by Eric Nylund
“Jezebel,” Eliot told her. “Right about what?”
“That you’re an idiot, and you should stay away from her.”
Eliot halted and crossed his arms.
He detected no lie in Fiona’s statements-which really irritated him-but Eliot didn’t think his half-blooded Infernal lie detector covered insults from a sibling (which would have been half of what Fiona said).
“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 Fabergé. 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.
He and Fiona got their phones and set them on the table.
Audrey glanced at Fiona’s, then nodded, and made a little take it away gesture.
She stared at Eliot’s twice as long, then picked it up with two fingers as if it were a stinging insect. After looking at it, this way and that, she set it on the table and grasped her scissors.
Faster than Eliot could follow, she snipped at the phone-cutting it in half.
He felt something pass through him as well, a sensation of lightning from his throat to the base of his spine, followed by a nerve-jangling shudder. His heart pounded in his chest, and he found himself unable to take a breath.
And his phone. . it wasn’t his.
The two halves on the table were from a smaller, older phone. The beige plastic was well-worn, dirty, and missing half its number buttons.
“Your phone was stolen,” Audrey explained. “This is a cloned copy, from, I’m almost certain, Louis.” She spat out his name and turned her glare fully upon Eliot. “Where and when did you see him?”
Eliot had seen Audrey serious, maybe even angry before, but not like this. The world closed in around him. There was a gravity to her words that he seemed to fall into. But he managed to take up a breath and gather his courage. He wouldn’t let himself be bullied.
“At the café,” he told her, “just outside Paxington.”
Next to Eliot, Fiona shifted nervously as if he might mention she was with them.
But Eliot was talking about this morning when he’d been alone with the Prince of Darkness.
Eliot remembered how fascinated Louis had been with his new cell phone, too. . how he had picked it up.
That’s when he must have made the switch.
Louis had played him for a fool as easily as he had so many others.
“Eliot,” Audrey said, her words softer now. “You must be careful. Louis speaks the most delicate mix of lies and truths. You will not be able to discern one from the other with him. He is called the Great Deceiver for good reason.”
Eliot nodded. Louis obviously hadn’t lied to him. He of all people would know Eliot would be able to sense outright lies. He’d known Eliot would rely on his new ability. . and completely fall for his more sophisticated mistruths.
Audrey turned to Fiona, asking, “How could you let your brother talk to that creature? I thought you knew better.”
Fiona inhaled, but before she could answer, Eliot cut her off. “She wasn’t there,” he said.
If anyone was going to get into trouble for talking to Louis, it would be him. Just him. Fiona had encouraged him not to speak to their father.
“Very well,” Audrey said with a sigh, “let me see your credit cards.”
Eliot and Fiona dug through their bags and retrieved their platinum charge cards.
Audrey scrutinized Fiona’s, then flicked it back to her. She examined Eliot’s. “Both are real. At least Louis did not gain access to the League’s discretionary funds. That is some conciliation.”
With her scissors she cut Eliot’s credit card into a dozen pieces.
“What did you do that for?” he cried.
Audrey arched one of her eyebrows at his outburst. “Because you have let your father take advantage of you. You should never have spoken to him against my wishes. You should not have any interaction with that side of your family. They will destroy you. Or worse, they would use you to destroy others.”
Eliot’s outrage cooled.
Use him to destroy others? Isn’t that what Louis had told him, too? That both Infernal and Immortal families would try to use Eliot and Fiona to circumvent their neutrality treaty and start a war?
Could some of what he’d said been the truth?
Audrey swept the credit card fragments into her palm. “You have a great deal to learn. And until such time, you cannot be trusted with such valuable League assets.”
Like Eliot had even used the stupid credit card-like he ever would have a chance between all his studies, gym class, getting dragged to Hell, and fighting in alleys.
Audrey plucked up the priceless Fabergé egg, stormed in the kitchen, and came back with the trash can. She hesitated only a moment as she gazed once more at the egg-then dumped it.
Eliot glared so hard at her, with so much anger, that it felt like his gaze bored right through his mother.
For one moment, Eliot let his anger take him, and the blood burned through every vein and artery. . and then he cooled it and contained it all, compressing it to a white hot spark deep within his core.
“I’m going to my room,” he muttered. “I’ve got homework.”
Fiona tried to say something, but Eliot walked away.
Once in his room, he closed the door and slid a few boxes of still-unpacked books against it.
Then he fumed.
But what good was getting angry, unless you did something with it?
He set his pack on his bed, pulled out Lady Dawn, and tried a few notes of that song the egg played. They flowed like water over his hand and strings; moonlight danced and reflected off his walls. The song was a little sad.
It soothed his soul.
He was about to grab the bow and really play, when his eyes lit up on his bookshelf. Wedged between volume seven of The Golden Bough and Languorous Lullabies was a thick segmented book spine covered in dark gray leather.
Mythica Improbiba.
He was sure he’d deliberately not unpacked this book. He’d found it in their old basement, just before their first heroic trial. It was the most unusual collection of fairy tales, maps, poems, and anecdotes from all history-and he had very much wanted to keep it hidden.
He was certain Cee or Audrey hadn’t unpacked it for him. That would be cleaning up his mess for him (which never happened in this household).
Eliot moved toward it, drawn to the mysteries between its covers. . remembering the hand-scrawled note on the first page: “mostly lies.”
Well, that’s all either side of his family seemed capable of.
Eliot had work to do. He had his Paxington homework, learning about the mortal magical families, and the immortals that were his family.
He grabbed Mythica Improbiba and flipped through the pages until he found that medieval woodcut of the Great Satan.
He also had to learn everything he could about the other side of his family because the game was on. . and he’d lost the first move.
30. CAPTAIN
Fiona waited alone on the field and studied the jungle gym. She was aghast.
The last two weeks in gym, they’d drilled: going up ropes, sliding down poles, balancing on narrow beams, and scrambling over cargo nets like monkeys. She had memorized five different ways to the top.
All useless now.
Mr. Ma had changed everything: ladders and spirals and chain-link climbing walls had been jumbled-some gone altogether and replaced with new features; there were spinning tubes; a chasm with a rope dangling in the middle (with an impossible reach from either side); and ramps too steep to climb without rappel lines.
Like they needed to make it harder for Team Scarab after their first loss.
Fiona hadn’t had a lot of time to dwell upon their failure. She’d been busy. Miss Westin had piled on the homework. And with gym practice three times a week, she was mentally and physically exhausted.
She’d also been by herself. Amanda and Mitch had been just as busy.
Eliot had become a recluse as well. He went over to Robert’s every day after school. He said to help him study. . which could have been true, but Fiona sensed it wasn’t all of the truth. When he came home, he locked himself in his room.
Maybe that rebuke from Audrey over the stolen phone had pushed him away. Fiona should’ve said something, but it had been stupid to talk to their father alone.
She took in a deep breath.
Her thoughts focused back upon the imposing six-story structure, and the fact that Team Scarab had its second match today. Mr. Ma hadn’t told them against whom, jus
t to “be ready.”
They needed a win. Two losses would drop them to the last quarter of the standings. . well on their way to flunking out.
She checked the tension of the rubber band on her wrist. Taut.
She’d removed the bracelet her father had given her because she wasn’t sure if Mr. Ma would classify it as a weapon, and she didn’t trust anything from Louis anymore.
Fiona was as ready as she’d ever be. It was the rest of her team, how’d they work together (or not), that had her worried.
Amanda, Sarah, and Jezebel marched out from the girls’ locker room.
Sarah looked ultra-confident as usual. Was that just an act? Fiona doubted it; Sarah seemed to be good at everything.
Jezebel limped onto the field. She hadn’t been injured in that fight in the alley, so this was something new. Fiona wanted to speak with her about leaving Eliot alone-but Jezebel seemed to be doing that all by herself these last two weeks, so maybe it was better to have as little contact as necessary with the Infernal.
Amanda bounced on the field last, looking better than she ever had, her hair pinned up, and her face freshly scrubbed. . deflating only a little at the sight of the newly configured gym structure.
The boys then walked out.
Mitch was first. His eyes instantly found Fiona and lit with delight. Fiona smiled back. She was looking forward to their rain-checked coffee study date (if they ever got a break in their schedules).
Jeremy jogged onto the grass after him. He mistook Fiona’s smile for him and waved to her.
What a jerk. He probably thought she liked him.
Robert was right behind Jeremy and took no notice of her.
Eliot came out last. He stopped and studied the new gym structure. He looked a little scared, as he had that first day. She hoped he was up for this.
She didn’t understand her brother. She never had, really, but this was a different level of not understanding. How could he fend off an army of shadow creatures almost single-handedly with Lady Dawn. . be so heroic one moment. . and then at times like now seem like her little brother, nerdy, vulnerable, so. . Eliot?
They gathered in a loose circle.
“First things first,” Jeremy said. “We need a Team Captain. We can’t ignore it.” He puffed out his chest, tried-and didn’t entirely fail-to look dashing.