“Hmm?”
“Don’t you have any ideas?”
“Well.” He blows out a long breath and sits back in his chair. “I mean, there’s more legend than actual scholarship. I’ve read about people promising their souls to demons in exchange for power or wealth or some sort of intervention . . . What did you get out of it, Shepard?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I didn’t ask for anything.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Penelope is rolling her eyes.
“No, that’s good,” her dad says. “It would be harder to get out of the contract if you’d spent the money or cured your cancer.”
“Could we argue that I didn’t know what I was doing?”
“We could,” he says, “but it’s not like there’s a judge and jury to hear the case.”
“Then how can I possibly get out of this?”
He rubs his chin. “Well, you could appeal to the demon himself.”
“Herself,” I say.
“Herself,” he amends. “Demons are historically very law-abiding. They love signatures, terms, contracts . . .”
Penelope looks surprised. “They do?”
“Oh yeah,” her dad says. “That’s how they get you.”
“So we have to find alegalway out of the engagement?” she asks. “We can’t just break the curse? Or dissolve it? Or kill the demon?”
Her dad frowns at her. “Promise me you won’t try to fight a demon.”
“Is there scholarship onthat?”
“No,” he says.
“What about . . .” She’s rubbing her chin, too. “Could we find someoneelseto marry the demon?”
I hold up my hand between them. “I’m not damning someone else.”
Penelope cocks her head. “You never know, we might find someone who’s into demons . . .”
“No,” I say.
“Well,” she says, “I’m not ruling it out.”
“I don’t suppose you’d been married before?” her dad asks me.
“No.”
“That’s too bad. Any children?”
“No.”
Mr. Bunce covers the lower part of his face with his hand, like just holding his chin wouldn’t be thoughtful enough. “Hmmm . . .” He shifts his fingers down. “Previously baptized?”
“No. Sorry.”
“That’s all right. Probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.” He sighs, then gathers up the papers, folds them, and gives them back to me. “Thank you for sharing these with me, Shepard.”
