Elerius nodded slowly. “If someone has sold his or her soul, the only chance to get it back is through negotiation, before rather than after the demon returns to hell.”
Evrard wrinkled his forehead in surprise. “Aren’t the two of you getting a little overexcited here? Wizardry doesn’t worry about people’s souls. And even if she didn’t get off for being so young, she’d still have seventy years or so to worry about it. And-”
Before he had a chance to tell me reassuringly that she would probably damn herself a dozen different ways in the next seventy years anyway, Evrard found himself propelled backwards hard and fast through the air. He hit the wall and subsided slowly.
“All right, all right, I get the hint,” he said good-naturedly.
“Daimbert!” said Theodora, who had been following our conversation from a little distance away.
But that hadn’t been my magic. That had been Elerius.
We sat quietly, close together, our eyes locked. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you trying to help me?” In part I realized I was stalling; as long as Antonia was asleep, as long as the demon down in the ruined chapel was imprisoned in the pentagram, things could not get any worse than they already were. But in part I wanted to understand.
“We all take oaths to help humanity,” he said slowly. “A little girl is part of humanity. But there is of course more, Daimbert, as you and I know. If we called the school, the demonology experts would doubtless tell us that the theoretical danger to a girl’s soul, a danger they would have to discuss with the priests to assess properly-which they have no intention of doing-is nothing compared to the very real danger of a demon loose in the world. Back to hell with it at once, the school’s masters would tell us, before it breaks out of the pentagram, and if one girl is sacrificed it’s still worth it.”
The castle was quiet around us. The children dozed again while waiting, and the only sounds came from Cyrus, who sat a short distance from us, his head in his hands and muttering. Evrard and Theodora were listening but could have been miles away. “That sounds like the kind of logic that would appeal to you, Elerius,” I said. “You always claim to be working for the greater good of humanity, even if a few standards or a few people have to be sacrificed along the way.”
He was not insulted. “I am speaking openly, Daimbert. I know perfectly well that in trying to help Antonia-and she is a delightful little girl, one that anyone of any sensitivity would want to help-I am not following the school’s standards. But there is a higher good here. I have spoken to you of this before. Someday, probably sooner than they think, the masters of the school will have to step aside for younger leadership. It’s no secret that everyone assumes-including me-that I shall be part of that leadership. And when that time comes I will want your help.”
I looked away, not able to meet his calculating gaze any longer. “You said all this once before, but I would have thought it would be clear now that I could never join the school faculty. They don’t want wizards who have families.”
“Because such a wizard would let his judgment be swayed by personal considerations?” said Elerius with half a smile. “It is a good policy, but I may have to make an exception here. Certainly I will not now tell the school what you yourself have managed remarkably well to keep hidden from them. By the time I assume the leadership I will be in a position to make my own rules. I don’t know what it is about you, Daimbert. Your grasp of academic magic is scarcely better than Evrard’s”-the red-headed wizard cringed-“and yet somehow you are always in the right place at the right time.”
I seemed at the moment to be in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time, but I didn’t interrupt.
“And you have imagination and a flair for improvisation, and you have a daughter who knows more magic at five than most first-year wizardry students-someone who, if she is not perverted by a demon, could be very useful to organized wizardry herself when just a little older. Yet you have always been suspicious of me. Call this calculation if you like, but I want your friendship. Trying to save Antonia is but a small price to pay for that friendship.”
I was not quite persuaded yet. “You realize,” I said slowly, “that if these negotiations go the way I think they may, I won’t even be around to help you in your plans and projects.”
“That is why you need me now, Daimbert: another wizard to give you a chance to get both of you out of this alive. Unless your mistrust of me weighs heavier than your fears for Antonia?”
“I’d deal with the devil himself to save her,” I said, looking at him quickly and then away. “And it looks as though I will.”
We woke Antonia gently. She didn’t want to wake up and kept digging her knuckles into her eyes and trying to turn away from the light. But when she spotted Elerius she sat up in my lap and gave him a broad smile. “I remembered everything you taught me about frogs,” she said with enthusiasm.
I myself had nearly been forced to leave the wizards’ school because of all my trouble with those frogs in Zahlfast’s transformations practical. She had to get this ability from Theodora.
“So that was you who turned the man into a frog?” Elerius asked. We had sent Evrard off to scour the castle for Vlad.
“That’s right. He really was a bad man. After I’d summoned the demon he came running into the room where we all were, very excited. I think he was looking for the Dog-Man. He had been very quiet and pretend-polite when I saw him before, so it made me even more scared because he was shouting and threatening- That’s when I turned him into a frog.” She smiled happily. “I think he was surprised.”
“I’m sure he was,” said Theodora from across the room. “I still can’t do transformations myself.” So the Lord knew where she had gotten this ability.
And the devil knew where she would get her next startling abilities if we couldn’t reclaim her soul.
“But I want to hear more about how you summoned the demon,” said Elerius gently.
Antonia would clearly have preferred to discuss the frog some more, but she reluctantly agreed to provide details. “When he appeared in the pentagram I told him I wanted a dem-a demastr-a demonstration. The book said sometimes they would do one for free. And I said for my demonstration he should catch the other demon and make him go back to hell.” She laughed. “That’s like a joke-demon, demonstration.”
“And what did he say?” I said, abruptly hoping against hope. Maybe Evrard was right, and I’d gotten myself all worked up for nothing.
“He said that was too hard to be a demonstration. That’s when I told him I was Mistress of the Pentagrams and he had to do it whether he wanted to or not. He did, too,” she said, pleased at the memory of wielding such power. “I had to make an opening in the pentagram to let him out, but I told him I only did it if he promised to come right back. I made the second pentagram to hold the demon he caught while I was waiting for them.” She sighed. “That was probably the worst part of all, with two demons right there in the room, before the Dog-Man’s disappeared and I was able to redraw the line to keep mine in.”
Elerius and I exchanged glances. We might be able to persuade the demon to return to hell with no one’s soul, to convince him that all of this fell into the category of demonstrating demonic powers before reaching agreement on a soul’s sale. I doubted it.
“Don’t you think,” suggested Antonia, “that now that the Dog-Man doesn’t have a demon any more he’ll be happier?” Cyrus was making low whimpering noises at the moment. It was a nice thought on Antonia’s part, but it hadn’t worked: with the demon back in hell he had simultaneously lost his power to do black magic in this world and any hope for the redemption of his soul in the next.
I stood up, clenched and unclenched my fists, and walked over to Theodora. I had been kissing her for over a minute before she realized that this public display of affection meant that I was saying good-bye.