"So I could summon a demon, even though I was summoned as a demon?" Jonathan was thoroughly confused.

"Yeah, Mr. Geiller told me that you were performing human magic, which means you can summon demons. You couldn't use your Infernal Abyss magic to empower the ritual, though. That doesn't work."

Right, apparently his "smoke" was actually some sort of internalized magical effect. "Would that put more strain on you and the other kids, though?"

"I don't think so? You'd probably want to ask Mr. Geiller, but I think you'd just use your own natural magic to sustain whatever you summoned."

That…actually sounded like a pretty good idea. It wasn't as if he had any use for human magic, particularly since it sounded like he could accomplish all the same things with demon magic. He'd want to verify that he wasn't going to end up getting sucked dry the way Abigail had, but on the other hand even if he ran low on energy, as long as he caught it fast enough he could just banish the demon back to the Infernal Abyss and then resummon them later as needed.

"I think I'd like to take a look at that grimoire of yours tomorrow, if you don't mind, Abigail."

"Sure thing, Jonathan!"

The next morning after breakfast, Jonathan stared in dismay at the grimoire. He'd forgotten that it was written using characters he didn't understand. "Abigail, by any chance, is this the normal alphabet here in your country?"

"Yep! The style is a little old-fashioned, but that's it."

Lovely. Why did they speak English but have a completely different alphabet?! It looked like he was going to need to learn to read.

Of course, he could probably get Abigail to draw out the ritual for him and just teach him how to empower it, but given what had happened the last time she performed a demonic summoning…yeah, he wanted to be able to read the instructions himself.

"Thanks, Abigail, you can put this away. I'm going to need to learn your alphabet before I'm willing to dive into this whole demon summoning thing."

"You can't read?!"

"No, you use a different alphabet than in my world. How many characters are in your alphabet, by the way?"

"Thirty-two."

Great; he was hoping he'd just need to associate different shapes with the letters he was already familiar with. "But they're phonetic?"

"Phonetic?"

"The letters represent sounds."

"Oh, yes."

Thank goodness for that, at least. Though he supposed with only thirty-two characters it basically had to be phonetic, now that he thought about it.

Over lunch, Jonathan asked around and discovered that of the kids he'd brought back from Eldridge, Ethan, Kylus, and Sandra could read, Chris looked uncomfortable about it but had tentatively raised his hand, and Jamilah, Yanni, and Bethany could not.

Once Abigail returned from Mr. Geiller's magic lesson, Jonathan insisted that everyone gather that afternoon for reading lessons. That first day was a bit of a mess, with Abigail and Ethan both reluctantly pressured into doing the teaching with Sandra and Kylus serving as teacher's aides while Jonathan spent most of the time conjuring various books that the kids who could read remembered learning from or reading early on. The "class," such as it was, settled into a routine over the next few days, however, with Jonathan both learning and helping to teach the new alphabet. It was exhausting, but on the plus side, he was picking it up a lot faster than he'd expected. He begrudgingly had to admit that the alphabet was easier to pick up than the twenty-six character alphabet he was used to, as well, simply because the extra characters allowed the alphabet to capture the actual sounds of the language more closely, and there were fewer weird exceptions than in the English he was used to. The downside was that his spelling was horrific.

Before he was anywhere near to being able to read Abigail's grimoire, however, Ethan came to him with a request.

Jonathan was, as always, doing dishes in the kitchen between breakfast and lunch when Ethan tracked him down.

"Jonathan," said the older boy from the doorway. "Can we talk?"

"Sure, come on in, Ethan. Do you mind if I keep washing while we do?"

"No, that's fine."

That was just as well. Jonathan knew from recent experience that failing to complete the dish washing in a timely fashion would screw up his entire day. "Good, good. What's on your mind?" Jonathan had been meaning to talk to Ethan for some time now, though after the first few days, the boy had looked a lot happier with his situation, and as a result Jonathan had ended up letting the discussion slide. He hoped that wasn't about to come back to bite him.

Ethan stood in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, before finally bursting out. "I was wrong about you. About this orphanage. Things aren't perfect, by any means, but the other kids were right and it's a lot better than I'd expected."

"Thanks, Ethan, I'm glad to hear that. I'm doing my best. Is there anything that you need that I haven't been able to provide yet?"

Ethan shook his head. "No, that's not what I needed to talk about. I wanted to see if you could look after Bethany for a day or two. I need to go into Eldridge and take care of some things."

Jonathan eyed the teen. "You were there when I made a contract with Bethany, Ethan. I'm going to take care of her regardless until she decides she's done with me."

"Right, I know, and I'm glad you weren't lying about that, but I just…I don't like leaving her behind. But I really do need to go to Eldridge."

Jonathan sighed. "You can leave her here, sure. It's not a problem. Would you be willing to tell me what you're planning to do in Eldridge?"

Ethan looked away. "I'd rather not."

"Okay, that's fine. It's your business. But I do want to know: are you going to be in danger?"

"No, I shouldn't be. And I should be back either the same day, or the next if I have to sleep over there. If I did run into trouble and didn't make it back, Kylus and Sandra would know where to start asking about me."

"Good. I don't know what kind of things you kids got messed up in prior to me taking you in, but I do take my responsibility to keep you safe seriously."

Ethan looked down at his feet. "Yeah, I know. That's the only reason I'm willing to leave Bethany here. On that note, though, I'm guessing Chris will want to come with me, and that will go a long way to making sure both of us stay safe."

Jonathan really didn't know what to think about Chris. The boy had barely said three words to him the entire time he'd been living in the orphanage. He was far quieter than even Sandra; at least she sometimes opened up to Abigail, Kylus, or Jamilah. "I'd like to ask Chris just to be sure, but as long as you'll keep him safe, then I would be more comfortable with you taking someone with you." Jonathan really wished there was another adult around—Mr. Geiller decidedly didn't count—because he'd honestly prefer to accompany Ethan himself, but he couldn't justify leaving the younger kids alone.

Though come to think of it, he was pretty sure Chris was the kid he'd seen actively stealing when he'd gone to recruit them. He narrowed his eyes at Ethan. "You two aren't planning on robbing anyone, are you? Because I haven't conjured anything yet this morning, so if you need—"

"No, no, nothing like that. Just some personal business I need to take care of."

"Alright, then pending Chris's interest, that sounds like a plan. Are you thinking you'll head down there tomorrow?"

Ethan hesitated. "I'd love to leave now, honestly. The weather looks like it should hold."

"Okay." Jonathan stuck the last dish upside down on the counter to dry. "Let's go find Chris."

After they tracked him down, Chris had nodded acceptance when Ethan asked if he would be willing to go with him into Eldridge, so Jonathan saw the two of them off, then headed back into the orphanage to try and find Jamilah or Kylus. He'd been conjuring more clothing for the kids over the last few days, and they were next up.

That afternoon Mr. Geiller dropped by to disassemble the array above Abigail's bed, since it was clear she didn't need it anymore.

"There fewer kids around here than usual?" he asked, as Jonathan followed him upstairs to provide some extra hands.

"Yeah, a couple of the older kids went down into Eldridge to take care of some personal business or other."

"What business might that be?" asked Mr. Geiller sharply.

Jonathan just shrugged. "I don't know, Mr. Geiller, it was personal."

Mr. Geiller frowned, and turned away, continuing up the stairs. "Long as it stays in town, then."

"I could have sworn that I told you already, but these kids weren't part of any gangs or anything. They're good kids."

"Hope you're right," grunted Mr. Geiller. "But tell Abigail not to come over for the next couple days. I'm going to be busy."

"Fine. Speaking of Abigail, did she ask you about the possibility of me summoning a demon?"

"You want to what now?" They'd made it partway down the hallway towards the bedrooms, and Mr. Geiller stopped and turned his full attention on Jonathan.

"I was complaining to her about needing help around the orphanage, and she suggested I summon a demon. Said that since I had human magic it should be possible, but I wanted to check with you to make sure that I wouldn't be setting myself up to collapse the way she did. And that the cost wouldn't get passed down the line to the other kids."

"You keep it to one demon, not too high level, you should be fine. She only ran out of natural magic like that because she's a kid, but you're old enough your magic should have stabilized. You're not using it all up trying to grow. And I don't think the cost would get passed along your contracts with the other children, but I'm not making any promises. You're in unexplored territory, as you well know. And I don't recommend you go summoning anything, regardless."

"Oh? Why is that?"

Mr. Geiller grunted and continued down the hall and into the bedroom. "Because by all rights Abigail should be dead for the stunt she pulled. You don't summon a demon to be your cursed parent and not have that end horribly. I still don't know how she ended up with you, but it was the luckiest day of her life."

Wow, that was the nicest thing Mr. Geiller had ever said to him. "Why are demons so dangerous? Normally, I mean."

"Right, you've never met an actual demon, have you? Demons know what you want, and they're not afraid to promise it to you. But the real question is always what does the demon want, and that's never anything good. Doesn't matter how detailed your contract is, they'll always find a way to work around it. Actually, the more detailed it is, the easier for them to find a loophole, is what I've heard, though I never studied demon summoning beyond the basic rituals. Demons are bad, bad news, boy, and you shouldn't have anything to do with them. Even if you should technically be able to perform a summoning."

Well, that was ominous.