Eva didn’t bother dodging. It was a good two inches from her shoulder.
“Third lesson, you learn nothing by standing around and half-assing it.”
In truth, Eva had small apprehensions about fighting. In a real fight, she would increase the amount of blood in the air. Here, she didn’t want to make it too thick and give herself away. It would be easy for a shard of ice to slip through to her without her noticing.
But in class, that didn’t matter. She wore armored clothes the same as everyone else.
In order to see, Eva relied on watching his wand hand and watching when he cast spells. If she lost track of a projectile, she’d put up a shield.
At least, that was her plan. She hadn’t needed to do anything of the sort against Tony Burnside. None of his attacks intended to hurt her. Even the few times she’d intentionally tried to test her shield, he just stopped his attacks.
So Eva tossed fireball after fireball at him. Even a few came from her off-hand. Her new finger ring foci adorned the index finger of her glove as a distraction. Students might have a hard time learning the nuances of alternate foci, but which hand she used didn’t matter to Eva’s unique casting.
Her fireballs splashed against his shield. They were too weak to get through. That didn’t deter her.
Tony Burnside launched token ice spikes any time she let up. For the most part, she ignored them. Most weren’t even properly aimed at her.
“Stop trying to miss me and hit me,” Eva roared.
One almost hit her chest. She only noticed too late. Rather than fail to put up a shield, she batted it away with the back of her hand. They were blunted and weren’t traveling fast enough to do any serious damage. Her claws could take the beating.
“Eva,” a voice called out.
She’d just barely caught one of his icicles that went wide and was about to throw it back at him. Eva paused and turned to the voice.
Franklin Kines ran up to the two students. “What are you doing? You’ve got him out of the ring. You’re out of the ring.”
“He won’t fight me,” Eva said, pointing her wand at Tony.
He pulled up a shield the moment she did.
“You’re out of the ring. You’re not supposed to fight out of the ring.”
“He won’t fight me in the ring.” She held up the ice spike. “These just go flying past me. I haven’t had to use a shield or even dodge.” She crushed the spike in her hand, the two pieces falling to the ground amidst a shower of crushed ice.
“Eva,” Kines said softly, “surely you can understand him not wanting to hurt a younger student.”
“No.” Eva pulled off her helmet and threw it to the side. She tapped her padded vest. “We have these to keep us from getting hurt.”
“Maybe we should shuffle groups,” Franklin Kines said. He clapped his hands to get the attention of everyone who wasn’t already staring at the scene–which was almost no one. “Everyone find a new partner, one who uses a different element, if possible.”
He turned on one of the groups. “Shalise,” he said, “would you please be Eva’s partner?
“This exercise is for getting used to shield spells,” he said a little louder, Eva was pretty sure it was directed to her, “not for fighting.”
Juliana gave Eva a light smile as she walked straight to Tony Burnside.
Eva nodded and picked up her helmet on her way to Shalise.
“You’re not going to fireball me into a corner, are you?”
Eva quirked an eyebrow at Shalise. She’d be able to see it through the clear visor. “Are you going to fight me like I’m a little blind girl who needs to be coddled?”
“No.”
Eva exaggerated out a sigh as she walked into the ring. The floor of the small dueling arena was made of earth, mostly for earth mages. The carved in rings helped a lot with Eva’s sight. She wouldn’t be able to tell painted on rings. “Then I suppose I won’t fireball you into a corner.”
That elicited a smile and a soft giggle from the girl. “It was a little scary, watching you,” she said quietly.
“He wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” Eva dismissed. “Even if his shield failed–a feat against my weak fireballs–we’ve got all this armor.”
“It was more of your face.”
“My face?”
“You looked very angry.”
Did she? Eva didn’t know. She could see her own blood as well as she could see others, but she never paid attention to it. “Maybe if he’d just man up and fight me properly, I wouldn’t have got so mad.”
“I don’t know how much of a fight I’m going to put up.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t get mad at you.”
Shalise flicked her wand.
Eva readied a shield.
Nothing pinged against it. She couldn’t see anything with the flecks of blood around the arena.
“Um…”
Shalise slumped over. “That was my best attack. A puff of air. I don’t think air magic is very suited for combat.”
“Zoe Baxter uses lightning. Have you tried?”
Once again, Shalise flicked her wand.
Unlike before, there was a small crackle in the air. A very small crackle. Without eyes, Eva couldn’t tell if anything left Shalise’s wand. If it even came from Shalise’s wand.
It might have been another student standing near Shalise that Eva heard.
