After a long, mostly mental sigh at the depressed girl, Juliana said, “maybe I could ask Eva or Zoe to bring me here once in a while. It would be less ask and more convince in Zoe’s case, I think.”
“Oh,” Nel repeated though with a very different tone in her voice. She stuck out a gloved hand. “I’m Nel, though I hope you don’t tell anyone. There are people trying to kill me.”
“Juliana,” she said as she shook the attendant’s hand. “I won’t tell anyone other than Eva and Zoe. I assume they already know?”
Nel nodded and opened her mouth to say something.
The door to the library boomed open before she could speak.
Ylva stood in the doorway, wearing her deep-cut, white dress. She stared at the two, calmly observing them. All her flesh vanished the moment she stepped into the light of the room. She slouched down in the large chair and rested her skull on her bony knuckles.
“You have questions.”
Juliana swallowed to try to wet her dry throat. With the barest hint of a nod in the affirmative, Juliana began her questions.
—
Floaty feelings tickled the back of Juliana’s neck as Agiel wolfed down an apple. Either she had gained some resistance to the feeling or the little demon was getting tired of eating apples. Either way didn’t matter much to Juliana.
It would be the last time she summoned him.
“So,” Juliana said after she waited for the last splatters of apple pulp to stop flying around, “I had a long talk with a… a friend of mine. I’d just like to confirm a few things.”
The little demon waved a tiny, clawed hand from one side to the other.
“If you did make a contract with me, would you destroy my mind and puppet my body?”
A faint, almost hesitant tickle of joy tingled at the base of Juliana’s skull.
As expected. Juliana merely gave a light nod. Ylva mentioned that this particular demon could not lie when asked one of its three questions. The hel did not give the answer to the question Juliana asked, but Ylva even giving the question was basically an answer in her mind.
“Two more questions.” Juliana leaned back against the wall of the small bedroom and shut her eyes. All her drive to ask more questions went down the drain with that one question. Power was worthless if she wasn’t around to use it.
“How about this,” she said without opening her eyes, “is it possible to grant me power while leaving me intact?”
Again came the light floating feeling.
“Would you grant me power without destroying my mind or body?”
Needles pierced the back of her neck as the demon shook its head.
“So I expected.” Juliana opened her eyes. She blinked a few times at the sight before her.
Agiel stood near the edge of the shackles, one hand offered out before the creature.
Was it seriously asking what she thought he was asking.
“Nope.” Juliana ticked a finger back and forth. “Should have offered weeks ago and I would have been none the wiser.”
Agiel merely shrugged and withdrew his hand.
Before he could vanish in the summoning circle, Juliana tossed him the last apple from her bag. He deftly caught the giant apple, sinking his claws into it. Confusion spread across his face as he crooked his head at Juliana. At least, it seemed like confusion; hard to tell when he has no face.
“For the road,” she said, “or whatever passes for a road beneath that circle.”
He gave another shrug before tipping straight backwards and falling through the floor, apple and all.
Juliana did not move until the last ripples in the floor ceased. With a long sigh, she moved into the circle and started erasing. Everything had to go. Almost everything–the shackles on the outside could stay so long as Juliana took care not to smudge or otherwise bump any part of it.
Disturbing the shackles would be incredibly easy. Too easy. Juliana erased it as well. New shackles would not be a problem to redraw.
Talking with Ylva had turned into something of a wakeup call. If he had offered, Juliana would have jumped to accept Agiel’s contract. A knot had grown in Juliana’s stomach all through their discussion.
It didn’t, however, deter her in the slightest.
Eva could wipe out entire hordes of skeletons in seconds. Eva had Arachne–powerful in her own right–hanging off of every word she spoke. Eva walked around without eyes like it didn’t even matter.
Comparing herself to Eva so much couldn’t be healthy. Not comparing herself to Eva was near impossible. They were roommates after all. Every time she disappeared to the prison or took off her gloves was a reminder of all the abnormalities surrounding the girl.
That wasn’t to say that Juliana wanted more stares and glares. She had enough as it was–most of which occurred in Professor Kines’ extracurricular combat class. And most of those happened every time she dueled an older student.
She wasn’t stupid; Juliana knew she was considered something special to her peers.
In a few years time, that wouldn’t matter. The students would catch up to her level while Juliana floundered about. Not for the first time did Juliana wish she had accepted her mother’s advice to skip a few grades.
