For shirts, they had a choice of gray, white, or black button ups in short, long, and no sleeve variety. They were meant to be worn with a teal tie.
Eva planned on picking up a light jacket as well. If there were outdoor classes during winter, she’d wear a heavy coat, but for indoor classes, a jacket would suffice.
Eva picked a couple of the third shortest skirt off the racks. Long enough to cover to just under mid-thigh. Juliana put her hand on her arm as she pulled off a third skirt of the same length.
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t need more than one. They self clean.”
“That’s handy,” Eva said. She replaced all but one of the skirts. “Why don’t all clothes come with that.”
“It isn’t cheap,” was Irene’s response. “Costly to get good materials for the enchantments and harder to actually enchant.”
Eva frowned. “Yet all of us are getting them on our scholarship. And every student has the scholarship. Where is the school getting all the money?”
No one offered any response.
Eva pulled a dark gray shirt from the sleeveless rack. Juliana decided on black with long sleeves. Shalise looked torn between a lighter gray and white. Irene had four colors all of varying sleeve length.
Adding a jacket and coat to her pile, Eva moved on to the shoes. There were no required shoes, but Eva was always on the lookout for a good pair of boots. Sadly nothing looked remotely good.
Purchases in hand, Eva moved to the checkout just behind Shalise. The girl fumbled around, handing the cashier her dorm key card. Once she got her purchases sorted, Eva moved up next.
Eva held out her card. The cashier ran it through the card reader the same way any credit card would be. Eva couldn’t help but ask, “these do give you real money, right? Not some fake money the school prints out?”
The cashier’s lip curled into a frown. “Girl, if the school didn’t pay me real money, I’d have been gone from this town years ago.”
“Fair enough,” Eva said as she took her purchases off the counter.
Juliana gave her a quirk of an eyebrow.
Eva smiled. “Seems suspicious is all.”
That suspicion gnawed at Eva over the last few months. The only explanation she could come up with was that there were a significantly higher number of donating alumni than new students. Assuming Zoe Baxter’s justification for the scholarships was correct.
Either that or an eccentric and rich funder. Eva hadn’t seen any evidence of illegal activities that might be the source of funds. Though, she supposed, if I could wander around for a month or two and stumble across illegal activities, some authority would have noticed much sooner and shut them down.
They parted with Irene outside the clothing shop and entered Foible Foci.
Juliana meandered over to the alternative foci, leaving Eva to guide Shalise around.
Shalise turned her brown eyes over everything in the shop. Not just her eyes. She had to touch absolutely everything, much to the chagrin of the young man managing the store.
Eva dragged the excitable girl to the simple wands and helped her pick out a wooden wand.
“So, Shalise, you’ve never done magic before?” Eva asked before the girl could run around the store.
“I heard of magic, who hasn’t, but I never expected Professor Baxter to show up claiming I was a mage.” She laughed and waved a hand in front of her face. “I told her she had the wrong person. That nothing in my life could be considered magical.”
Eva waited, but Shalise didn’t continue. A bit of a look had fallen over her face. She turned her eyes downwards and sighed. Just as Eva was about to ask if she was alright, Shalise continued.
“She handed me a ticket for a flight, a scholarship fund, and a bunch of papers. I threw them all in the trash.
“Professor Baxter showed up again a week later asking why I missed the flight and if I needed assistance getting to school. I told her I had too much to care for at home, too much work that other people wouldn’t do.”
Eva never thought about that. Someone like Juliana, from a magical family, was probably expected to be shipped off to school. Eva held no attachments to anything back in Florida. But what about people who actually had friends and liked living where they did.
A smile flitted across Eva’s face. Maybe her registration to high school hadn’t been withdrawn. She’d be marked as absent in all her classes until truant officers were sent to her father’s house. If he got arrested due to her disappearance, it would be a happy day.
It was a bit much to hope for. Unfortunately, he knew Eva could do magic and he knew she had visitors from ‘one of them magical academies’ looking to recruit her. Even if Zoe Baxter hadn’t arranged anything, the government surely had a method of contacting Brakket and finding out where Eva was.
Shalise broke Eva from her thoughts. “Eventually, she promised me that she would take care of my home while I was gone. And that I could visit anytime I wanted just by asking her. If I turn out to be a terrible mage or hate it here, then I can go right home.”
“Well,” Eva said, “it is probably good you skipped summer. It has been fairly dull around. I can’t say that I hate it, or that I’d be doing anything more interesting at home except volunteering at a local vet’s office.” She gave Shalise a smile. “Hopefully, school keeps us busy, at the very least.”
Juliana wandered back from the other side of the store, sporting a full finger ring on the index fingers of either hand. At Eva’s questioning glance, Juliana said, “I thought yours looked cool so I got some. Though you never wear yours…”
“It turned out to be a tad more cumbersome than I expected.” Not to mention Eva didn’t actually need any foci for casting her spells. The wand was just for show.
“You should.”
Eva blinked at her terse response. “Yeah,” she said. It would be a handy excuse if she had to cast a spell in an emergency, that was at least part of the reason she originally bought it. “Maybe I will.” She turned to Shalise. “Do you want to look for any alternate focus?”
Shalise held up her hands and took a step back. “Oh no. I don’t think so. This,” she held up her new wand with a bright smile, “is more than enough for now.”
Juliana looked like she wanted to say something but held it in.
“Let’s get your books then. I could use some more paper and ink from Major’s as well.”
Toomey Tomes Bookstore was just as devoid of life as the last time Eva entered the shop. The sole living person was the owner, sitting behind a counter. He was a pencil thin man with far too much gel slicking back his hair. His sunken in eyes glared at the group as they entered his store.
Eva glared right back. Her last time in the store found her running right into some dangerous smelling people. If they were in the store to meet with the shop owner, then that was all on him.
Because of her suspicions, Eva took extra care snooping about the store while Juliana helped Shalise find her books.
Of course, Eva didn’t expect to find anything. If she ran a bookstore of a less than scrupulous nature, she wouldn’t leave evidence lying around the front room. There would be no hidden rooms where customers could stumble into them. There wouldn’t even need to be a secret room. Just a shelf in the back storage room with a few legitimate books set in front of whatever needed to be hidden.
If there were anything that needed to be hidden at all. But you didn’t deal with people who smelled like death if you didn’t have anything to hide. Unless those men just needed a book.
After finding nothing around the shelves, Eva changed tactics. She walked up to the counter where Stephen Toomey, based on his name tag, still glared at her. “Do you have any books you keep out of the main room here?”
“What’s wrong with the books out here, huh?” His nasally voice peaked at the end. He stood from his stool and waved a finger at Eva. “If you’ve damaged any of my merchandise little girl, I’ll be collecting tenfold the cost from you.”