Jonathan had been slightly worried about whether he would be able to actually feed everyone, but conjuring dinner wasn't noticeably more painful than usual. He kind of thought that the exhaustion after working magic persisted longer than he was used to, but that could also just be the exhaustion of trying to keep up with Kylus' non-stop stream-of-consciousness word vomit.

After everyone finished eating, Jonathan dealt with the dishes while Abigail and the twins retired upstairs. He eventually followed and found them in the room he and Abigail shared with Abigail sitting on her bed, head just barely clearing the magical array Mr. Geiller had set up, Sandra sitting on Jonathan's bed, and Kylus prowling around the room. For once, Kylus wasn't talking a mile a minute; it actually seemed that Abigail and Sandra were saying the most, which surprised Jonathan.

"Have you two chosen where you'd like to sleep tonight?" Jonathan called from the doorway.

Kylus zipped up to him. "Yeah, we were thinking about taking the room across the hall, if that's alright with you."

"Sure, that works fine. Care which beds you use?"

"Nope, anything's fine, just so long as we don't have to share! Sandra hogs the bed like you wouldn't believe."

From the look Sandra was giving Kylus, Jonathan surmised that she didn't believe she was the one who hogged beds.

Jonathan suppressed a smile. "There's plenty of beds. I don't think you'll have to worry about that tonight, at least."

"Great! Hey, I'll come help you get everything set up, how about?"

Ugh, looked like Jonathan wasn't quite done dealing with Kylus' deluge of words.

An hour later, the twins were finally sorted out in the room across the hall, and Jonathan collapsed face-down into his own bed with a groan.

Abigail giggled. "Kylus really likes to talk, huh?"

Jonathan groaned again. "You have no idea. That kid just won't shut up. It seemed like you were getting along with Sandra, though, did I see that right?"

"Yeah, she's nice. I wasn't so sure about your idea of inviting other kids into the orphanage to take contracts with you, but this group doesn't sound so bad."

"That's a relief. The few of them that I've met directly seemed alright, but it's good to hear that you had a similar impression. They tell you anything about the other kids in their group?"

"A bit, yeah. Sandra said there's two little kids, an older kid, and two others besides the twins around our age. I don't remember all of their names, though."

"Yeah, I didn't catch them all, either. Although I'm also working mainly off the running commentary from Kylus on the way here from Eldridge. Given how much Sandra was opening up to you, though, and the fact they stayed the night, I'm guessing they're going to take a favorable report back to the other kids."

Abigail nodded.

"On that topic, how is that contracting ritual coming along?"

"Oh, it's done! Mr. Geiller looked it over before he left a little before dinner, and said it was good enough."

"So, in other words you did a really great job, I take it."

Abigail laughed ruefully. "I hope so. I just hope that I can keep it powered enough for all seven kids to make contracts with you."

"Don't worry, we can take it slow if we need to. Even if only a few of them create a contract initially, that should still take a lot of the required magic load off your shoulders."

"Oh, that's a good point!"

"I guess I need to start thinking about what I should include in these contracts."

Abigail shrugged. "Maybe? I mean, I gave Sandra and Kylus some advice about what's usually considered the bare minimum for a demonic contract, but you might want to tailor your requirements depending on the kid."

"Huh, I hadn't really thought of that. I'll probably need a clause about answering questions for Sandra, because I can't get a word out of that girl, but for Kylus I need to make sure he'll shut up when I ask him to."

Abigail laughed. "I can't tell if he's naturally just like that, or if he's trying to get you to slip up and reveal your true evil nature or something."

Jonathan grimaced. "Trust me, if he wasn't at least somewhat naturally 'like that', there's no way he could keep that unending verbal attack going like that."

"You're probably right."

"On another topic, how are you doing, Abigail? You were flagging pretty heavily just after dinner."

"I'm tired, but it helped that I spent some time under Mr. Geiller's array before bed, I think."

"Okay, good. I don't want you to over-exert yourself, though, alright? If you need to rest and regain some magic, don't push yourself just because Sandra and Kylus are here."

"Don't worry, Jonathan, I won't!"

Jonathan eyed her but decided not to make any more of a deal out of it. "I'm going to walk them back to Eldridge tomorrow. Will you be alright here on your own?"

"Yeah, Mr. Geiller said he could use my hands setting up some weird devices in the front classroom."

"Oh, is that what that room was used for before? I wondered about all the scratches on the flooring."

Abigail shrugged. "Yeah, I don't know why they left the beds but took the desks."

"Truly a mystery. Well, I'm glad Mr. Geiller will be around, I guess. Though helping him with anything can't be much fun."

Abigail grimaced. "Better than having nothing to do or being stuck alone in bed."

"True enough. Well, good night, Abigail."

"Good night, Jonathan."

The next morning after everyone had eaten breakfast, Jonathan poked his head into the front classroom and found Mr. Geiller already hard at work doing…something or other. There were weird metal plates and pipes strewn all over the floor. It honestly looked like someone grabbed a pile full of scrap metal and tossed it around the room for fun.

"I'm heading back to Eldridge soon, Mr. Geiller. Are you good to watch Abigail until I'm back?"

"Go, go!" grumbled the old man. "I could use someone with working knees to help, anyway. This confounded project is taking longer than I expected."

Jonathan eyed the mess doubtfully. "Right. Well, I'm optimistic that I might have seven orphans in tow this afternoon. Abigail said that the contracting ritual is ready to go, but are we going to need anything from you to get that working?"

"No, Abigail knows how to work that. Should be fine. Only bug me if something explodes."

"Explodes?!"

Mr. Geiller gave Jonathan the hairy eyeball. "What, kids these days can't take a joke?"

Since when did Mr. Geiller tell jokes? Who was this, and what had they done with his neighbor? "Fine, sounds good." Jonathan backed out of the room and left Mr. Geiller to it. He wasn't sure how all that scrap metal was really going to help him do magic safely, or even where it came from, but whatever. He'd worry about that once Abigail was safe.

"Sandra! Kylus! You about ready to go?" he called up the stairs. The three kids had retired upstairs after breakfast to do who-knew-what.

There was no response, so Jonathan headed upstairs to investigate.

They didn't appear to be in any of the rooms, so he climbed the ladder to the attic and poked his head in.

Sure enough, there was Abigail, and he could hear Sandra or Kylus rooting around in the mess.

"What on earth are you kids doing up here? Sandra, Kylus, you two ready to head back to Eldridge?"

"The twins wanted to see the attic," said Abigail.

"Fine, whatever. You told them to avoid anything with mouse droppings?"

Abigail nodded dutifully.

"Great. Kylus! Sandra! Let's go!"

"Sure thing!" said Kylus, popping out from the mess, with Sandra close behind. "I guess we'll have another chance to dig around here, anyway."

"Oh, yeah? You thinking Ethan will opt to take me up on my offer?"

"That's certainly what we'll be recommending! This place is great."

"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying yourselves, I guess." Who knew how Jonathan was going to keep eight kids busy if the little gang did end up moving to the orphanage. Maybe throwing them at the attic wasn't that bad of an idea. He and Abigail had gone through it pretty well, but it was entirely possible there was more useable stuff up here. The place was huge. "Now, let's go. If Ethan and the rest of your group decide to come out here, I want to be able to make it before dark."

The trip back to Eldridge was uneventful—give or take Kylus talking for a solid chunk of it, but eventually Jonathan just sort of zoned out and started reflexively making affirmative or questioning noises as seemed appropriate—and the twins and Jonathan arrived at the dilapidated house they'd been living in before noon.

Unfortunately, there was no one there.

"Can you please wait in the yard?" asked Kylus. "Ethan wouldn't like it if you came in, and we're going to need to track them down. He did say that they'd move to one of our bolt holes if we weren't back last evening."

What happened to Ethan being fine with the two of them staying the night? "Alright, that's fine, I guess. How long will that take?"

Kylus shared a look with Sandra. "Maybe about half an hour?"

"I can wait that long. Is there anywhere to sit, other than the ground?"

Kylus waved him around the back of the house. "There's the porch, I guess."

The yard was absolutely barren. It was hard to believe a group of young kids lived here. What did they do when they weren't out trying to steal stuff in the square?

Jonathan sat down on the porch step, which creaked alarmingly. "Alright, go find Ethan and the rest. If you all are going to come back with me, I'd really like to get going soon, because it's going to be a long walk with the little kids."

Kylus and Sandra scampered off, leaving Jonathan to glumly survey their yard, such as it was.

Boy, he'd been a little worried that the deal he was offering actually wasn't that great, but if the inside of the house was anything like the outside, they were likely going to be jumping at the chance to move into the orphanage.