The manipulative jerk.
Not that Irene was going to complain. She wanted–no, needed to know.
“Technically it isn’t a magic that proper mages should know, so I’ll skimp the details. Basically I constantly spread a dust in the air around me. Very tiny particles and not even that much, but I could sense them. Therefore I could sense whatever they landed on and get a picture of my environment.”
“I see,” Jordan said with a nod. “Improper magic?” He made a light humming noise.
A familiar humming noise.
Irene could see the gears turning in his head, searching through all the knowledge he had pilfered from his family library for any spell that resembled Eva’s description. Hopefully he wouldn’t remember anything. The shadow thing he did was bad enough. Irene did not want him becoming anything like Eva.
“Both Zoe Baxter and Wayne Lurcher knew about it, so you could say it was cleared,” Eva said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“But,” Max said a little louder than he normally spoke. He shuffled his feet nervously as all eyes, including Eva’s, turned to him. “But do your new eyes do anything special?” The first sly grin appeared on his face since the start of their conversation. He put both hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. “Can they see through things?”
Irene let out a small groan as he wiggled his hips.
“No, Max,” Eva said with a very visible roll of her eyes, “I can’t see your dick.”
He immediately started sputtering, prompting raucous laughter from Shelby. Why the boy went through all the effort for the lewd joke and then got embarrassed when Eva called him out, Irene doubted she’d ever understand.
“As far as I can tell so far,” Eva continued, “these eyes aren’t much different from human eyes. A little sharper under certain circumstances and a little blurrier under others. Colors are off a little as well. Blacks are, well, blacker. Whites are slightly grayer. The colors in between suffer at varying degrees. Nothing that affects everyday living.”
Eva shook her head. “I can’t stay for much longer. Shalise, Juliana’s father and Juliana are still back at my other house and I don’t really want them exploring too much while I’m not there.”
“Other house?” Jordan asked.
“There was an incident last night–the reason we’re not in class right now. I’m sure you’ll hear about it. But I was entertaining Juliana’s father at a place I own in town. They decided it would be safer to spend the night there.”
“Safer? Is there anything we need to do?”
“Probably not. I’d avoid going into town. If you see anything suspicious like,” Eva let out a very forced cough, “strange creatures, then notify either myself, Zoe Baxter, Wayne Lurcher, Zagan, Martina Turner, or Catherine.”
“Strange creatures?”
Eva let out a sigh. “Two things attacked Zoe last night. My mentor is trying to find out where they came from or why. She’s mostly fine, don’t worry. Arachne, Wayne Lurcher, and I killed them, so don’t worry about rampant creatures. Wayne was injured. I think we will be having a substitute in his class for a while.”
Max’s momentary smile vanished from his face. “First zombies then ‘strange creatures?’ What is it with this place?”
“Don’t forget Eva’s bull,” Shelby said with a half-forced grin.
“Hey. It wasn’t my bull. I had nothing to do with that incident.”
Max just shook his head. “Are all magical schools like this?”
“Good question. Look up the answer or ask around. I’d be interested in knowing the answer when I get back.”
“When is that going to be?”
“Tonight if I have anything to say about it.” Eva shook her head. She walked to the study room door mumbling under her breath. “People having free reign of my prison while I’m not around is a recipe for disaster. I just hope everyone is in the same number of pieces they were in when I left.”
She stopped with one hand on the handle and spun, pointing a single finger in the other hand directly towards Irene.
Her heart skipped a beat before Eva smiled. “I’ll grab that book for you. And,” she swept her finger towards the rest of the group, “try to keep this a secret. If you must talk to someone other than me, please go to Wayne Lurcher or Zoe Baxter. Use discretion and no rash decisions. Please.”
With one last, almost pleading look, Eva left the room.
“Prison?” Jordan said.
Max glanced at him. “Same number of pieces?”
“I told you she was creepy.”
— — —
“That didn’t turn out near as well as I’d hoped. An utter failure, in fact. Despite their fearsome reputation, that display was lacking.”
“I thought we were supposed to make friends.”
Her father turned his overwide grin down on Des. “You are to make friends. I have other plans.”
Des frowned. That wasn’t what he told her before school started.
“Now don’t sulk. Come, give Daddy a hand.”
With only the most superficial of sighs–Des did like helping her father work–she stepped up to the slab. She couldn’t help but feel a tingle inside as their latest acquisition wriggled beneath the bindings.
Streaks of water ran down his temples and pooled in the bowl beneath his skull. Tears of Despair. They’d fetch a good price. Des sealed off the bowl–contaminating it would lower the potency.
The man’s watery eyes looked into her own, pleading for release.
Des was happy to oblige.
The snapping of gloves onto her hands was always a satisfying sound. She started her incision at the shoulder and brought it down to the base of the sternum. A second cut from the opposite shoulder drew past the sternum to the man’s navel.
“So,” her father said as he helped pin back the flaps of skin, “how is school going?”
“It’s like the old school, daddy. Hugo helps scare away the worst of them.” Des had to raise her voice to be heard over the whir of the bone saw digging into the man’s ribcage. “Using magic hurts too.”
“Hurts? What do you mean, hurts? You’re not supposed to feel pain.”
“I don’t know how else to say it. I get out of class and want to do nothing but sit in a corner without moving.”
“Rejection? No. I tested thoroughly. Are you eating enough? You must eat twice as much, or more, than you used to.”
“I’m having two helpings at every meal,” Des said with insistence. She really had. Even when it hurt. Even when everyone pointed and whispered behind her back. Getting a larger stomach might help with the first problem. Nothing would help the second problem.
Thinking about school brought up ill memories. Des shook her head and sighed. “I’m glad you got school canceled for the rest of the week.”
“That,” he said with an even wider smile, “was an accident. As I said, disappointing. I thought the short one had a good head on its shoulders. Then neither of them follows orders. Pathetic. What do people see in them?”
Des shook her head as she carefully removed the man’s stomach. Even without the proper ability to smell, spilling its contents always ended up with an annoying cleanup.
“Can’t I stay here with you, daddy? I don’t want to go back.”
“Ah-ah,” he said as he ticked one gloved finger back and forth. “At the very least, Hugo would be more useful if he learned magic. I’ll see about tweaking your caloric intake to something more manageable.”
“But daddy, I’m sure Hugo could manage–”
“Oh, take out the heart too.”
Des glanced down at the faintly beating heart in her hands. She estimated less than a minute, roughly thirty to thirty-five beats remained. Holding on until the last beat was one of her favorite parts. But removing it?
She tossed a confirming glance at her father.
“We won’t need it. I’ve got a different heart to try out.”
“A different heart?” Twenty. Nineteen
“Oh yes. I’m not sure if it will work, but no harm in trying.” As he glanced at their subject, his grin curled upwards until it started threatening to cut off the top of his head. “Well, except for you of course. I don’t expect you to be worried about that much longer.”