Eva froze in her walk away, blinking in surprise. After telling everyone when her birthday was over the summer, she hadn’t actually expected any of them to remember.
She only remembered because it meant that it was almost time for her spring treatment.
After giving Shelby a belated “thanks,” Eva wandered off to the nearest stairwell. Arachne would probably want to spend the day with her.
Probably. It was becoming harder and harder to tell exactly what she was thinking.
Sighing, Eva built up the magic for a teleport to the women’s ward.
She still had Sister Cross to deal with.
Or perhaps not. It was her birthday. Sister Cross was not the sort of company she cared for any day of the week, let alone her birthday.
She’d live for one day.
There were others whose company she’d rather be in.
Chapter 010
Eva glided to a stop just outside of what she had taken to calling the alternate women’s ward.
The women’s ward of her domain.
And something was wrong. She could feel it. Some uncanny sense of sickness in her stomach that told her something was wrong.
It had nothing to do with her gliding. Whenever Eva entered her domain, she never had to fear. Everyone else who came in fell from some height. After tiring of having to stop her fall every time, Zoe had created a sort of air cushion to land on.
Eva felt that she should be able do the same or better, but she was still far too new at controlling her domain properly. Replicating real-world things she had seen and experienced was easy enough. Accidental conjuring of things she thought of was annoying enough. Purposeful creation of new concepts wasn’t that easy.
Since she had seen Zoe create the slow-fall area, she thought it would be easy to copy. It was something she had been meaning to attempt for a while now.
Unfortunately, that would have to wait.
The alternate women’s ward had its heavy steel doors closed.
That was unusual. Every other time she had been here, the doors were open. Seeing them shut only reinforced that feeling of wrongness.
Within Eva’s domain, there wasn’t much temperature difference between indoors and outdoors. There was a comfortable warmth spread throughout the entire area. With no insects or other pests to keep out, there really was no reason to shut the doors.
“Shalise?” Eva called out as she walked up to the doors.
She paused as she spotted a possible reason why the doors were closed.
Deep gouges marred the steel. One corner had been peeled back. Claw marks dug into the stone surrounding the door.
“Shalise!”
The handle had been torn off, as had the lock. Given that the lock was on the outside–the place was originally a prison–it probably didn’t help much against whatever was trying to break in.
Sticking her fingers into the holes where the handle used to be, Eva tried to pry it open. It started to give, only to catch on something. Her fingers slipped.
The door snapped back into place with a crash of thunder.
Gritting her teeth, Eva dug both of her hands into the door.
This is my domain and I will not be denied.
Eva braced herself with one foot against the wall. And then she pulled.
There was the telltale creak of metal straining against metal. The creak climbed to its crescendo before something snapped.
The door swung open, Eva swinging with it. Balance lost, she fell back onto the ground.
Shards of metal rained down around her. Brushing it off, she got to her feet feeling glad that she was alone at the moment.
It took her a moment to realize what the metal was.
A bed frame had been torn up and the long metal bars had been slid through the handle on the inside of the door, preventing it from opening. Her dresser and what looked to be the couch had been propped up in front of the door as well.
Though, since the door opened outwards, the furniture didn’t provide much in the way of an obstacle. Eva easily slid them off to one side.
She stepped inside, half expecting a scene of carnage to greet her.
Why, she wasn’t quite sure. The door had been intact.
Instead, it appeared mostly normal. The only real exception was the furniture that had been rearranged into a barricade.
Looking closer gave cause for Eva to frown. Purple liquid had splattered around one of the walls near a cell. The door–this time a sliding door–had been pinched shut around something oddly familiar.
The same thing that had been frozen in a block of ice back at Brakket.
Was it dead? It was difficult to tell. Its blood still moved, but it didn’t. Not very fast. Its heart only beat once in the time Eva spent looking at it.
The iced creature at Brakket had a far more regularly beating heart.
“Shalise!” Eva shouted, running up to the room.
The window had been broken open. Bars the size of her wrist had been bent inwards, most dripping with purple blood. But apart from the creature in the doorway, nothing was inside.
In the real world, the room would have been her teleport gate room. Here, it was just empty.
Eva started to put together a picture of what had happened. These things attacked. Shalise managed to make it inside and barricade the door. One or more broke through the window. Alerted to that fact, probably by the noise, Shalise ran over and tried to shut the door.
But instead caught the creature.
Judging by the hand-shaped indentation in the door, Shalise was using Prax’s muscles as well. That would help explain why the creature was nearly bisected.
Eva hesitated continuing her search for Shalise. If the creatures were still here, she would need a weapon.
Not having expected an enemy to be within her own domain, Eva was ill equipped to deal with them. All she had on her was her dagger.
Really, all she needed.
Eva buried the dagger into the back of the monster on her floor. Its violet blood welled up, leaping to be controlled by her haemomancy.
A good sign. She had been worried that it might be a construct of some sort and unable to be controlled.
Unfortunately, it felt runny. Swishing it around in the air before her gave Eva the impression of water more than blood. Like it had been diluted. Regular human blood was probably better, though she wasn’t entirely certain how her own blood stood up in comparison without actual testing.
Gathering up a decent amount of the blood–almost all of the blood still in the corpse–Eva looked around with her blood sight, seeing beyond the walls of the rooms. Something she should have done beforehand.
None of them had much out of place that she could see without entering. No traces of blood, more creatures, or Shalise.
Except for the potions room.
Eva threw open the door and charged inside only to stop dead in her tracks. Gasping a quick breath of fresh air, Eva covered her mouth.
Visible fumes hung in the air like thick smog. The ceiling dripped all colors of potions from condensation. In the back of the room, the window was torn open much the same way as the gate room.
Eva’s largest potions cabinet had been tipped over. A pool of potions spread out on the floor. Some mixing into foul colors, others staying separate like oil on water.
The cabinet wasn’t lying flat. Something was under one corner of it. It didn’t take a lot of guesswork to figure out what; the snake-like tentacles were a dead giveaway. It was one of the enigma creatures.
Shalise was draped over the top of the cabinet. It looked like she had been pressing down on top of the enigma. The fumes had likely overpowered her.
She was still alive, passed out, but alive. Her heart had a steady beat to it.
Taking another breath of fresh air, Eva pinched her eyes shut and entered the room. She scooped up Shalise, extremely grateful that the girl wasn’t currently a muscle-bound hulk, and beat a hasty retreat.