“One would hope that whatever guards you hire would be better equipped to handle combat than a menial secretary, yeah?”
“After said guards are hired, we will be revisiting this conversation. In the meantime, be prepared to investigate any and all unauthorized demonic activity.”
“I don’t suppose you have any kind of time frame for when that will be?”
“October first. I fully expect you to be in attendance to vet all candidates.”
“I look forward to it.” He stood from his seat and turned towards the door.
“Zagan,” Martina said, “you have yet to adequately state your location for that night.”
“I was out of town. Farming. I believe I told you that I had fields to plow.”
The glass, now empty of hellfire, once again shattered. “Get out of my office.”
Motivations
“I understand that the dean’s secretary was filling in during my absence, the topic–”
“We discussed rituals again,” Mr. Weston all but shouted out as he hopped to his feet. “At first I thought it was going to be some boring thing we already learned last year. Then she started getting into all the gritty details.” He paused and glanced around the room with a raised eyebrow. “Or should I say gooey details?”
Several snickers ran though several of the students–both male and female. More than a few turned a few shades of color in embarrassment.
“Take a seat, Mr. Weston,” Zoe said a tad harsher than she intended.
“If you have to miss a few days, can we get the same substitute?”
The heads nodding in agreement rippled through the class with only two notable exceptions. Eva and one of the Coggins twins. Zoe wouldn’t put it past the former to already know or even engage in–Zoe shook her head. She did not want her thoughts trailing in that direction.
She tried to avoid looking into Eva’s eyes. It wasn’t that she was afraid of them and their unnaturalness. If anything, they were quite striking.
No.
Those eyes were simply something different. She’d healed, for the most part, and had even found a temporary apartment to live in. As grateful as she was for Eva’s offer of ‘asylum’ at the prison, Zoe had turned it down. It wasn’t the location, or the distance. It was the company.
Though her opinion of Ylva had improved a good deal. Compared to the two sadistic monsters that had destroyed her home, Ylva was a kitten. An imposing giant of a kitten, but a kitten nonetheless.
She still expected to find something wrong with the world that would cause her to snap back to the choking smoke of her own house with another broken limb.
With a suppressed shudder, Zoe turned her head to the other student who didn’t nod her head. Zoe hadn’t spent enough time around Irene, but she worked hard and was always eager to learn. At least her desire for knowledge didn’t extend so far as to want Catherine back.
Oddly, Irene sat at the back of the classroom today at an otherwise unoccupied table. Her usual chair at the front of the classroom sat empty next to Miss Shallows and Mr. Wilcox.
It was a change that happened while Zoe was gone. With a frown, Zoe wondered if Catherine had done something as foolish as call for volunteers for a demonstration. That might have been enough to scare Irene away from them. She gave her head a shake.
“Tantric rituals are covered as part of sixth year theory. I will be reminding her of this. Harshly.” Zoe narrowed her eyes as she looked over the students again. “Are there any questions?”
“You mean,” Max started slowly, “if we take your class in sixth year, we’ll get to–”
Zoe cut him off with only a glare before he could speak even one more word. She kept up her glare until he sat back in his seat. “Discussion only, Mr. Weston. Are there any questions that do not relate to the ill-advised lessons in my absence?”
Silence. The students glanced around at one another for a moment before everyone faced forwards.
Zoe breathed a short sigh of relief. Her arm was still in a sling–the bone had healed but was still
Before she could move on with the day’s lesson, and hopefully regain lost time, Mr. Wilcox sat up straighter.
“Yeah, I got one,” he said. One finger swung around to point at Eva. “What is the deal with that? I went to school last year and she didn’t have those hands then. She definitely didn’t have those eyes before
Zoe let out a small sigh. It came out more as a sharp hiss. Talking about this beforehand would have been a wise idea in retrospect. Something to corroborate whatever stories they told might have helped as well.
Before she could open her mouth for an explanation, Eva opened hers.
