Devon had performed five treatments on her since then. Her blood had grown blacker. While she was in Hell, Ylva had refused to allow Eva back into her domain simply to prevent any accidental crossings into the mortal plane from Hell. Eva had to use her beacon to return to Earth.
But the point about the Keeper stood. For all Eva knew, she was too far over the line to summon a demon herself.
“So what are we teaching this class for?” Eva asked, aghast. She had far better things to do with her time than
Catherine pressed her lush lips together in a sneer. “I believe our job was more supervision than actual teaching. That’s why we have books with all the diagrams needed.”
“That’s slightly more reasonable,” Eva said. “I can’t believe they’re making a student supervise this class. Couldn’t they spare one regular human?”
“I believe that was the point in asking for Devon Foster. Though after
“This was supposed to be his job then?”
Catherine’s eyes briefly lost their glamor, reverting to their natural red.
That answered Eva’s question adequately enough for her. “Still,” Eva said after a short pause, “I’m more of a haemomancer than any sort of diabolist.”
“Unfortunately, the only two summoners that I know of, aside from you and your mentor, are Martina and the governor. Both consider themselves far too busy for such a menial task.”
Eva shook her head. Again, she was having bad feelings about this whole thing. She had told Martina that it was a disaster waiting to happen. That was only enhanced by the realization that she couldn’t actually do much herself. Not to mention that the students would be drawing shackles. Shackles would definitely be dangerous for Catherine to accidentally step over and probably for Eva as well. She actually hadn’t tested in a long while.
“So we just stand around and wait for something to go wrong?”
“Between the two of us, we should be able to clean up any of the mortals’ accidents.”
Under her breath, Eva muttered, “now I’m reconsidering whether or not I should have told Arachne.”
The moment she finished speaking, the door to the classroom creaked open. Eva got her first look at one of the students she was expected to supervise.
And immediately groaned.
Eva didn’t recognize his face, but his circulatory system stood out to her. Currently walking through the door was that kid that tried to trip her at Zoe’s lecture after Eva lost her eyes. The kid that refused to fight her properly in Isaac Calvin’s fight club.
Something Burnside. For the life of her, Eva couldn’t remember his first name. Thinking harder, Eva wasn’t certain she had ever heard it. Zoe had always called him ‘Mr. Burnside’ and nothing else.
Mr. Burnside paused in the doorway as his eyes met Eva. There was a brief pause in both their actions.
Part of Eva wanted to send him away immediately. He didn’t respect her and she didn’t respect him back. Trusting him to listen to directions and to summon demons was going to make this project even more of a disaster than it already was.
On the other hand, if he stayed then he would start summoning demons. Eva might
It probably wouldn’t come to that… probably. In the end, Eva decided to ignore him. Catherine could be in charge of that little nuisance.
Burnside came to his own decision. Averting his eyes from Eva, he went and took a seat in the farthest corner of the room.
A broad-shouldered man arrived next. He immediately moved up to the closest seat in the room, giving Eva and Catherine both an appraising look as he moved.
There was a large empty space between the first row of desks and the desk at which Catherine and Eva sat. Plenty of space for these budding diabolists to draw out whatever markings they needed to.
One red-headed girl, Eva noticed, was covered in scars not dissimilar to a more pronounced version Wayne’s own disfigurement from the fire in Zoe’s apartment. It took Eva a minute to realize who that was.
It was the girl who had been injured by the nuns’ white flames almost a full year ago. The one who Eva had been just slightly too slow to erect a shield around.
The scarred girl glanced around the room, eyes dipping down to Eva’s claws, but otherwise completely passing over her. She moved up and sat near a mousey, brown-haired girl who entered as she was looking. Both immediately entered into a hushed conversation.
A handful more students filed in over the course of the next few minutes. Eva barely paid attention to them. Most were older students that she had limited interactions with, if anything at all. As such, none of them particularly interested Eva.
