She clicked a pen and took both over to the demon, careful not to step on or interrupt any of the magic symbols, though I knew a simple touch couldn’t change them or their effectiveness. They were stronger than that, deeper than that. Fused to the foundation of Ordinary’s creation.
Avnas scanned the contract quickly. “Really? This is the contract you signed?” he asked Xtelle.
“I found it to be adequate,” she sniffed.
“It’s…more than adequate. It is very thorough.” He shot me a look that pinged off my bored expression to Myra. “I’m impressed.”
“Sign it and live by it. After all this, you only get two chances while you’re acclimating to Ordinary instead of three. And if you so much as breathe on a soul while you’re here, you are out on your ass,” Myra said with a bright smile.
His gaze lifted to Than and waited.
“Yes?” Than asked.
“I offer you my apology.”
“I’ll consider accepting it.”
The temperature dropped. The magic in the room didn’t flare so much as deepen.
Avnas bent the contract so it was stiff in his hand, and signed on the dotted line.
I could feel it, that rush of heat that stung my lungs. It had only happened twice before. When Bathin signed the contract, and just the other day, when Xtelle did the same.
There was now, officially, another demon in Ordinary.
Gods help us all.
He passed the sheets of paper through the bars to Myra. She read through them, then handed them to me to do the same. It all seemed to be in order.
“All right,” I said. “You are now a citizen of Ordinary, and as such, you must follow the rules, both mundane and supernatural.”
“I will,” he said, staring straight at Xtelle, like he was repeating wedding vows.
“You understand you can’t bind anyone’s soul. Can’t even touch one?” I asked.
“I do.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said.
He finally looked away from Xtelle. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, Delaney.”
Weirdly, it sounded like gratitude. Likethank you.
Myra shot me one more “Are you sure” look, and I nodded. Anyone was welcome in Ordinary if they followed the rules. Even love-sick demons who were desperate and full of threats, but who had otherwise not done any of the things he had threatened he was capable of doing.
I didn’t think Avnas was a good guy or a bad guy. I thought he was going to prove, over the next few months, if he could live in Ordinary. If he could thrive here. We had had just as many people leave the place as those who came to stay.
A vacation town for gods, which held to strict rules, wasn’t everyone’s idea of bliss.
I placed my hand on the bars. There was no lock, because this was a place built solid, with power and magic and will. My palm vibrated with the power of this place, a soothing sort of pinging, of knowing, like glass ringing in sympathy with a bell.
“You can go,” I said.
Just like that, the bars were gone. All of them. And while the magic symbols were still visible, they were fading to a soft, watery blue.
“That’s it?” Avnas asked. “Just like that, you trust me and let me go free?”
“Oh, I don’t trust you. You haven’t earned that yet. But the rules of Ordinary apply to me and my job too. There is grace for first-timers trying to enter the town. But after that, things become much more by the book.”
