“Well, I think I could care less about her, but not so much that I’ll be ignoring her from now on. She’s caught my attention enough to warrant some snooping, I think.” Eva sighed again as Arachne gently ran her fingers through Eva’s hair. “I’m far more interested in who told her about me.”
“We’ll look into that. For now, let’s head back. Juliana and Shalise are very concerned.”
Eva allowed herself to be helped to her feet by Zoe. “I think I’ll teleport myself,” she said. “Your ‘between’ thing is unpleasant.”
“I understand,” the professor said with a frown. “Is Mr. Foster in? He should probably be appraised of the situation as well.”
“He went off to pack,” Arachne said with a grin. “We’ll leave a note saying we don’t need to go on the run quite so soon after all.”
Eva nodded and scribbled out a note to leave on the coffee table. “Arachne, if you’d be so kind as to shrink down, you can teleport with me.”
The spider-demon complied and started shifting to her spider form.
Eva froze as a thought occurred to her. “Oh no,” Eva said as she ran her fingertips over her scalp. “Irene, Jordan, Max, and Shelby were all there.”
“A good portion of the student body was there,” Zoe said quietly. “Think of it this way, you won’t have to crumple your fingers into gloves anymore.”
“That isn’t the issue. They’ve seen Arachne in spider form before.”
“Ah.”
“
She wouldn’t be able to just claim that the necromancers forced the new hands on her. They’d see through that. Even if she claimed that Sawyer used Arachne in creating her new hands, they knew she was alive.
“Perhaps,” Zoe said, “simply tell them the truth.”
“The truth,” Eva bit her lip. So many people knew so many secrets that she had been trying to conceal. What were four more?
“At least part of it. Leave out the demon part and tell them Arachne is a magical creature.”
“That…”
“Professor Twillie, while I respect him a great deal, doesn’t know of every creature in existence. I am willing to wager a good amount that Juliana’s father knows of more creatures than he does.”
Gears turned in Eva’s head upon hearing that. A small smile split across her face. “That might be the answer. I have a meeting with Carlos Rivas tomorrow evening. He wanted to meet Arachne in her real form.” At Zoe’s questioning look, Eva quickly explained, “Juliana let slip that she was a demon.”
Zoe Baxter’s mouth fell open for a moment. She looked about like she wanted to go yell at her student.
“But,” Eva said before she could say a word. “If the meeting goes well, maybe he could help me. We could weave some tale about Arachne being a legitimate magical creature.”
“That might be a tough sell. He has his integrity as a researcher to consider.”
Eva frowned, but nodded. “Can’t hurt to ask.”
Speeches
Martina Tuner fought to keep a smile off her face as she looked out over the student body. A fight she came close to losing several times and she hadn’t started speaking yet.
Things couldn’t have gone better if she had planned them out herself.
The possibility of failure tempered her near overwhelming glee to more manageable levels.
Barely.
Her speech needed to be perfect. She could delay for a few days to write out a proper speech for the situation. Unfortunately, that would give ample opportunity for rumors to spread and grow to the point of hyperbole.
The event happening in the evening helped curb the spread of information. Parents were sure to receive letters or phone calls, especially with the assembly, but they would be contacted with information Martina gave herself during the assembly.
“It has come to my attention,” Martina said, “that a large portion of the student body was present at an incident that occurred during Professor Kines’ combative training extracurricular. This incident raised nearly the same amount of concern from the student body in a single day as a horde of zombies did last Halloween. Many messages that reached my desk were, quite frankly, overblown hearsay from people not directly present. Nevertheless, after meeting with the staff, we decided to illuminate the entire student body as to what occurred and what that means for you.”
Martina paused and glanced over the students. They sat patiently, waiting for more words. Some carried hushed conversations with their neighbors; likely discussing the very topic Martina was getting to.
Others seemed entirely unconcerned with the goings on. The assembly hadn’t started long before the first bell rang, but some students looked ready to fall asleep in their seats.
So long as they kept that attitude when confronted with more supernatural elements, they wouldn’t need Zagan sicced on them.
