Meeting apparently adjourned, Eva turned and started away from the small conference room that they had been using for tournament related business. She wasn’t the only one. Rachael had been out the door almost as fast as Henry.
However, she stopped as she reached the door. A completely impulsive thought took hold. A somewhat dangerous thought as well.
“Irene,” Eva said, “might I have a moment of your time before you run off to wherever?”
She sat up straight, offering a slow nod of her head. “Did you need something?”
“Just a little training exercise I thought you might be interested in trying.”
“Training?” she asked with a frown. “For fighting?”
Eva shook her head. “You’re an earth mage and I’ve got a project I’m working on that needs an earth mage.”
“Juliana isn’t helping you?”
“She is, but maybe it will help train you for this event. It isn’t a problem if you don’t want to do it.”
Irene’s frown deepened. She crossed her arms, staring at Eva as Eva moved to the side to let another student out of the room.
Saija stood up, strutted over to Eva, and walked around her in a short circle. She hummed to herself as she looked Eva up and down. When she stopped circling, she was a bit close for comfort.
Eva glared at her the whole time. It wasn’t that she disliked Saija, but the succubus was a bit much sometimes. Eva didn’t know what kind of relationship Irene and Saija had in private. Ever since the demon hunters had attacked, the two had been nearly inseparable. Really, she didn’t care what they did.
So long as she was left out of it.
And, at the moment, she really didn’t need Saija’s face quite so close to hers.
“What are you plan–”
Eva snapped her hand up to Saija’s chin, clamping her mouth shut. “Saija. You can ask your questions from a respectable distance. If you want to go with us, just ask.”
Releasing her with a slight shove, Saija sulked back to Irene and desperately tried to look like she wasn’t hiding behind the human.
Really, it had been months since they started going to school. Yet she was still thinking that Eva would bite her head off at the slightest provocation? Sure, she had just grabbed her jaw. But she hadn’t
Thinking more, if they likened her to Zagan, maybe it wasn’t such an outlandish thing to do. Even knowing that Zagan wasn’t going to
“Go with you?” Irene said, still frowning.
“Yep! I’ll show you,” Eva said, starting towards the door.
She paused as a thought occurred to her. As sensitive as she was to cold, Eva had barely felt anything the other night during the event. The entire ward had to have been heated. Just because it hadn’t snowed yet didn’t mean that it wasn’t cold. Eva solved the problem through heating spells, but not everybody was a fire mage.
“Ah. You might want to bring a warm coat,” Eva said with a smile.
—
“Alright, we’re out here without anyone else,” Irene said as she nearly tripped over a stray branch despite the light spell Eva had thrown out for her benefit. Saija caught her, keeping her from falling to the ground. “You avoided mentioning exactly what you need help with. I assume it was because other people were around.”
Eva turned with a smile, walking backwards through the rough brush. “Thanks for having the tact to not ask about anything.”
“Well I’m asking now.”
“We’re almost there.”
Irene stopped moving. “Eva,” she said. “You’re dragging us out here in the middle of the night and being awfully creepy about it. I don’t want to get involved in anything big again. I’ve had enough as it is.”
Eva sighed, stopping as well. Rather than answer right away, she craned her head back to stare at the sky.
“The night you fought the monsters that came out of my dorm room, those purple streaks appeared in the sky.”
Looking up to the sky as well, Irene let out a soft groan. “I knew it. This is something big.”
“They’re a connection between the mortal realm, Void, and Life itself. Two Powers and a battlefield.”
“Right. Way too big,” Irene said, backing up. “Eva, I’m–”
“Involved no matter what you do. Life is trying to pull Void into the mortal realm. Most likely in an attempt to make Void vulnerable. Unfortunately, Void will be bringing along all of Hell. Maybe Hell will take the shape of another planet or galaxy, or maybe it will catastrophically merge with the mortal realm, or simply unleash all the demons of Hell onto Earth. I don’t know.
“One thing is certain, it probably isn’t going to be good for
Eva took her eyes off the sky, looking Irene in the eyes. “So we’re going to bring Void over without the rest of Hell ahead of whenever Life wanted to do it in the hopes that Void will be able to seal away Life. Or at least remove the mortal realm from the playing field,” Eva said with a smile.
Irene didn’t say anything.
