“Well, your father will be pleased to hear that.” There was a pause. Just for a moment while her mother turned her thoughtful expression back to a glare. “But don’t think you’ve gotten out of talking about your poor performance here.”
Juliana groaned. “Shouldn’t you be resting anyway? What are you doing out here picking fights?”
“I need to get back into the swing of things. I was far too exhausted during that hunter’s attack. This is a great way to train myself up and you at the same time.”
“But don’t worry. It won’t be happening every weekend,” Genoa said as if reading Juliana’s thoughts. “It will be entirely random.
“Have to keep you on your toes, never knowing when you’ll be attacked.”
— — —
Eva dropped her arm, removing the carapace shield from her eyes. For a moment there, she had been worried that there was going to be a far more catastrophic failure. A few bright flashes followed by magic dispersing into the atmosphere was more than she would have hoped for.
Well, no. Not quite. She had been hoping for a successful rain shield. But if it had to fail, it was best that her ward didn’t violently explode.
She had succeeded once. A stable barrier that kept the rain out was actually about as easy as Eva expected. Unfortunately, it was a barrier to everything else as well, including herself. Had anyone been inside, they would have probably asphyxiated eventually as well. Eva didn’t actually have proof that it had been impermeable to air. It seemed likely though.
Since then, her warding had been nothing but failure after failure. Each one somehow worse than the last.
Keeping up trying might just give her the actual explosion that she really didn’t want. Even if it didn’t harm her, it might be noticeable enough to draw attention from the school.
Or other interested parties.
For the moment, Eva decided to sit down. Ward work was exhausting in a way that casual casting of magic never could be. Never before, no matter how many fireballs she created or how long her hands were on fire or even how much she blinked, had Eva actually needed to rest. She might physically grow tired from lack of sleep or overexerting her body. Blood magic tended to make her anemic after prolonged use of her own blood.
But never had she suffered magical exhaustion. She hadn’t known it was even a thing. Zoe hadn’t mentioned it during any of her theory classes.
Which made her think that she was doing something extremely wrong.
Really, it probably wasn’t the warding itself that took her energy, it was tearing them down after failures. She had to infuse more magic than it took to create the ward to tear it away. Multiple times.
Which might be the reason for her increasingly spectacular failures.
“Are you alright?”
“Mostly fine,” Eva said with a tired sigh. She did give Arachne a small smile. One to help reassure the spider-demon.
Arachne did not look reassured. The chitin plates around her mouth twisted into a frown.
“Okay, you’re right. I feel like I don’t want to move for the next hour.” Eva leaned back against a tree. She was probably getting her back coated in sticky sap, but mustering up the effort to care was beyond her at the moment. It would have been a bigger issue had she still had waist length hair, but that didn’t grow back in a week, not even for a partial demon.
The short fuzz atop her head was slowly trying to reach its old length, but this time, she might keep it in a short bob above her shoulders. Waist length hair was a nightmare to care for. Her shower times had dropped in half since losing her hair. Which, honestly, was more of a positive point than anything.
Arachne kept up her glare for a moment before shaking her head, sending the tendrils that made up her hair snapping through the air. “You wanted this complete before the other students arrived. It doesn’t look like you’re going to succeed.”
“Rub it in some more, why don’t you.”
“Just pointing out the obvious. Perhaps start with smaller wards? If you fail, it wouldn’t take so much out of you to destroy them.”
The idea had occurred to Eva, but she ignored it. She had been hoping to get it right the first time. Failing that, the second or third time. By the fifth failure, she had been too frustrated to consider attempting it on the smaller scale.
It was a bit too late now. Eva had been out trying to conjure up a ward since school ended. The sun had still been up then, so it must have been a few hours at the very least. If her cellphone hadn’t been destroyed, she could have checked the actual time.
She really needed to get a new one.
