“Would she be any use?”
“She could keep an eye on him. Or exits, I suppose. He’s doing something to block her sight. Likely with the eyes that were not recovered.”
Both women fell into silence as they turned a corner. Despite it being late in the evening on a Saturday, another professor was walking down the hallway. Not one of Eva’s teachers. Probably someone who taught electives or just other years’ regular classes.
With her second year drawing towards its conclusion, perhaps it was time to give some thought towards electives. Warding might be interesting. She already had something of a background in the topic given her blood wards, but those were a far cry from thaumaturgical wards. Still, one could never have enough protection for their stuff.
She hadn’t ever come up with a good way of activating a shield using runes. Maybe a warding class would have the answer.
Golemancy would be interesting too. The blood clone she created earlier had some bases in the subject, though again it was created using haemomancy rather than thaumaturgy.
The basilisk Juliana’s parents had gifted her was probably a golem of some type. If her little enhancement worked the way she hoped it would, a golemancy background could be very useful indeed.
“Ah,” Eva said aloud, remembering the whole reason she wanted to talk with Zoe after their spar. “Are you busy for the rest of the night?”
“I still have your essays to grade. This,” she waved her hand in a vague manner, “occupied far more time than I expected to spend.”
“You can’t put it off until tomorrow?”
“I took a break today for our spar and this, which might have put me behind schedule. I’m afraid I’ll be spending much of tomorrow grading as well.”
“That busy, huh?”
“Let’s just say that leaving Catherine in charge tends to create unnecessary work. If she could ruin your class as much as she did in two hours, imagine what she did to my class over the course of two weeks. I’m still sorting through half of that mess.”
“At least she wasn’t summoning demons in your class,” Eva said with a chuckle.
“Small mercies.” Zoe stopped just outside the Brakket main entryway.
Eva shivered as the February evening air seeped through her clothes. It was crisp and dry, that much Eva was thankful for. Snow had been sparse this winter. That didn’t mean it wasn’t cold.
Clasping her hands around her upper arms didn’t do much to help. In fact, it might have worsened the sensation. The outside of her carapace was not warm.
At least not until she ignited her hands. She kept her clothes from burning. The heat flowed through her.
“Dropping any pretense of needing a wand?”
“I still use it in class. There’s no one out here to see, so why not?”
“A good thing too,” she said, taking a step away. “I can’t say I know any pyrokinetics that set themselves on fire. Especially not without toning down the heat.”
Still shivering slightly, Eva glanced up at Zoe with an eyebrow raised. “Is it really that hot?”
“Not all of us are half demon.”
Zoe’s tone of voice was somewhat jovial, but her smile turned sad.
As she did every time the subject came up.
Really, it was getting to be annoying.
“Do we need to talk about that? Again?”
“No,” Zoe said softly. “I just wish things had been different for you. You’re a good girl, Eva.”
Eva disagreed–haemomancers should be excluded from the ‘good’ category by definition, but she wasn’t about to say that to her face. However, she felt she was far from ‘bad’ as well. It wasn’t like she was Sawyer.
“But,” Zoe said, “I do need to get back home.”
“Ylva still keeping a watch over your apartment?”
“I’m not planning on asking her to stop until the Sawyer situation is dealt with.”
“That can’t come soon enough.”
“Agreed.”
A short moment of companionable silence passed before Zoe gave Eva a light tap on the shoulder.
“I’ll see you in class,” she said. With a puff of chilled air, Zoe vanished.
Eva started to build up her own magic for a teleport back to the prison. A nostalgic thought stayed her hand.
She started walking forwards. The flames on her hands receded to nothing more than warm embers so as to not draw attention from anyone looking out their dorm window. It was late, but who knew with teenagers.
Moving into the Rickenbacker dormitory, Eva headed up the staircase to the third floor. Soon enough, room three-thirteen sat before her.
Eva reached out to the handle before realizing her folly.
Her key was all the way back at the prison. She hadn’t used it in months, having stayed exclusively within her women’s ward or spending the occasional night in Ylva’s domain.
And really, there wasn’t much inside. Maybe a few books of hers that shouldn’t be lying around, but nothing too damning. Anything important was in the prison.
Though she wondered if the same could be said of Shalise and Juliana’s belongings. Had Juliana cleared out her stuff before leaving? Shalise still had things in there for sure.
Taking a step back from her door, Eva had a brief thought to go visit Shalise. Being alone in Hell with no one but Prax for company had to be a nightmare. Besides, it was about time to deliver more homework and collect what she had done.
Shalise had been overjoyed to find she could still do her homework in absentia. Zoe had even passed through Ylva’s domain every other week so far to give her private tutoring lessons.
In light of that, Zoe’s busyness was even more understandable.
Just as Eva was about to leave, she stopped again. Turning to the door adjacent to room three-thirteen, Eva knocked.
A moment of muffled shuffling later and the door opened.
“Shelby,” Eva said as the black-haired girl opened the door, glad that the twins weren’t of the identical kind. Though she hadn’t signed any contracts, accidentally talking about what she wanted to talk about with Irene might lead to some awkward silence and deflections. “Is your sister in?”
The girl before her scrunched up her eyes, brought her hand to her mouth and released a truly magnificent yawn before responding. “Haven’t seen her all night,” she said. “Thought she was with you.”
“I haven’t seen her all night either,” Eva said.
“Maybe try asking Jordan? I know that he met with her earlier today.”
“It wasn’t that important. I mostly stopped by on a whim. I’ll talk to her on Monday.”
“Say,” Shelby said, stepping out of the room. She left the door open a crack behind her. “What have you been up to with my sister? She’s been all secretive and evasive whenever we ask her. She tries not to act like it, but,” she crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame with a smug smile on, “I’ve been her sister my whole life. It’s pretty obvious.”
Eva opened her mouth
and froze.
What excuses had Irene used?
“You aren’t dating her, are you?” Shelby asked, saving her from responding. “I mean, not that I have any problems with that. She’s my sister and I’d support her even if she wanted to marry a troll.”
Eva winced as Shelby’s face turned to a grimace of disgust.
“Well, maybe not a troll,” she said. “But I don’t think you’re very troll-like at all.”
“That’s… thanks? But no, we’re not dating. I can’t say I’ve had a single thought of romance towards anyone. Kind of not my thing?”
Shelby reached out, resting her hand on Eva’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll awaken to a more interesting side of life when you’re older.”
“I see…” Politely smiling, Eva backed up a few steps. “I’ll talk to her later. Don’t want to keep you up all night.”
Letting out another tremendous yawn, Shelby waved her off. “Good idea.” Slinking back into her room, Shelby started to shut the door. “Oh,” she said, “in case I don’t see you tomorrow, happy birthday!”