All That Lives Must Die

“She was bait for the Infernals,” Fiona said slowly as if she were explaining this to a moron. “She admitted it. You saw what it’s like in Hell. How can you want to get mixed up in that?”

“Because she needs our help,” Eliot said.

Fiona looked unbelievingly at him. “It’s just part of their plan. Make you feel sorry for her. Draw you in deeper.”

“Maybe,” Eliot whispered. “But I can’t ignore the other side of our family any longer. I want to learn their game and play it to my advantage.”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open. “It’s no game. And they’ve been doing this for thousands of years. You can’t ‘play’ with them. Stay clear of Jezebel or”-Fiona hesitated, choking her words out-“or I’ll tell Audrey.”

Eliot stared at Fiona, shocked.

She stared back.

The world felt as if it had stopped spinning. Birds ceased singing. The traffic quieted.

Don’t tattle to Audrey or Cecilia: this was the one brother-sister protocol that they had never, ever violated. Why bother? Audrey always found out anyway.

“Do that, and I’ll tell about you and Robert,” Eliot blurted out.

Fiona shrugged. “What’s to tell? It’s over. Probably best for Robert if the League knows we’re not together, anyway.”

“So, I’ll tell Audrey about Mitch and your ‘date’ today. You could bring him home for her to meet.”

Fiona paled.

That hit a nerve. Eliot would never really have mentioned Robert or Mitch. He liked them both, and drawing either to Mother’s attention was dangerous. But it had been worth lying to see Fiona’s face, let her know how it felt to have people you care for get in the way of Infernal, or Immortal, forces.

“Okay!” She held up her hands. “You win. Do what you want-just leave me out of it.”

“Whatever,” Eliot muttered, and then because he still couldn’t believe she had seriously considering telling on him, added, “Onychophagist Phasmida.”

That was a not-so-clever opener for vocabulary insult.

Onychophagist meant “nail biter,” a reference to the old pre-goddess, nerdy Fiona. She used to bite her nails all the time. And Phasmida was the order of stick bugs, a shot at her too-slim figure.

Fiona reddened, angry and embarrassed, as she puzzled out the meanings. She narrowed her eyes and told him, “I wouldn’t talk with your mouth full, merdivorous Microcebus myoxinus.”

Okay, Eliot admitted his insult had been a little mean. Fiona’s, though, was cruel.

Merdivorous meant “dung eating” (he’d seen that one a bunch of times, looking up scarab references recently). And Microcebus myoxinus was the pygmy mouse lemur, the smallest primate in the world-with eyes so large, they looked as if they wore oversized glasses. Most lemurs were herbivorous, or occasionally insectivores, so that dung eater was just gratuitous. . although the alliteration was a skillful twist.

He scoured his brain for some word he’d saved for a special occasion to blast Fiona back-then he spotted a Brinks armored truck in front of their house.

Two guards got out and walked up to the front door. One carried a box.

Eliot and Fiona glanced at each other-communicating this game of vocabulary insult was now paused-and raced toward them.

They met the guards on the porch just as Audrey open the front door.

Audrey eyed the men suspiciously, and then stared at the package.

Both guards looked uneasy. “Delivery for Ms. Audrey Post?” one said.

“I am she,” Audrey told them.

“Would you sign, ma’am?” One guard offered a clipboard with forms in triplicate.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Special delivery,” the other guard said, looking at Eliot and Fiona as if this explained everything.

Audrey continued to stare at the package and signed without looking at the forms. “Set it on the stoop, please.”

They did so and the guards left, practically running back to their armored car.

Audrey waited until the truck drove off. She then asked Fiona and Eliot, “How was school today, children?”

“Fine,” Fiona said, and shot a glance at Eliot.

It was a lot weirder than “fine,” but how could Eliot even start to explain? Even for them, it had been an unusual day.

Eliot decided to add nothing by way of explanation, and instead asked, “Is that package for us?”

Audrey continued staring at the box as if she could see through it. On it were labels with Cyrillic lettering and a dozen overlapping customs stamps. “No,” she said. “For me.”

“Are you going to open it?” Fiona asked.

Audrey picked it up, shook it gently, and turned it over and over. “I believe so.” She went inside.

Eliot and Fiona followed her upstairs.

Audrey set it on the dining table, took out a pair of scissors, and sliced through tape and paper.

Inside were Styrofoam peanuts and a tiny egg.

It was a Faberge. Eliot had seen pictures of them in encyclopedias. This one was the size of a hen’s egg. It had to be authentic, because it glimmered with inlaid diamonds and flowing sinews of sapphires, which gave the impression of water flowing over its surface.

Audrey inhaled and her eyes widened. “Lovely. .,” she whispered.

Fiona, also apparently touched by its beauty, reached for it.

Audrey moved it away.

“Sorry,” Fiona whispered. “It’s just so. .”

“Yes,” Audrey replied. “Too entrancing, I’m afraid.” She frowned and removed the manifest from the box, scanning it.

“Who’s it from?” Eliot asked.

“A private collection in Bangkok,” Audrey relayed, reading the manifest, “the director of antiquities in Moscow, and then to an art house in Paris. . but these are just half truths.”

She returned to the egg and touched a sapphire on its equator. There was a click, and the top portion hinged into seven slices that opened like the petals of a lotus.

Within was a minutely crafted scene of a gondola sailing down a canal-the entire thing made of gold and silver, lapis lazuli and aquamarine, and sparkling diamonds everywhere, so it looked like moonlight and stars reflecting on nighttime waters, tiny fish frolicking alongside the boat, a boatman with pole in one hand, his passengers a man and woman embracing.

There was a tiny whir, and music tinkled from within the egg.

Audrey stared somewhere else, far away and long ago. Emotion trembled upon her lips. She whispered, “Quasi una fantasia.”[29]

She looked on the verge of tears, but she blinked and was back in the present.

Audrey snapped the egg shut. “It is from your father,” she said, her tone frigid.

Uncle Henry had once told them how their mother and father met at the Carnival in Venice. Both masked, they had fallen in love before they knew each other’s true identities.

Audrey tore through the pages of the invoice. “How did he find us?” Her finger traced through shipping codes and credit card information-halting at a phone number. She slammed the pages onto the table.

Eliot jumped, startled by the sudden violence.

“This. .,” Audrey said in a deliberately calm voice, “is our phone number. Our very unlisted phone number. Only those in the League have it.” She cocked her head, thinking, then turned to Fiona and Eliot. “May I see your phones?”

A peculiar numbness tingled through Eliot’s extremities, and it felt like the floor dropped from under him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?

“Uh, sure,” he said.