In the blink of an eye–much faster than Juliana thought she could move–Shalise reached out and slapped Juliana across the cheek. Pins and needles laced through her face. Doubly so as Juliana lightly bit her tongue.
“You pulled me on top of it and now we’re prisoners? Why do you even know how to draw a summoning circle?”
Juliana reared back at the volume of Shalise’s anger.
“I stole a book from Eva.” Juliana flinched back and waited for Shalise’s slap. When none came, she continued with her head hung. “I just wanted to get stronger so that I could help out.”
A second slap–one she had been waiting for–came without delay.
“You beat students years older than us with hardly any effort. You train with your mother. Don’t complain about not being strong.”
“Not strong enough!” Juliana grit her teeth while counting backwards from ten. She didn’t open her mouth until she hit zero. “Not strong enough,” she calmly said.
“In case you forgot, I was right by your side while you were being eaten by zombies. I just stood there, frozen. There wasn’t any earth around to attack with. Even if there had been earth, I wasn’t in the right mindset to fight. I had some metal, not as much as I carry around now, but enough to fight with at least.
“You sat there, getting eaten in front of my face. It wasn’t until Arachne knocked that zombie off of you that I snapped out of it.”
Shalise went silent for a minute.
An agonizingly long minute.
Juliana’s throat was still parched. Talking loud and so much did it no favors. It was all she could do to suppress coughing in Shalise’s face.
“And you thought stealing a book from Eva would help? You didn’t even get her help learning? Now look where you landed us.”
“It wasn’t me!” The knot in Juliana’s throat tightened. She couldn’t help the coughs that erupted.
But it wasn’t her. She couldn’t even remember drawing a summoning circle. Even if she had drawn one, Juliana couldn’t see how that would wind up with them in prison. Not unless some demon hunter or mage-knight found her out. And even then, the later would likely need some specific contract about it. Unless there was a general bounty out on diabolists that she didn’t know about.
Shalise stood up, looking far more steady on her feet than Juliana had felt just a few minutes prior.
Before she could take a single step, she fell down and landed on top of Juliana.
It wasn’t her fault.
An earthquake had started.
Juliana pulled Shalise into a hug and maneuvered herself on top. Even if her ferrokinesis wasn’t active, she could still feel the plates of metal coating her body. It was much better protection than fleshy skin in the case that anything fell on them.
Walls cracked and Shalise trembled as the tremor wracked the prison. More than a few of the palm-sized plates of metal pulled loose from the walls. They crashed down against the ground with far more force than should have been possible.
The earthquake tapered out into nothingness, jiggling one last tile loose.
Juliana did not move. She kept one arm over her head and one arm over Shalise’s head.
Immediate aftershocks were no joke. There could be more of those tiles only holding on by a thread.
They stayed like that until Shalise started squirming.
Juliana carefully moved off the other girl. “Are you alright?”
“What was that?”
“An earthquake, I assume.” Juliana stood up and helped Shalise to her feet.
Oddly enough, she didn’t feel unsteady any longer. The pounding in her head had died away.
Even her throat was feeling better. She still desperately wanted a glass of water, but some of the dryness had subsided.
Shalise walked right up to the door and looked out without going up on her tip-toes.
“What a mess.”
Juliana didn’t get a chance to ask. A deep, masculine voice
“Prisoners out of confinement. Keeper notified. Return to your cells at once or prepare for a journey to the abattoir.”
Shalise turned back, opening her mouth to ask something. Juliana could imagine a few possibilities, but neither had the opportunity to speak.
The door collapsed outwards. Its hinges pulled straight out of the wall with a crack.
Shalise gasped and threw herself to the side. She cowered in a corner, out of view from the cell’s exterior.
Juliana was quick to join her.
They were in some sort of demon prison after apparently screwing up some summoning circle.
Nothing like this had been mentioned in the book.
