After finishing their lunch, the group headed back up the road towards the orphanage. It was easy enough going initially, but soon Bethany and Yanni both started to flag. Jamilah had ranged ahead a ways with the twins, and Chris was off to the far side of the road rather than walking on it. Bethany was holding Ethan's hand, but clearly slowing down, and Yanni was gamely struggling along on his other side. Ethan had mostly been ignoring Jonathan in favor of talking to the two young kids on and off.

Jonathan drew even with Ethan. "Would it help if I carried one of the younger kids for a bit?"

Ethan eyed him. "Probably, but why don't you ask them?"

Because Ethan didn't seem all that happy with this whole situation, if Jonathan didn't miss his guess, and he wasn't going to go approaching the kid's sister and making that whole situation worse. Not that he could say any of that, unfortunately. Instead, Jonathan turned to the two youngest of the kids. "Would either of you like a ride for a ways?"

"Yanni can," said Bethany. "I'm bigger than him."

Jonathan nodded seriously, trying not to smile. "Very well, then. Yanni, would you like to ride on my shoulders?"

Suddenly Bethany looked a lot more interested. She must have thought he meant something else. Yanni, meanwhile, looked a little unsure. "I suppose."

"Okay, come over here. Yeah, stand right in front of me, but face away from me, okay? I'm going to lift you up onto my shoulders, but you'll have to help me." Jonathan squatted down, grabbed Yanni under the armpits, and hoisted him up above his head and onto his shoulders as he stood. The child grabbed onto his hair in a brief panic, but then caught his balance as Jonathan stabilized. "Ouch, please don't grab my hair too tight, okay, Yanni?"

Yanni loosened his grip. "I am sorry."

"It's fine. You can grab my forehead, if you want, and I'm holding onto your ankles, see? You're not going to fall."

Bethany stared up at him, envy written clearly across her face, and Jonathan laughed. "You can have the next ride, okay?" Bethany nodded vigorously.

They set off again, the twins and Jamilah turning to look at them with a laugh and some comments that Jonathan couldn't make out. Yanni quickly grew more comfortable with his new perch, his grip on Jonathan loosening.

Small as he was, though, he was still quite heavy; particularly when the entire walk was uphill. After ten or fifteen minutes, Jonathan had to put him down to walk on his own again. "Me next, me next!" called Bethany.

"Okay, okay, just let me recover a little first, alright? I need to catch my breath; this is harder going uphill."

They continued walking, Yanni now with a bit more energy as he chattered about all the things he was able to see from Jonathan's shoulders, and Bethany shooting Jonathan constant urgent glances. He tried to work the kinks out of his shoulders as he walked and catch his breath. Fortunately, the younger kids were moving a lot more slowly than his normal walking speed on this trip, so he was able to recover before Bethany exploded. "Okay, Bethany, you ready?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, ditching her brother's hand and scampering over to stand in front of Jonathan. He hoisted her up, and she laughed aloud. "Look, Ethan, look! I'm taller than you!"

Ethan had been giving Jonathan a look that was suspiciously close to a glare, but at her words, he broke out in a true smile for the first time that Jonathan had seen that day. "You are, indeed, bug. Never thought I'd see the day."

"I told you, but you didn't believe me!" Bethany crowed, evidently vindicated in some past assertion.

"Shows what I know."

The twins and Jamilah had slowed down and drawn even with them again.

"Hey, Jonathan, can I do that next?" asked Kylus.

"Seriously, Kylus? You're way too big. Bethany here is about as big as I can carry on my shoulders honestly."

Kylus kicked a rock, the picture of despondency, and Yanni laughed.

By the time the group arrived at the orphanage, Jonathan was exhausted, and Ethan and the two younger kids didn't look much better. Kylus, Sandra, Jamilah, and Chris were flagging a bit, but nowhere near as badly.

As they all crowded in the front gate, the door to the orphanage opened and Abigail came out.

"Who is that?" asked Yanni, tugging at Jonathan's hand. Although Jonathan had begged off shoulder rides eventually due to exhaustion, Yanni had eventually decided that he wanted a hand to hold, too.

"Hey everyone, this is Abigail," said Jonathan to the group. "Abigail, meet Yanni, Ethan, Bethany, and Chris."

"Hello, everyone," said Abigail shyly.

"I'll have them introduce themselves a little better soon, but for now we could all really use a short rest and maybe something to drink. Anyone else here thirsty? You can put your stuff here in the hall for now, how about, and I'll show you where the bathrooms and kitchen are."

The group piled into the front door, the new kids looking around in obvious curiosity while Abigail slipped over near Jonathan.

Yanni scampered off into the hall, and Jonathan groaned and rotated his shoulders around. Turned out, walking uphill with a six- or seven-year-old was surprisingly exhausting. They didn't fit all that well on his shoulders, either, although Yanni was a bit better than Bethany, thanks to his smaller size. They sort of squirreled around all over his neck and shoulders, and it was a lot less comfortable than other folks and their kids had made it seem.

As the kids spread out into the hall, most depositing their bundles along the wall, Jonathan turned to Abigail. "Did Mr. Geiller feed you lunch?"

Abigail made a face but nodded. He must have fed her more of those fruits or whatever that were supposed to increase her natural magic.

"In that case, you think you can charge the ritual circle so I can contract with a few of these kids before dinner?"

"I should be able to manage that."

"Okay, after they have a chance to go to the bathroom and get something to drink, I'll give them the tour, and then we can do that."

Later that afternoon, the kids crowded curiously into the side room where Abigail had set up her ritual, and Jonathan got to see it for the first time. Like the ritual circle she had used to summon him, this one was drawn with what looked like sidewalk chalk. However, instead of bright pink, part of it was robin's egg blue, another portion was solidly purple, and here and there were symbols drawn in what looked like dark brown that were difficult to see against the wood of the flooring. Unlike the summoning ritual, which had been largely circular with a pentagram surrounding the space where Jonathan had materialized, this ritual consisted of a large circle with two smaller attached circles connected by chains of arcane symbols.

"Don't scuff the chalk marks, please!" said Abigail as everyone filed through the door. "It won't harm anyone, but they're a pain to redraw."

"So who wants to go first?" asked Jonathan. "I don't know if we'll be able to get through everyone this afternoon, but I'd like to contract with a few of you, at least."

"I'll—" started Kylus, but Ethan interrupted him.

"I'll go first. You stay here, Bethany."

"Great!" said Abigail. "You stand in this smaller circle. Jonathan, you go stand in the middle of the bigger circle, and then I'll stand in the other small circle. Make sure you don't step on the chalk!"

"Should we see if Mr. Geiller wants to observe this?" asked Jonathan.

"No, he told me he only wanted to hear from us if—uh, something went wrong. He went back home after lunch and a little before you got back."

Yeah, he'd definitely tried his joke about things exploding on Abigail, too. "Just as well." He noticed the kids looking curious—Kylus, in particular, looked like he was about to explode. "Mr. Geiller is our grumpy next-door neighbor. He's been helping Abigail with magic."

"Magic?!" Bethany's eyes were wide.

"Uh, yeah. Abigail is the one who summoned me."

Bethany turned a look of pure hero worship on Abigail, who looked a little uncomfortable.

Jonathan decided to spare her the kids' curiosity for now. "So how does this work, Abigail?"

"Now that we're all in our spots, I'll empower the ritual, and then you, Ethan, state your terms. Jonathan will state his terms, and then once you're agreed you grasp one another's forearms, state your responsibilities in turn, then say 'As the Infernal Abyss is our witness, our contract is sealed' and you'll be done. It's the same as when we formed our contract, Jonathan. Oh, and Ethan, you have to say that you'll sustain Jonathan's existence in the mortal realm as part of your responsibilities."

Jonathan eyed the distance between his circle and the circle Ethan was standing in. He hoped the smaller kids would be able to reach.

"That seems easy enough," said Ethan. "But what sort of terms am I supposed to be setting?"

Oh, right. They hadn't actually talked about that yet.

"Maybe we should get out of this ritual and go sit down and talk about that, actually," said Jonathan. "Abigail can give you some advice. The rest of you should listen to this, too."

The three of them carefully stepped out of the summoning circles, and everyone sat on the floor of the room off to the side. "So, Professor Abigail? Hit us," said Jonathan.

"…Right. Um, so the book I copied the summoning ritual from said the most important term of your contract is—what was it called again? I don't remember the exact word for it, but it's a requirement that the demon doesn't hurt you. Jonathan agreed not to do physical or emotional harm to me, through either direct or indirect actions, or through intentional neglect."

"And he has to respect that?" asked Jamilah, leaning forward.

"Yes. Part of the magic is that if one of us breaks the contract, the other knows it and then can do things like dissolve the contract. Which is bad for Jonathan because he needs contracts to stay in the mortal world. The other things I asked for were for Jonathan to feed me three meals a day and act as my guardian until I come of age. The second thing that's important to include is terms that cover what happens if one party breaks the contract. We agreed to renegotiate our contract if either of us breaks the terms."

"What if you break the contract?" asked Sandra. "Does that mean Jonathan can just do whatever he wants until you renegotiate?"

"No. One side isn't freed from the contract just because the other side broke a clause. But if you don't make good on your side of the contract, Jonathan can dissolve it."

Wait a minute, he didn't remember anything like that from when they made their contracts. Although maybe there were differences between the terms Abigail could include in her contract and what these kids could, since they didn't summon him. He'd noticed she hadn't said anything about banishing him to the Infernal Abyss, even though that was definitely a failsafe in their contract.

And thank goodness for that. There was no way he was going to allow seven people who were still basically strangers that much control over his continued existence.