Eric Nylund - All That Lives Must Die

He marched into the dining room.

Audrey and Fiona stood side by side. It struck Eliot how much they looked alike: tall, thin, and serious, but Fiona was in gray and his mother in a neat black dress. He’d never seen his mother in black, though, and it made him stop and stare. She looked like she was going to a funeral. . and somehow it looked good on her.

On the dining table sat three cloth sacks. They were full of bottled waters, beef jerky, boxes of cereal, vitamins, and protein bars.

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what Eliot is doing?”

Eliot pressed his lips into a single white line, astonished that she would break their confidential trust. Technically, though, she hadn’t really snitched on him. . but it was darned close.

How could he be mad, though? Fiona was just worried. And he was going to have to tell Audrey something.

“I know everything,” Audrey told them.

Eliot’s and Fiona’s eyes went wide.

“You do?” they asked at the same time.

“I know that Eliot has arranged for his vassal to stay at Paxington over the summer.” One of her eyebrows arched. “Very wise to attend to business first, I might add. I also know that you intend to spend the summer in the Lower Realms. You have packed, but Cee and I have taken the liberty of buying a few snacks to tide you over on your journey.”

Eliot stared at his mother, unable to read her face. How had she known all that? And more important, why wasn’t she stopping him?

“You’re just letting him go?” Fiona asked, her voice breaking.

“I must,” Audrey told her. “As a member of the League, I am forbidden to interfere in Infernal affairs.”

Fiona turned pale as this sank in.

So Eliot was free. Finally free.

But the elation of his new freedom faded because it also meant he was alone now, too.

“Besides,” Audrey said to Fiona, and set one hand on her shoulder. “One must not separate an Infernal from his lands for too long. They do not fare well.”

“But Eliot’s really not an. .,” Fiona’s voice trailed off. She looked at Eliot like he had a terminal disease-or like he was already dead. She regained her composure and said, “Well, he can’t go. How is he going to carry all this?” She gestured at the table. “That’s not even taking into account all the books he’s going to need to pass Miss Westin’s final exam.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Cee then entered the dining room carrying a large bag in each hand, and with Lady Dawn’s case bouncing along on top of one. The bags were made of a heavy tapestry-like tan-and-purple paisley material.

Eliot didn’t know what she was doing, but he immediately went to his great-grandmother to help. “Let me get those.” Eliot tried to lift one of her carpetbags. He couldn’t budge one with both hands. It must have weighed two hundred pounds.

Cee handed him his guitar case.

“Cecilia has packed your things,” Audrey explained. “She’s going with you, Eliot.”

Eliot blinked and looked between Audrey and Cee. They weren’t kidding.

Relief coursed through him. He wouldn’t be alone. . even though he’d have to deal with Cee’s cooking-it was a small price to have someone he knew, someone he could trust, by his side.

Cee patted his arm, seeming to understand everything.

Audrey beckoned to Eliot. He set his guitar aside and embraced his mother-clutching on to her because it might the last time he ever hugged her.

Audrey went through the motions, but there was no warmth. Her embrace was rigid and dry and without feeling.

He started to pull away, but she held him, turned, and whispered so softly into his ear that he barely heard: “Your father told me of your tie to land. You and Cecilia must hurry. There is good reason to do so, which she will explain on the way. Now go, and be safe, my Eliot.”

Audrey squeezed him once, and then released him.

She’d been talking to his father? Since when were they on speaking terms?

He stared into Audrey’s eyes. There was no love in them, but something new, a steely concern. Was that all she had to give him?

No. Something else glimmered in her gaze: something. . strategic.

He nodded, not entirely understanding, but at least acknowledging that he had heard.

There was an awkward moment when Eliot couldn’t move. He felt a crushing impulse to stay where he was, to stay home and stick with what he knew.

But he had to leave because it would be his first step on his own, as an adult, and if he didn’t move now, he never would.

So, without a sigh, he picked up Lady Dawn and marched down the stairs.

Cee, Audrey, and Fiona followed.

He stood in front of the door, pausing to trace over the patterns of color and light on its four stained glass panes. He must have passed those every day and until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss something as simple and stupid as the geometric lines that made the mosaic of a field of grapevines and harvesters.

He opened the door, stepped onto the threshold, and turned back to them.

Audrey nodded and held up one hand, then curled it and dropped it to her side-a motion that seemed to communicate both good-bye and stay .

Fiona stood by their mother, her arms folded in front of her. “Please don’t do this, Eliot,” she whispered.

Eliot wanted to move to his sister, but there was a barrier between them now that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He looked into her eyes. They glistened with tears, but Fiona quickly blinked them away.

And for the first time in his life, he couldn’t read her. There was no connection.

He turned his back to them. “Come on, Cee.”

He marched down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. He heard Cecilia mutter her good-byes to Audrey and fuss over Fiona to take care of herself and to study hard-and then she trotted to catch up to Eliot.

“Your mother told you?” Cee whispered. “We must make all due haste?”

“Yeah.”

But once again, Eliot found his legs immobile. What he wanted to do was turn around and try to explain everything to Fiona, make her see his point of view, to somehow get her back on his side.

They were supposed to be stronger together.

But he couldn’t turn-if he did, he knew he’d chicken out and never have the strength to move forward.

He turned anyway and looked back.

Audrey was on the threshold, gazing longingly after him. . seeming both sad and proud.

Fiona, however, had already gone back inside.

Audrey gave them both a tiny wave, and then hung her head and shut the door.

He somehow found the strength to turn and walk down the sidewalk.

After a block, he asked Cee, “So what’s the big rush?”

Cee kept pace with him, even though she carried those too heavy carpetbags. She wasn’t even panting. In fact, she looked a lot healthier than any 105-year-old woman had a right to look.

“The League of Immortals will soon know of the Night Train Station under Market Street,” she said.

“Because of Fiona,” Eliot finished for her.

Of course, Eliot’s departure was going to come up at the Council meeting tonight, and they’d want to know all the details of how he was getting back to Hell. If Fiona didn’t tell them outright. . they’d find a way to get the information out of her.

“How long do you think the Immortals will tolerate an open path to Hell in the Middle Realms?” Cee asked.

“But the Pactum Pax Immortalis -,” Eliot started, and then stopped in the middle of that thought.

He was about to say they couldn’t do anything, because it was Infernal property.

But sure they could. They could fill the secret stairway to the Night Train Station with concrete-technically not touching any of the Infernal property, but nonetheless making it inaccessible. Or, if Eliot knew the thoroughness of the League, they might cause an earthquake and shift an entire tectonic plate over the site.