“They’re a connection between the mortal realm, Void, and Life itself. Two Powers and a battlefield.”
“Right. Way too big,” Irene said, backing up. “Eva, I’m–”
“Involved no matter what you do. Life is trying to pull Void into the mortal realm. Most likely in an attempt to make Void vulnerable. Unfortunately, Void will be bringing along all of Hell. Maybe Hell will take the shape of another planet or galaxy, or maybe it will catastrophically merge with the mortal realm, or simply unleash all the demons of Hell onto Earth. I don’t know.
“One thing is certain, it probably isn’t going to be good for us. Especially because Life’s reason for attacking Void seems to be because Death and Void are allied. Death might be the next target. Something, believe it or not, that would not be good for anyone.”
Eva took her eyes off the sky, looking Irene in the eyes. “So we’re going to bring Void over without the rest of Hell ahead of whenever Life wanted to do it in the hopes that Void will be able to seal away Life. Or at least remove the mortal realm from the playing field,” Eva said with a smile.
Irene didn’t say anything.
Neither did Saija.
After waiting a full minute, neither had so much as moved. Eva felt her smile start to slip. If Irene got scared and went around telling people, things could go poorly. She didn’t want to kill Irene, so maybe Serena could perform a little memory trick to make her forget.
Except Serena wasn’t in on the ritual’s secret either.
Eva bit her lip before smiling again. “So how is that for a sales pitch?” she asked, trying for a small bit of humor.
“Terrible,” Irene said, voice flat. “But you’re serious, aren’t you.”
“Unfortunately.”
Irene’s hands shot to her hair where she started tugging. “Why me?” she moaned.
“Well, because you’re an earth mage and Juliana–”
“I just wanted to come to school, learn some magic, work on my studies, and other normal things. I wanted to become an enchantress, maybe own a shop. I’m not a mage-knight or some thrill-seeker. And now the world is ending?”
“Apocalypse has been used to describe the situation by some of the people who know, yes,” Eva said with a reluctant nod of her head. “But we’re trying to avoid–”
Irene sank down to her knees, getting her pants covered in dirt, and cupped her hands to her face. She wasn’t crying… but she obviously wasn’t taking the information half as well as Juliana had. Of course, Juliana already knew half of it. The only thing she hadn’t known was Arachne’s mission to bring Void over to Earth without Life’s involvement.
At her side, Saija fluttered a pair of wings that hadn’t been out a mere ten minutes ago. She hovered over Irene, bobbing from one shoulder to the other without quite knowing how to help her troubled friend. Only when she placed a hand on Irene’s shoulder did Irene finally move.
She glanced out of her cupped hands, looking at Saija with a half-hearted glare. “Did you know about all this?”
Her head whipped back and forth in a definite negative. “Sounds neat though. I’ve never seen Void. Do you think Powers are cute–”
“I used to think I was the only sane person who went to Brakket,” Irene said, face back buried in her hands. The low volume of her voice combined with her hands forced Eva to take a step closer to properly hear her. “I was right,” she said with a groan.
Irene popped up, brows furrowed. She stuck a finger in Eva’s chest. “You can’t just say that we’re on the verge of apocalypse all nonchalant-like.”
“Ah huh.”
“‘Ah huh,’ she says.” Irene turned to glare at Saija. “‘Do you think a Power is cute,’ she says. Do neither of you have any sense of gravity?”
“Of course I do,” Saija said with a disarming smile. She spread her wings ever so slightly. “Every time I fly, gravity is there to drag me back down to Earth should I lapse in my gliding.”
Irene stared, gaze deader than Ylva’s. Without even a sigh or a simple shake of her head, she turned and started off in the direction they had been coming from.
Saija gave a questioning glance towards Eva.
Eva had her own frown leveled at the succubus.
Saija let out a little noise from the back of her throat before moving straight to Irene’s side.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No. Not really,” Irene said without inflection. “I just need to go have a mental breakdown. Don’t worry about me.”
Eva blinked in front of her, hands up to stop her from going forwards. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to have your breakdown later? There are still a few things to go over. Like who it is safe to talk about this with. Also I’m sure Juliana would–”
“Safe to talk about it with?”
“Well, we don’t want to cause a panic now do we?”
“So you do have a sense of how big this is,” Irene said, hands on her hips.
Eva just smiled, ignoring the panic on Irene’s face. “Come on,” she said. “Juliana should be waiting for us. She’ll probably be mad at me for being so late again, but oh well.”
— — —
Zoe paused as her companion stopped to sniff the air. A vampire’s sense of smell wasn’t good for much aside from the scent of blood. A fact that had Zoe instantly on edge.
“Something wrong?” she asked, hand closing around the hilt of her dagger.
“I don’t think so,” Serena said. “Just a familiar scent heading off towards the forest again.”
“Eva?”
“Yep. Along with a demon who isn’t Arachne and someone else.”
Zoe let her arm drop to her side with a small sigh. Eva and demon likely meant it was nothing to be worried about. Especially because Serena had smelled Eva off in the forests on occasion ever since she arrived. They were probably just training for the next event.
Still, she couldn’t help but ask. “Who is the someone else?”
Serena shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know. A human. I haven’t really interacted with anyone aside from you and Wayne, so everyone else sort of muddles together. No real distinct scent.”
“Could you find them again if they were in front of you?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Just curious,” Zoe said, continuing off towards Wayne’s classroom.
“If you’re really curious, I’m sure you could just ask Eva,” Serena said, skipping up and around Zoe until she was walking backwards down the hall. “Last time I asked, she told me that she was working on a weather ward. Something to keep rain and snow out. I wonder if she’s still working on that.”
“Weather ward,” Zoe repeated with a frown. Maybe something to erect around her women’s ward. She had confessed a certain distaste for snow in the past. Or it could be homework for Chelsea’s class.
Either way, it didn’t sound like anything to worry about.
Zoe knocked on Wayne’s door, waiting just long enough before opening it for Wayne to grunt out an answer.
“Come in,” he said. He didn’t even look up as the door opened. A boiling pot of orange liquid bubbled underneath a stooped over Wayne. His eyes never left the pot even as he gathered up a fistful of powder and sprinkled it in the liquid.
The orange liquid turned almost completely clear. Enough for Zoe to see the cast iron insides of the cauldron.
Which was something that struck Zoe as odd. Not the potion. Finding Wayne tinkering with potions wasn’t strange in the slightest. The fact that he was using a cauldron over an open flame was the real oddity. Modern potionwork almost exclusively used modern tools. Flasks and burners that could be found inside mundane chemical laboratories.
“Do you ever wonder why a potion designed to shrink things doesn’t shrink what it’s made in? Or the flask it is stored in, for that matter.”
“Potions are more your specialty than mine, but I would assume that it is because potion making equipment is enchanted to resist magic.”