Harlan and Tesla are deep in the mountain beneath Castle Vlatna, looking for a way upstairs:

“Look!”

“The well. The spikes are still there, but without the corpses that were hanging on them.”

“Some of which, if you recall, were quite lively. I'll go up first, of course. Then I'll lower the rope for you.”

“Okay. What would I do without you, my beautiful wall-climber?”

“Your job would be harder, and you would feel more alone. Think about that, the next time you start to take me for granted.”

“Hey! Did I strike a raw nerve, Tes? That's not how I...”

“Come on, climb up. This niche will do just fine as a first stop.”

“This is where I almost got killed by Vlatna, and was saved by my father. From its state of abandonment, it would seem that the new owners of the castle know nothing about this passage.”

“But Draka knows about it, judging from what Mirela heard in the forest.”

“Yeah. He might be a member of Dracula Park's board of directors himself.”

As you can tell, this well played a significant role in Dampyr #20. Here's a page from that story showing Harlan in the well with the impaled corpses.

Harlan literally asks Tesla, "Do you have a tail made of straw?" This alludes to a Tuscan proverb, “He who has a tail of straw is always afraid that he will catch fire.” It refers to someone who is overly defensive, revealing a personal insecurity. There is a fable in which a fox loses his tail, then makes a new one out of straw, and always fears being discovered. There was also a medieval practice of forcing a defeated army to wear straw tails which subjected them to mockery.

The modern English metaphor of the "raw nerve" serves a similar function, showing an unexpectedly touchy subject. Another possible translation would quote Shakespeare. In Act II Scene III of Hamlet, Queen Gertrude famously declares, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" when she feels a character in a staged drama is being insincere in her overly flowery declaration of marital love. She doesn't realize that the character represents herself, and that she is the one who is "protesting too much."

Tesla's moment of resentful speech here is unusual in this series, which in all other places shows the protagonist trio of Harlan, Kurjak, and Tesla getting along without any of the interpersonal conflict which one might find in a Marvel Comic. She routinely serves as "plot grease" by being able to do things that the other two characters cannot, but I cannot recall any instances in which they seem to take her for granted. But Harlan shouldn't accuse her of being overly sensitive; that generally backfires. Better just to assure her that he does appreciate her, which he does also do here.

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