Eliot tapped Fiona’s essay and told her, “I see you didn’t mention Robert, either.”

“What’s to mention?” Fiona said. “We haven’t seen him in two months.”

Robert Farmington was the boy Fiona had met this summer. They weren’t exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but there had been something between them. He had been a Driver for their uncle Henry in the League of Immortals. . before Robert got fired.

Fiona had a far-off look in her eyes-which sharpened to a glare that she aimed directly at Eliot. “Cupulate temporal cranium?” she asked.

This was the game they played to get back at each other: vocabulary insult.

Eliot ran over the line in his head, trying to figure out what she had meant. Brain. . cranium. . something about his head.

Temporal? Did that mean “time”? No, the bone on the side of the head was the “temporal” part of the skull.

But cupulate? He didn’t have a clue. . unless she was making it simple in order to throw him. Cupulate could just mean “cup shaped.”

She meant his ears.

They stuck out, and she knew how sensitive Eliot was about them.

“At least I need a cup, handles or not,” Eliot replied, “to hold my brain.”

That was a weak comeback, so he added: “Countenance of verruciform

Fiona puzzled over that a moment, and then her face reddened.

Good. It was pretty easy to figure out. Eliot had wanted her to get it.

“No fair,” she said. “That’s two vocabulary words at once.”

She said this, despite having just used two herself.

“Breakfast!” Cee called from the kitchen.

Eliot sniffed the air and realized that the “off” smell he’d detected before was stronger, and now recognizable-half-cooked oatmeal and carbonized bacon.