“I did it and I’m fine,” Juliana said. “You’ve trusted her this far.”
Carlos stared at his daughter for a few moments before he shook his head. “You need to be extremely careful about letting others get some of your blood. Especially willingly. There is magic in intention.”
Just when Eva was about to offer a different location, Carlos sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
Eva held out two vials and drew her old crystal dagger. It still lacked a bloodstone and therefore wouldn’t raise any uncomfortable questions about that subject. “Just a few drops from each of you. We’ve got potions inside to cure small wounds.”
Carlos stepped forward and ran his thumb along the dagger’s edge. Five drops fell into the vial. Eva capped it off and turned to Shalise.
Her heart pounded against her chest as she slowly reached a finger out. Three times she drew her hand back to her chest and had to take a deep, calming breath before trying again. Eva could feel her eyebrow twitching as Shalise pulled back for the fourth time.
“It’s just a shallow cut that will be healed in a few seconds. You’ve had far worse.”
“I-I know. I j-just…”
“Do you want Juliana to hold your hand?”
“T-that–”
“Or perhaps Arachne?”
The spider-demon’s grin grew three sizes in that moment. She took a menacing step forward.
Shalise reached out and swiped her finger across the knife blade. In her panicked state, she may have cut a bit deeper than necessary. It wouldn’t matter once she had healed up.
“Arachne, potions for our guests while I register the blood with the ward.” Eva turned back to Carlos and Shalise. “It’ll be just a minute.” She took a step to follow after Arachne when a thought occurred to Eva. “Don’t wander,” she said. “There are more wards that aren’t mine around here. Juliana should know her way around well enough, but if you ever find yourself alone here, don’t enter any building you know you haven’t been in before.”
Shalise gave a few eager nods with her finger in her mouth.
Carlos frowned slightly but nodded anyway. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Hurrying towards her task, Eva all but ran up to the entrance of her home. Her void metal dagger was out of its sheath the moment she stepped inside and out of view from the waiting guests. Both vials of blood tipped downwards to pour out the contents.
As soon as the blood touched her bloodstone socketed dagger, Eva felt it fall under her control. Two small beads of blood hovered in front of Eva’s face before she flicked her wrist. Both beads flew off into her room to join the already-in-place ward scheme.
She waited an extra few seconds for Arachne to return with two potions in hand.
“Remember,” Eva said, “best behavior. Even if he gets invasive. He is a research–”
“I know,” Arachne snapped. She actually let out a low growl as her teeth grit together. “I do not enjoy ferrying around these humans like some mule.” After a deep breath through her nose, Arachne unclenched her claws and her smile became more natural. For her. It still looked like she wanted to bite somebody’s head off. “I’ll play nice. Just remember your promise.”
Eva rubbed her own gloved hand against Arachne’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I remember.”
Plucking the vials from Arachne’s grip, the two headed back outside.
“Here, drink,” Eva said as she offered the vials to Carlos and Shalise. “Those will get you fixed up. Now, if you start feeling tingly, something went wrong with adding you to the wards. If the tingle turns to pain, run back out here immediately.”
“You do know what you’re doing, right?”
“I don’t expect any complication. Still, no sense in being unprepared.
“In any case,” Eva swung an arm out towards her building, “welcome to my home.”
Carlos froze as he entered into the common room. His jaw dropped slightly as he looked around. Shalise and Juliana had similar expressions on their faces.
Good, Eva thought. She and Arachne had spent several hours cleaning and preparing over the weeks since Juliana first mentioned meeting with her father. Eva spent even more hours listening to Arachne’s complaints. It was nice to know that her hard work had paid off.
Higher quality furniture had replaced Eva’s old couches, chairs, and table. The metal bars on all the doors had been replaced with wooden doors. The cinder-block walls had a fresh coat of paint. Everburn candles lit the room from their holders.
A brand new floor rug lay beneath all the furniture. This one was big enough to completely cover the treatment ritual circle still drawn underneath.
It was a shame that Eva couldn’t enjoy most of the changes. The comfort of the new furniture was the limit of her perception.
Arachne was in charge of the color coordination and general layout of everything. Managing anything of the sort while blind was near impossible.
It seemed she did a reasonable job. Shalise’s gaping mouth turned into a smile at some point as she looked around. If she smiled, it couldn’t have wound up as anything too terrible.
“My room,” Eva said with a point towards one of the wooden doors. It sported a little metal plaque with her name engraved in. “Don’t go in. The wards within are separate from the ones out here and will react violently to people who are not Arachne or myself.”
Carlos nodded to himself. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it without a sound.
“How violently?” Shalise asked.
“Well, if you stick an arm in my room, you probably won’t be getting it back.”
“Oh.”
“Seems excessive,” Carlos said with a small frown.
“My room has things in it that shouldn’t ever find their way into untrustworthy people’s hands,” Eva said with a shrug. “Like with the main building, there is a brief period of pain as a warning, though the length of the pain field is drastically smaller.”
“What have you got in there that requires such protection?”
“Books, mostly. Several of the ‘big’ books on demons. A handful of other miscellaneous items. All the books I stole from the necromancers are in there; I haven’t had a chance to sort through all the ones that are not extremely dangerous on account of my eyes being missing.” With an aside glance to Arachne, Eva stage whispered, “it is hard enough getting Arachne to read my schoolbooks to me.”
“Well,” Carlos said with a slight adjustment to his glasses, “that sounds responsible I suppose.”
Eva had a feeling he wanted to comment on whether or not Eva herself should be in possession of those books. Distracting from the topic, Eva moved on.
“Arachne’s room,” Eva pointed to another door with a plaque on it. “She doesn’t use it much, but similar idea, don’t go in.”
Continuing to point around the room, Eva listed off the library, potion storage, kitchens, bathroom, shower, gateway room, and a guest bedroom.
Carlos sat down in one of the chairs, directly across from Eva and next to Juliana. “This seems very nicely done, I can’t imagine it came with the place.”
“Devon has a truck, as I mentioned earlier. We’re sort of wealthy. It wasn’t difficult to get everything furnished.” An unrelated sentence, a lie, and a truthful statement.
Eva hadn’t the slightest idea where Arachne found all the furniture. Presumably, some furniture store who knew how far away was currently missing several display items off their store floor.
How she managed to transport the furniture was another mystery Eva doubted she’d ever bother solving.
“It helps that we’re not paying for the land or buildings. No utilities either, though magic fixes most of that problem. Technically we’re squatting,” Eva said with a shrug. “Nobody else has used it in a long time.”
A small smile grew on Carlos’ face. “I can’t fault that. Genoa and I have stayed in similar places, though never for as long. Juliana tells me you’ve had this place set up since you started school?”