“What now?” Sylph asked. “He’s clearly hiding something.”

“You think?” Damien replied, only half joking. “I mean, he did say that he was going to give Mrs. Hubbard her job back later. Maybe he really does just want to fix the town up a bit? It is a little outdated.”

Sylph scoffed. “He didn’t strike me as the type of man who did anything for free, Damien. Was he a kind mayor before you left for school?”

“I’m not sure. I really never spoke to him all that much. My mom did most of that, and I don’t think she was ever much of a fan.”

“Then that should probably tell you all you need to know,” Sylph said. They headed back through the town, passing the bakery on the way back to Damien’s house. “But he’s aiming for something. If you want to help your mom, we should probably figure out what it is.”

“Maybe she knows,” Damien said. They came to a stop at his front door a few minutes later. His mother pulled it open before he could even knock. She gave them a wide grin and ushered the two in.

“You were out late,” Hilla said. “Do anything fun?”

“A lot of things, actually,” Damien replied. “Most of them were fun.”

“Most?” Hilla’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do, Damien Vale?”

“Why do you assume I did something wrong?”

“You summoned a companion when you were thirteen. When I found you, you were covered with blood and trapped inside your own rune circle,” Hilla said, crossing her arms.

Damien groaned. “Are you ever going to let me live that one down? It was five years ago now!”

She ignored him and turned to Sylph. “Did Damien ever tell you how he got his companion?”

“Parts of it,” Sylph said, hiding a grin. “I knew he summoned one when he was young, but that was most of it.”

“He was a right terror.” Hilla clicked her tongue and shepherded them toward the dinner table without asking if anyone was hungry. “He stole the Summoner’s Almanac from a locked cabinet by memorizing the password when I got money out of it, then waited until I left for a town council meeting to summon his companion. Then, after all that, he refused to show me what he summoned. In fact, I still don’t know!”

They both turned an accusatory glare against him. Damien raised his hands. He automatically reached to Henry for help, but his companion was gone. With a start, Damien realized that Henry wasn’t in his mindspace. “Hey, I haven’t been back. It isn’t my fault.”

“You could have at least written a letter,” his mom said, crossing her arms. “Does Sylph know what your companion is?”

“Well, yes. But–”

“Maybe I have to ask her, then,” Hilla said. “Sylph, since Damien won’t let me know what I’ve been worrying about for the past few years, could you help this old lady out? He’ll probably keep forgetting or avoiding the topic until he’s old enough to move out.”

Sylph glanced at Damien, but she didn’t say anything. Hilla’s eyebrow’s twitched upward. A moment passed in silence. Then she shook her head. “I’m glad Damien has a friend like you, Sylph. I was a bit scared that he’d hole himself up in Blackmist and not talk to anybody, but your loyalty to keeping his secrets, even from me, is very admirable.”

Damien snapped out of his reverie. He’d been so focused on thinking about Mayor Shindal that the conversation had gotten completely sidetracked. Henry’s sudden disappearance only exacerbated the problem. “Mom, I’m not trying to keep secrets from you. Well, okay, maybe I was – am. But you don’t have to make it into a big deal. My companion’s name is Henry.”

“Henry? What kind of companion is called Henry? That sounds like a human name. An intelligent companion, then?”

A shadow flickered across the room and reentered Damien. He felt Henry’s familiar presence return.

“Henry, could you come out? And slowly, please. I don’t want Mom accidentally blowing the house up out of surprise.”

His shadow shifted. A portion of it bubbled up and floated into the air, forming a sphere around the size of Damien’s head. Three tentacles sprouted from the base of the sphere and purple energy filled it. Eyes and a long, sharp toothed mouth followed after. Henry topped his appearance off with two tiny horns.

“Hello,” he said cheerfully. “I’m Damien’s babysitter.”

All three of them stared at Henry in shock.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“I’ve never seen a companion like you,” Hilla said, squinting at him suspiciously. “What are you? What plane are you from?”

“The Plane of Darkness,” Henry replied. “And I’m a demon. Of sorts.”

“No demon that I recognize.” Hilla walked in a circle around him. “Damien, did you discover a new species of companion?”

“It’s part of the reason why I had to stay at school over summer,” Damien said. “And yeah, Henry is pretty unique.”

“Demons can be quite tricky, though,” Hilla said. “He hasn’t been offering you any dangerous deals or trying to trick you into signing your soul away, is he?”

“I know how Demons work, mom,” Damien said with an exasperated sigh. He pointedly avoided the question about if Henry had goaded him into any deals. He’d told enough lies already, and when they eventually came down, the more truth he said the better.

She harrumphed. “It’s my job to worry, you know. There’s not much else for me to do here other than argue with that pompous fool Shindal. I’m sorry for doing this while you were here, Sylph. It was inappropriate of me.”

“It’s fine,” Sylph said. “I’m intruding on your family after all. You shouldn’t have to censor yourselves because I’m here.”

“Oh, you aren’t intruding at all,” Hilla said. “Now please, sit. I’ve made dinner, and it must all be eaten before it goes cold.”

She pulled a metal cover off a large plate in the center of the table. It was laden with steak, potatoes, and several green vegetables that Damien didn’t recognize. Henry floated down to the food and snagged a potato with one of his tendrils, bringing it up to his mouth and popping it in.

“You can eat?” Damien asked. “Have you ever done that before?”

“I have recently developed rudimentary taste buds,” Henry replied. “Last night, actually. Did you know that goats taste like cheese?”

“No, I don’t think they do,” Damien said. “And when did you get a chance to taste cheese?”

“When did you get a chance to taste goats?” Hilla asked, squinting at Henry.

“Yesterdayish,” Henry replied, not offering further clarification. His voice sounded a little slurred. “These tubers are tasty. I’ve never looked much into nonmagical herbs, but I suspect they are aiding in my experience.”

“Uhh, Henry? You sound a bit weird,” Damien said.

“He sounds drunk,” Hilla said. “Hold on.”

She walked into the kitchen and knelt to peer inside one of the cupboards. A laugh slipped through her lips. “Damien, your companion ate half a bottle of alcohol.”

“Ate?” Sylph asked.

Hilla carefully lifted the jagged bottom half of a glass bottle. The top was completely missing.

“Ah. Ate.”

“Henry!” Damien snapped. “Really? You were out of my body for what, a few seconds?”

“You can’t blame me,” Henry said. “I’m doing this for you, after all. Taste buds are absolutely vital to making a Full Manifestation.”

“Did you really have to include the ability to get drunk?”

“I was curious,” Henry defended. A vibration ran through his body, starting at the tentacles and working up. When it faded, his eyes had sharpened. “And I could get rid of the effect whenever I wanted to.”

“Fascinating,” Hilla said. “You’re a very interesting companion, Henry. How are you doing things without Damien’s permission?”

“He gave me rein to run around a bit so long as I don’t cause any trouble,” Henry said. “Can I have another potato?”

“Help yourself,” Hilla said, slowly sitting back down. “Everyone, please eat. I don’t want the food to grow cold.”

Her words left no room for argument, and Damien was starting to get a little hungry anyways. Their conversation petered off as everyone helped themselves to the food, although Henry stuck to exclusively potatoes.

After they finished and everyone including Henry had thanked Hilla for the meal, Damien took the opportunity to get back to the original subject he’d wanted to talk about.

“Mom, do you know what Mayor Shindal is trying to do with the school? People seem to think that he’s trying to get Mrs. Hubbard to retire.”

“How’d you find out about that? Did Mrs. Hubbard tell you?”

“Well, not really. I was showing Sylph the underground waterfall and we saw a boy called Tim drawing runes when we were leaving. He was pretty angry at Joey.”

“I can’t blame him,” Hilla said with a sigh. “Joey is a horrible teacher. I dropped by a few of his classes to see if he was as good as Shindal said. The boy doesn’t have an understanding bone in his body.”

“Then why does Shindal want him to teach? I don’t get it.”

“Because Joey isn’t a very good mage,” his mom replied with a shrug. “He can’t get a job anywhere else. Shindal is hoping that having this on Joey’s experience will help him get hired somewhere else, but I doubt it. All he’s doing is screwing over the school. I’ve been trying to stop him, but Shindal is buying the council over by getting their houses upgraded with runes.”

“So what happens when Joey can’t get another job?”

“He probably stays as a schoolteacher and makes a whole generation of students hate a topic,” Hilla said, scrunching her nose in annoyance. “Hopefully I can keep the council seeing reason, though. If your father came home, he’d talk some sense into those idiots.”

“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Sylph asked. “From what I can gather, you’re an influential member of the council, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I am,” Hilla said with a laugh. “They respect me. But they fear Damien’s dad. I don’t have the power or temper to level Ardenford and they know it. I’ve been trying to take care of things diplomatically. I’m just hoping Joey does something stupid and makes it easier for me to convince people that he’s incompetent. If anyone else in this stupid village actually knew Rune Crafting, it would be a lot easier.”

“What about me?” Damien asked.

“That wouldn’t work. You’re my son. They aren’t going to believe anything you say. Joey would have to make a very clear demonstration of his incompetence, and Shindal would never let that happen.”

Damien grunted. That had given him a few ideas, but none that he cared to voice out loud yet. There was still a fair amount of time until Delph came to pick them up, so there was no point rushing things.

Hilla rose to her feet with a contented sigh. “I’m stuffed, and my old age is getting to me. I need to get some sleep. Damien, there’s a spare mattress in the closet, but I’m too tired to get it out right now.”

Damien nodded absentmindedly. “Thanks for dinner, Mom. It was good. We’ll get the mattress when we go to bed.”

Hilla considered them for a moment, then turned, a small smile on her face as she headed into her room and pulled the door shut behind her.

“I could eat Joey,” Henry offered. “Shindal too. Solve the problem, and I’d get to find out if humans also taste like cheese.”

“No,” Damien said. “And you should probably fix your taste buds if you plan on using them. Goats are not supposed to taste like cheese.”

Henry harrumphed. “We’ll see about that.”

He shot back into Damien’s shadow.

“That sounded vaguely ominous,” Sylph observed.

“I’m just going to ignore it and pretend it isn’t a problem,” Damien decided. He covered a yawn and stood up. “Probably time for bed, though.”

“I need to meditate first,” Sylph said. “But that won’t take long, and I can do it on the mattress.”

“Oh, you can use my bed,” Damien replied as he walked through the hall, stopping before a door that led into the closet. “You’re the guest, after all.”

He pulled the closet open and peered inside. Dust flew out and he sneezed, wiping his nose with the back of a hand and grimacing. Sylph poked her head over his shoulder and peered in as well.

“I don’t see a mattress.”

“Neither do I,” Damien said. “She can be a bit bad at putting things away. She probably forgot it somewhere. I’ll ask her.”

He walked up to her door, then paused as he heard loud snores.

“Already?” Sylph asked. “That was fast.”

Damien sighed and shook his head. “I don’t remember her falling asleep that fast before, but she’s always been quick to it. She works a lot.”

They wandered back over to his room and he pulled the door shut behind them to avoid bothering his mother.

“I can just sleep on the floor,” Damien offered. “We can figure out what happened to the mattress tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to sleep in a bed if you’re on the ground,” Sylph said, crossing her arms. “That isn’t fair to you.”

Damien’s shadow rippled before he could respond. Henry rose up from it bearing his normal, humanoid form.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Henry said. “I do not want to be here for this. Especially not in Damien’s head. Just share the bed, you morons. You’ve done it before, and it isn’t that small. You can both fit without so much as touching each other. I’m going to go bother the neighbor’s goats now. Enjoy.”

He flickered, launching through the window and vanishing from sight in the darkening sky. Damien and Sylph exchanged a glance.

“I guess we could–”

“Yeah.”

They stared at the bed for a few seconds. Damien was the first to move, pulling the covers back and sliding all the way to the far side until he was pressed against the wall. “Is there enough room for you to meditate?”

“Yeah,” Sylph said, sitting down beside him. Damien stared at the wall, well aware that this was barely any different from what they’d done in the past. Dull motes of magical energy swam overhead, gathering around Sylph.

Damien watched them for a few minutes, then turned over to his side and faced the wall to give her at least a little privacy. Sylph finished meditating a short while later – much faster than she usually did – and slipped under the covers as well.

Henry had been right – the bed was easily large enough for both of them. Damien wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed about that, but he didn’t get much time to consider it.

Sylph shuffled under the covers until her back was just barely touching his. He stiffened for a moment, then shifted so they were pressed against each other. A small smile crossed his face, but no coherent thought formed in his mind.

A few minutes later, they were both asleep.