“For now,” Louis said, “watch your Jezebel, but keep your distance. Neither be cool nor solicit her attentions. And tell no one of
Not telling Audrey-that would be easy. She might take the matter of Jezebel up with the League. That could get messy, fast. But not telling Fiona felt wrong.
He decided, though: He’d trust Louis this once.
Eliot held out his hand for his father to shake. “Deal.”
Louis’s face split into a crooked smile, and he grasped Eliot’s hand.
It felt as if Eliot grasped lightning and raw pumping blood and had a tiger by the tail all at once.
But it also felt good-like he and his father were now in this together.
Sure, it was stupid and dangerous to trust his father, the self-admitted Prince of Darkness, but at the same time, it also felt like the smartest, most important thing Eliot had ever done.
Fiona stepped off the bus with the rest of Team Scarab.
It had been an awkward hour-long ride from Paxington through hills of central California.
First, on this small bus, she had had to sit behind Miss Westin-not the ideal location for gossiping or discussing with Eliot the politics of their Immortal relatives.
Second, Miss Westin had segregated the boys from the girls. Amanda was on Fiona’s right, face plastered to the window, alternately too shy to speak, and then exploding in rapid bursts of enthusiasm over her new clothes and Aunt Dallas, and when was she going to show up again after school?
Behind her sat Sarah Covington and Jezebel, who exuded icy silence at one another.
Thank goodness Mitch Stephenson had the seat across the aisle-and while not daring to cross the gender boundary that ran down the center of the bus, he nonetheless managed to occasionally communicate with her with a smile and roll of his eyes as Jeremy Covington went on and on next to him about his life and exploits in the nineteenth century and how the twenty-first century had gone to the dogs without servants and a rigid social order.
Robert and Eliot seemed to be having a normal conversation in back. Fiona caught only snatches of what they said. She thought they might have been talking about a video game because there were lots of gesticulations with fists and karate chops.
Sometimes they could be so foolish.
Eventually Fiona opened her copy of Homer’s
She gave up when the bus pulled onto a dirt road. They bumped along for a few more minutes and eased to a halt.
The door folded open, and Fiona stepped off after Miss Westin.
There was nothing here, just rolling hills, golden grass, and the occasional orange poppy that trembled in the breeze. The bent black oaks seemed to wave to her.
“Clear the bus,” Miss Westin instructed. “We have another group coming through.”
Fiona marched out the door, to the rear of the bus, and leaned against it. Another group of students marched toward them, escorted by Mr. Ma, who held his usual clipboard. It was Team White Knight. They queued in front of the bus’s doors.
The Knights glared at Fiona and the rest of Team Scarab; Fiona returned the favor.
Tamara Pritchard still sported a black eye from their match. Good.
Miss Westin and Mr. Ma carefully checked off names in her black book and on his clipboard, comparing notes. . as if someone was going to get lost in all this open expanse of nowhere.
Fiona wanted to ask again what this was all about. She’d tried before when they’d been herded onto this bus from Miss Westin’s classroom earlier that morning.
Miss Westin had told her:
Eliot was last to tromp off the bus.
Miss Westin then instructed Team White Knight to board the bus.
Mr. Ma moved between the two groups and crossed his arms (Fiona suspected, to make sure there was no trouble of outside of gym class between Team Scarab and the Knights).
Tamara Pritchard snorted as she passed Jezebel. “We told the Wolves all about your little tricks.” She sneered. “They’ll be ready for you.”
“Oh, really now?” Jeremy quipped. “We face Team Wolf next?” He tilted his head in mock appreciation. “Thank you very much, lassie, for the information. We’ll be well prepared, then.”
Tamara’s face contorted into a scowl as she got onto the bus.
The slightest smile appeared on Jezebel’s lip, and she told Jeremy, “I am so glad you are on
Fiona wished the freshman teams weren’t kept so isolated. Surely they could all learn better together.
Why make
Or was there a reason? What if the mortal magical families were just as aggressive outside school? Then it made sense that Paxington had to prepare its students not only for magic-but also for cutthroat business and political realities.
It all seemed endlessly Machiavellian.
She sighed and made a mental note, however, to find out more on this Team Wolf.
Mr. Ma and Miss Westin spoke in hushed tones. The two teachers couldn’t look more different.
The Headmistress had on a black dress with a lacy collar. She wore a hat with mesh across her face, held a tiny black parasol, and had donned dark sunglasses.
Mr. Ma wore slacks and a polo shirt, and looked like he had spent his entire life playing golf, with dark golden skin and a picture-perfect physique (even at his advanced age).
Eliot sidled next to her. “Hey,” he whispered.
“You hear what this is about?”
He shook his head.
Fiona was relieved that Eliot wasn’t holding a grudge for this morning. Something had felt a little “off” between them for the last couple of days-actually since their first gym match. This morning hadn’t helped matters.
Fiona had had to try on all six uniforms that Aunt Dallas couriered over. Each fit, but had been designed for a different look. . some scandalous, with how short the skirt had been raised and the jacket engineered to push up her chest. She settled on a “normal” uniform that simply fit. It was a huge improvement over her too-small uniform, and gave her an enormous confidence boost. She hadn’t realized how little she’d been able to breathe.
Also, she got a bit distracted with all the other clothes that Dallas had sent: dresses and new jeans and twenty pairs of shoes (none of which Fiona seemed to be able to balance in).
It’d been fun to look at them, even try a few on, but it all reminded her how trivial her aunt could be.
Weren’t Immortals supposed to do heroic, important things? Why was Aunt Dallas wasting time and money on that stuff?
“About me being late this morning,” she murmured to Eliot. “Won’t happen again.”
“It’s cool,” he whispered back.
He sounded like he meant it, too. No quips. No vocabulary insults.
“We have a special All Hallow’s Eve treat for you,” Miss Westin said to them. She tilted her parasol so her pale face revealed itself. “Today we conjure the dead.”
Fiona shivered.
“Not a literal summoning of the deceased,” Mr. Ma added. “But a recreation of memories. We shall watch the last great battle between the Infernals and a collection of Immortals that would precipitate the founding of the League of Immortals-circa 336 C.E.”
Fiona’s heart jumped. They were actually going to see Immortals fighting?
Robert raised his hand and asked, “It’s like a movie, then?”
