“Zero interest? You’ve attacked the Elysium Order multiple times.”
“I can think of… one time. And I gave back what I stole that time. Then you people attacked me one time. Any other interactions have been either incidental or you’ve got me mistaken with someone else.”
Possibly Ylva. Eva had been entirely unconscious and therefore uninvolved with the slaughter of a decently sized group of nuns during the rescue of Nel. Technically she had also caused the riot in the city against the Elysium Order as well. But she was perfectly willing to foist responsibility for that little incident off to Zagan. Especially because he wasn’t even here to defend himself.
Not that he would bother anyway.
“So,” Eva started, slipping off the table she had been sitting on.
She didn’t continue speaking, pausing to watch both girls take a step backwards. Curly-hair actually got an arc of lightning crossing between her fingertips. The sight of which had Arachne rumbling out a low growl from the back of her throat.
Eva raised her hands to her chest, palms out. A move she hoped was a universal placating gesture. She had not been lying; fighting them was possibly the highest item on her list of things she didn’t want to do at the moment. Especially because of the limited hive-mind thing. If she fought them, a million other nuns would probably start crawling out of the woodwork.
Luckily, they both seemed to recognize the gesture for what it was. Neither one of them fully dropped their guard. Eva would have called them absolute idiots if they had. However, the lightning crackling between Curly’s fingers faded away, dispersed harmlessly into the air.
“So I’m going to go. Follow me around if you feel you must, but you won’t find whatever you’re looking for. If you’re here to protect the students or whatever, they have nothing to fear from me. Though I can’t speak for the dozen other demons running around or the vampire one of the other schools brought with them—I wasn’t lying about that.”
The two glanced towards each other, frowns crossing their faces.
Eva used the distraction to slip around them. Where she edged around them, trying to avoid looking like she was going to attack them, Arachne followed with far less subtlety. Her footsteps were heavier than normal and she leered over the two much smaller girls as she moved. Eva couldn’t really blame her. The nuns had been the ones to blow her head off, after all.
Neither girl tried to stop them as they left the room. They didn’t try to follow either. By the time Eva and Arachne reached the end of the hallway, both girls were talking back and forth at a speed that would make an auctioneer envious.
“Pointless waste of time.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Eva said. “Hopefully they don’t follow me around anymore. With saying all but the name about the vampire, I’m counting on each to distract the other enough for both to leave me alone.”
“What about your vampire friend? Assuming they believe you, you just set them on a vampire hunt.”
“Well, Serena should be fine. She isn’t wandering around the halls and isn’t from one of the other schools, something I explicitly said. They should focus on the students before Serena. But I’ll warn her later just in case.”
Arachne shrugged with a noncommittal grunt. Her interest in Serena amounted solely to any harm she could do towards Eva, she had confessed earlier. So long as Serena kept her fangs in other people, Arachne wouldn’t blink an eye.
Eva had wisely—in her opinion—neglected to mention the teleportation incident.
Momentarily free of both the vampire and the Elysium Order trainees, Eva stopped her aimless wandering through the halls. She headed straight towards the warding room.
Professor Lepus was still inside, much to Eva’s relief. It had been getting close to the end of her office hours. From outside the room, Eva only had her blood sight to tell what she was doing.
Namely, sitting at her desk in the office attached to the classroom. Her hands whisked across what Eva assumed were sheets of paper. They moved fast enough to be a blur. The way her eyes twitched across the paper was almost dizzying.
And her heart. Someone in the middle of a marathon wouldn’t have a beat rate so fast. There was a student at the feast of the schools whose heart was beating faster than any human heart. Even that looked like it wasn’t moving compared to how fast the professor’s heart was currently beating.
Eva burst into the classroom and the attached office without so much as a single knock.
The second she opened the office door, everything seemed to warp. Professor Lepus’ heart dropped its speed to what Eva would consider normal for someone who had just been startled by a demon bursting into their room. She stared at Eva over the bridge of a pair of reading glasses. Her eyes started wide before narrowing to angry slits.
“Was there a reason for entering my office unannounced?”
“I just…” Eva stared, trying to figure out how her heart could possibly have been beating so fast without killing her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t exactly say that she had seen her blood. Anderson knowing about her blood magic was one thing. Wayne and Zoe another.
Really, she was lucky that demon blood was black or everyone would put two and two together. Or would they? Even if people saw her turn the blood to crystal, would they really make the connection? After all, where would all that blood have come from?
Obviously, she hadn’t been doing any blood magic. It had been a demon thing.
All the more important to keep it secret while she could. Especially because the nuns probably suspected at the very least. She didn’t need to give them another reason to chase her around.
“Are you alright?”
“Perfect,” Lepus said with a terse frown. “Did you have a reason for intruding in my office?”
“This is still open hours, right?”
Her frown lessened slightly as she nodded her head. “I prefer a knock next time.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“See that you do.”
There was a slight pause while Eva stood around, still trying to figure out just what had happened. The professor said she was alright and who was Eva to disagree. Sticking her nose too far into more problems would just add to her workload.
Deciding not to pursue the matter further at the moment, Eva took one step into the room.
Only to find Professor Lepus glaring at her once again. “Your friend can wait outside,” she said, flicking her eyes towards Arachne. “It is bad enough that she follows you around all day. However, my open door policy is for students only.”
“With everything that’s been going on, she’s just been a little protective,” Eva said before turning to Arachne. “But I’ll be fine. Keep an eye out for the vampire or the nuns and politely scare them off if they wander by.”
“But–”
“Professor Lepus isn’t going to attack me.” As Arachne opened her mouth, Eva held up a hand. “I’m one room away. In the extraordinarily low chance that she does decide to attack me, I’ll just shout out for you.”
Arachne actually glared at Eva for a moment. Not long. And not a very harsh glare either. She turned a far more vicious look towards the professor before storming out of the room.
Eva just sighed as the door closer did its job closing the door. “Sorry about that,” she said, moving up to take the seat on the opposite side of the desk.
It was the first time she had been inside her warding professor’s office. Unlike her classroom, which was fairly spartan, the office was well decorated. She had several classical looking paintings hung up around the room. The most prominent of which was of a fairly empty landscape with a bunch of melting pocket watches.
Eva only got to glance around for a second before Professor Lepus started speaking.
“Vampires,” she said with a disbelieving huff. “I remember when this institution had some integrity. Dean Halsey’s mismanagement threw much of it in the trash. Turner’s questionable associates didn’t help. Don’t even get me started on Anderson.”