She wasn’t sure how long her master was going to be, but the barber chairs were not comfortable.
Arachne didn’t come.
Eva scrounged up the effort to drag herself out of the chair. Arachne stood in the doorway to their bedroom. “Arachne,” Eva repeated.
“It is doing the thing again,” she said. One long finger rose up to point behind the wall.
With a sigh, Eva walked up beside her demon companion. The black skull sat in its usual place on her dresser. Arachne’s gift hung from the wall just above it. Eva hadn’t felt safe carrying it around with all the nuns stalking the town.
The smooth metal of the skull had a glint to it even in Eva’s blood vision. A pale white light leaked from the eye holes straight into her brain.
“Alright,” Eva said. “Would you carry me over? I don’t want to walk.”
Arachne swooped down and gently lifted Eva into her arms. “You should have taken my legs.”
“I know.”
Eva’s vision lessened as they moved outside the women’s ward building. It was still there. Even without flecks of blood orbiting around her. She’d expended no small amount of blood filling the entire prison with blood wards, though none were actually active as defenses.
Sadly, even with the extra wards, Eva wasn’t yet at the level of nigh-omniscient seeing outside her home in the women’s ward.
It was a work in progress.
“It is like a grating in my skull when she does that.”
“You’ve said so before. I still don’t feel anything,” Eva said as Arachne carried her across the prison yard.
“I think she does it to me specifically, just to annoy me.”
“Or she just wanted our attention and it doesn’t work on me, at least not yet.”
Arachne huffed, jolting Eva in her arms. She let out a light groan as her sore muscles hit Arachne’s carapace. “You shouldn’t give a demon any benefits to any doubts.”
“I give you the benefit of the doubt almost constantly.”
Arachne bared her sharp fangs in a grin. “I’m special.”
“Uh huh,” Eva sighed.
Inside cell house two was another matter entirely as far as her vision was concerned. Blood spread out as Arachne pulled open the door. It hit walls and bars, beds and buckets. Her mental topography painted the picture of the cell house as it was before Ylva moved in.
She knew the cell house looked nothing like that anymore. Only once had she been inside before losing her eyes. It became unrecognizable after Ylva moved in. Eva could walk all around the chamber, touching the marble pillars and hanging her legs off the edge of the pit.
Moving through the chamber disoriented Eva to the point of throwing up the first time she tried to navigate by blood.
Eva pulled back all the flecks into a single ball that hovered just out of arm’s reach.
“Ylva,” Eva called out. “I would appreciate it if you stepped out of the light. I cannot see you that way.”
There were short taps of something hard against stone. The taps gave way to the sound of bare feet slapping against stone.
Slapping might not be the correct word for one of Ylva’s bearing. Without eyes, it was the most amusing thing Eva could picture.
Once the feet changed sounds, the rest of Ylva’s body entered Eva’s vision.
A disturbing body. Her blood didn’t move within the circulation system. It might not have been fluid at this point, yet Eva could see it.
“You wanted to speak, I presume?”
“We wish to make a request.”
Eva waited. The demon never made a request. With a sigh, Eva said, “what is your request?”
“The one you called master has returned to perform his, you called it treatment? We wish to observe.”
“I thought you could see through the skull.”
“It is not the same as seeing it through Our own eyes.”
Eva turned her head towards Arachne. Even though she could see her demon without moving, staring in one direction lacked the social cues necessary to nonverbal communication.
At her glance, Arachne started shaking her head. Her face was twisted into a scowl.
Almost exactly what Eva expected to see.
“Three conditions.”
The blood making up the demon’s head gave a slight nod. “If they are reasonable.”
“You do not interfere with anything.”
“Acceptable.”
“You do not act to harm myself, Arachne, or Devon.”
It was hard to be sure, but the hel’s face may have twisted into an offended look for an instant. “Acceptable,” she said as soon as she regained her features.
“I wish a favor in return.”
“We shall have to hear the favor. This is a small request We make. Our eyes are worth far more than this.”
“Very well, We will hear this favor.”
“I have in my possession a golden dagger and sheath. They are quite the burden to carry. You turned a golden skull into a black metal that feels heavy but can be lifted without effort.”
“You would ask Us to turn your implements to void metal?”
“Is that asking too much?”
