The blond lowered her wand but did not put it away, nor did she relax.
“This is my mentor, Randolph Carter.” She gestured towards man wrapped up in a brown trench coat. “Mentor, this is Shalise and Juliana.”
Shalise gave a hesitant nod. Juliana remained still with her wand out.
“Charmed,” he said in a voice that was anything but.
“It has been a week, have you found something already?”
“Not exactly. Next Friday evening we might be able to check some of your issues out. Meet me at,” his eyes flicked over Juliana and Shalise, “the place.”
He turned and stalked off. He got to the window at the end of the hallway and stepped out to the ground below.
“He seems friendly,” Juliana said as they entered their room.
“Oh yeah, real softhearted that one.”
Shalise dropped her bag on her desk. She turned back to Eva, leaning against her chair. “That was about the necromancers then?”
“I’d assume so. Guess I won’t know until Friday.”
Shalise frowned, but nodded. “I hope it is good news.” She gathered up some clothes from the drawers beneath her bed. “Unless either of you have objections, I’ll shower first.”
Neither girl said anything.
Shalise slipped into the shower.
Juliana stared at Eva. She waited, just staring.
Eva shuffled to her desk and pulled out a paper, trying her best to ignore the blond’s gaze. She had been working on a new version of the privacy runes. The new sheets should cover the entire main room so she wouldn’t have to do four copies for every customer the next time the runes wore out. Their business had gone a bit too well; Eva doubted she would have time for all of them with school going on.
The moment the shower water started, Juliana whispered in Eva’s ear. She had moved right next to Eva without her noticing. “Take me with you,” she said.
“What?”
“I want to fight these necromancing scumbags too. You’ve seen me against Professor Baxter. You know I can fight.”
“You lose against Zoe Baxter. Every time.”
“I do better than you do.”
“I wouldn’t lose at all if–” Eva cut herself off, biting her lip.
A silence hung in the hair between them. Only the sound of flowing shower water filled the air.
Eventually Juliana sighed.
“I know you have secrets,” she said. “There’s no way you get taken on bounty hunting jobs with just runes and not knowing any spells aside from blink. You have so many secrets I wonder if anything you’ve said is the truth. But I don’t care about that right now.”
She stopped and cocked her head to the side, listening to make sure the shower was still running. She returned her attentions to Eva and spoke in an even quieter whisper, “I don’t care if you’re a necromancer yourself so long as it wasn’t you who killed that family.”
“I’m not a necromancer,” Eva hissed.
“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about that, at least. I still want in.”
“I can’t just show up with someone else.”
“He said Friday. It is Tuesday. You’ve got a few days to ask–no–tell him someone else is coming along.”
Eva was going to retort when the shower water cut off.
Juliana noticed as well. She stood up, moving her face away from Eva’s. “I’ll shower next,” she said. And turned to gather her own clothes.
Eva was left staring after her even as Shalise exited the bathroom. She only stopped once Juliana disappeared behind the closed door.
Shalise seemed to notice something wrong. She walked up to Eva and said, “don’t fight. We are roommates. I don’t want to have you two hate each other.”
“It wasn’t a fight,” Eva said. She wasn’t so sure. Was that a fight?
“Good.” Shalise said. She patted Eva’s shoulder only to freeze solid.
It took Eva a moment to realize why. Then it hit her. The poor girl had just patted one of Arachne’s legs through her shirt.
“It really just hangs off of you then?”
“She and yes, most of the time. She was with me all day today and all day yesterday. And you’ve seen me after showering with her still latched on me.” Eva felt a bad for that. She hadn’t changed her habit of wandering around and sleeping without clothes. Shalise started screaming when she saw Arachne latched onto Eva’s chest one morning. The poor girl thought Arachne was attacking Eva. It took a while to calm her down.
“If you’d like,” Eva said, “I could bring her out, nice and slowly, and you could touch her directly. Maybe it would help?”
Shalise took a quick step backwards, shaking her head in the negative even as Arachne tapped out no repeatedly on Eva’s shoulder.
“I think not,” Shalise said. At least she hadn’t stuttered her first word. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that in the future. Not now.”
Arachne tapped no again as Shalise said that. Eva doubted the spider-demon would do anything if Eva asked her not to. She might not like it, but for Eva’s roommates at the very least, Arachne might have to compromise on something.
Shalise slipped back to her bed and pulled out the general magic textbook. She flipped through it until Juliana left the shower.
