“No matter. That voice may speak lies or truths. Whatever is most advantageous to Him at any particular moment. If He tries to turn you against me, remember that I am your only hope for escaping this place.”
Careful, Praxtihr, or your new friends will think you’re desperate.
“You!” Prax roared.
Shalise pressed her back against the wall in the furthest corner of the room from the demon.
“I did nothing worthy of imprisonment save being born to that ovgpu! And yet after ten thousand years, you finally speak to this mortal?” Prax pulled against his chains like he never had before, at least not in Shalise’s presence.
The chains held. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of them giving way. No creaks, no bending links.
“Release me and I may see your pet mortals through this nightmare.”
Prax’s eyes darted around the room, never-resting on any one thing for more than a moment. After a short eternity, the demon yelled out. Nothing that came from his mouth formed words; just pure rage given voice.
The chains went slack. Anger spent, Prax’s muscles lost all tension. He collapsed in place, held up only by the restraints.
“Mortals once had gods, did they not?” he said so quietly that Shalise had to move closer to catch the last few words. “How nice it must be to be free of them.”
Shalise said nothing. What did someone even say to something like that?
Instead, she turned away, giving the demon some privacy. She wasn’t about to forget that he was a demon that could be acting out a script for sympathy, but it seemed genuine enough. And Juliana did have a point; they knew two demons, plus Eva, that were not all bad.
Two of those had even saved her life once.
The hallway was as barren as it had been the last time she checked. Even after Prax’s outburst, Juliana slept on. It was somewhat amazing, but then it was possible that Shalise had slept through as much or worse.
She rubbed her side where Juliana had poked her. It tingled, though that may have been nothing more than a phantom feeling.
Shalise turned back to the demon, intending to distract herself. “Why are you here?”
“Same reason anyone is here. We broke the
“Revolution?”
“Once upon a time, demons tried to conquer the mortal realm. Multiple times, really, but I was only a participant once.”
“And humans beat you back?”
“Hah! As if mortals could stand against the might of demons. Your kind was just learning to harvest seeds they themselves had sown.
“It was the elves.”
Shalise frowned, but nodded. There were stories about elves being great warriors. They were supposedly dying out now–the elves hadn’t fought anything in forever according to Professor Twillie–but the stories had to come from somewhere.
“Long story short, we lost. When we clawed ourselves out of the void, Keeper was there to collect us and toss us into these cells.”
“What, it was against the ‘rules’ to attack Earth?”
Prax let out a loud laugh. “Oh no. No one would care about that. The specific rule we broke was against helping one another to the mortal plane. Some of us got it in their heads that using their own beacons to bring more with them was a good idea.”
“It is against the rules to help each other?”
“Have you ever thought about why–no.” He shook his head. “You are no diabolist.”
“That’s just–”
Shalise’s ears popped. A rumbling noise rattled her teeth as it crescendoed into an explosion. She stumbled forward, falling to her hands and knees in front of Prax.
“Another earthquake?” Shalise spoke without thinking and bit part of her tongue for her efforts. She clamped her jaw shut.
Whatever it was, it was much stronger than the earthquake that had broken the door on their cell. It was doing its best to shake her arms out from under her.
The tremor died down. Shalise used the wall to help herself back to her feet.
“Prisoners out of confinement. Keeper notified. Dolls dispatched. Return to your cells at once or prepare for a journey to the abattoir.”
Prax’s restraints still held, Shalise was happy to note. He pulled and thrashed around as much as he was able while shouting what had to be obscenities in that language he had slipped into earlier.
“Juliana?”
Shalise turned back towards the cell’s entrance and froze.
There were demons outside.
Loose demons.
Most were running past the cell without glancing in once.
One did not. Shalise met the eyes of a demon similar in appearance to Prax save for his deep indigo skin color. He stopped in front of the cell and just stared.
“J-Juliana!” Shalise edged towards the still sleeping girl, not taking her eyes off the indigo demon.
Despite the red barrier still separating them, Shalise wasn’t about to look away.
At least not until she put a hand on Juliana.
Shalise wrenched back her hand.
The blond was burning up. A thin film of sweat covered her face. Probably even more beneath her armor.
