That only made him laugh harder.
Juliana glowered. “What’s so funny?”
“Inside joke,” Prax said. And then he laughed again.
Juliana frowned, shook her head, and glared at Prax. “Those markings bind you to her body, don’t they?”
“More of a gateway in and out, but close enough. That is pretty hefty knowledge there. More than I would have expected from a budding diabolist, even in light of our conversation.”
“Mostly a guess,” Juliana said with a shrug. “Read it in the book, but it didn’t actually show the designs. Wait. Our conversation?” She relaxed slightly, moving from her ready stance to standing with her head quirked to one side. Her metal armor flows slowed but did not stop completely. “Prax?”
“In the flesh,” Prax said, spreading his arms wide. “Or my servant’s flesh.”
“Servant?” Juliana pressed her palm to her forehead. “Shalise,” she mumbled, “what did you do?”
Juliana narrowed her eyes. “Is she still in there?”
“She is.”
“Prove it.”
Once again, Shalise’s eyesight rolled. “Just how would I do that?”
“Tell me something only Shalise would know.”
She could feel Prax raise an eyebrow along with a low undercurrent of both disbelief and amusement. “And you would believe anything that I said came from Shalise and was not something I either pilfered from her mind or learned from her after you passed out.”
Shalise’s lips curled into an unnatural smile just as Juliana responded.
“It couldn’t hurt, but no. Not really.”
“Then,” Prax said slowly, “you will simply have to extend trust towards me. Or take your chances in combat.”
There was a tense moment while Juliana glared. “No,” she said eventually. “I’ll not fight you.”
Shalise let out an immaterial sigh of relief.
“Isn’t that sweet.” Prax shook his head side to side. “You mortals–”
“Don’t make me regret this, Prax.”
Prax tilted his head. “Regret what? Not attacking your mortal friend? Why ever would you regret–”
Juliana stumbled forwards as a low rumble shook the floor. She stumbled right into Prax’s arms. He caught and steadied her, holding her close to his chest while the ground shook. Juliana actually started to blush.
If Shalise had control of her eyebrows, they would have been up in her hairline. She had to shake herself out of her stupor to ask the important question.
“Is an earthquake still an earthquake when there is no Earth to quake?”
Before Shalise could come up with anything to say to that, Prax threw Juliana to the ground. He dove after her just in time to avoid a falling hunk of rock.
It slid into a wall, knocking out the barrier to a cell.
“I believe,” Prax said with a glance towards the now violently thrashing demon chained within, “it is time we cease existing within this place. We have overstayed our welcome and I have long since tired of its walls. Mother will be getting reinforcements. As valiant as the sword-doll may be, she can only lose her battle of attrition.”
Prax stood up. A few other cells had been damaged, though no demons were pouring forth. “I wonder where Keeper has gone.” He took one step only to frown and look down. “Servant,” he said, “your body is failing to heal.”
One pant leg had a tear at the knee. A small amount of blood soaked into the cloth around the hole. The injury wasn’t worse than a skinned knee.
Idly, Shalise noted that while she could feel things that Prax touched, she couldn’t feel whatever pain had to be coming from her knee. Concentrating harder, she found that wasn’t entirely true. She could feel it. The stinging was dull and plain in comparison to what skinned knees normally felt like.
“You did earlier, if you recall the incubus clawing out your arms. My presence alone should be healing this pathetic excuse for an injury.”
“Worthless squishy mortal meat sack,” he muttered as he glanced down to a wide-eyed Juliana. “Get to your feet.”
“You saved me,” Juliana said with a slowly growing smile. “You pushed me out of the way to save me. I knew you had a soft spot for me.”
