Her fixing everything didn’t make the people come back, however. Zoe had said that most of the city had been evacuated entirely when the obelisk lit up with only a handful holding out and weathering the metaphorical storm.
“What’s going to happen to Brakket?”
“The academy or the city?” Zoe asked as she walked a step behind Eva.
They weren’t really walking anywhere in particular. There was nowhere to go aside from around the sandy dunes that made up her domain. Eva had considered turning it all into asphalt and cement to match the street and the sidewalk, but found she liked knowing exactly where her domain ended. Had she still had Arachne’s legs and hands, she probably would have done so in an instant. Sand was coarse and rough. It had a strange property where it managed to get in all the nooks and crannies of anything it touched which tended to cause an unpleasant sensation everywhere.
So long as she kept her current limbs solid, sand didn’t bother her much anymore.
“Both,” Eva eventually said.
“Not sure about either in the long term. For now, Anderson made a deal with Nod Complex. They will house and instruct Brakket’s displaced students for the remainder of the year. The remainder of the tournament will be held out in the Nevada desert near their school.”
“That’s still continuing? Don’t you need to be down there to commentate or whatever your job was?”
Zoe gave a wan smile behind Eva’s back. “I’ve been replaced. With Nod being the new hosts, they wanted one of their own people doing the commentating. Likely for the same reason Anderson wanted the tournament and mundane news networks around Brakket in the first place; publicity and money.
“As for the tournament itself, it is still going, though enthusiasm for it has drastically dropped off since the ‘terrorist attack’ on Brakket Academy.”
Eva blinked. Stopping her aimless wandering, she turned to face Zoe. “The what?”
“Brakket Academy’s official position and statements on the New Year’s events are that they were attacks carried out by degenerates and isolationists, designed to drive a wedge between mundane and magical communities. Everything in the sky was an illusion and the monsters were just that, monsters. Released to inspire terror.”
Scratching at her head, Eva lifted an eyebrow. “He knows what actually happened?”
“Wayne and I told him mostly everything.”
“Huh. If I were Anderson and I wanted good publicity, I would have claimed that Brakket Academy, its students and professors, defused a potentially world ending threat.”
Eva sank down into a seat that appeared beneath her, gesturing for Zoe to join her in her own seat. Teacups and a pot of tea molded themselves out of sand on a table between them. A good host offered refreshments, right? And she was technically a host.
Zoe seemed to mull over her thoughts while partaking of the tea, not responding to Eva right away. Eventually, she set her teacup down on the table and folded her hands in her lap. “I think it was a bigger picture situation. Brakket Academy may have received some praise and prestige, but it would have introduced the concept of literal apocalypses into the minds of mundanes who had only just become fully aware of the magical world.”
“He was concerned about panic.”
“Indeed. We spoke afterwards. While I believe it is unlikely, an extreme he mentioned was that mundanes would attempt to completely eradicate magic through killing or destroying magical people, creatures, and items in the hopes that if there was no magic, there wouldn’t be any world-ending situations.”
“A flawed reasoning,” Eva said immediately. “As soon as mundanes tried any offensive action against mages, everyone would go into hiding. It would be quite literally impossible to kill everyone. That’s not even going into the fact that other planes of existence exist and they would have no access to them. The whole spat between Void and Life would have happened regardless of whether mortals knew of their existence or not.”
“You know that and I know that, but frightened people are far harder to convince. Already people are using the incident here to stir up fear mongering and to rally support for actions against mages; mandatory registration, a cataloging of all known magical creatures, restricted sales of wands and other foci, and so on and so forth. That’s not even mentioning more violent actions. There haven’t been any large incidents yet, but…” She shook her head with a long sigh. “I have a feeling that it is only a matter of time.”
Eva leaned back in her chair. That sounded incredibly annoying. While it probably wouldn’t come to pass anytime soon simply because of the red tape involved, Eva would definitely end up on the wrong side of the law should it pass. Solely due to blood magic, entirely discounting the fact that she was a demon. Because she was a demon, however, she was far less dependent on society. She didn’t need sleep, food, or even a focus. Avoiding government registrations wouldn’t be difficult. No different from her living off the grid as she had been between her prison here and the abandoned hospital in Florida.
Thinking about the hospital in Florida had Eva frowning. Not because she missed the place. It was kind of a dump in retrospect. The women’s ward at the prison was far more habitable. Rather, thinking about it had her thinking about Florida in general and her time there with Devon and Arachne.
Though it had been a week and several days, she had still heard nothing from the spider-demon. No sign that Arachne had returned. No word from Void either, not since the ritual. Even before her domain got merged with the real world, it hadn’t said a word to her despite the occasional questions or comments that she shouted out to nothingness.
“I heard a little from Catherine,” Eva said, mostly to distract herself from her thoughts of Arachne. “Shalise is alright, right?”
Zoe nodded her head in the affirmative. “I was still at the circle, but I heard afterwards that she was found confused and apparently couldn’t recall how she arrived in the infirmary, but otherwise unharmed. She’s currently at Nod Complex, finishing her schooling.”
“Juliana’s with her as well, I assume,” Eva said to herself. She had been somewhat hoping that someone would be around to talk to. One of her friends, maybe someone willing to live inside the domain if only to keep her company for the time being while she figured out how to get out of her domain.
Watching Zoe go silent with her lips tightly pressed together made Eva a little uneasy.
“Zoe?”
“Nobody knows where Juliana is,” she said, voice far more terse than it had been just a few moments ago.
“What do you mean, nobody knows? Nel should–”
Zoe shook her head. “She can’t see anything but darkness when she tries to look for Juliana. Though I don’t know how much she had actually tried; Nel and Ylva have been busy running the Elysium Order. Genoa found a note on Juliana’s bed three days after everything that simply stated that Juliana was off in search of adventure, not to worry, and that she would check in from time to time.”
“Just like that?” Eva asked with raised eyebrows, to which Zoe gave a shallow nod. It must have been Zagan. Or related to Zagan at least. According to Juliana, he hadn’t spoken once since the night she summoned him. Something that had Juliana constantly worried about their agreement. Maybe he had said something or maybe she had simply let her paranoia get the better of her.
Either way, Juliana would probably be fine. With Zagan’s power, Eva couldn’t imagine her dying anytime soon. She had probably used Zagan’s power to keep Nel from locating her in the first place. Unless she got it into her head that she couldn’t use Zagan’s power in some attempt to amuse him.
Worrying wouldn’t help, but Eva couldn’t help but worry. A little.
“Nel isn’t the only way to locate someone. Since we know her name and face, we could send a haunter after her. Of course, if she doesn’t want to be found, I doubt anything we do will work.”