Genoa snatched the paper from his hands. “I won’t abandon my child.”
“You’ll be abandoning them no matter what you do. You might as well use the connection in Ylva’s domain. That circle has no destination sigil. You could wind up anywhere. Hell is a big damn place. The odds that you’d wind up with your kid are astronomical.
“Then we have to figure out how to get you back, potentially delaying the rescue of your daughter. What a pain. Damn Ylva and its damn payment. I don’t have the time for this shit. It was going to save Eva anyway, I could tell.” Devon devolved into muttering under his breath.
Zoe stepped forwards, ensuring that Genoa saw her before she spoke. She didn’t want to wind up attacked on accident again. “Is Ylva still gone?”
Both Devon and Genoa turned to glare at Zoe. Carlos was the one to finally respond. “Still gone. Is she really going to help get our daughter back?”
“I think so,” Zoe said. And she honestly believed it. Ylva had been protective of her ‘things’ if nothing else. “How is Eva?”
“Unchanged.”
“No one is watching over her?”
“Arachne was with her when we left.”
No one responsible then, Zoe thought with a small sigh.
Genoa crumpled the paper into a ball and turned away. Without a word, she stalked off towards Ylva’s building.
Carlos started after her, but paused and looked back. “I-I better keep her from doing anything rash.”
“Is that true? About the destination thing,” Zoe said as soon as Carlos and Genoa were safely out of earshot.
“I consider myself an expert in these kinds of things. Demons and such. Frankly, that circle shouldn’t work. It’s like a mirror of a proper summoning circle. But if it does work, it will work the way I said it does.”
“You haven’t tested it?”
“Of course not. I don’t want to tip anything off and I definitely do not want to have anything to do with any of the seventy-two. I warned Eva.” He descended once again into mumbling complaints about seemingly everything he could think of as he turned and walked away.
Zoe stood there in the prison courtyard, leaning on her cane, wondering just what she could be doing to help her students.
— — —
Des sat in her chair without moving. She didn’t have much choice in the matter, but struggling would only make things worse.
She did glance over towards Hugo. Unlike Des, he wasn’t strapped down. He even had clothes on. Hugo simply sat and stared with his usual vacant look.
A second chair sat in the room, though it was facing the wrong way. The back was tall enough that she couldn’t see anyone, but it was probably there for a reason. A new test subject for her father, perhaps.
“You disappoint me, Des.”
Her father was smiling. Not at her and not because he was happy. In fact, that was one of the worst smiles she’d seen.
“Don’t worry, we can fix that. But first, let’s discuss why you disappoint me.”
Everything had gone so wrong. Des couldn’t even point out where things failed. Eva wasn’t supposed to have gotten away. She wasn’t supposed to have been an enemy in the first place.
Des was willing to admit that she had let her anger get the best of her. But it wasn’t her fault. If Eva had just played nice, none of this would have happened.
They were supposed to have been friends. Two outcasts joining together against mutual enemies.
That was what her father had said anyway.
“You took our little friends, Des, and got all of them killed. You didn’t tell me first. There was no plan.” Sawyer hung his head in mock sadness. “Worst of all, you ran. You got scared. They were held off by six people and a demon or two because no one was controlling them.”
His voice was soft. Calm. Completely unlike what happened when other people got mad. That was the fifth scariest part of the whole situation.
“That was the whole point in making them. Demons have far too much agency, but they’re strong. With us controlling our demon-golems…” he trailed off with another shake of his head.
“And Hugo helped you.”
Hugo blinked and glanced up to Sawyer. His eyes focused for a brief moment.
Her father snapped his fingers.
Hugo slumped forwards, falling out of his seat. He collapsed to the floor without attempting to catch himself.
Des tried to scream out. She struggled against the chair’s restraints.
They didn’t budge.
“Don’t worry, honey. We’ll build you a new toy. A better one!
“But that is the price he had to pay. Don’t disappoint me again, Des.”
The restraints didn’t even allow Des to slump back in her chair. She didn’t want a new toy. Hugo was hers.
“Not all was lost. I noticed your errant actions fast enough to act myself. I caught us a little souvenir.”
He spun the spare chair around.
There was a woman sitting in it with wide eyes and short, messy hair. Milky white eyes were inset in her body everywhere Des could see. At least, between the straps. Some of the spots shouldn’t even be possible. There was definitely not enough meat on her wrist to support an eye and have a functional bone structure.
A small spot on her other arm had dried blood crusted over a hole that might have held an eye at one point in time.
“I’m going to have to change my original plan. There were unexpected complications, but all will be well. We might have to move quickly over the next few days until I figure out how to hide us from the other nuns. Their inquisitorial squad is reeling from losing half the members and one other augur, but they’ll be back.”
As she tore her eyes from the woman’s eyes, Des noticed one odd thing. When her father strapped in subjects, he stripped them to ensure they had no hidden items on their person.
The woman had a choker around her neck. A small, obsidian black skull dangled from the front end. It was highly detailed. For all Des knew, it was fashioned from a real skull. A real tiny skull, but a real one nonetheless. All the teeth were perfectly detailed, the cheekbones had all the proper shapes, and the eyes…
It drew her eyes in. She couldn’t look away even if she tried.
And she tried. She wanted nothing more than to not have to look at the necklace.
Two tiny white pricks were set so far back in the eye sockets that they could be on the opposite end of the universe.
Two tiny white stars, fueling their burning with sheer anger.
Author’s Note 003
All of the following is completely optional to read. This is no narrative. It in no way affects the story. I’m mostly going to ramble for a few words.
Hello, thanks for reading.
Book four will continue as scheduled. No intermissions, no interludes. Tune in next time for 004.001.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself while writing book three. It was lots of fun the entire way through. Especially those last seven or so chapters. I’d like to know what you all thought about it.
In the other Author’s Notes, I called out what I viewed as the weakest chapter. For book three, that would probably be 003.004. That was the chapter in which Eva returns to Florida for all of five minutes to collect the last of her personal effects, since I know you’ve forgotten. That is exactly why it wasn’t that great of a chapter. Nothing memorable happened.
I will try to keep situations like that in mind going forward.
Book four will alternate every few chapters between two core groups of characters. We’re going to be leaving Brakket, and most of the side characters associated with the school, for almost the entire duration. It is going to be a bit different, but I hope you will continue to read and enjoy.