She almost wished she had done this before visiting Arachne. Eva had never felt quite so awkward around the spider-demon as she had in the last few weeks. Just walking in and asking for blood was far more awkward than merely visiting for a chat.
Pushing the thought out of her mind, Eva used her magic to manipulate the demon’s blood into a hovering sphere just above the coiled snake. She added a few drops of her own blood to the sphere. It would dilute it, but she really needed a part of herself to ensure some control and loyalty.
She quickly scanned the book. Eva took a deep breath. She could see her own heart beating faster and faster. If something went wrong, who knew what might happen.
But nothing appeared amiss in her preparations, so she pressed forward.
Her magic channeled down into the ritual circle. Dark red light leaked out of the lines of blood. Eva kept up her channeling of magic. The book said they should glow white, so Eva would make sure they glowed white.
Of course, the book was written with human blood in mind. When the color turned a light brown and didn’t appear to change after that, Eva cut off her magic.
That didn’t make the glow disappear. Her magic was still trapped within the circle. It needed somewhere to go.
In retrospect, performing the ritual in one of the burnt out ruins would have been a much better plan. At least if it exploded, it wouldn’t destroy her home.
Eva extended a thin tendril of her and Arachne’s blood down onto the snake. The moment it touched, she could feel it working. More and more of the blood siphoned itself off of the blood ball and into the snake, fusing with its sculpted skin.
That was the most nerve-wracking part of the ritual. It was designed to work on an actual living creature. A cat, a dog, an owl… Whatever the mage had for a companion.
She hadn’t been sure it would work on the basilisk. It wasn’t real, after all. But everything proceeded as the book said it would. The tips of its dark green scales gained a deep black luster. Through its partially opened mouth, Eva spotted its white fangs turning as black as her carapace.
The book said the teeth would turn red, but again, it was written for someone using human blood.
Eva gave a sigh of relief as the last of Arachne’s blood disappeared into the snake’s skin. The ritual circle had lost its glow. After wiping away most of the circle with her hand, Eva picked up her basilisk.
It immediately curled around her fingers, winding between each before facing Eva and giving her a long hiss. Like the scales, the tip of its forked tongue had turned a deep black. Basila’s steely eyes remained as silver as before, though now it had black veins that started at its slit-pupils and spread out like jagged legs of a starfish.
In addition, Eva could actually sense blood within the thing. It wasn’t like any living creature she had ever heard of. The blood was in a thin tube that started at its nose and reached the tip of its tail.
Eva brought her finger close to its mouth.
Without hesitation, the basilisk lunged forward.
And was held back by the mental limitations of the sculpture.
Eva sighed. That had to go. Normally, she would just ask Genoa or Carlos. Unfortunately, she wasn’t certain that either wanted to see her at the moment.
“Maybe Zoe has some ideas,” Eva mused.
Basila just hissed again.
Behavioral problems could be corrected later. If this ritual worked properly, she should be able to keep it from attacking anything she didn’t want attacked.
“And maybe I can steal some growth potions from Wayne.”
After all, who
Underground Academy
“How exactly are these students being screened?”
Without so much as glancing up from tapping away at her cellphone, Catherine shrugged. “That’s up to your governor.”
“Anderson?”
“That’s the one.”
Eva leaned back in her chair, balancing it on two legs as she rested her feet on a neighboring seat. For a few moments, she just stared at the ceiling tiles.
They weren’t very interesting.
It had never stood out much to Eva, but Brakket was
There were other magical schools around America. Even more across the seas. Nobody, students or teachers, ever talked about them. Were they fancy ancient castles with moving staircases or were they just regular school buildings? Maybe they taught things in radically different manners. Or had completely different schools of magic.
