“A man known as Griffin Weilks must die by solstice. That is your message. See that it is delivered and We will reward you.”
The hold on her knees vanished. Zoe slowly stood up, careful to avoid placing weight on her knee. Only at her full height did she realize that the woman before her stood almost three heads taller.
“We will deliver your message,” Zoe said as she helped Juliana to her feet. She started ushering the younger girl to the door.
Juliana stopped moving. She turned back.
The woman hadn’t moved a muscle. Her hand was still on her hip as she stared at them.
“I am Juliana Rivas,” she said with a deep bow. “If… If I can ask,” Juliana said, keeping her head down, “I mean, if it isn’t impolite. What or who are you?”
The woman tipped her chin the slightest bit higher. “Ylva, daughter of Hel, daughter of Loki.”
“Thank you,” Juliana said, holding her bow before she slowly raised her head.
Ylva gave the barest nod of her head. “We will remember the name you have given.”
Zoe half pulled, half threw Juliana out of the cell house door. She slammed it behind her. She leaned in on the door, almost panting for breath.
Adrenaline left with the demon’s presence and the pain in Zoe’s knee flared full on.
Before she got distracted by the pain, Zoe grabbed onto Juliana’s shoulder and flicked her dagger. No small amount of relief flooded into Zoe as the world fell to pieces around her. The Rickenbacker medical room appeared around them.
A surprised Nurse Naranga stood up from behind her desk and ran over to the two women.
“Are you injured,” Zoe asked the younger girl.
She shook her head.
“Just a bone mending tonic for me, Lisa.”
The nurse nodded and rummaged through a cupboard. “What happened?”
“Cracked my knee falling on ice,” Zoe said. “Nothing big.”
Lisa gave a knowing look–one she often used when the two were still students–but handed a white vial to Zoe without a word.
Zoe downed it with a barely mumbled, “thanks.” She took hold of Juliana and transported both straight to dorm three-eighteen.
“Stay here,” Zoe said. “We’ll discuss ‘Arachne’ and your parting words to that demon later.”
“She seemed polite when we were polite,” Juliana said.
“Later,” Zoe said with a sigh. “For now, I think I will be asking the Elysium Sisters to help locate Eva.”
It would be remiss of her duty as an instructor not to use all the tools at her disposal.
Still, an involuntary shiver ran through Zoe’s spine at the thought.
— — —
Arachne crawled over the craggy terrain of her own domain in her largest form. It was the easiest way to move around in it. Her tiny corner of Hell had been designed to be difficult to traverse without Arachne’s mostly unique biology.
It kept her domain safe.
Her Eva nervously rode in her arms.
Without eyes, she couldn’t see. The small island granted her vision on account of it being her domain. At least, that was Arachne’s theory.
If she was demon enough to have a domain, she might be too demon to slip through a flimsy loophole. A loophole that might not even exist.
“There is no precedent for this, Eva,” Arachne said as she rounded the cave mouth into her lair.
“I don’t care. It is better than sitting around.”
“If I vanish–”
“Then we’ll get Juliana to try summoning me. Wasn’t that why you helped me make a gateway on the beach?”
That didn’t mean Arachne liked their alternate plan.
Any plan that relied on people who weren’t Arachne was a bad plan.
“Eva, there are two outcomes for this. Either I disappear, leaving you to find your way back to your island on your own–quite a feat for anyone in my domain, let alone you as you are right now–or we arrive together wherever the necklace is. That is going to be with the necromancers unless they decided to throw it away along the way.”
“So what?”
Arachne turned back into her human form, still with Eva in her arms, as she walked through her lair’s corridors. The cave mouth opened up into an expansive almost palace. Almost.
It was fanciful and enormous, carved almost entirely by hand, or claw, over the course of millennia. Tapestries, woven by herself of course, adorned key spots along the main hall. Some were simple images, other depicted legends–mostly hers.
Eva’s blindness was a travesty that Arachne intended to return tenfold and tenfold again on the necromancers.
“If Juliana can’t summon you, or something happens to me with the necromancers, you could be stuck here for a very long time.”
“Your point, Arachne?”
“Reconsider taking my hands.”
There was a short pause before Eva said, “alright, I’ve reconsidered.”
Arachne set Eva down on her bed. It was a rather normal bed for her. She didn’t sleep often, but on the occasions she did, it was usually in her human form.
It was a good thing Eva was blind. There were several tapestries hanging around the room. Most were of Eva, though one was of Devon–Arachne must have been ill that day–and the rest were all scenery.
The scenery ones she might have shown off.
“You agree then?”
“No.”
“Eva, I am not going anywhere without you having something you can use as a weapon.”
