Void Domain, Book 07 полностью

Eva turned, facing the door again. “Besides, what do you want me to do? Sit around so they end up waiting even longer? Zagan might just be more angry at that. Glad to know that you’ve got such confidence in your abilities though.”

Devon didn’t move. Not to speak. Not to get up. So, Eva left.

By the time she reached the wall around the women’s ward, Devon was scrambling after her.

It had taken about an hour for Catherine and Devon to discuss the changes to the circle. Considering that it had taken almost an entire month for Devon to design the latest version of Eva’s treatment circle, that was essentially lightning fast.

Either Catherine was really a genius at understanding how rituals worked and how to change them, there hadn’t been all that many changes to be made, or Devon just cared so little for Catherine’s safety that he wasn’t too interested in checking, double checking, and ensuring that everything was protocoligorically correct.

Eva was leaning towards that last point if it wasn’t all three. Which was actually somewhat flattering for her. It was nice to know that Devon cared. Even if all that care was just for her as a test subject and not as a person, friend, or anything similar. But she really didn’t expect any of that anyway.

After sketching out a preliminary circle in Devon’s notebook, they had started on the larger circle. Something they had been working on for about another hour. One would think that it would go faster with the two of them erasing and redrawing everything, but no. Not really. They kept getting in each other’s way, going over sections that had already been done, bickering, and all sorts of other nonsense.

Frankly, it was amazing that they had managed to sketch out the changes in the first place.

Though, perhaps not quite as amazing as the lack of fireballs while working on changing the circle itself.

Eva was staying far away from it all. She had sat in and watched during the notebook phase. It had taken all of her willpower to not fall asleep. She should have been paying attention and she should have been learning.

Devon’s ritual circles were so beyond her own abilities that she couldn’t understand a thing about them. He and Catherine had been speaking another language as far as Eva was concerned. Zoe might have enjoyed it, but she was off collecting new prospective students for Brakket Academy.

Whether or not she actually came back with any remained to be seen. Eva was well aware that she had several misgivings about how Brakket was being run.

But, that wasn’t too relevant to what was going on at the moment.

Eva stood back at the edge of the converted basketball court while Devon and Catherine argued over some line or other on the circle.

She still didn’t know what Catherine hoped to gain from the experiment. Well, that wasn’t true. Power was likely the answer. But in what form? Some abstract ‘blip’ on a map?

Zagan’s motivations were actually clear for once. Based on his conversation with Eva when she had asked him to participate, Eva could guess that he wanted to see some new variation of a demon. Even if it was still based on Catherine’s ‘template’ or whatever.

“So,” said a voice to Eva’s side, “that seemed pretty intense.”

“Not something I’ll look forward to in three months.”

“Three months?” Serena just about jumped out of her boots. “You have to do it again?”

Eva turned to glance at the vampire. Now that she mentions it… “Actually, I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask Devon about any changes to the schedule. Until now, however, I’ve been doing a similar thing every three months since I was nine-ish years old.”

“Nine?” Serena trembled a little.

It looked fake. Like an actor on the stage of a play. But it was entirely possible that she couldn’t emote properly, being a vampire. Maybe she was exaggerating her motions in a forced attempt to emulate the living–a way to put regular people more at ease. Eva really didn’t know enough about vampires to say one way or the other.

“I don’t think I could have done something like that when I was nine.”

Eva laughed. “Oh it was far worse back then.”

“Worse! How?”

“All that blood in the air? It had to be transfered through needles in the old version of the ritual. You don’t even want to know how much of a baby I was about having a needle stuck in me.”

There was no way she was about to tell Serena that the old ritual had been essentially painless. If the vampire wanted to think that she had always been a tough kid, who was she to correct her?

“But,” Serena said with a ponderous expression, “you’re a blood mage. You have to cut yourself daily.”

“Yeah, there might be some connection there. Maybe I picked up those blood magic books because of the needles.”

It was entirely possible. Eva hadn’t thought of that before.