As she joined them, though, the other students shuffled away. Not one of them offered their congratulations or would look her in the eye. Not even Robert.

Fiona stood by herself.

Mr. Ma showed them how to stand and fight, how not to lose one’s balance as they shuffled their feet.

She watched and listened and learned, but felt hollow inside, as if she were alone in the world. . as if she’d severed much more with that one little cut than she had meant to.

________

“Robert! Wait.” Fiona jogged after him along the trail through the grove, catching up. She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “Robert, please. What’d I do? Is it because I’m the only girl in the class?”

Robert stopped, looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

It felt weird trying to get Robert to talk to her, almost pleading, after working so hard to put some distance between them. But he was in her class now. They’d have to talk, wouldn’t they? Not talking would be weirder.

She waited for Robert to explain, but instead he turned and walked away.

He stopped after two paces, sighed, and turned back to her. “It’s not that.” He shook his head, but then seemed to decide something. “You cut him, Fiona.”

“That was the point, wasn’t it? Show him I was good enough to get into the class? It’s the same thing you did.”

Robert paled. “I didn’t fight Ma. I wouldn’t have the guts to try.”

“Okay, so one little paper cut.”

Robert stared at her, unblinkingly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Fiona shot him the look that she usually reserved for Eliot, the obviously you’re being too stupid for me to understand look.

“I guess not,” Robert said. “It’s in The Mahabharata.”

“East Indian mythology? Miss Westin hasn’t covered that yet, so how could I know?”

Robert blinked. “It was a movie. Pretty cool one, too. Look, sorry, I just assumed everyone knows this stuff. . ”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you forget that until last summer, Audrey kept Eliot and me isolated? As in a total-vacuum-of-all-things-diabolical-and-divine type isolated?”

“Okay, it’s just that Mr. Ma is an Immortal, and has the power to choose when he dies.”[52]

“So what?” Fiona demanded. “No kidding: he didn’t die today.”

“He’s not supposed to,” Robert explained. “Not until the end of things. He’s not supposed to get touched. Not a bruise, not a chipped tooth. . not even one little cut.”

“One little cut. .,” Fiona echoed, and her stomach twisted into knots. “I still don’t see the big deal. So I caught him off guard with-” She stopped. “Wait, what do you mean ‘until the end of things’?”

“Mr. Ma is supposed to get hurt only at the end. . of everything.”

That sense of wrongness was back. As if when Fiona had cut Mr. Ma, she’d broken something unbreakable. . that couldn’t be repaired.

“The end of days,” Robert whispered. “Ragnarok. Armageddon. That’s what everyone’s freaking out about. They think because you hurt him, well, maybe you might have started it.”

54 MUSIC TO END THE WORLD IF THOU DESIRE

Eliot sat cross-legged on his bed. He had a lot to do. He’d tackle the hard stuff first: tonight’s music homework.

He had to play his violin for fifteen minutes without repeating himself. Ms. DuPree said he had to or “the bit of creativity that hadn’t been sucked out of him yet would solidify like concrete.”

But repetition was part of the music Eliot knew. Self-taught with “Mortal’s Coil,” “The Symphony of Existence,” and “The March of the Suicide Queen”-those pieces had ordered stanzas and repeated phrases that built on each other.

How did you make music without repetition?

He pushed his violin case away. Maybe he’d get to that later.

The next problem on his list was Fiona. He’d hardly seen his sister this semester. She came home late from her Force of Arms class, showered, slept, and then got up at 3 A.M. to do homework. She was such a zombie by the time they walked to Paxington in the morning, he barely got a grunt or two out of her.

Which normally would’ve been great. . except he had a feeling they’d need to work together more than ever to survive the rest of the school year.

Any free waking moments Fiona had between classes, she spent with Mitch. Not that it was any of Eliot’s business, but Robert was hanging out less with their group because of it. He couldn’t decide if Robert and Fiona not being together was a good or bad thing.

Which brought him to the next problem to solve: gym class.

Team Scarab practiced like their lives depended on it. Sarah was great. She’d learned how to harmonize with Eliot’s music, and together they could shatter a three-foot-thick beam halfway across the course. Fiona and Robert were just as impressive, stronger and faster than they’d ever been. . although there was definitely some unresolved tension between Mitch and Robert. The only one who didn’t seem to be trying so hard was Amanda. Jeremy shot