Abigail's condition hadn't changed, for better or for worse. She was still cold to the touch, and incredibly lethargic, but debatably conscious.

"Hey, Abigail," Jonathan said gently as he checked her forehead to verify her temperature was still low. "You with me?"

"…Jonathan," she mumbled.

"Good, good, you just stay awake for me, okay? Mr. Geiller's on his way; probably just changing out of his bathrobe. I have to tell you, that was the ugliest excuse for clothing I've ever seen. Fit him perfectly."

He was rewarded with a slight smile, though her eyes were drooping closed again.

He was glad she'd responded, but his anxiety still spiked a bit. "You warm enough in there? Should I add any more blankets?"

"'M fine."

"Alright, I'm glad to hear it." From the front of the orphanage, Jonathan heard a muted, ornery shout. "I'll be right back, I think Mr. Geiller's here."

He rushed downstairs, and sure enough Mr. Geiller was glowering outside the open front door, now wearing his typical clothes and carrying a black bag that looked vaguely like an oversized, old-timey doctor's bag. Jonathan doubted it contained any actual medical supplies, but maybe he'd be happily surprised.

"Come on, Abigail's on the second floor." Jonathan didn't give Mr. Geiller any time to complain, and just turned around and strode back into the orphanage.

"Impatient young things," grumbled Mr. Geiller behind him. "She can't be all that bad…" but he trailed off as they arrived. Jonathan gestured wordlessly to Abigail's blanket cocoon, and Mr. Geiller shuffled his way over.

He put a hand to her forehead, and his eyes widened. "Never mind, boy, you were right to hurry. She's worse off than I expected."

"Can you help her?"

Mr. Geiller's frown deepened. "For the short-term, yes." He placed his bag on a nearby bed and started digging out what appeared to be a series of extremely thin metal pipes strung loosely together with wires running through them. "I don't like to say it, but I can't keep her stable long-term."

"What sort of time frame are you actually talking about?"

"I can get her out of danger today; probably take a few hours, though. But this sort of help has diminishing returns."

"What exactly are you doing, anyway?" Jonathan eyed the metal contraption that Mr. Geiller had been setting up as he talked. What had started as a series of tubes was transforming before his eyes into a strange lattice as Mr. Geiller adroitly connected the pipes to one another and secured them with clasps.

Mr. Geiller set the lattice carefully down on the bed, and then pulled out three flat pieces of metal that he arranged on the floor around Abigail's bed. "I told you my affinity is for the Abaddon Expanse, right? Well, that realm is mainly used to destroy things, shoving things around, getting into fights, that sort of nonsense. Well, when I was younger and learned the basics, I decided Anthrax could take this and started looking for ways that I could create instead."

While he spoke, Mr. Geiller had connected another several bars to the metal foot on the floor, building up into a leg that was almost as tall as Jonathan. "Hold this for me. So, not wanting to join the other meathead Abaddon Expanse practitioners in the military, I started researching magic rituals. After all, anyone can summon a demon with a summoning ritual, regardless of their affinity, so why couldn't we achieve other effects? "

He'd completed the second leg, and he leaned it up against the bed so that Jonathan could reach it from the far side. "Hold this, too. Anyway, long story short, I succeeded, and an array like this one was one of my first inventions. It basically concentrates ambient magic into the space beneath itself, which has the happy side effect of increasing the natural recovery speed of whoever is sitting down there. Highly necessary if you're planning to empower multiple rituals in a single day, I must say."

Mr. Geiller had finished the final leg, and he held it up himself as he reached over to the adjacent bed and carefully hoisted the lattice with his other hand. "Help me get this attached." Jonathan managed to brace the near leg between his leg and the bed frame so that he could hold onto the far leg with one hand and help Mr. Geiller position the above the leg closest to him. "Yes, there, just hold it steady. Alright, there's one. Same thing for the next leg. And before you ask, what this will do for Abigail is allow her to recover enough of her natural magic to function again for a bit." Mr. Geiller fastened the second leg to the lattice, and walked back around to reclaim the third leg from Jonathan, quickly fastening it to the lattice as well.

The whole thing looked extremely rickety, and Mr. Geiller spent a few moments moving around the bed and shifting the metal feet until he was happy with their positioning.

"You're sure this thing isn't going to fall on her?"

"Settle down, boy, I've been doing this for years. Once I activate the ritual, it will anchor itself to the floor for the duration. Perfectly safe." Mr. Geiller gave the contraption a final critical once-over, before reaching a hand to a thin plate in the center. "Brace yourself, this feels pretty strange the first time."

Around Jonathan, the world shifted. It felt like the time he'd been standing in his parent's kitchen as a child when the city was hit by a medium-sized earthquake. His sense of balance briefly rebelled, and he staggered half a step before recovering himself.

"There," grunted Mr. Geiller, and he grabbed the nearest leg as he retracted his hand from the center of the lattice and gave it a solid tug. It didn't move at all. "See? Solid as a house." For the first time since he'd originally entered the room, he turned his focus to Abigail. "You hear me, girl? I need you to stay here for a while. I'm going to take Jonathan downstairs and bang some sense into that dense head of his. You just stay there, and if you feel up to it practice the flow exercise. You hear me?"

"Okay, M' Geiller."

Mr. Geiller grunted. "Good enough. Come on, boy. She'll be up and about soon enough." He grabbed his now-empty black bag, tossed it up against the wall near the bed, and stumped his way out of the room.

Jonathan paused by Abigail's side and felt her forehead again. He might be imagining it, but he thought it might feel a little warmer, although now that he'd gotten over the initial strangeness of the ritual activating the area under the ritual with Abigail didn't feel any different to him than the rest of the room. "Will you be alright, Abigail?"

She nodded into his hand.

"Okay, I'll be just downstairs, so I want you to yell if you need absolutely anything at all, alright?"

"I will."

Jonathan reluctantly turned and followed Mr. Geiller down the stairs and found the ornery old man waiting impatiently in the first -floor hallway. "About time."

Jonathan ignored the comment. "Alright, spill it. What was it that you wanted to tell me that you didn't want Abigail to hear? You weren't afraid to go on and on about how she was worse off than you thought with her lying right there, so it must be something lovely."

"Don't give me any lip, boy, I just saved that girl's life. Now it's like this: the draw from your contract is way too much for her. I thought you'd probably count as a mid-level demon, but considering her age, my best guess at her magic ability, and the timeframe? You've got to be drawing as much as a greater demon, maybe even one of the really nasty ones. Like I said, that array I installed will help her short-term, but it's only going to stay ahead of your draw for a few days, at best. I give her maybe three before she has to spend all her time in there, and she's probably dead after five."

"Shit! So what can I do? Can we renegotiate our contract?"

"Doesn't work like that. A demon's draw is a constant amount; doesn't matter what's in the contract." For the first time since they'd met, Mr. Geiller looked uncomfortable. "Only way I know of to fix the problem is to dissolve the contract."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way to break our contract is to banish me to the Infernal Abyss."

"That's about the size of it, yes."

"So you're saying that if I stay here, Abigail is going to die in a few days, and I'll be sent to the Infernal Abyss. Or I can voluntarily go there to save her life, and probably die instantly." Mr. Geiller inclined his head in what was barely a nod. "Those options are unacceptable."

"Look, boy, I—"

"No, you look! I refuse to lie down and die for such a stupid reason! You said my draw is constant, right? What happens if I form a second contract?"

"Form a—what are you even talking about? Demons don't do that."

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "I'm not a demon, though, am I? And I assume there's some way to renegotiate contracts, so why wouldn't it be possible to add a new one with someone else?"

Mr. Geiller pursed his lips. "That…might work. Maybe. I've never heard of anything like that being done, but I'm not an expert in demonic summoning rituals." He paused with a thoughtful look on his face. "Do you know where Abigail's grimoire is?"

Last he recalled, it was still in the attic. "I believe so."

"Good; go get that. If we're lucky, it will have a ritual for renegotiating contracts that I can repurpose. After that, it's up to you."

"Good, so then what should our contract be?"

Mr. Geiller looked at him askance. "Me? Make a contract with you? Not in your life."

What the— "Then who exactly would be using this modified ritual, assuming you find one?"

Mr. Geiller shrugged. "That's why I said it's up to you. I'll keep an eye on Abigail here; you go find some idiot who is willing to make a contract with a demon who already has a contract."

He had to be kidding.