Arachne had no solutions for eyes. Eva would need all of Arachne’s eyes to have proper sight, and even if it was only her two humanish ones, they wouldn’t fit in Eva’s eye sockets. Something similar to what happened on her arms might fix that, but that left the issue of the other eyes.
Perhaps the hel would have a deal on eyes that wasn’t horrible. It left a bad taste in her mouth even thinking of the creature, but the hel seemed at least mildly interested in Eva.
Something to think on later. For now, she could adapt and deal with her vision.
Arachne sighed. She ran a leg over Eva’s hair and another over her cheek. It might be a while before the girl let her near.
“Eva,” Arachne said, “contract complete. You can wake up now.”
Her black-haired girl groaned. One of her new hands slowly rose up to Eva’s head. Not to be inspected, but in the way humans cradled headaches.
Arachne moved to stop it. She didn’t want her Eva’s opinions on the new hands to be marred by a pierced skull.
“Arachne,” Eva groaned. Her groan had a sharp edge to it.
“I’m here. Everything went perfect.”
“Arachne. What went perfect.”
Arachne didn’t respond. She watched as Eva flexed the hand caught by her legs. Even the extra joints flexed; not something Arachne even thought about when she started.
“Arachne,” Eva snarled, “what did you do?”
She winced back at Eva’s voice. She expected it, and it was much better angry than sad. Arachne just wished the anger was directed somewhere else. “I completed our contract.”
“You did it again. I can’t believe you.” Her fingers clicked as she tapped them together. “You couldn’t just wait for me to say yes, could you?”
“I…” Arachne sighed. “I didn’t want to risk you saying no.”
Eva turned away, pulling her arm out of the legs holding it. She carefully kept her hands away from her bare skin. Probably a good idea until she got used to them.
“I don’t know why I bother trusting you. You clearly have no trust in me.”
“I just want what’s best for you.”
“And this is what’s best for me?” She held up a hand, clacking the long fingers together. “How am I supposed to hide these from people. Let me decide what’s best for me and I’ll let you know how you can help. This is not it. You didn’t even let me agree on my own…”
“Humans have gloves. If you fold up the top two segments, you’ll fit.”
Eva sighed. She fell backwards on the bed and just lay there.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Eva should be fired up. Yelling. Angry. Or Eva should be thankful. Glad. Happy.
This was…
Pathetic.
No. Arachne shunted the voice from her mind. This was
“Can we go now?”
Arachne looked down at Eva. She hadn’t moved except for a slight drumming of her fingers.
“Eva, I’m… sorry.” This felt gross. Arachne didn’t like it.
“Me too.”
Using all of her legs to help hold Eva, Arachne picked the girl up.
She carried her Eva through the halls to the gateway chamber. It was a small place. No ostentatious carvings or tapestries. Apart from the last several years, it went mostly unused. The only real designs were the gateway diagrams on the floor. Almost a mirror of what summoners in the mortal realm used.
Arachne walked up to the gateway and channeled magic into it. She focused on the necklace as she did so.
“Remember, if you don’t make it through–”
“Place my left hand on a wall and follow it until I reach a sandy beach. Then think of the island.”
“I will come for you. I promise.”
Eva didn’t acknowledge anything. She stared off into a corner of the room. Or she would have, if she could stare.
The floor rippled. A black emptiness tore open.
Arachne fell. She kept all her legs tightly wrapped around Eva as the void swallowed them whole.
— — —
Nel Stirling concentrated on the floating strand of hair in front of her.
Her concentration yielded nothing even after hours of searching.
It was next to impossible to hide from an augur when one had something personal. Hair should definitely work. Yet there was nothing but darkness in her vision.
If this went on, she’d be excommunicated for being abandoned. Or worse. Very probably worse. The Sisterhood wouldn’t leave a rogue augur running wild.
With fear in her heart, Nel redoubled her efforts.
Nel pulled her hand away from the long strand of black hair as if it shocked her.
She felt her eyes fade from the glowing white back to their normal brown as she glanced at the person impatiently tapping her foot.
Sister Cross stood next to her, arms folded with an obvious question on her face.
“I found her,” Nel said.
“But?”
Nel bit her lip. Sister Cross was already on edge from losing one of the sisters. Now this.
