She made sure to keep her distance. If it was some odd set of shackles that Lynn had come up with, Eva didn’t want to get stuck inside. Zoe would be able to slash away the window, thereby breaking the shackles, but the idea wasn’t appealing to Eva. The last time she had encountered nuns, they had taken Arachne’s head half off with a well placed lightning bolt.
The eyes connected them somehow. A sort of shared learning mind, according to Nel. If one nun learned something that advanced their own magical theory, the rest would know soon enough. While Sister Cross wasn’t a sister or part of the Elysium Order anymore, she still had her implanted eye.
“Any ideas?” Eva asked Arachne. The spider-demon had moved up, staring at the pattern from outside the tent.
“Devon might know,” she said with a disinterested shrug and shake of her head. “You would be more knowledgeable than me.”
Glancing up to Zoe, Eva said, “Arachne’s right. Take a picture and take it to Devon. Or send it to Catherine, you’ll probably get a faster response and she knows things about ritual circles.”
Popping out of the tent, Eva left Zoe to her cellphone as she checked Shalise’s tent. Doing a full circle around the outside, she didn’t find any unusual markings. Whatever the circle was, it was for Lynn only. Perhaps protections for or against something.
“Alright,” Zoe said, emerging from the tent. “Don’t have any cell service up here, but I’ve got a few pictures. I’ll take them to Catherine if we finish up here and haven’t found anything. And if she doesn’t know, I’ll head over and ask Devon.” She said his name with palpable distaste.
“So what do we do? Sit around for a while or go looking?”
“They could be anywhere. We could pick a direction—three if we split up—leading out of this camp and
“You’re saying we should stay then,” Eva said slowly.
“We have a better chance at finding them that way.”
“Unless something bad happened.”
“You have a better idea?”
Eva frowned, not quite sure what to say. No, she didn’t have a better idea. But sitting around just felt too much like she was doing nothing at all. There had to be
With a shake of her head, Eva went out to the edge of the camp, looking for anything in the forest floor that might lead to some hint as to where Shalise went.
There were a few sets of footprints going out of the camp. Most of them ended at fallen trees or berry bushes that had been picked mostly clean.
One path led away from the camp. Eva followed it for a minute before realizing that it wasn’t going to stop anywhere soon. Blinking her way back to camp, she stopped just in front of Zoe.
“There’s a path over here. I’m going to follow it.”
“You’re going to get lost.”
Eva shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If I get lost, I’ll teleport away and have Wayne come tell you that I’m back at Brakket.”
At least, assuming that Lynn Cross hadn’t warded against banishment. But she probably hadn’t done so. The only reason to ward against banishment is if she wanted to fight demons. Physically fight them. Or to stop them from teleporting away.
“And what if you get into trouble?”
“I’ll have Arachne with me,” Eva said, placing a hand on Arachne’s arm.
“Because you’ve never found yourself in trouble with Arachne before.”
Eva shared a quick look with Arachne. “Well, things usually work out. Except that one time.”
“Not very reassuring.”
“Unless you have a better idea?” Eva asked with a half-grin. “Someone needs to stay behind in case they come back. Are you going to go pick up Wayne? Or Genoa and Juliana?”
Zoe shook her head, frowning. “We still haven’t ruled out the possibility of this being a trap. We definitely can’t bring Genoa into this.”
“She was all ready to fight earlier when that guild guy showed up. I’m sure she’s thought about ways to defend herself while in her wheelchair.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt about that. If Genoa doesn’t have backup plans and plots about how to avoid falling into traps, I’ll suspect that she has been replaced with a doppelganger. Especially traps related to demons,” Zoe added with only a slight glance towards Arachne. “But that’s just another reason why she should be backup and not in the thick of things if something does go down.”
“So unless you want to come with me and leave the camp unattended, I’m going to wander off for a time.”
“Just,” she started, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead. “Just be careful.”
“My middle name,” Eva said as she turned. “Come on Arachne. Let’s go on a walk.”
