All That Lives Must Die

“Make sure to pick up your reading assignments at the gate,” Dante told them, and pointed east. “Miss Westin expects you to be caught up for her first class. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”

“Thanks,” Fiona said.

Dante gave her an appreciative nod and then strode across the quad to the library.

“Well,” Jeremy said, rubbing his hands together, “we have a fine team. We’ll be sure to trounce any competition.” As he said this, however, his gaze slid around Amanda, as if she weren’t there and his description of fine didn’t apply to someone like her.

Fiona glanced back at the bloodstains by the fountain and then looked over her teammates.

They, in turn, glanced at one another, maybe thinking the same thing she was: Would any of them get challenged to a duel? Would they end up fighting each other? Dante said duels were mutually consensual. No one actually had to fight. Or was it trickier than that?

“Yeah,” Fiona said. “We’re all going to do great.”

There was an awkward silence, which Mitch broke. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting over to the gate. I’ve heard Miss Westin assigns a mountain of books the first week.”

“We all passed,” Sarah said, and casually brushed a hand through her hair. “So what’s the worry?”

Fiona had missed almost every question in the magic section on the placement exam. She had a lot of catching up to do.

“I’m out of here.” Robert turned and walked toward the gate. He uncharacteristically looked deep in thought.

“Me, too,” Amanda murmured, and trotted off to the library.

“We better go,” Fiona said, and nudged Eliot. “It was nice-”

Her eyes locked with Jezebel’s. It was like staring into clear green water, and drowning. Fiona couldn’t quite say it was nice to meet her. She had a feeling this girl was going to be nothing but trouble.

She jogged after Robert, calling, “Hey-wait up!”

Eliot came, too. Fiona knew he would, and that was fine because she couldn’t leave him alone with that group, but she still desperately wanted a few moments alone with Robert. Why couldn’t he have figured that out?

Robert had gotten very far ahead of them, although he was just walking. She and Eliot had to sprint to catch up to him as he approached the gate.

Mr. Harlan Dells, the brawny Gatekeeper in the three-piece suit, handed Robert a page-long list of books. Robert scanned it. “I’ve never read so many books in my entire life,” he said.

This was one great difference between her and Robert: Fiona had read almost every book on everything. . save the one small area of mythology.

Mr. Dells handed her and Eliot their reading assignments. There were titles like Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Bough (twelve volumes), The White Goddess, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Even for her, this might take a little time.

“We need to talk,” she whispered to Robert.

“I know,” he said, and he pretended to still be looking at that stupid list. “I don’t know where to start. Things are so weird.”

There was something in Robert’s voice she had never heard before: doubt. She wanted to take his hand, but that felt wrong in front of Mr. Dells, the man who said he could hear and see almost everything.

“Walk me home?” she asked Robert.

Fiona nudged Eliot, who for once in his life got the hint.

“I think I’ll check out that coffee shop,” Eliot said, “just to-”

Eliot’s mouth was open, but he was no longer talking. He stared beyond the gate.

A black Cadillac with tailfins rolled to a stop just outside.

Mr. Dells growled and moved toward the gate, shaking his head. “You’re blocking the entrance. No one is allowed to park here. Not even you. Especially you.”

“Oh man,” Robert said, “I definitely cannot be here.” He walked away.

Fiona started after him, but froze as she saw the car door open and the tallest man she’d ever seen get out. His skin was dark. His smile, cold. His eyes locked on to her and Eliot.

Uncle Kino.

“I am not parking,” Uncle Kino told the Gatekeeper. “I’m here to pick up. Them.”

10. THE GATES OF PERDITION

Eliot stared at the man who climbed out of the Cadillac. Uncle Kino looked taller than he remembered-like he could step over the walls of Paxington, like he was more shadow cast at sunset than flesh and blood.

He blinked and Uncle Kino still looked tall. . but no longer unnaturally so.

The last time he’d seen Kino, he and Fiona had just been officially accepted into the League. Kino had made a point of shaking Eliot’s hand.

“I am here to take them,” Kino again told Harlan Dells.

Mr. Dells crossed his arms over his massive chest. “This is a safe haven. They go only if they want to, Mr. Saturday.”[12]

Kino sniffed (this might have been a laugh; Eliot wasn’t sure) and donned sunglasses. “There’s no trouble here today,” he told Mr. Dells. “Why don’t you go sweep some hallways, eh, janitor?” He turned to Eliot and Fiona. “Come, children.”

Audrey and Cee had drilled into Eliot and Fiona since they were little kids that it was very much not okay to accept rides from strangers.

But Kino was part of the League. It would be no different if Uncle Henry had come to pick them up. Wouldn’t it?

Eliot tried to see Kino’s eyes past the smoky lenses of his sunglasses, but couldn’t, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

“This is Council business,” Kino explained. “Your mother sent me. She said to tell you that you will be able to do your chores and homework afterward.”

Now that sounded right. After entrance and placement exams, a campus tour, a reading assignment that probably would take months, and whatever the Council now wanted-of course there would be chores to do at home.

Eliot looked at Fiona, and she slowly nodded, confirming his hunch.

“Okay,” Eliot said.

Mr. Dells uncrossed his arms, flipped the switch on the side of the gatehouse, and the large iron gate rolled silently open.

Eliot took a step toward Kino’s car.

“Wait.” Kino held up his large hand.

“You just said you wanted us to come,” Eliot told him.

“You got dice on you? No dice!” Kino said, and pushed his sunglasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Not in my car.”

For a second Eliot didn’t know what he meant. He then realized he still had the dice from the Last Sunset Tavern in his pocket. His lucky charms. He’d used them to guess on the last multiple-choice parts of the placement exam he hadn’t had a clue about.

He pulled them out of his pocket. “They’re just-”

“They’re just getting thrown away,” Kino declared.

Fiona turned to Eliot and rolled her eyes. That was the look she reserved for when Audrey laid down the law. A look that said, Shut up and do what you’re told, because we’re not going to win this one and it’s no use trying.

But Eliot wasn’t just going to throw them away. They were his.

He squeezed them in his fist, felt their recessed pips, all those random possibilities contained in his hand. It