“Fireworks? Dull. Amusement parks? Can’t go during the day,” Serena dismissed with a lazy wave of her hand. “Pie eating? Not exactly my cup of tea, if you know what I mean.”
“Blood pies.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
Raising an eyebrow, Zoe gave Serena a pointed look.
“When I think of pie, I imagine something breaded. Like chicken pot pie. Filling one with blood seems like it would get the bread soggy. Not to mention how disgusting bread tastes to my tongue.”
“Right. My point still stands.”
Serena didn’t respond. She slightly rolled over, keeping the pillow on her face but scrunching up her legs closer to her chest.
With a sigh, Zoe closed down the image viewing programs and locked her computer. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain it to Wayne. And she was going to do so this evening provided there weren’t any interruptions to her schedule. If only to avoid a repeat of what happened when she had been learning about demons. Wayne had not been all that enthused with her at the time. It was a small fight, but they fought so infrequently that it had been a little shocking.
But she still had a few hours to consider exactly what to do.
Leaving Serena behind, she moved into her classroom.
“Sorry for the slight delay,” she said to the gathered students. “I had a little personal matter to attend to. Today, we will be discussing, if you’ll turn to page 323, static magic fields. Areas where magic contamination has affected the very fabric of reality with no apparent fuel source.”
As the students opened their books and flipped through the pages, Zoe continued her lecture without pause. She had spent just a little too long highlighting the image and speaking with Serena.
“These can be benign, such as a slight instability in the gravitational field leading to a moon bounce-like effect. One has been documented to teleport anything that enters exactly twelve point three meters forward. Not extremely dangerous, but at the same time, not necessarily safe as two objects entering the field at roughly the same time will teleport inside each other.
“Others aren’t quite so simple to study. One that has been around since the beginning of recorded history is located in Death Valley, California. It is a constant raging inferno, reaching upwards of six hundred degrees Celsius. The area around the anomaly has been warded off to keep people stumbling across it, but it combined with the local environment is one of the primary reasons for the overwhelming heat around Death Valley.”
One of the Faultline guest students, sitting in the center of the room with her back straight and eyes glued on Zoe, raised her hand. She did not wait for Zoe to call on her. “The temperature in Death Valley fluctuates. Our school isn’t far, so we have first hand experience. In the winter, it can get quite chilly. Not as cold as it gets here, but still a little cold.”
“That would be because of magical efforts to artificially regulate the temperature. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the anomaly has been in something of a remission for the past century or so. Something researchers have been trying to replicate in other hazardous magic fields.”
Aside from that, someone who lived and spent most of their time around California probably had warped ideas of what chilly meant. Still, she appreciated the question. Older students who were ready to learn were always a treat.
“In any case, there is actually a static magic field anomaly near Brakket Academy. Provided we can get a few extra security personnel in, we will be taking a short field trip before vacation begins.”
A lot of security at that. Theoretically, there was only a single hunter who was only after people related to Eva. Zoe was one of those people. Being responsible for the students both local and from abroad, she could not take the risk that the hunter might decide any one of them would work. Zoe wanted to hire Genoa, so long as she was feeling up to it.
Maybe even Arachne as well.
— — —
Eva began her plan. Her genius idea to locate and defeat the hunter was underway. The simplest way to find her was to get captured. Nel could watch from afar and get following her again, maybe stop her far sight from slipping for a little while.
And for that purpose, Eva wandered around the city completely alone. Nobody liked the idea of using herself as bait, but Eva had her own tricks.
At the same time as she walked around, she sat attentive in Professor Lepus’ class. Or rather, she was pretending to be attentive. She was
