"Many Watchers scorn martial training, believing they need only the theory to guide their Slayers. I prefer a more... hands-on approach. So, do you know how you were going to succeed?"

"I… don't think so?" she responds. "I was trying to pick things up from you and use them back but didn't notice anything in particular there, so, mysterious instincts?"

"Not exactly mysterious instincts, no—I don't have those so I couldn't have predicted them. Rather..." And she goes on to point out a few details about her stance and guide her on how to react to a live combatant as opposed to a dummy like they've been practising for the past few days.

Eva tries to pay attention and do as instructed.

She continues to be quite good at it.

There will be more sparring, more dummy punching, and night will soon fall—

—at which point there'll be a knock, and guess who's there.

"Hello," says Eva. "I didn't realize you were joining us tonight."

"Well, first patrol and all, I wanted to help. Or watch."

"She won't tell how she knew there'd be a patrol tonight," says Willow, revealing herself from behind Sadde.

"I told her."

"Ssshhhh you're ruining my rep!"

"– I still need to get you details for partystuff, too."

"Like what?" she asks, walking in.

"I was gonna text you with ideas for food and stuff."

"Oh. Well, you can tell me them, now."

"While we go patrol, presumably, and check out the morgue."

"Oh, and, Theo suggested a thing the other day, you could put crosses around town so vampires would find them repellent."

"Right, yeah, which we couldn't do because we don't want to be snacked on by a vengeful vampire but you have a better shot at it than we do."

"– Do I need to buy a bunch of pieces of wood, then, or does chalk work or something?"

"That is a formidable idea—even painting the crosses on with invisible paint should work, I think, it's the shape not the material that repels them."

"Do we have invisible paint? I admit I have no idea where to get any – I guess varnish probably works too, if it's waterproof."

"Yes, it does. You should do that during the day, when they're unlikely to attack you."

Nod. "After school is probably a good time, when we're not doing drills, or at the weekend?"

"We probably won't cover the whole town in an afternoon, so yes, those sound like good ideas."

"Yeah, I mean, as a habitual thing."