disapproval.

Then Eliot got a good look.

Jezebel. It was her, but not like he’d ever seen her before.

She was in her Paxington uniform. . sort of. Instead of loafers, though, she wore thigh-high, high-heel boots of coffee-colored leather. Bronze studs curved from her ankle and spiraled about her leg. Fishnet stockings highlighted the hint of flesh that showed between those boots and the hem of her pleated skirt. A wide belt cinched her waist and covered half her bare midriff. The gleam of an emerald swayed in her pierced navel. She did have on the standard Paxington jacket with its distinctive school crest on the lapel, but instead of the white dress shirt, she had on a black T-shirt with a poison green radiation symbol stenciled with the words ATOMIC PUNK.

Her hair was straight and platinum blond, but streaked with black. She wore heavy eyeliner that made her blue-green eyes seem large and luminous.

Her features were no longer that perfect porcelain, either; they were human. Not the Julie Marks he had known, but part Julie, part Jezebel, and something entirely new. A hairline scar traced down from her temple to the corner of her mouth.

Her lips slipped into an easy smile as she saw him. It was the same dazzling hundred-watt smile he had fallen in love with, full of joy in life and the promise of what Eliot hoped might be a happy ending to their drama.

Jezebel walked toward him-a crooked stride that was hypnotic. She then stopped before him, beaming.

“I. . I don’t know what to say,” Eliot murmured to her.

“Then don’t say anything,” she told him, the faintest hint of her old Southern accent back in her voice. She drew close, wrapped her arms about him, and kissed him.

He held her and kissed her back, slow at first, but tasting her-feeling her poison spreading through him-not numbing like that last time on the Night Train; it tingled and burned and was a honeyed drug he couldn’t get enough of.

But he pulled away, coming up for air. . and she set a hand on his chest and pushed gently back.

“There is good news and bad news, my liege,” she whispered. “Which would you like to hear first?”

Eliot hesitated, trying to wrap him mind around her calling him my liege after an entire year of her calling him a fool.

He supposed, technically, there was some sort of feudal relationship if he owned the land she lived on. It felt weird already, though, that she had kissed him and been so friendly, considering their new-what? Business relationship?

But that had been his plan, hadn’t it? Claim the land that Jezebel had been tied to and then set her free?

He took a step back and collected himself. “Uh, good news, I guess,” he said.

She licked her lips. “Miss Westin is giving me a chance to graduate. Even after missing the last semester.”

Eliot then noticed that almost everyone stared at them-especially Miss Westin, whose gaze was heavy with displeasure.

“The bad news,” Jezebel continued, and frowned, “is that to do so, I have to make up all my classes at summer school. All summer long.”

“Then you’re staying here?”

She nodded. “Sealiah has paid for everything: tuition, room and board, books, but. .” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “It is now for you to decide if I stay at Paxington and continue on next year, or if I am to return with you now.”

Eliot lifted her chin. Her eyes were the color of aquamarines, and there wasn’t a trace of humor or falsehood in their depths. She wasn’t joking.

How was it his decision what she did? And return with him where?

“I’d never tell you what to do,” he said. “It’s your life. What do you want to do?”

Jezebel twisted from his hand. “As I said, it is for you to tell me. You are now the Lord of the Burning Orchards. I’m a part of those lands.” She added in a sad whisper so soft that he barely heard: “I belong to you.”

Eliot shook his head. “Nobody ‘belongs’ to anyone. Okay-forget that. It’s probably some weird Infernal custom. I’ll just set you free.”

She looked at him with a mixture of frustration and adoration on her face. “Oh, Eliot, it doesn’t work that way. No one can be set free in Hell. Ever.”

This was too much. There was no way Eliot was going to own another person. He was about to argue further, but sensed someone behind him.

“I hate to interrupt,” Fiona said, sounding very much like that was precisely what she wanted.

He turned and saw Fiona locked in a hate-filled stare with Jezebel.

Jezebel met Fiona stare for stare, and flashed her a smile.

“If you’re done embarrassing yourselves with that tacky liplock,” Fiona told her, “I need my brother back.”

Jezebel’s hand snaked around Eliot’s neck. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll be done for a long time. Why don’t you occupy yourself in the meantime with your own boyfriend?” She feigned a concern expression. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You chased one of your boyfriends off. . and the other one’s dead.”

Fiona turned white. She growled through clenched teeth, “Shut-your-mouth.”

Eliot extracted himself from Jezebel and stepped between them. To Jezebel, he said, “Don’t. We’ll talk later.” He turned Fiona. “You have my full attention. What’s up?”

Fiona grabbed Eliot’s hand and dragged him across the room. “We forgot someone-or rather, something.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliot pulled away from her and halted.

Fiona glanced back at Jezebel. “One day your girlfriend is going to go too far.” She then strode off without Eliot. “Come on. We have an appointment to keep.”

“Hey, wait up. I still don’t-”

Fiona marched straight to the Covingtons.

Eliot hurried after her.

“Ah, my dearest Miss Post,” Jeremy said, bowing with a flourish and shaking his hair into a golden mane. He held a flask in one hand, and the smell of whiskey hung in the air. The others in the group (Eliot assumed they were Covingtons, too, from their similarly freckled sardonic features) backed up a pace at the sight of Fiona.

Sarah, however, moved to Jeremy’s side. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her uniform was freshly pressed. She looked wary and apologetic at the same time.

Fiona asked Sarah, “You said before you wanted to make amends?”

Jeremy looked at his cousin, and his stupid drunken grin faded.

“Aye, I did,” Sarah whispered.

“You have a car?” Fiona asked. “We need you to drive us someplace.”

“Of course,” Sarah said. “Where?”

“Del Sombra.”

86 ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE

Fiona kicked through the sand and watched tumbleweeds roll by. She wasn’t sure she could find the place again among this suburb that had never been. There were cinder block walls, ribbons of faded asphalt, and the fragments of house foundations.

“What are we looking for again?” Sarah asked. She put on sunglasses and a baseball cap to protect her freckled skin from the raw sun.

“Manhole cover,” Fiona told her.

“Do I want to know why?” Sarah wrinkled her nose.

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