You keep telling yourself that, Eva thought with not a small amount of amusement in her mental voice. Not that she enjoyed corrupting her teacher. Really. Eva was just pleased that she hadn’t alerted demon hunters or even kicked her out of school.
“Although, you probably shouldn’t talk about things like that with me.” When Zoe Baxter raised her eyebrows, Eva continued, “Sister Cross stopped by on Christmas. She mentioned that I was still under surveillance.”
“I thought you improved your anti-scrying runes?”
“I thought so too. As far as I can tell, they’re not doing anything unless Sister Cross is lying.”
“I doubt it,” Zoe said as she crossed her arms. “Not with Shalise being so close to you.”
Eva stretched back. She still hadn’t told either Juliana or Shalise about Sister Cross’ daughter. Zoe Baxter was her sole confidant in that matter. She apparently knew Shalise was more than a regular orphan, she just didn’t know who the parent was.
“What are you doing anyway, sluffing classes?”
“What about you? Don’t you have a class right now.”
“I have an open period, you don’t. I know you have class with Way–Mr. Lurcher.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t call that a class so much as a waste of three hours.”
“Miss Eva, alchemy is a fundamental–”
“I would love to do alchemy, but I think I’ll learn more back at my place working on my own brewing than sitting to the side and not touching anything.”
“Mr. Lurcher is still not letting you participate?”
“Nope. I don’t mind though. On weekends I have Arachne read me the alchemy lab book and I go over the things in class. I was considering skipping class and heading straight to my place.”
Zoe Baxter’s mouth tipped into a frown at the mention of Arachne. “You still associate with that creature?”
“Please. She lived in the dorms for six months and never hurt anyone. Saved students, in fact.” Saved Shalise, at least. At Eva’s command.
That counted.
“You’ve mentioned as much before. She killed a nun and damaged school property.”
“We keep having the same argument, over and over again,” Eva sighed. “There were circumstances that night. If she hadn’t acted the way she had, I’d be dead.” Or worse. “Besides, the nuns were trying to kill her back.”
Zoe leaned over slightly, pointing a finger. “She’s a dangerous creature, Eva. The books agree with me on that.”
Eva raised her hands, wiggling the fingers lightly. “I’m a dangerous creature.”
“That isn’t the same and you know it,” she hissed.
A lot closer than you might realize, Eva thought.
“At least tell me you’ve gotten rid of the other one.”
“Same answer as last time.”
Zoe’s teeth ground together. She took a seat next to Eva at the table. “Eva, your pet tarantula is one thing. If it got out of hand, it could do a lot of damage, but it is ultimately containable. For the most part.
“Your other ‘pet’ isn’t the same. If she got out of hand–”
“She won’t,” Eva said firmly. She double checked the area. No one was around to overhear. “Ylva doesn’t want to go around killing everything. She won’t even leave the cell house without asking me.”
“Why not?”
“She views the prison as part of my ‘domain’ and will not encroach on it without my permission. It’s a d–creature thing.”
“But she can leave if she wants to.” Zoe didn’t leave room for question.
“That’s why Arachne is there.”
“Can Arachne stop her? Contain or defeat her?”
Eva didn’t answer. She didn’t have one. Arachne would say yes without hesitating, but Eva couldn’t be so sure.
“At the very least, Eva, you need safeguards. I’ve been reading about shackles. You know how to do them, right?” At Eva’s nod, Zoe said, “can you place shackles around the entire building? Or even the entire prison, if that is possible.”
That would be massive. Eva hadn’t measured out the exact dimensions of the prison, but it was larger than the entire campus of Brakket by at least four times–discounting warped space in the courtyard.
“That might be doable,” Eva said, more as a placating gesture than any promise of carrying out the task. Ylva had been quite pleasant in her few meetings with the hel despite Zoe Baxter’s harsh comments about her first meeting. Erecting shackles would likely do away with any goodwill between Eva and Ylva.
“Have you still not heard from Mr. Foster?”
Eva shook her head. “He’ll be back before February ends.”
“I’d rather speak with him sooner.”
“I have no way of contacting him,” Eva lied. Though it wasn’t much of a lie. Summoning Ivonis to track down Devon was possible, but gathering up another fifty animals to sacrifice would be annoying at best. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“You’re sure he’ll be back by then?”
“Unless he’s gone off and gotten himself killed.” If he had, Eva was in trouble.
Juliana might be able to start up one or two of the rituals for Eva, provided Eva told her about the rituals in the first place. If anything went wrong or changes needed to be made as the treatment progressed, neither Juliana, Eva, or Arachne would be able to make alterations.
Zoe Baxter let out a long sigh. She propped her elbows up on the table behind her and shut her eyes. After a moment of rest, she seemed to realize that she wasn’t acting entirely professional. In a quick motion, she stood up, brushed down her suit, and tweaked her red butterfly tie.
At least, Eva assumed it was the butterfly tie. She sometimes wore a white that turned black at the tips, or an orange one with a coat of arms featuring a dragon on it. The red one was by far the most prevalent of the three.
Once finished, Zoe Baxter turned and faced Eva. “Miss Eva. I cannot condone skipping class. Today, you are already late. Arriving now would only disrupt whatever lesson Mr. Lurcher is currently teaching.” She cleared her throat. Completely unnecessarily. She had been talking just fine. “You’ll be serving detention with me this Saturday.”
Eva sighed. She was pretty sure she was the only student to ever get detention at Brakket. At least, apart from the one time she scrubbed lab room floors and counters with Juliana.
“Yes, professor.”
—
A spike of ice left a trail of cold air as it flew past Eva’s chest.
It didn’t even come close to hitting her before she hopped to one side. After hopping, it missed by a mile.
Another spike launched away from his wand.
Eva raised an order magic shield. Professor Kines taught how to cast a simple shield designed to block projectiles. She wasn’t very confident in it. It didn’t hold a candle to her blood shield.
It didn’t matter. The ice spike tapped against it and fell to the ground. It might have fallen before touching the shield. Some things were difficult to tell with her current vision.
Three fireballs returned against her attacker. One missed, the other two struck a shoulder and his stomach.
He had a fire resistant jacket on. Even if Eva could cast decent fireballs, he wouldn’t have burst into flames. Everyone had magic retardant armor. Expensive, but left over from the old mage-knight club.
Despite her weak fireballs, he staggered backward for several steps until he put a foot out of the ring.
Tony Burnside hadn’t even tried to raise his own shield.
Eva sighed as she dropped her wand hand to her side. “I saw you fight against Zoe Baxter during her seminar. I know you can do better.”
The third year student brushed off his jacket without even glancing at Eva. “I don’t think this is what I signed up for,” he said quietly.
“Oh? And what did you sign up for?”
“I signed up to learn to fight better.”
Eva grit her teeth. Juliana and Shalise paired off as had Jordan and Shelby. They were going to switch out after a short while, but until then Eva wound up with the wimpiest third year student she could imagine.