“I thought this tournament was to show off our school, what we learn, and how it stacks up to the other schools around America.”
“That’s all true,” Anderson said, dipping his head in an agreeable nod.
“Then I should be the last one to participate. Nothing I do has come from this school. I’m a few months into my third year of instruction. In thaumaturgy, I think I’m right where I should be. Juliana is far ahead of me in that respect. You should be speaking with her instead of me.”
“As soon as we are done here, I will be calling her and her parents in to discuss just that.”
“Outside thaumaturgy,” Eva continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “I have a handful of demonic traits. Which I could ignore and participate with. It might even be representative of Brakket Academy. Especially if you make demons a more permanent fixture.”
“That is the plan.”
“Demons are one thing, but I consider myself primarily a blood mage. I can’t imagine that would be a subject coming to Brakket anytime soon.”
“No, certainly not. In fact, that is another topic I wished to discuss.” He clasped his hands together and looked over the top of his fingers with his elbows on his desk. “I must ask that you do not use blood magic while the other schools are in the area.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
And that was the honest truth. Being a diabolist did not automatically make one a murderer. The same wasn’t true about blood magic. While her demonic secrets had pretty much all come out over the course of her school days, she was quite pleased that her blood magic was still a secret to most people.
Even her fairly public use of blood magic when she had killed the hunter wasn’t obviously blood magic. Most humans saw black liquid and didn’t make the connection with blood. Given the size of the pool, who would ever think it was blood? Even if they suspected, she could claim that it was a demonic trait that allowed her to control it.
Which, for all Eva knew, was the truth. She hadn’t dipped her dagger into the blood. It had heeded her commands without any bloodstones touching it. Though it was a useless point to consider. Not a single person had commented about it while Eva could hear.
Though a number of people had started avoiding her. More than normal, anyway. Probably because she had publicly killed a man. Though it was a clear case of self defense.
“Good,” Anderson said with a smile as he put his hands down into his lap. “Now, about signing up…”
Eva let out a long groan as her mind searched for some other excuse to skip out on the stupid contest. Anderson was giving her a feeling that he would keep pressing no matter what she said.
“You haven’t even told anyone what the contest is going to entail. I have so many things to be doing and zero time to study for written exams or whatever this is going to be.”
“No one is going to be told until after the other schools arrive. There will be a large feast on Sunday night where most of the details will be announced. I will say that it is nothing so boorish as exams.”
“It isn’t going to be something like fighting dragons or finding your way through a trap-filled maze, is it?” Both of which sounded far better than exams, but still not things that Eva wanted to do.
Anderson just gave a slight shake of his head before sliding the paper over towards her. He dropped the pen right on top of it.
Eva sighed, glancing towards Arachne and getting nothing but a shrug in return. She could keep fighting against Anderson, but missing golemancy would be annoying. Sitting here staring at his unpleasant smile, Eva very much doubted that he cared how many classes she had to miss.
Whatever, she thought as she picked up the pen. It’s not like this is a binding contract.
Fae could make a binding contract, but this obviously was not one. There were no contract details. Just a simple note at the top saying what the sign up sheet was for. And there were more than ten names. Unless Brakket Academy had some home-school advantage and could field a lot more students than the other schools, some of these people wouldn’t be chosen to participate.
Demons could also form a contract, but their contracts weren’t written ones. If a demon wrote down the terms of their contract, it was more to get a full look at what was being agreed upon before actually committing.
“Happy now?” Eva said, dropping her pen. “If this contest is tedious, I’ll skip it. Find a way to force me to and I’ll deliberately sabotage our school.”
“Don’t worry,” Anderson said, smiling as he took the paper back, “I’m sure you’ll find it both entertaining and enjoyable.”
Chapter 002
Juliana took in a deep breath of the cool November air and let it back out as a long sigh.
The days were getting colder. Not quite cold enough to need a heavy coat, especially not while the sun was still up, but a light jacket wasn’t cutting it anymore. Winter was coming late this year, but it was still coming.
Soon enough, Juliana would be spending every weekend walking through shoulder-high snow, uphill both ways.
After a brief smirk at her own joke, Juliana sighed again. Just when she had been starting to convince her parents that she didn’t need to come back every weekend, the hunters attacked. It was a wonder that her father even let her out of his sight after that. While slightly more lax in terms of what Juliana should be allowed to do, her mother was just as worried. Even if she didn’t show it on her face.
Which probably had something to do with her near drowning.
She had downplayed it. On her insistence, Eva barely said a word, letting Juliana explain that she hadn’t even come close to drowning. If possible, she wouldn’t have said a word at all. Unfortunately, her cellphone being full of water along with being soaked to the bone was enough to warrant some explanation.
Though she had said that the water never went higher than her waist before stopping completely, that didn’t reassure her mother.
“What if the trap froze solid, you along with it? What if it had been fire? What if it had sucked all the air out of the bubble?” Her mother had gone on with a thousand more what ifs.
As a result, she had been forced to drop her magizoology elective—something she had really only taken in the hopes that it might make her father feel better about… well, everything. Now she was in Eva’s warding class with her mother giving her a crash course every weekend to help her catch up to what she had missed over the first few months.
Which just meant that she wouldn’t be getting out of walking to their house every weekend.
As she walked down the sidewalk, Juliana went over everything that had happened during the week. It would be the first thing her parents asked about.
Really, nothing especially interesting had happened. Something that Juliana would be happy to report. The less excitement, the better. For her parents at least. If she was being honest with herself, she liked a little excitement. Just enough to keep her on her toes.
Going to Hell was a bit much.
Juliana froze. Both her thoughts and her footsteps came to a screeching halt.
The house her parents had purchased was on the outskirts of town. The farthest possible residence in Brakket that could still be considered in Brakket. As such, it was something of a long walk.
And a quiet walk.
Too quiet.
She couldn’t point out anything in particular that made her stop and look around. The houses were few and far between on the edge of the city. Most didn’t have lights on in the early evening darkness, indicating a lack of residents. Untended yards were overgrown, grass and weeds stretched as high as they wanted without fear for a simple mower. Much of the area had long since been overgrown.