“Oh. I wondered what that was,” Saija said.
It didn’t take long to realize what she was talking about.
One of the rooftops was lit up like it belonged in Las Vegas. Neon lights danced around in a large ring, flickering between green and red. Squinting her eyes, Juliana could barely make out the tiny form of Eva hammering her fists away at the flickering barrier.
“Quick,” Juliana said, “put me down on the edge of the roof.”
“Put you down? After all the fuss you made about getting to go flying?”
“Saija…”
Trapped and Trapped Again
Eva hit her fist against the barrier. Unlike her first several hits, the barrier barely flickered. Every time she hit it, her strikes got weaker. She could barely lift her arms. Worst of all, she couldn’t tell if it was doing anything. The barrier was still keeping her stuck on the platform.
Even if it was weakening, it wasn’t going to fall before Eva collapsed.
Really, she should just stop. Her arms were exhausted. So was she. She should just sit down for a moment, shut her eyes, and take a quick nap. Just a little rest to reinvigorate her.
The moment her eyelids started to droop, Eva slapped herself on the side of her face.
Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t her proper thoughts. Something about the circle was draining her and she was falling into its trap.
More than she already had, anyway. How foolish. One step to the side and she found herself caught already.
There had to be a way out.
Teleporting didn’t work. Neither did blinking. They were among the first things that she had tried. Both felt like running headfirst into brick walls. Her flames didn’t scorch the floor. They just slid off the surface. Despite the roof being made of gravel, it was like there was there was a layer of water over the surface that just made her flames stay inert.
Attempting to use her blood to explode the chalky circle was the same. Her blood couldn’t pass through the barrier any further than Eva could. Like her flames, they didn’t damage the ground outside the circle.
Which made a disturbing amount of sense. If a demon could just use their magic or abilities to break the circle while stuck inside it, nobody would bother with shackles. They would be worthless for any demon more magically inclined than Arachne.
There was one thing she hadn’t tried yet.
Her blood hand spell didn’t need to physically pass through a location. They appeared around the targeted area. If she could make a hand appear outside the barrier, she could rake it across the ground and disrupt the circle. Even breaking a single line should be enough to get her out of the trap.
Failing that, maybe it would at least stop the draining effect.
She was exhausted. Not thinking properly. There were probably ten thousand reasons why she shouldn’t try it—it had to backfire somehow—but she was running out of options and time.
The thing that made her most nervous was the hunter. She was still just sitting a few rooftops away. Her eyes were glued to Eva, but otherwise doing nothing.
Eva kept expecting a crackling in the sky overhead. She had a shield all prepared and ready if such a thing did happen. Her shield couldn’t go outside the barrier, but it worked just fine inside it.
But nothing had happened. Maybe the hunter couldn’t use it so soon after firing it off. How long had it even been since then? Five minutes? It couldn’t have been much more, but Eva had been unconscious for a portion of the time immediately after the initial sky cracking.
Or, more likely, the hunter didn’t want to ruin her own trap so long as Eva was stuck inside it.
It was wearing her down. Even if it didn’t kill her, it wouldn’t be hard to walk over and slice off her head if Eva did lie down and take a nap.
So she had to get out.
Drawing her dagger, Eva made a small slit in her upper arm. If her own blood wasn’t enough, she could use Arachne’s blood later. No sense wasting Arachne’s if this experiment failed.
She drew out a strand of blood, formed it into a ball, and took a deep breath as she plunged her hand in.
Eva had been aiming just outside the barrier.
Instead of her claw appearing outside, Eva found herself thrown back and pinned against the opposite wall of the shackles. Her hand was pulled from the ball of blood, killing the spell near instantly. Eva fell to the ground, collapsed in a pile of worthless blood.
Not a drop of blood made it outside the barrier. It had successfully contained her spell.
She was well and truly stuck. Climbing to her feet, ankle-deep in magically worthless blood, she continued hitting against the barrier with her fist. There wasn’t much else she could do.
