“Show yourself,” Zoe called out. There had to be someone here. If not, she’d only embarrassed herself in front of Juliana.
“You would make demands of Ourself?”
The feminine voice boomed around them.
Juliana jumped. Zoe grabbed her shoulder and pulled her closer.
“Who are you?” Zoe asked.
“Another demand. Asking for a title before introducing yourself no less. Mortal manners have fallen over the centuries, We see.”
“KNEEL”
Juliana was all but torn from her hands as her knees slammed into the marble. Zoe didn’t manage much better. Someone tied ropes around her knees and pulled them into the ground.
She hissed as one of her knees felt like it cracked.
Juliana didn’t make a sound. Perhaps the metal flowing beneath her clothes cushioned her.
“We have observed you wandering about the grounds. We will not tolerate quidnuncs in Our presence.”
“I am Zoe Baxter, an instructor at a nearby magical academy. To my side is a pupil of mine, Juliana.” Zoe spoke quickly. She did not want to be on a list of intolerable things, not when a voice that could move her body against her will with a mere word had that list.
“We are searching for another pupil of mine, Eva.”
Zoe chanced looking around when the voice did not return. Nothing had changed in their surroundings. The skeleton, still sitting atop the throne, hadn’t budged and there was nothing else around.
“She has gone missing,” Zoe continued. “If you have any information, it would be graciously appreciated. If not, we apologize for our intrusion and will leave at once.”
“So mortals can display manners when their lives are endangered.”
The skeleton drew itself to its feet. It took one step down from its throne. Then another. At the third step, it moved out of the ray of light.
A woman stood in place of the skeleton. At first glance, she looked beautiful. Her square jaw kept high as she descended the stairs. Her eyes never left the two kneeling girls.
The longer Zoe stared, the more everything seemed off. Subtle cues, but they were there. Her dress was cut low enough that Zoe could see straight down to her navel. There was not even the slightest rise and fall of her chest for breaths of air. Not a sign of life could be seen on her blue lips.
Her eyes were like steel as the gazed down on her subjects.
When she got to the edge of her black marble platform, she took another step forwards. Small sections of a bridge flickered into existence with every one of her calm strides.
Invisible? Or was she materializing it with every step. Zoe’s mind couldn’t help but wonder.
She stopped just ten feet from the kneeling girls. “You mentioned Eva. Missing you said?”
Her voice no longer boomed throughout the chamber. It lost none of its power.
Juliana spoke up before Zoe could. “Arachne said she went missing from the school dorms. We came here, hoping she was safe in her home. There have been necromancers plaguing our school as of late, we were worried she was captured or killed by them.”
“Eva is not dead. We would know if she passed. This may prove providential.”
The woman paused, looking between her subjects.
“One of you will deliver a message to Eva.”
Zoe cringed at the wording. Before Juliana could say anything, Zoe said, “if you are planning on killing the other, Juliana will carry your message.”
The woman shifted and placed one hand on her hip. “You would die for your pupils?”
“I would,” Zoe replied without hesitation.
“Do you wish for death?”
Zoe hesitated. She didn’t wish for death. Not by a long shot. If this was a trick question where she said as much, the woman might kill Juliana instead. Zoe mulled over wording then said, “if it means saving my students, then yes.”
“Death will come for you on His own time. We have no wish to hasten His coming.”
“I understand,” Zoe said. She bowed back down.
“A man known as Griffin Weilks must die by solstice. That is your message. See that it is delivered and We will reward you.”
The hold on her knees vanished. Zoe slowly stood up, careful to avoid placing weight on her knee. Only at her full height did she realize that the woman before her stood almost three heads taller.
“We will deliver your message,” Zoe said as she helped Juliana to her feet. She started ushering the younger girl to the door.
Juliana stopped moving. She turned back.
The woman hadn’t moved a muscle. Her hand was still on her hip as she stared at them.
“I am Juliana Rivas,” she said with a deep bow. “If… If I can ask,” Juliana said, keeping her head down, “I mean, if it isn’t impolite. What or who are you?”
The woman tipped her chin the slightest bit higher. “Ylva, daughter of Hel, daughter of Loki.”
“Thank you,” Juliana said, holding her bow before she slowly raised her head.
Ylva gave the barest nod of her head. “We will remember the name you have given.”
Zoe half pulled, half threw Juliana out of the cell house door. She slammed it behind her. She leaned in on the door, almost panting for breath.
Adrenaline left with the demon’s presence and the pain in Zoe’s knee flared full on.
Before she got distracted by the pain, Zoe grabbed onto Juliana’s shoulder and flicked her dagger. No small amount of relief flooded into Zoe as the world fell to pieces around her. The Rickenbacker medical room appeared around them.
A surprised Nurse Naranga stood up from behind her desk and ran over to the two women.
“Are you injured,” Zoe asked the younger girl.
She shook her head.
“Just a bone mending tonic for me, Lisa.”
The nurse nodded and rummaged through a cupboard. “What happened?”
“Cracked my knee falling on ice,” Zoe said. “Nothing big.”
Lisa gave a knowing look–one she often used when the two were still students–but handed a white vial to Zoe without a word.
Zoe downed it with a barely mumbled, “thanks.” She took hold of Juliana and transported both straight to dorm three-eighteen.
“Stay here,” Zoe said. “We’ll discuss ‘Arachne’ and your parting words to that demon later.”
“She seemed polite when we were polite,” Juliana said.
“Later,” Zoe said with a sigh. “For now, I think I will be asking the Elysium Sisters to help locate Eva.”
It would be remiss of her duty as an instructor not to use all the tools at her disposal.
Still, an involuntary shiver ran through Zoe’s spine at the thought.
— — —
Arachne crawled over the craggy terrain of her own domain in her largest form. It was the easiest way to move around in it. Her tiny corner of Hell had been designed to be difficult to traverse without Arachne’s mostly unique biology.
It kept her domain safe.
Her Eva nervously rode in her arms.
Without eyes, she couldn’t see. The small island granted her vision on account of it being her domain. At least, that was Arachne’s theory.
If she was demon enough to have a domain, she might be too demon to slip through a flimsy loophole. A loophole that might not even exist.
“There is no precedent for this, Eva,” Arachne said as she rounded the cave mouth into her lair.
“I don’t care. It is better than sitting around.”
“If I vanish–”
“Then we’ll get Juliana to try summoning me. Wasn’t that why you helped me make a gateway on the beach?”
That didn’t mean Arachne liked their alternate plan.
Any plan that relied on people who weren’t Arachne was a bad plan.
“Eva, there are two outcomes for this. Either I disappear, leaving you to find your way back to your island on your own–quite a feat for anyone in my domain, let alone you as you are right now–or we arrive together wherever the necklace is. That is going to be with the necromancers unless they decided to throw it away along the way.”