The moment the shower water started, Juliana whispered in Eva’s ear. She had moved right next to Eva without her noticing. “Take me with you,” she said.
“What?”
“I want to fight these necromancing scumbags too. You’ve seen me against Professor Baxter. You know I can fight.”
“You lose against Zoe Baxter. Every time.”
“I do better than you do.”
“I wouldn’t lose at all if–” Eva cut herself off, biting her lip.
A silence hung in the hair between them. Only the sound of flowing shower water filled the air.
Eventually Juliana sighed.
“I know you have secrets,” she said. “There’s no way you get taken on bounty hunting jobs with just runes and not knowing any spells aside from blink. You have so many secrets I wonder if anything you’ve said is the truth. But I don’t care about that right now.”
She stopped and cocked her head to the side, listening to make sure the shower was still running. She returned her attentions to Eva and spoke in an even quieter whisper, “I don’t care if you’re a necromancer yourself so long as it wasn’t you who killed that family.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” Eva hissed.
“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about that, at least. I still want in.”
“I can’t just show up with someone else.”
“He said Friday. It is Tuesday. You’ve got a few days to ask–no–tell him someone else is coming along.”
Eva was going to retort when the shower water cut off.
Juliana noticed as well. She stood up, moving her face away from Eva’s. “I’ll shower next,” she said. And turned to gather her own clothes.
Eva was left staring after her even as Shalise exited the bathroom. She only stopped once Juliana disappeared behind the closed door.
Shalise seemed to notice something wrong. She walked up to Eva and said, “don’t fight. We are roommates. I don’t want to have you two hate each other.”
“It wasn’t a fight,” Eva said. She wasn’t so sure. Was that a fight?
“Good.” Shalise said. She patted Eva’s shoulder only to freeze solid.
It took Eva a moment to realize why. Then it hit her. The poor girl had just patted one of Arachne’s legs through her shirt.
“It really just hangs off of you then?”
“She and yes, most of the time. She was with me all day today and all day yesterday. And you’ve seen me after showering with her still latched on me.” Eva felt a bad for that. She hadn’t changed her habit of wandering around and sleeping without clothes. Shalise started screaming when she saw Arachne latched onto Eva’s chest one morning. The poor girl thought Arachne was attacking Eva. It took a while to calm her down.
“If you’d like,” Eva said, “I could bring her out, nice and slowly, and you could touch her directly. Maybe it would help?”
Shalise took a quick step backwards, shaking her head in the negative even as Arachne tapped out no repeatedly on Eva’s shoulder.
“I think not,” Shalise said. At least she hadn’t stuttered her first word. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that in the future. Not now.”
Arachne tapped no again as Shalise said that. Eva doubted the spider-demon would do anything if Eva asked her not to. She might not like it, but for Eva’s roommates at the very least, Arachne might have to compromise on something.
Shalise slipped back to her bed and pulled out the general magic textbook. She flipped through it until Juliana left the shower.
Eva hopped in. The room was already hot and steamy, borderline sauna. Eva didn’t mind. If anything, it could stand to be a little hotter. Cold, moist air was the worst.
Eva twisted the shower head, aligning her new runes. She wasn’t sure if the other girls used the regular water or her runes. She’d told them, but they never mentioned anything other than a ‘too hot for my tastes’ from Shalise.
After kneeling down to the floor, Arachne hopped off Eva. She stood up in human form, ready for one of their shower chats.
“I say let her,” Arachne said before Eva could even ask her question. “If she dies, whatever. It is a good test of loyalty. Of course, if she turns traitor then I will rip her into so many pieces not even Humpty Dumpty could put her back together again.”
Eva frowned at the demon. Not so much at her threating to tear Juliana up, Eva was used to the spider-demon’s empty viciousness, but the other bit. “I’m not sure that is how the nursery rhyme goes.”
The spider-woman shrugged. “Besides, I’m sick of sneaking around. If I could at least walk around the room… and now we have that Shalise character. Juliana is one thing. Are you sure I can’t eat Shalise?”
“No eating any students. Or hurting any in general. Even if they do ‘turn traitor’ whatever loose definition you have for that.” Eva sighed. The demon wouldn’t do anything, she was mostly sure. It didn’t hurt to reiterate. “If things do happen, we’ll just leave. You, me, and master. If we can’t find him, we’ll summon Ivonis again after we settle down somewhere.”
“That’s disappointing,” she said. Eva didn’t think her pout looked very serious.
“If we are actually taking Juliana, we’ve got to find master and let him know. He won’t like it.”
“Leave it to me. I will impress upon him the need for her to join us.”
“No bullying master.”
“Wouldn’t touch a hair on his head,” Arachne said.
“You’re excited about this.”
“It is one step on my plan to not be in spider form constantly.” Arachne was already shifting back into said spider form.
Eva sighed, standing up into the stream of hot water. Her shower had gone on long enough. She shut off the water. As Arachne climbed back up her chest, Eva mumbled, “I’m sure not excited about it.”
Extra 001
“How do rituals work with how humans process magic?”
Zoe Baxter stopped her lecture on foci and glanced over at Benjamin Yeets. The sleepy eyed boy flinched away as Zoe’s eyes settled on him. She tried to avoid frowning.
“Excellent question, Mr. Yeets. Don’t be afraid to ask a question if there is something you think I can explain. There are no stupid questions.”
A lie to be sure. Zoe had been asked her fair share of stupid questions in her five years of teaching. An atmosphere of fear was not what she wanted to cultivate. Something she had failed at her first year of teaching.
There were still fifth and sixth years who she had during her first year that refused to do anything but take notes and ace tests.
“Rituals,” Zoe said, “are essentially large, single purpose foci. You’ll learn more about them in your third year, but a short lesson won’t hurt.”
She picked up a black marker and drew a large circle on the board. With a repressed smile at its neatness, Zoe turned back to the class. “Rituals start with a circle, generally large enough to fit oneself or an object within. There are a handful of rituals that will affect things outside the circle, but these are few and far between; not to mention they are significantly more dangerous than a regular ritual.”
Zoe turned back to the board and continued drawing out marks and lines within the circle as she spoke. “If you were to channel magic into the air around you, nothing would happen. It would dissipate with barely a noticeable rise in local magic levels. If you stand within a properly formed ritual circle, however, the magic you channel becomes trapped. The large amount of raw magic is one of the main dangers of rituals.
“The lines and characters drawn out within the circle,” she pointed out the spots on her own drawing, “will direct your magic. Malformed directions are another big danger. Properly formed, your magic flows along your written will and acts as you wish.”