All That Lives Must Die

“What do you mean?”

Eliot snorted. “It’s easy, but useless, really.” He crossed one of the map’s torn flaps so Lombard and Chestnut Streets, once parallel, angled toward each other.

Static electricity raced up his fingertips, growing stronger as he brought the pieces of the map together.

Fiona guided the other part of the map toward his. “I’ve felt something like this before,” she whispered.

The two portions of the map wavered as if magnetically attracted and then repulsed. . and then the two sides snapped together.

Lombard and Chestnut crossed-at least on paper.

Fiona ran her fingers over the parchment. “This feels like that spot in the Valley of the New Year where there was a hidden exit. A spot where space folded.”

“Like there’s an extra space or a doorway”-Eliot pointed to the spot where the two streets intersected-“here?”

“We passed that spot and didn’t see anything,” she said.

“But did we really look?”

They stared at the map. The “intersection” was a block and a half away.

Fiona crumpled the outer edges of the map, and they both ran.

They dodged people on the sidewalk; Eliot careened off a trash can, stumbled, but kept going. He caught glimpses of other Paxington students, but didn’t bother to ask for help. There was no time left.

They sprinted toward the address where Paxington was supposed to be, where the lines crossed on the map.

It looked like the same place they had walked by earlier. . but it felt different.

That static electricity sensation was here.

He slowed and stopped.

So did Fiona.

They looked for something out of the ordinary. There was only a wall made of roughened granite blocks.

Eliot ran his hand over the surface.

It was just rock. . but there was something else, faint at first, and then stronger. Deep inside the stone there was a vibration, almost like he was touching the strings of his violin.

Fiona felt the wall with both her hands. “It’s like threads,” she whispered.

“Like music,” he said.

He spied a minuscule crack in the stone, and as he touched its edges, there was a pause in the music.

Fiona found the spot as well.

Eliot stared at the crack and found that when he looked at it from a particular angle-an angle that hadn’t been there before-the crack tilted and expanded and was really a four-dimensional corner.

Disorientation washed over him as this new space revealed itself. The sensation was like staring at one of those crazy M. C. Escher drawings: Everything appeared normal, until suddenly you saw an extra dimension tilting sideways.

Eliot and Fiona stepped around this new corner and found themselves-

— on a cobblestone boulevard running perpendicular to the main street.

It wasn’t as if this new passage were hidden. It opened quite plainly onto the main street behind them.

Eliot waved to a man as he rushed past on the sidewalk. “Hey, mister,” he called.

The man ignored him.

Apparently no one on the outside could sense this place, unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.[5]

There were a dozen stores on this in-between street: antique and curio shops, a few high-end fashion boutiques, a Chinese noodle house, and a cafe on the corner, where older Paxington students sat at canopy-covered tables. Farther down the boulevard, brick walls rose along the sides, weathered and ivy-covered, which ended a half block away at an intricate wrought iron gate.

Beyond those gates were majestic cathedral-like buildings stained black with age, structures with Greek columns that rose like a forest of marble, and wavering in and out of the ever-present Bay Area fog lorded a clock tower glinting with hints of gold filigree.

“It’s amazing,” Eliot said.

“Yeah. . ” Fiona immediately sobered. “But the time!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

Eliot shook off his wonderment and ran with her.

As they neared the gate, Eliot saw that it was shut. Had they let everyone inside already and locked the place up?

A man with a stern look on his face stepped out of the gatehouse. He wore a navy blue suit with an embroidered Paxington crest. His blond hair was buzz-cut, and his beard was trimmed square, save the two braids that dangled from his chin.

He towered over Eliot and Fiona, but more impressive than his height was his girth. It would’ve taken three muscular men standing side by side to occupy the same space where he stood. His biceps flexed and stretched taut the fabric of his jacket.

He raised a clipboard and made two checks. “Master Eliot Post,” he muttered, “and the Lady Fiona Post. Good morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Eliot panted. “Good morning. Sorry.” He gave this man a short bow, unsure what the protocol was, but very sure that he deserved respect.

Fiona curtsied.

“Congratulations on passing the entrance exam,” the man said.

“Entrance exam?” Eliot echoed.

“A test to see if you have a spark. You’d be surprised how many potential freshmen wander just outside this street, sometimes for days, never giving up, but never having what it takes to get inside, either. So sad.”

The man’s iron stance relaxed a notch. “I am Harlan Dells,” he said. “Head of security at Paxington. Mind you two break no rules while on school grounds or you will answer to me.”

Eliot swallowed.

Harlan Dells glared at Eliot’s backpack.

Eliot felt his violin case shift inside. His hand tingled where Lady Dawn’s snapped string had cut and infected him. . apparently not so healed as he had thought.

Harlan Dells turned and opened the gate.

Something about the man was familiar. It was like when they had met Uncle Henry; Eliot felt an instinctual fear and some deja vu. He sensed that Mr. Dells was related in some way. He was an Immortal.

Mr. Dells faced them. “I can hear the grass grow on the other side of the world. I can see the farthest shore, the most distant star. . and I can be in more than one place at a time, so I can easily spot and catch two troublemakers. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Eliot and Fiona said together.

“Good.” Mr. Dells pointed past the gates-over manicured lawns and marble fountains, across the courtyard to the clock tower and a domed building next to it. “Bristlecone Hall,” he told them. “That’s where your placement exams are this morning.”

The minute hand of the tower clock ticked into the straight-up position, and bells tolled.

“I suggest,” Mr. Dells said, “that you run for it.”

They did.

4. WHAT WE DO BEST

Louis Piper, often called the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, or the Morning Star, mused on the nature of time. . how when one doted upon a beautiful woman, a moment stretched into days. . or like now, when one waited for his cousins to deliberate on their endless scheming-it took an eternity.

Louis shifted on the vinyl couch.