Void Domain, Book 04 полностью

For a moment, Nel thought Genoa was going to plant her boot into the other girl’s face. In the end, she only turned her glare on Alicia.

It still caused Alicia to cower back in what was perhaps the first real emotion Nel had seen on her face.

“My daughter has been trapped in literal Hell for the past two weeks.” Genoa spoke in an unnatural calm that was somehow scarier than anything else she had said. “If you are not out of this bath in thirty seconds, I will start breaking things. Whatever that necromancer did to you and your arm will be like a light massage in comparison. Do you understand me?”

That woman has been spending entirely too much time around Arachne, Nel thought with a poorly suppressed shudder. She nodded anyway and rose to her feet. She didn’t even bother moving to the stairs, instead choosing to climb over the edge where she was.

Her mouth came close to betraying her. She couldn’t see across planes of existence and almost told Genoa as much. The only thing that stopped her–aside from the copious pain that would undoubtedly follow such a statement–was that she could see the outside world from Lady Ylva’s domain.

Given that she was relatively certain that they technically were in Hell just by being inside her domain, maybe looking through the rest of Hell wouldn’t be an issue. Unless all the other domains were protected with powerful anti-augur wards.

Nel bit her lip as she followed Genoa out of the room.

This must be what it is like to be handed a shovel and told to dig your own grave.

She just hoped that Lady Ylva would be kind enough to dig her back out.

Eva tossed the now slightly damp towel over her shoulder, not caring in the slightest where it actually landed.

She exited the showers completely in the nude. Arachne followed her out at her heels.

Devon still sat, snoring in his chair. For a moment, she considered waking him. After glancing at the large bruise on his forehead, Eva decided he looked tired enough to leave alone. Besides, he managed to sleep through all the noise of the showers.

Never had she felt so alive.

She stopped and stretched in her common room. The jolt of pain in her lower back went completely ignored. She was far too pleased with everything to care.

Well, Eva thought with a brief glance at the ceiling, almost everything.

It was nice being out of that nightmare and back with Arachne in the real world, her injury was healing slowly yet steadily, and Sawyer’s days were numbered.

Zagan just had to put a damper on it.

Prior to taking a shower, Eva got an abridged story from Arachne. Arachne, unfortunately, got it from Zoe. Zoe had experienced some of it first hand, but she got most of the information about Juliana and Shalise from Jordan.

Eva wasn’t about to take Arachne’s word for truth until she spoke to some of the others. Not that she didn’t trust Arachne; she trusted her completely. It was just that Eva had played the telephone game in elementary school. Third and fourth-hand retellings of events tended to become extremely muddled.

She couldn’t begin to guess at Zagan’s game. Whatever he wanted was likely related to what he had told her about investigating Hell back when he was terrorizing the nuns. Shalise and Juliana didn’t matter to that as far as Eva knew.

The thing that most aroused her curiosity was that Jordan and Shelby had gotten themselves involved in this mess. Probably because of her getting Irene involved. But somehow they had managed to spy on Zagan? There was a story there that Eva wanted to hear.

Arching her back in a stretch, half to look upside down at Arachne and half to exercise out her injury, Eva asked, “was Irene alright after all that?”

Arachne stared for a moment before shrugging.

A voice from behind Eva chose to answer the question. “Irene is perfectly fi–why are you naked?”

Eva straightened out to find Zoe Baxter standing at the entrance to the women’s ward with her back facing Eva.

“Just got out of the shower. Besides, I’m in the privacy of my own home.” Eva paused with her hands on her hips just long enough for Zoe to get curious enough to glance over her shoulder.

Her head whipped back hard enough that Eva felt that whiplash. “Are you going to get dressed?”

“If I must,” Eva said. It’s good to be back, Eva thought as she slipped into her room. As much as she would never say it aloud, she had missed everyone.

Which made the lack of Juliana and Shalise all the more depressing.

Someone, likely Arachne, had tidied up her room. Eva’s eyes were immediately drawn to the end table next to her bed. Five vials of pitch-black blood helped to prop up her void metal dagger. She picked it up, gripping it in her hand. It felt… nice to hold it again.