“I’m not my mother, Eva…” Juliana’s voice came slightly strained. And slightly annoyed. As if she were carrying a couch all by herself while Eva just sat to the side and watched.
“Thought I’d ask anyway,” Eva said.
A cracking below her pulled Eva’s attention back to the ground. The center of her shackle was sagging downwards, unable to support itself fully as Juliana moved the earth beneath. Another moment—and several clangs of ice off Juliana’s armor—and a part of the center fell inwards.
Eva immediately kicked her foot back and dug it deep into the brick wall. She repeated the action with her hands and other foot, giving her a much better hold of the wall.
“Thanks,” Eva said.
Juliana let out a few short pants. “Just don’t ask me to do that again,” she said between breaths. “I’m really not so great at manipulating earth I can’t see.”
Eva had really only touched earth magic. Nothing more than dipping her fingers into it. And what she had tried had been inside a classroom. Not enough to really get a grasp on the limitations of the element.
So she just nodded.
Rather than try to climb up the wall, digging holes into it as she went, Eva blinked upwards. Just above the level of the roof. Without hesitation, she blinked straight forwards.
And landed on her feet just a step away from Juliana.
Thankfully, not in another set of shackles. Twice in one day was beyond enough. A third time would just be embarrassing.
She did have to dodge one icicle, bat a second out of the air, and catch a third mere seconds after landing. The third icicle exploded into shards of ice as Eva crushed it in her fist.
Glaring at the hunter a mere two roofs away, Eva
She wished that she had a valid means of striking back. The hunter would just freeze over any blood that came close. Even fireballs had been woefully unhelpful during their previous engagement. Ice could work as a shield just as well as a projectile.
Really, Eva was putting far too many eggs in the basket that kept the hunter from moving. Injured though she appeared to be, it could all be a feint. She could throw off the blanket that covered her chair to unveil forty shotguns aimed right at Eva. As soon as they fired, she might blink straight behind Eva and slice off her head.
At least, that was one of the worse case scenarios that Eva could come up with.
It really didn’t fit with what little she knew of the hunter’s personality, however. The hunter seemed more like Arachne. The kind of person to charge her foes head-on with as much force as she could put behind her attacks. This mostly ineffectual long-range bombarding wasn’t doing much of anything except for annoying the two of them.
Though, if they let their guards down, they could easily wind up like Saija.
“Let’s move.”
Eva took off. She didn’t need to look behind her to tell that Juliana was following. The traps on the roof disappearing as the gravel churned was proof enough of that.
The next building didn’t have a large gap between the rooftops. At least not a horizontal one. There was a few foot drop, but nothing that Eva couldn’t handle with a small jump. Juliana took a little bit longer to climb down as she decided to lower herself down. Eventually, she made it.
Only this roof left before the hunter’s roof.
“Why aren’t we moving?”
“I’m not sure where is safe,” Eva said.
Though Juliana had taken out all of the shackles before them, Eva still stood frozen. Bubbles of magic that Eva had taken to be wards dotted the rooftop. She wasn’t entirely certain that they were wards; Eva had only been in the warding class for a short while. But if the previous roofs had been mazes, this was a minefield.
It wasn’t a long minefield. Whatever was inside the building obviously didn’t need much floorspace. Were the wards gone, Eva could be across the roof in ten steps. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see a path through.
The only real consolation was the short drop. It put them out of line of sight of the hunter, granting them a short reprieve from the ice. Though the hunter should still be able to see them through the walls if Nel was right.
Which meant that the reprieve might only be around until they were successfully distracted or lulled into complacency. She would then rain ice down upon them from above. Possibly with the boulders that Eva had mentioned earlier.
“So what do we do?”
“I’m not playing her games. We’re skipping this trap.”
“Skipping? What do– Hey! E-Eva! Wait–”
Juliana’s protests were torn from her mouth as Eva hefted her up and slung her over her shoulder. Perhaps not as comfortable as the princess-carry that she had just used to cross the gap, but Eva needed a proper center of balance and a much better grip.
“Just clear out any shackles you can see when we land. I’m not getting trapped again today.”
Before Juliana could protest, Eva coiled the muscles in her legs and sprung off from the side of the roof.
