She could probably have moved the entire thing on her own.
“Oh, and Prax,” Eva said as they dropped the couch in the back of the room, “you’ll be free to do whatever. You can even stay here, so long as you don’t cause trouble. Sending you right back to your domain would be cruel while that doll might still be there.”
Tilting her head to one side, Shalise winced. “He says thanks.”
“I’m sure he does.”
Moving back to the center of the room, Eva picked up one of the remaining chairs.
Shalise, on the other hand, decided that moving furniture one at a time was too slow. She picked up the table with one arm and leaned the last chair against her other shoulder, moving both at once.
Eva doubted that she would be able to do the same. The chairs weren’t the heaviest things in the world, but they were fairly bulky and awkward to carry. Lifting one one-handedly might be a bit much, especially with a table in the other hand. Her legs were strong, as was her grip strength, both thanks to Arachne. The rest of her upper body could use some work.
“You know,” Eva said once they finished clearing out the room, “you’re not going to have those muscles, assuming all goes well.”
Shalise started. She glanced down at her body as if she hadn’t quite realized what she had done.
Eventually, she spoke. “I know. He tricked me into it–sort of–but they have come in handy.”
“Well,” Eva held up her own hand, examining her shiny carapace in the light, “if you’re going to miss it that much–”
Hands on her hips, Shalise glared. “I’m not amputating my arms.”
Rather than respond, Eva stiffened. Lynn Cross stood just behind her, her pose radiating irritation.
Slowly, Eva turned. She wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see lighting crackling between the ex-nun’s fingers.
“I’ll thank you not to put foolish ideas into others’ heads,” Lynn said, shoving a leaf of paper into Eva’s chest. “The last two items are those that may prove troublesome. The augur should be able to assist.”
Eva nodded. Without so much as a glance at the list, she folded it up. Slinking away as fast as she could, Eva made her way to the gate room.
Empty though it was, it was still the gate room. It was the room that Eva had taken to using in traveling from Hell back to her beacon. As she stood in the center, a pattern colored in and brightened on the floor.
It was almost identical to the summoning circles used in the mortal realm. Soon enough, the symbols upon the floor began a clock-like rotation. Ripples formed on the surface.
A gaping, void filled maw opened up at her feet. Eva dropped straight down, not concerned in the slightest.
She had long since become used to the sudden weightlessness.
Eva wasn’t certain how long she spent drifting aimlessly through the emptiness. She had tried timing it once. She brought along a mechanical pocket watch. That had actually exploded on her wrist, though not until she had tried a small light spell to see it in the darkness.
If she didn’t try to look, time appeared to pass by at a regular pace. She could leave for her domain at four in the afternoon, spend an hour in her domain, and return at five. That all led Eva to believe that this limbo between Hell and the mortal realm didn’t actually exist on a proper time line.
It felt like it took forever, but no time had actually passed once she got out.
Her musing came to a sudden stop as she found herself spat out of the nothingness into her gate room. The one in the regular women’s ward.
At least, it should have been the regular gate room. There was a thin layer of sand on the floor.
Everything else appeared normal, however, so she ignored it for the moment. Shalise was a far more pressing concern than a bit of loose sand.
Eva plucked a black marble with a streak of red–her now inactive beacon–from a shelf in the gate room. It would need to be given to Zoe to reactivate it before she returned to Hell.
Deciding to pull out the list of reagents before doing so, Eva found that most of the items were familiar. Simple things that she could get around Brakket City. Given the late hour, she would probably be breaking into the apothecary and any other shops she needed, but Brakket Academy paid for everything anyway as far as Eva could tell.
Zoe had probably at least heard of the things she did not recognize.
The last two, the ones that Nel should be able to help with, didn’t look any more or less difficult to acquire than the items she didn’t recognize. Purgato salis and obelisci lunam pura.
Eva started to move to her bedroom. The state of her common room had her pause.
All of the furniture had been shoved off to the back of the room. Just like it had been in the alternate version of the room.
“Shalise?” Eva called out, suddenly unsure as to whether or not she actually made it back to the regular women’s ward. “Lynn Cross?”
There was no response. And no sign of either of the two in her blood sight. She shook her head. It was probably just Devon wanting to do something to the treatment ritual circle.
Continuing on to her bedroom, Eva pulled out some paper and made two copies of the list. One for Nel and one for Zoe.
“Now to find the two.”
She decided to start with Nel. The augur was closer and the least likely of the two to have gone someplace outside of her usual haunt. Nel could also help find Zoe without a whole lot of guesswork.
Eva took one step outside of her room and stopped.
The sky… didn’t look much like how she had left it.
Zoe was running up towards her. She was plainly visible to Eva’s blood sight.
But Eva was far too enraptured with the purple streaks running through the night sky.
“Nel said you were back,” Zoe said as she got closer. “We have problems.”
“Yeah,” Eva said, voice as flat as possible. “I can see that.”
Chapter 024
Eva tore open the doors to Ylva’s domain and sprinted inside.
Ylva was on her throne, her skeletal form looking impassive as always under the light shining from the storm clouds overhead. Her pose was as relaxed as it always was. With her fist curled beneath her chin, she slouched back in her throne.
Four others sat around a small table set down at the base of her throne. Alicia and Nel sat at opposite ends of the table from one another with Wayne Lurcher in between the two. Wayne had a scowl on his face as he eyed his neighbors.
Surprisingly enough, Devon had been allowed back inside Ylva’s domain.
Desperate times, I suppose, Eva thought as she ran up to the table.
“It isn’t the entity known as Void,” Devon said. “I’m willing to put a lot of money on the sky being the doing of the Power that is attacking the Void.”
“The point still stands,” grumbled Wayne. “Whatever it is, it probably doesn’t have our best interests at heart.”
Ignoring the others and not caring at all that she was interrupting what was probably an important conversation, Eva placed both palms on the table and gazed straight into Nel’s eyes. “You found Sawyer?”
Zoe had already said as much. Eva trusted her not to lie, but she had to be sure. She had to hear the words from Nel’s own mouth.
Wilting under Eva’s gaze, Nel nodded her head. “He passed out somewhere in Nevada just as… well, you’ve been outside. Just as all that started.”
Eva grit her teeth and balled her fist. A thin layer of marble dust coated her fingers from where they scraped against the table surface. Of course, it would be now. He couldn’t just show up while nothing was happening like a good little necromancer. He had to show up while a potential apocalypse was going on.
If that was what was actually going on. Devon and Wayne’s conversation might have implied otherwise. Eva was too focused on Nel to pay all that much attention to their words.