Eva jumped to her feet, the jar of Arachne’s blood bubbling and boiling at the ready. At her side, Arachne sprouted her spare limbs and dropped into a combat stance.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Zoe going for her dagger only to stop halfway there.
It didn’t take much to figure out why. Wayne was one of the two people.
Still, Eva and Arachne kept up their guard as the girl at his side started towards them.
It sure looked to be suffering from the same problem that she did when teleported by Zoe and Wayne. Eva rubbed her own chin, feeling some semblance of empathy. While she had managed to catch herself on her knees this time, Eva distinctly recalled landing flat on her face the first time Wayne had teleported her.
Wayne stepped over the girl without so much as a downward glance. He quickly found himself at Zoe’s side where the two engaged in a hushed conversation.
Eva thought about listening in, but found herself more interested in the demon. As the minutes dragged on, the girl didn’t push herself up. She didn’t move at all. The thought of her being a demon vanished as Eva noted the oddity in the fallen girl through her blood sight.
Her blood did not move through her veins. Her heart wasn’t beating. Her chest didn’t expand and contract with each breath. There wasn’t the slightest sign of minute movements in the body’s blood that was so tell-tale of other living beings.
“She’s dead,” Eva said, feeling somewhat foolish at pointing out what was now plainly obvious. It was somewhat shocking. Had the girl died from the teleport? Wayne was one thing, but Eva couldn’t imagine Zoe just ignoring Wayne killing some teenager.
Wayne turned from his conversation. He regarded Eva for a good minute before shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah.”
With that, he went back to his conversation.
Or tried to.
“That’s it? ‘Yeah,’ and nothing else? You can’t just–” Eva paused.
With a shake of her head, she shunted the thought from her mind. Zoe wasn’t freaking out. Given how she had reacted to Devon and his potential new subject, a hushed conversation was out of character for her. Therefore, she expected this to happen.
She had known that Wayne would be dragging along a corpse.
There wasn’t any sign of life in the blood and it
“Whatever,” Eva said. She had already intended to steal the obelisk with only herself and Arachne. If Wayne could help, great. Otherwise… “Did you get my potions?”
“You’re lucky I keep examples on hand.” Wayne Lurcher reached into his suit and pulled out two vials. One was dark orange while the other could have been mistaken for blood. Regular blood.
“Thanks,” Eva said as she reached for them.
Wayne snapped his wrist back, pulling the vials just out of reach. “Not for use on huma–” He cut himself off with narrowed eyes. Those eyes flicked over towards Arachne before he continued. “Not for use on living flesh. You’re not going to be able to shrink yourself to get in.”
Eva shot out her hand and snatched the vials. “I know that,” she said. “Just because I don’t go to your class doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the books.” Technically, Arachne had read her the books. Wayne didn’t need to know that.
Rolling the vials around with her fingers, Eva double checked that the color and consistency was what the book described. She didn’t believe that Wayne would make a mistake–no matter how annoying he was, Eva believed that he knew his alchemy–but it couldn’t hurt to double-check.
“Actually,” Eva said as she finished. Satisfied with the results of her inspection, she set the vials within a potion satchel inside her backpack. “I don’t wear those gloves anymore. That was your main complaint with me, right?”
“You want to come to my class again?” He shook his head. “Wrong question. Are you going to be disrespectful and disruptive again?”
Balling her hands into fists, Eva glared at him. “You were rude to me–”
Wayne held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about this later.” Under his breath, he grumbled, “I might not have a job if the school shuts down.”
