The rest of the class filed in shortly after Irene arrived.Only when the door’s lock clicked did Irene notice that Eva was nowhere in sight.
“Leaving me alone with a bunch of degenerate mortals?” Catherine said, loud and clear despite clearly speaking about Irene and the rest of the students. “I’ll feed Eva to hellhounds.”
The irritation on the professor’s face vanished as soon as she finished speaking. It was replaced by thoughtfulness.
A scary look on the succubus.
“Or perhaps,” Catherine said, flashing her teeth in a wide smile, “today’s lesson can be a bit more fun than usual.”
Chapter 007
Eva kicked back in her chair, flipping a page in her blood magic book. It wasn’t an extremely comfortable seat, being a simple wooden seat she had dragged over. There wasn’t any padding on it and its back was far too low.
Padding didn’t matter much. Her legs were stiff carapace and her butt had been reinforced–for lack of a better word–around where her legs met her skin. It was far from the worst chair she had ever sat in. The most uncomfortable aspect was the hole that was still in her side.
Eva had filled it completely full of blood and hardened parts to give some structure, but it didn’t come close to proper skin. Reading, at least, took her mind off the pain.
And pain had been a big deal. It hadn’t hurt quite so much in the hour following her fight. Something that Eva chalked up to adrenaline. And then there was the pain in her wrist and legs and everywhere else. She was sore. Everywhere.
Considering all of that, a more comfortable chair might have done some good. But she could push all of that away. Blood mages were no strangers to pain.
Really, the worst thing was the lighting. Ylva’s prison wasn’t a dank dungeon filled with moss and dripping water. It was, however, a far cry from a proper reading room.
Arachne forewent a chair entirely. She simply sat on the stone floor and rested against the back wall. Never once in their hour of sitting had she taken a single one of her eight red eyes off of their prisoner. In fact, she had hardly moved at all. Her stillness was almost uncanny.
Still, she was out of her room and at Eva’s side. A nice change from how it had been the last few months.
That was something she could thank Sister Cross for.
In a very silent sort of way.
Pausing in her book, Eva took a moment to look over the sleeping prisoner.
During the brief hour that Eva had taken to focus on herself and her own injuries, Sister Cross had done something prior to passing out.
Her flesh was still torn off in long strips, but the remaining skin was slowly crawling over the spots where it had been torn. Somewhat reminiscent of how Eva healed herself with blood magic, though on a much larger scale.
But it was slow. Molasses slow. It had been almost another hour since she got back from tending to herself and Sister Cross’ newly created skin was only a few hairs up her arm. At the rate she was going, it probably wouldn’t be fixed for a few weeks at best.
When Shalise had half her hand eaten by a zombie, it had taken a healer from the Elysium Order to mend it. So Eva wasn’t too surprised to find Sister Cross healing herself. The speed did surprise her.
Shalise had never gone into much detail about her own experience having her body mended. Eva had always imagined it had been some nun waving her hands with some white light for a few minutes.
Now she was starting to reconsider that. Shalise had a lot less to mend, true, but this was agonizingly slow.
It was for that reason that Eva had put a hold on her Locate And Slash Or Murder Sawyer With Blood Magic plan and pulled out a book on beneficial blood rituals. She still intended to drop Sister Cross into her domain at her earliest convenience, but dropping her on Shalise looking like she had just been through a meat grinder seemed in poor taste.
Aside from that, Eva still had a hole in her side. A painful, anti-magic hole. Neither she nor Arachne quite knew what to do about it. She had already found a few flesh mending rituals–Sister Cross could wait in pain a little longer, just as punishment for attacking Eva–but even if they could power through the lightning’s magic eating aftereffects, the rituals did not mend or regrow bone.
Frankly, Eva was quite certain that blood magic wasn’t exactly designed for bones.
Still, no harm in double checking. Well, no harm aside from what Sister Cross was feeling.
So no harm at all.
“Nel mentioned a guest.”
Eva refrained from jumping only because she had kept a mild awareness on her blood sight. Ylva had approached from behind in absolute silence and only spoke once she closed the distance to a few feet.
Closing her book, Eva stood and gave her full attention to Ylva. Eva doubted the hel would call her a friend, but she did believe that they were on thoroughly cordial terms. Still, Eva had dragged in a prisoner and used a cell without permission; no sense in taking the chance at causing further offense.
That said guest riled Ylva’s pet up just made it more important not to be brazen or offensive.
“Ylva,” Eva said with a slight nod. Gesturing towards the occupied cell, she said, “Sister Cross. Shalise’s mother.”
Stepping in front of the cell, Ylva peered inside. “The one sharing her body with a cambion,” she stated, more to herself than anything. “We see the resemblance.”
“I apologize for bringing her into your domain without asking. You were gone and I lacked the facilities to store a hostile teleporter.”
“See that it does not happen again,” Ylva said without taking her eyes off the contents of the cell.
Eva merely nodded. The words weren’t said in a harsh tone or with anger and it was a perfectly understandable request. She wouldn’t want to come home only to find an enemy sitting around her room.
“You inflicted these injuries?”
“In a manner of speaking. It was more of a teleport oversight followed by her being within my wards and not keyed in.”
Looking away from Sister Cross, Ylva asked, “We were under the impression that your blood wards were deadly.”
“She’s an Elysium Order nun. They’ve got really strong shields. It lasted long enough for me to shut off my wards.”
“Elysium Order?” Ylva turned back to the cell. “Her attire is lacking for such a station.”
A set of robes appeared within the cell, looking very similar to the red and black attire that both Nel and Alicia wore. They draped themselves over the edge of the bed.
“You have quite a collection of nuns,” Eva said, not entirely sure of Ylva’s intentions. “While I don’t exactly care if you collect this one, I don’t think she would be very happy to join up.”
“Ali did not believe she would serve Us in the beginning, yet serves Us she does.”
Eva bit her lip. “Are you… certain about that?”
Ylva glanced over with one eyebrow raised. “Your meaning?”
“I mean she appears to serve you now, but…” Eva trailed off, not entirely sure how to broach the subject. After Nel had mentioned her concerns, Eva had spent a while thinking on the subject. This wasn’t how she had planned to bring it up, but it was a convenient segue.
She gave a quick glance to Arachne only to receive a shrug in return. A lot of good you are, Eva mentally sighed.
After casting her blood sight and regular sight around to check for any hint of the former nun in question and finding no trace of her, Eva took a deep breath. “She seems unstable, to a degree. I just want to make sure she isn’t going to betray you–” or me, “–in the future.”
“We will not tolerate betrayal.”
“No,” Eva said. “Of course not.”