"I'll go help the children clean up, shall I?" said Ethan, and high-tailed it for the kitchen at an amusingly fast rate while Jonathan looked on with amusement. Abigail must have shared some choice stories about Mr. Geiller with the other kids.

Mr. Geiller paid the boy no mind, and in fact kept his medallion up and at the ready. "You haven't answered my question. What happened here? I swear I heard screaming a bit ago, and my detection wards went haywire. Did you summon a demon, despite what I told you."

Jonathan sighed. "Not…exactly. Some old enemies of Ethan's apparently tracked him here after he visited Eldridge yesterday, and when they threatened Abigail I accidentally got possessed by a demon that—took care of the intruders."

Mr. Geiller just stared at Jonathan for a beat, making him shift awkwardly in place. "You were…possessed by a demon? And you remember this happening? How are you even alive?"

"Uh, no, I don't remember it actually. I blacked out. Abigail told me about it."

"Get her," said Mr. Geiller shortly. "Both of you meet me in the front room here. We're running some diagnostics immediately."

Shortly afterward, Jonathan, Abigail, and Mr. Geiller were all in the front classroom where most of Mr. Geiller's measurement arrays were still set up. As Mr. Geiller shoved Jonathan unceremoniously into the containment array and began to unfold its control panel, he spoke to Abigail. "Alright, girl, what exactly did this fool do this morning? What does he mean when he says he was possessed by a demon?"

Abigail straightened up and placed her hands behind herself, which amused Jonathan because she didn't seem to notice she was doing it. Did Mr. Geiller require good posture when reporting things to him or something? "Some strange men came and threatened us, and when Jonathan tried to cast magic to address the threat, a demon named Ebola assumed primacy and took over his body."

Mr. Geiller shot her a sharp look. "Assumed primacy?"

"That was the phrase the demon used."

"You talked to it? You seem in remarkably good shape. And where are these home invaders?"

Abigail fidgeted in discomfort. "I don't—know. The demon cleaned up after itself somehow, before we talked, yes. I ran upstairs and we retreated to the attic, but after it…finished up with the attackers, it came and forced me to make a contract with it in order to get Jonathan back."

"It didn't attack you or the other children?"

"I think it might have attacked them if it had a better opportunity or if I weren't with them. It was bound by the contracts Jonathan had made, but implied that it would be tempted to break its contracts with them."

"You hadn't told me that," said Jonathan.

"Hold still!" snapped Mr. Geiller, unreasonably so in Jonathan's opinion, given that he hadn't moved.

"I assume the other children have a less extreme contingency, eh?"

"Yes," said Abigail faintly. "I can banish Jonathan if he physically threatens me, but none of them have that term in their contracts."

"Can I adjust my contracts with them?" interjected Jonathan.

"Yes, obviously," said Mr. Geiller. "I told you not to move! That ritual Abigail drew up was originally for adjusting existing contracts, remember?"

"Right."

Mr. Geiller turned his focus to Abigail again. "I'm curious about what you mean when you say the demon assumed primacy. Was the demon already here somehow?"

"That's what it said. According to Ebola, it's been here all along. It said that Jonathan and it were two halves of a whole. That it was confined in the Infernal Abyss for some reason, and that Anthrax himself took the opportunity to confine it within Jonathan somehow, instead."

Mr. Geiller slapped a hand against the top of the control panel for the containment device and muttered something Jonathan didn't quite catch under his breath. He was pretty sure the old man was cursing, though. "Wonderful. We'll get back to that, but Jonathan I want you to enliven your magic and try to conjure something. I don't care what."

"Abigail, do you need anything?"

"I could use a sandwich."

"…Of course you could." Jonathan enlivened his magic, reached out to Abigail, and tried to manifest a sandwich, but nothing happened.

"Good," grunted Mr. Geiller. "I'm going to leave you contained for a bit longer, boy, if you don't mind. This Ebola of yours is making me nervous."

"You and me both," muttered Jonathan.

"What sort of contract did you form with this Ebola, Abigail?"

"I agreed that if I was physically threatened and needed violence to solve the issue I would call it out. It agreed not to harm me, Jonathan, or his contractors at pain of banishment and that after it resolved the threat it would grant Jonathan primacy once more."

Mr. Geiller shot her a sharp look. "Who is determining if violence is the appropriate response?"

"Me? I think? That was one of the terms I stated to finalize the contract, at least. Although if I fail to do so when I should have, Ebola required that the contract call him forth automatically."

"Idiot girl! At least tell me that latter bit was one of the terms you stated."

"Yes."

Mr. Geiller sighed. "That's something, at least. You'd best keep the girl out of situations where she's liable to feel overly threatened, Jonathan."

"I was planning on that anyway. None of us ever wanted anything like what happened this morning."

"Well enough. So you've got a demon lurking around in there, boy?"

"Evidently. Abigail said the demon claimed to be the reason I'm able to channel magic from the Infernal Abyss."

"Ah!" Mr. Geiller leaned forward, staring intently at Jonathan. "Did it now?"

"Ebola claimed to be the bridge between Jonathan's need and its home," said Abigail quietly.

"Well, well." Mr. Geiller sat back and examined Jonathan critically. "One mystery solved, at least." He lapsed into a contemplative silence that neither Jonathan or Abigail was willing to interrupt.

At last, the old man sat forward, a serious look on his face. "There's nothing for it. Boy, I think I need to make a contract with you."

"What, really? I mean, I was going to suggest that simply to make sure you're protected on the off chance the demon gets out again, but why do you want a contract? I thought you were against the idea."

"I am against the idea."

"Then why—"

"I need something a little stronger than a promise from you, Jonathan. This whole setup you've got going, with some sort of demon parasite that's allowing you to channel the magic of the Infernal Abyss? This can't get out. The Quints, the mage college, really any magic users…they must never, ever hear of it. Especially the Quints."

"What? Why?"

Mr. Geiller gave Jonathan a searching look. "You don't really understand what you've got going here, do you? Boy, magic from the Infernal Abyss is the golden flower. There's a reason the Church is so powerful, and it's not because of their pretty sermons or taste in architecture. It's because they've got a virtual monopoly on demon summoning. But summoning a demon is dangerous. You can't properly leverage their power, because they're such treacherous bastards. But you, you've apparently got a demon on tap. You can do anything you want. I thought you might just be an aberration; a freak who could channel the Infernal Abyss, maybe because you didn't originate in this reality. But if you're able to do that because you've got some sort of weird symbiotic connection to an actual demon? That sounds like something that could be replicable, theoretically." Mr. Geiller's eyes were hard. "And that's not something that's going to happen."

Mr. Geiller was kind of scaring Jonathan, if he was going to be honest. "Why do you say that?"

"I ever tell you why I'm out here on the ass end of nowhere?"

"I don't think so."

"You recall I told you I developed a lot of these arrays, don't you?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with—"

As per usual, Mr. Geiller didn't bother letting Jonathan finish his question. "I pioneered this method of array construction because I didn't want anything to do with the normal path of destruction and killing an Abaddon Expanse mage is expected to walk down. But then the people in power caught wind of my invention, and things got…out of hand when they convinced me to explore military applications of my research. I'm pretty directly responsible for more deaths than I can count, and that—I never wanted—" Mr. Geiller cut himself off, visibly forcing himself to calm before he continued. "Boy, if you let the Church or magical community get wind of this crazy setup you've landed yourself in, and they're able to reproduce it? The death that will follow will be on a completely different scale. I will not allow that."

Well, that was heavy. Jonathan raised his hands. "Fair enough. I wasn't really planning on getting myself locked inside a laboratory to be experimented on, anyway. Um, can I get off the containment array now?"

Mr. Geiller touched a couple spots on the control sheet and then started folding it away. "Yes. Let's head to the visualization matrix next. I want to verify there's no lingering energy from the Infernal Abyss on you." While Jonathan climbed off the array, Mr. Geiller turned to Abigail. "Abigail, is that ritual of yours in working order?"

"No, Jonathan scuffed it when the demon gave up control."

Mr. Geiller grunted. "Think you can fix that up before lunch?"

"Probably!"

"Good, please go do so."

As Abigail hurried out of the room, Mr. Geiller pointed Jonathan toward the big mirror. Jonathan turned towards him with a thoughtful expression as they walked over to it. "So if I'm making a contract with you, Mr. Geiller, what do I get out of it?"

Mr. Geiller gave him a suspicious look. "Not being responsible for the deaths of innocents isn't enough?"

Jonathan shrugged. "I mean, I certainly don't want that, but it's also entirely theoretical." Mr. Geiller glared, but Jonathan ploughed ahead. "Of more pressing concern to me at the moment is that I could really use someone to help educate the kids as a docent…"

"Ugh," groaned Mr. Geiller, and Jonathan immediately suppressed a smile. That sure sounded like someone who really didn't want to help out and was going to anyway.