All That Lives Must Die

duchess? The one who could pummel you if she had half a mind to do? You want to rescue her?”

Eliot took a step toward Jeremy. His classmate didn’t know how far Eliot had come in the last few months. How Jezebel had smashed a rock against his head that should’ve crushed it and he’d barely felt it. How he’d leveled a few city blocks with his music in Costa Esmeralda.

And how. . right now, he was more than willing to prove himself to the ever-irritating Jeremy Covington.

Sarah jumped up and stood between them.

Eliot’s temper cooled a bit as he remembered how she’d been nice to him recently.

Jeremy, however, continued his mocking glare.

Sarah said, “It’s a noble thing you’re proposing, Eliot, but Jezebel has withdrawn from Paxington. There’s nothing to be done.”

“Jezebel withdrew because she had to,” Eliot said. “Because she’s trapped behind enemy lines. We get her out, and that all changes. Miss Westin said she was ‘inclined to grant the request’-she hasn’t actually done it yet. There’s still time.”

Fiona shook her head and wouldn’t even look at him.

“She needs our help.” But Eliot’s plea was weak and pathetic-everything he was trying not to sound like.

How could he be so powerful and heroic one moment, and the next be such an ineffectual dork?

They were all silent. Eliot’s gaze dropped to the black-and-white checkerboard floor of Miss Westin’s waiting room.

“Just to be clear,” Amanda finally whispered, “you are talking about going to Hell? The real burn-forever-in-eternal-torment Hades?”

“I’ve been there,” Eliot told her, unfazed. He looked up. “It’s not that bad. . well, parts of it aren’t that bad.”

Fiona scoffed. “We were at the Gates of Perdition. Once. We never went inside.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Eliot said. “I took the Night Train into Hell. It runs from the Market Street BART station into the Blasted Lands, and then to the Poppy Lands where Jezebel lives. It’s no big deal.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. “You did what?”

A few months ago, he would have told her everything he’d done. Now he was able to keep secrets.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Eliot explained it all to them: the Night Train, the conductor, and how there were even private trains in Hell to take them back.

“What about the war?” Amanda asked, twirling strands of hair about her pinkie. “That sounds dangerous.”

“There are a few shadows loose,” Eliot said. “But Fiona and I have fought them before. Heck, the six of us together? Nothing could stop us. It’d be easier than a gym match, I bet.”

Jeremy laughed, sat, and reclined on one of the waiting room’s chaises longues. “Oh, to be sure-minus the medics on standby and the ten-minute time limit, and being in the middle of one of the most treacherous-to-mortals places in the outer realms.”

His cousin Sarah shot Jeremy a withering look, which he ignored.

Eliot continued, “But we’re not going to fight their war. We get in, get to Jezebel’s twelve castles, and get her out.”

Sarah bit her lower lip. She looked. . Eliot wasn’t sure what the look on her face meant. It was the look she’d given him after he played at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Part impressed at his bravura, but something misty in her gaze that might have been disbelief at his stupidity. It was so hard for him to tell with girls.

“No way,” Fiona said, folding her arms over her chest. “If you go, you’re on your own.”

“Then I’ll go by myself,” he said, “if I have to.”

There was no challenge in that statement. It was simply a fact.

Fiona narrowed her eyes to gray slits and looked at him like she thought he was the biggest moron in the universe.

And maybe he was, because there was one small fact he hadn’t told anyone: Jezebel didn’t exactly want to be rescued. She was loyal to her Queen and the Poppy Lands. Her strength and life were literally tied to those lands.

So Eliot would stay there this time and fight with her-win this stupid war. How hard could it be? A few more Droogan-dors? What was that after he’d blown up a jet? And if he could get Robert or Fiona to come with him, it’d be that much easier.

Eliot decided not to mention this detail just yet. He figured it was already implied by him saying they had to “rescue” Jezebel.

No. He couldn’t fool himself. That was a lie.

It was only a lie by virtue of leaving out selected truths. . but that was worse. It was more calculating.

He knew what he felt, though. He’d gamble everything, his life and the lives of the others, lie, cheat, and steal to save Jezebel-or lose it all.

“I’ll go with you,” Amanda meekly offered. She stared at the checkerboard floor, unable to look up.

Eliot blinked, surprised. She was the last person he’d expect to go willingly to Hell.

“I’m part of the team, too, aren’t I?” Amanda said. “I like Jezebel, though I don’t think she likes me. That’s kind of beside the point. I just want to help.” She swallowed and continued, “Guess if our positions were reversed, I just wish someone would come and rescue me like that. That’s what friends do for one another, right?”

Amanda pulled back her long brown hair and tied it into a knot. She finally looked up. Her dark eyes smoldered with determination.

“Hey, if Amanda’s going,” Robert said, “I’m in, too.” He cracked his knuckles and then shrugged. “How hard could it be? Plenty of guys have gone to Hell and come back-Dante, Ulysses, Orpheus, Bill, Ted. Besides, you know I’m a sucker for that damsel-in-distress stuff.”

“Thanks,” Eliot told them. . although a rotten feeling started to gnaw at his stomach.

No. He wouldn’t chicken out now. He was going. And he’d take any help he could get.

And he’d accept all the consequences.

Sarah worked her mouth. Nothing came as she struggled with her words.

“It’s okay,” Eliot told her. You don’t have to-”

“We be coming,” Jeremy said, getting up from the chaise longue. “Was there ever any doubt? A bonny adventure in the outer realms? Perhaps even a wee bit o’ treasure in it for us, eh?” He winked.

Sarah looked shocked.

Jeremy gave her a subtle look, and there passed between them some kind of speed-of-light nonverbal communication-just as Eliot and Fiona sometimes managed, but on a frequency Eliot couldn’t decipher.

Sarah twisted back around, uncertainty and fear in her eyes, but she nodded. “Of course we’ll be going.”

“Uh. . thanks,” Eliot said.

Something nagged Eliot about Sarah’s reaction and Jeremy’s never-fading mischievous grin, and how easily he’d agreed to risk his own neck. But who was he to understand the motivations of a nineteenth-century Scottish conjurer, one who’d been stuck in the Valley of the New Year for hundreds of years and then thrown into the present?

Eliot turned to Fiona.

Fiona hadn’t unfolded her arms. She hadn’t dropped her narrowed slit of a stare, either. If anything, her arms were more tightly crossed and her gaze sharper as she turned and assessed them all.

“Don’t encourage his suicidal delusions of grandeur,” Fiona told them.

Eliot wanted to admit to her that above all others, he needed her help on this-that they were stronger together. But he couldn’t say any of those things. It’d just give her a reason to stay-be the anchor that kept him here. . because she was that stubborn.

He took a step closer to his sister and whispered, “In Costa Esmeralda, when you were about to get cut down by that strafing MiG-I didn’t tell you what you were doing was suicidal or a delusion of grandeur.”

“That was completely different,” she whispered back, her face scrunching into angry lines. “People’s lives