Eva couldn’t help but smile at her little joke. It wasn’t a big smile, but apparently it rankled the sixth year’s nerves.
“Freak,” he spat. He looked back towards his cronies and jerked his head away. Soon enough, they had vanished around a corner.
Eva sighed again. So much for the ‘I suffered through having limbs violently removed’ plan. She squared her shoulders and continued towards her next class.
Botany with Professor Kines. Outside in the Infinite Courtyard’s greenhouse. Through the cold.
At least it hasn’t snowed yet, Eva thought as she cast a quick warming spell on herself.
She’d initially been reluctant to switch over to a thaumaturgy spell over the heating runes she’d used the previous year. But Eva couldn’t deny its effectiveness. It kept her warm and didn’t even take an hour of drawing out symbols. If all of her rune effects could be replaced, she could easily see why they were no longer used.
There were wards for anti-scrying, wards for putting people to sleep, and enchanted objects that could project lightning among other things. Whether or not there were spells that could replace the emotion manipulating rune systems she’d developed at the end of last year, Eva wasn’t sure.
Zoe might know, but Eva had been somewhat reluctant to bring that incident up with the professor. Partially because Zoe had been disappointed with her about the riot, but also because Eva didn’t want to find out that her hours and hours of effort could have been replaced by a simple wave of her hand.
Outside, Eva caught sight of Jordan, Irene, and Shelby. Or the backs of their heads at least.
Sprinting, lightly, to catch up, Eva pulled alongside Jordan.
He gave Eva a nod, Shelby put on a smile. Irene gave a wary look, but didn’t pull away to put space between them.
Good! Progress, Eva thought with only a small amount of sarcasm.
Glancing around the rest of the students moving towards the greenhouse, Eva found herself disappointed at the lack of either of her friends.
“Have you guys seen Shalise or Juliana?”
“Not since lunch,” Jordan said. “Lose them?”
“Something like that.”
It was somewhat worrying. She had been pulled away and harassed. Eva felt quite confident in her mental ability to ignore or otherwise shrug off the attacks of mere hu–
Eva shook her head. That thought had come out of nowhere.
–of her fellow schoolmates.
But if those schoolmates were harassing her friends…
“Anything the matter?”
“I don’t think so,” Eva said. She stopped moving and glanced back towards the school. “I’m going to go look for them.”
“They might already be at class,” Shelby said. “Might as well check there first.”
Eva cracked her neck from one side to the other.
She had a point.
“Alright,” Eva said as she resumed walking.
“So, any plans for Halloween?”
“We’ve been kind of avoiding the subject. I imagine Shalise will be wanting to stay inside for the most part. Personally, I’ll be spending some time with Arachne.”
“That’s understandable,” Jordan said with a glance over towards Irene. “I think we’ll be mostly staying inside as well. The party wasn’t that great last year anyway. Aside from all the zombies, that is. Maybe we could meet up like we did at Christmas.”
“They haven’t been staying at the dorms,” Irene blurted out. She had the decency to look embarrassed as she glanced off to one side.
“We could stop by, I doubt it would be much of a problem.” Though Genoa might insist on coming as well.
“Cool,” Jordan said. “I’ll see if Max will swing by as well. He might have made other plans with his other friends. I’m not sure.”
They walked into the greenhouse a moment later. Eva was relieved to find both her friends in their usual spots. Shalise noticed and waved, returning Eva’s own wave.
Max was not in his usual spot. Eva might not have even noticed had Jordan not mentioned him just before they got in.
He wasn’t at lunch with them earlier either.
Odd, but none of her concern.
Eva was just glad she didn’t have to go beating up older students to find her friends.
Chapter 019
Ylva didn’t sleep.
At all.
Zoe wasn’t quite sure what she expected, but she had laid out a fairly fancy bed for the demon. She had a gigantic bed in her domain, after all. Unless that entire thing was solely for Nel.
It wasn’t until the first week had passed that Zoe got any kind of real sleep in. Her time was spent watching Ylva. Waiting for her to do something.
On the first night, Ylva had gone around and inspected seemingly every object in Zoe’s apartment. Some, she would pass by with barely a glance. Others would receive a good amount of attention.
The next night, Ylva watched the television. She didn’t watch any stations, just the television itself. As if she had heard that humans like to watch television but didn’t quite know what that meant.
Zoe tried to turn it on for her the night after that, but Ylva had lost interest.
She moved on to rummaging through the few research documents that Zoe had saved from the fire. The only surviving ring notebook was of particular interest to the demon.
Part of Zoe wanted Ylva to add her own notes to it. She didn’t even comment on them.
A combination of growing accustomed to Ylva’s nightly antics and sheer exhaustion had Zoe falling asleep without much trouble by the weekend.
All except for Halloween night, during which Ylva stood guard. It was as if she expected something to happen. Although she had slept soundly for the previous few weeks, Zoe got no sleep on Halloween.
The entire situation was all so surreal. Even though it had been two and a half months since the attack on her home, she still kept expecting to wake up back in her burning home in the arms of those two demons. Every day that passed was a fresh relief in that department.
And today is another day.
Zoe arched her back and held it in a long stretch. With a long, open-mouthed yawn, she slid out of bed and started unbuttoning her nightshirt.
“Good morning, Ylva,” she said to the little girl sitting on the end of her bed.
Ylva gave her a brief nod in return.
Undressed fully, Zoe tossed her pajamas in the dirty laundry and started towards the shower.
As soon as she touched the door handle, Zoe froze. The feeling of icy water ran down her back. She slowly glanced back to her bed where tiny Ylva sat in one of the dresses they had purchased for her.
“Is something wrong?”
Ylva had never just shown up in her room before. She always waited out on the couch.
“You were thrashing in your sleep. We observed to ensure you did not come to harm.”
“That’s… Thanks, I suppose.”
Zoe pressed her fingers to her forehead and stepped into the shower as she tried hard not to think about her casual undressing in front of Ylva.
Aside from the lingering thought about the demons attacking her home, Zoe didn’t feel very bad. Not like right after it happened. She even felt well rested. No aches or pains in her neck, back, or legs like she might find if she was tossing and turning.
Ylva might have done something, but Zoe didn’t think her abilities extended into dream management.
Zoe shut off the hot water and dried off. Moving to the mirror, she ran a comb through her hair–it would dry in her preferred style. A quick dusting of hairspray after breakfast would keep it in place for the day. She only applied the bare minimum of makeup. She could never understand her old roommates and their need to sit in front of the mirror for hours on end.
There were only twenty-four hours in a day and a third of that was spent sleeping. Spending an hour or two more on makeup was simply inconceivable.