Void Domain, Book 06 полностью

At least, it should have been the regular gate room. There was a thin layer of sand on the floor.

Everything else appeared normal, however, so she ignored it for the moment. Shalise was a far more pressing concern than a bit of loose sand.

Eva plucked a black marble with a streak of red–her now inactive beacon–from a shelf in the gate room. It would need to be given to Zoe to reactivate it before she returned to Hell.

Deciding to pull out the list of reagents before doing so, Eva found that most of the items were familiar. Simple things that she could get around Brakket City. Given the late hour, she would probably be breaking into the apothecary and any other shops she needed, but Brakket Academy paid for everything anyway as far as Eva could tell.

Zoe had probably at least heard of the things she did not recognize.

The last two, the ones that Nel should be able to help with, didn’t look any more or less difficult to acquire than the items she didn’t recognize. Purgato salis and obelisci lunam pura.

Eva started to move to her bedroom. The state of her common room had her pause.

All of the furniture had been shoved off to the back of the room. Just like it had been in the alternate version of the room.

“Shalise?” Eva called out, suddenly unsure as to whether or not she actually made it back to the regular women’s ward. “Lynn Cross?”

There was no response. And no sign of either of the two in her blood sight. She shook her head. It was probably just Devon wanting to do something to the treatment ritual circle.

Continuing on to her bedroom, Eva pulled out some paper and made two copies of the list. One for Nel and one for Zoe.

“Now to find the two.”

She decided to start with Nel. The augur was closer and the least likely of the two to have gone someplace outside of her usual haunt. Nel could also help find Zoe without a whole lot of guesswork.

Eva took one step outside of her room and stopped.

The sky… didn’t look much like how she had left it.

Zoe was running up towards her. She was plainly visible to Eva’s blood sight.

But Eva was far too enraptured with the purple streaks running through the night sky.

“Nel said you were back,” Zoe said as she got closer. “We have problems.”

“Yeah,” Eva said, voice as flat as possible. “I can see that.”

Eva tore open the doors to Ylva’s domain and sprinted inside.

Ylva was on her throne, her skeletal form looking impassive as always under the light shining from the storm clouds overhead. Her pose was as relaxed as it always was. With her fist curled beneath her chin, she slouched back in her throne.

Four others sat around a small table set down at the base of her throne. Alicia and Nel sat at opposite ends of the table from one another with Wayne Lurcher in between the two. Wayne had a scowl on his face as he eyed his neighbors.

Surprisingly enough, Devon had been allowed back inside Ylva’s domain.

Desperate times, I suppose, Eva thought as she ran up to the table.

“It isn’t the entity known as Void,” Devon said. “I’m willing to put a lot of money on the sky being the doing of the Power that is attacking the Void.”

“The point still stands,” grumbled Wayne. “Whatever it is, it probably doesn’t have our best interests at heart.”

Ignoring the others and not caring at all that she was interrupting what was probably an important conversation, Eva placed both palms on the table and gazed straight into Nel’s eyes. “You found Sawyer?”

Zoe had already said as much. Eva trusted her not to lie, but she had to be sure. She had to hear the words from Nel’s own mouth.

Wilting under Eva’s gaze, Nel nodded her head. “He passed out somewhere in Nevada just as… well, you’ve been outside. Just as all that started.”

Eva grit her teeth and balled her fist. A thin layer of marble dust coated her fingers from where they scraped against the table surface. Of course, it would be now. He couldn’t just show up while nothing was happening like a good little necromancer. He had to show up while a potential apocalypse was going on.

If that was what was actually going on. Devon and Wayne’s conversation might have implied otherwise. Eva was too focused on Nel to pay all that much attention to their words.

With a heartfelt sigh, Eva slumped into one of the extra chairs set up around the table.

Even if nothing was going on except for Shalise and the doll, Eva couldn’t put Sawyer in front of her friend.

Well, she could. Lynn would probably kill her if she did. Though Eva couldn’t discount the possibility that Lynn wasn’t going to try to kill her the moment they made it out of Hell anyway.

Eva rested her forehead against the cool surface of the table, idly scratching a claw mark to the side of her head just a little deeper.

“Spencer,” Wayne grumbled with a slight tension in his voice, “what did you do with Zoe?”