(Continued from Part 1)

“In fact,” Mandy continued, approaching the stairs and resting a hand on top of the banister. “I think I'll get started on that now, if you don't mind. Give a shout if you need anything, Captain, though I can't imagine you will.”

“Ah, as you wish, my lady,” Captain Vittorio said, then after a moment's hesitation, added, “Just… try not to interfere with the on-duty crew too much, if you please.”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Mandy said with a laugh, stepping down onto the stairs and descending slowly but deliberately towards the deck, leaving the captain to… whatever it was he was doing. As requested, she did not approach the batch of soldiers who were currently up on deck, working the lines or keeping watch, or… yeah, Mandy actually had no clue what any of them were doing. She might've felt a bit peeved that becoming a boat didn't grant her an instant understanding of everything to do with how a boat was supposed to work, but on the other hand, she also didn't actually want a load of trivia about knots and ropes and… stuff just shoved into her head.

Bypassing the hard-at-work soldiers, Mandy took another set of stairs in the middle of the deck and descended further, disappearing into the ship's interior. She hadn’t been lying to the captain; she did plan to make strides in dispelling some (but not all) of the crew’s fear of her over the course of the trip, but there was one crew member in particular that she had pegged as the perfect place to start building a foundation from. She just needed to wait for the right opportunity, and as luck would have it, one such opportunity she’d been keeping an eye out for had just presented itself.

Down in the… she wasn't sure what that room was called, either; it was probably for eating, if she had to guess, because of the squat and sturdy benches, and the way it was placed adjacent to the surprisingly well-stocked kitchen she had. Either way, that was where many of the crew who weren't using their free time to sleep were currently gathered, including the group of four who she had seen urging Chase to spy on Captain Vittorio and Brother Eugene’s discussion earlier. They had pulled up at one of the bench tables and were preparing to play some kind of card game, and even now they were trying to pester Chase into joining them.

“Chase, pal, c’mon,” said the one who seemed to be the ringleader, a tall man with sandy-blond hair, a thick neck, and ridiculously broad shoulders. His companions; a woman with a close cropped mess of curly black hair, a shorter man with a mustache bushy enough to obscure most of his mouth, and a brown-haired man with a narrow face, had also been pelting their fellow soldier with a half-dozen other combinations of the words “Pal” and “C’mon” for the past minute as well.

“I-I don't know, Beckert…” Chase mumbled, tugging at the neck of his uniform, the only one amongst the group of off-duty sailors that was still buttoned up. Mandy didn't know exactly how these “beastkin” were supposed to work, but she was pretty sure Chase’s ears being pulled back that far meant the same thing on him as it meant on her family's dogs. There was no telling if the others were unaware, or simply uncaring, of their meaning.

“Maybe just one?” Chase said hopefully, and Mandy sighed and shook her head.

“Classic mistake,” she said to herself, leaning her back against the wall just outside the… mess hall? That sounded right. “Now they've got you.”

“Sure! Just one quick hand,” the leader, Beckert, lied smoothly, putting on a charming smile and casting each of his compatriots a knowing glance. Mandy had to hand it to him, he knew what he was doing.

“A-alright,” Chase said, rising from the bench he'd been sitting on and taking one of the open spots, beside the black haired woman. Beckert grinned, and began to shuffle the deck of cards he’d produced.

“Alright lads and lasses, you all know the rules, let’s see some sterling on the table,” he said, and his three companions reached into their coats, pulling out several palmfuls of silver coins and stacking them up in front of themselves. Chase nibbled on his lower lip before following suit, producing a small collection of coins and placing them in two neat stacks in front of him. Mandy could now see that there seemed to be two variants of the same coin; the smaller ones, which featured the image of a single spear on one side, and the larger, thicker coins that showed five spears.

“One spear to open,” the large man said, pulling out his own money and placing a single coin in the center of the table. Again, the others all followed along, and Chase spent an extra moment hesitating before doing the same.

What happened next was so predictable that Mandy could have bet on it, if she had any money herself. The cards were dealt out, and though the suits were unrecognizable (roses, crows, blades, and bolts), and there seemed to be five face cards instead of three (thief, knight, duke, empress, and goddess), it resembled poker close enough that she could still follow what was happening. The players studied their hands, and Mandy studied the players. Chase’s face remained impassive as he looked at his cards, but one of his ears twitched. When it was his turn, he discarded two cards that didn’t match the suit of the other three he held, and got back two that did. If Mandy couldn’t already guess that was good, the fact that Chase’s tail started to twitch behind him would’ve tipped her off.

“Three spears,” Chase said, his tone casual and his face flat, while behind him his tail waved like a big, stupid, fluffy flag, and Mandy slapped a hand to her forehead.

Of course, the others all folded quickly, and a new hand began, with the others congratulating him for the win and, of course, encouraging him to go just once more. Which, of course, he agreed to.

Mandy could only watch with growing disbelief as the group of four read Chase like the open book he was, folding whenever his tail gave away how good his hand was, and calling his every bluff, slowly and steadily shrinking the pile of coins in front of him. It was only when he was down to his last large coin, (or “volley” as the sailors called them), and his ears were almost perpetually drooping, that Mandy finally moved to the doorway and stepped into the mess hall.

“I think I should… oh, uh, good afternoon, Lady Scarlett!” Chase, who had already begun to stand up, jumped to his feet and shot her another chest pounding salute, both his ears and tail standing at attention with him. The others simply turned in their seats to observe her curiously.

“Chase, please, sit down, I was just passing through,” Mandy said with a casual wave of her hand, approaching the bench and putting on a wide smile. “Oh, are you five in the middle of a game?”

“Aye, that we are, my lady,” Beckert said, seeming a little thrown off by her presence. His companions glanced to him for direction, and after a split second, he seemed to come to a decision, and gave her his most charming smile. “I don’t suppose you know how to play ‘ambition,’ do you?”

“I can’t say that I do,” Mandy said, shaking her head while maintaining her smile. “Would you be willing to teach me?”

“Certainly!” Beckert said, and Mandy stepped closer to the bench, taking the space between Chase and the other woman. “Though, you’ll have to promise not to use any of your godly powers to cheat or anything,” he said with a chuckle while he shuffled the deck.

Oh, the nerve of this guy! Mandy smiled back at him, wide and bright, and brought up a hand to giggle into it. Damn, she wondered if she could conjure up one of those little folding fans for herself, that would really enhance some of her moves.

“Oh, please,” she said, waving her other hand in the air. “I may be an aspect of the goddess, but I’m hardly omniscient. But, if it would make you feel better…” Mandy held her hand up, palm out, then placed it over her heart. “I swear, by the goddess herself, that I will use only the abilities of my mortal body to play this game.”

Beckert put on a show of thinking it over, but she could tell from the greedy gleam in his eyes that he had swallowed her innocent, naive noble act, hook, line, and sinker. As far as she was concerned, anyone who bought a story like that from her deserved what was coming next.

“Y’sure about this, Beck?” the woman, whose name Mandy had picked up from conversation was Marit, asked with a hint of worry.

“‘Course I am, Mare,” Beckert said, grinning, and Mandy even saw him prod the woman’s leg beneath the table. “She’s new to the mortal realm, what’s the harm in showin’ her a little fun?”

“Yeah, we’re happy to have ya, Lady Scarlett,” the short man with the moustache, who the others called Vester, piped up, elbowing the taller man with the thin face. “Me an’ Hugo will even go easy on ya!”

They all laughed, and Mandy laughed along, before turning to Chase, the only one who wasn’t laughing. “Oh, but I am afraid I don’t have any coin of my own to play with,” she said, reaching over and tapping the last large silver coin he had left in front of him. “Chase, would you mind if I borrowed this? I’ll pay it back, I promise!”

Of course, she knew that whether or not he did mind, he probably wouldn’t stop her if she simply scooped up the coin, which she did, all while he struggled to get his tongue to work. Turning to Marit, she held up the coin.

“Could you break this down for me?” she asked sweetly, and the other woman shrugged, taking the coin and handing her four of the smaller coins.

Hold on… one volley is only worth four spears? Then why the fuck are there five spears in the picture? Who designed these coins?

Hiding her consternation, Mandy laid out the four coins in front of her and turned to grin up at Chase, who seemed to have given up on answering her and just sat beside her quietly with his ears hanging low and his tail brushing the floor.

It seemed like even he thought she was doomed to lose that money just as fast as he was.

Excellent.

“All set?” Beckert asked, and Mandy smiled and nodded. “Good. Now, listen up. I’ll go over the rules once, then we can play a few practice hands.”

“Wonderful,” Mandy said, clapping her hands once and settling in to listen as the rules she had already mostly grasped were laid out in front of her. It was, as she suspected, basically a form of poker, with players making sets out of five card hands, being able to discard as many as they wanted once before their final bets. As usual, certain hands were worth more than others, and it seemed mostly straightforward. The only thing Mandy would have to keep in mind were that some specific hands had deceptively higher values than it seemed like they should, based on special and, in some cases, completely arcane circumstances, like three thieves being able to beat three knights if either hand had the moon card in it, unless one of the knights was the knight of bolts. It sounded stupid, and complicated to keep straight, but it wasn’t like she was playing for fun.

Just like Beckert, Mandy preferred to only gamble when she knew she was going to win.

The practice hand commenced, and Mandy received her five cards. She didn’t spend too long looking at them, nor did she let Chase catch even a glimpse of them, not that it mattered. Either way, the others let her win most of the practice hands, as expected, and then the real game began.

Over the course of the next hour, Mandy proceeded to collect back not just the coins that Chase had lost, but also take a significant bite out of all four of the other players’ fortunes, all while never breaking “character.” She continued to furrow her brow and look mildly confused hand after hand, sometimes even asking aloud for Beckert or one of the others to repeat part of the rules, and lost just enough hands to make her wins seem like pure luck, but would always come back again whenever one of the sailors dared to get cocky and raise with a hand they presumed to be a guaranteed winner, only for her to reveal something that beat it flat out.

Between her ability to see literally all the cards in play, and being able to control her projected body well enough that any tells she might show were purely fabricated, it was like taking candy from a bunch of babies.

“I can see why you mortals enjoy this game so much,” Mandy said after the last hand, in which she’d bluffed Beckert into folding a ridiculously good hand while holding absolutely nothing of value in her own. She added the pot to the small wall of coins she had amassed while giggling. “It’s so fun!”

“Mmh… aye, that it is…” Beckert said, not even bothering to hide how sullen he was about how much he’d lost. His hands even appeared to be shaking as he started to shuffle the deck again. “Another hand, then?”

“Mmmh, I think I ought to get back to work now, actually,” Mandy said with a polite smile, rising up from the bench, and Beckert’s hands slipped, causing the deck to spill out onto the table. The other three let out equally desperate cries of “No!” and “Wait!” but she ignored them completely as she scooped their coins into her, apparently, very real and very solid pockets.

“Oh, and before I forget,” she said, turning to Chase and holding out two of the larger silver coins. “Thank you for loaning me the money, Chase, here you go. You hold onto that now.”

With that, she turned, and practically floated out of the room while humming a cheerful tune, leaving behind four baffled and likely furious soldiers, and one significantly less-downtrodden dog boy. Retreating to the captain's quarters, thankfully still bereft of Brother Eugene, she put her hands on her hips and let out a sigh.

“Ah… it feels nice to do a good deed every now and then,” she said, chuckling and reaching into her pockets for one of the silver coins, giving it a quick flip and catching it out of the air. “Though, I have no idea what I’m gonna do with all this… can I even…”

Experimentally, she let her projection flicker out.

A large pile of silver coins hung suspended in the air for a split second, before they all clattered to the floor of the ship like a load of dropped silverware, landing in a messy heap.

Right… okay, well, let’s pick those up and then find someplace to store them…

■ ■ ■ ■

Chad sat with his back to the cell bars, brooding and seething, and listened to Ruby’s aimless account of this so-called Empire. He had to admit, it did blow a lot of his expectations out of the water. For starters, the big bad guy in charge was actually a big bad lady; the Empress, and if Ruby’s explanation was accurate, she was immortal, and had been the head honcho for the past six hundred years or so. Chad had his doubts about how true that was, suspecting there could be any number of propaganda and tricks at play to just make it seem like the same lady had been around for six centuries, but he also wasn’t ready to discount it entirely.

He was stuck in a dungeon, listening to a demon, after all.

As he’d already gotten a glimpse of earlier, the Empire wasn’t fond of basically anyone who wasn’t human, since they believed their Empress and her family were descended from a “Goddess of Love and War,” who liked humans more than anyone else. That, especially, set off Chad’s bullshit meter, though whether he thought it was bullshit, or just hoped it was bullshit, he couldn’t say. Predictably, in a world brimming with loads of other races that weren’t humans, the nation that tried to claim humans were the best didn’t have many allies. They somehow had positive relations with several major elven families despite their apparent beliefs about elves, and also what sounded like a more practical, arms-length trade relationship with some other nation called “Yuusha.”

The fact that they didn’t just have zero allies was disappointing, but not that surprising.

Either way, this still meant that the Empire was in a constant state of expansion and low-level conflict. Which, in turn, meant they had poured loads of time and resources into developing their navy and military into a force to be reckoned with, and were constantly searching for new avenues to even greater power, like undiscovered forms of magic, experimental alchemy, or…

“Demons,” Ruby said, pausing to catch her breath for a moment, lowering her head and looking down at her own hands, fidgeting in her lap. “If you believe the talk, the Empire are actually the ones who first rediscovered the ancient records that pointed to the existence of demons, and first learned how to summon them, though the techniques have since been leaked to the wider world.” She paused, holding one of her four-fingered hands up over her head, turning it slowly, examining it.

“Demons are, more than any other living creature, beings of mana. We’re summoned from the Abyss, a plane made entirely of pure mana, a… chaotic, shitty place where nothing is concrete, and just maintaining the same physical form takes constant concentration. Losing that concentration means… losing yourself, melting back into the ambient mana and coming back different, as someone different, with different memories, or no memories at all. Except for one, the one memory all demons share, no matter how freshly spawned they are; the memory that the mortal plane exists, and you want to go back to it, you must go back to it.”

“Geez…” Chad said. It was the first thing he’d said in almost ten minutes, and it caused Ruby to jump slightly and turn to look at him.

“Eh, sorry,” he said, waving his hand. “Go on, talk about, uh…” He held up the hand he’d been waving, his right hand, and the unsettlingly-easy-to-forget shackle that hugged his wrist, tapping it with a finger.

Ruby continued to stare at him for a moment, then sighed, turning her body so she was sitting facing him.

“It’s called a tether, or sometimes an anchor,” Ruby said, holding up one of her own arms and tracing one of her shackles with a finger. “All demons have them, and they help us maintain a foothold here in the mortal plane. They also… allow you to establish a pact with a mortal.”

“Like a contract?” Chad asked, since it seemed like they were just giving up the notion of not having her talk to him directly and not having him reveal the true depths of his ignorance to her.

“Under… ideal circumstances, yes,” Ruby said, turning her head to the side. “When done correctly, forming a pact with a mortal benefits both sides equally. The warlock gets increased power, and an overly abundant source of mana, as long as they keep us fed, and we gain an even firmer hold on the mortal plane, and more fine control over our own magic. And, you know, a partner. Someone to watch our backs, who actually has a vested interest in our wellbeing.”

“That sounds… better, I guess,” Chad said hesitantly. It was clear from the somewhat wistful look in Ruby’s eyes that she would have liked nothing more than to have a pact like that, but to Chad it didn’t sound like anything more than unnecessarily tying himself to someone else, to have to depend on them instead of just getting by with his own two fists.

Just like a man ought to, the voice of his father chimed in his head, and Chad scowled inwardly.

“I’m guessing the Empire found a way to fuck that up, huh?” Chad asked sourly, motioning towards the quartet of shackles on Ruby’s wrists and ankles.

“Exactly,” Ruby said with a bitter chuckle. “Ordinarily, the only way a pact can be established is by the demon initiating it. There’s no way for a mage to force the process to start from the other end, meaning only when the demon chooses to offer it can the pact be formed. Any attempt to use violence or torture to coerce a demon to do something they don’t want to would just result in the demon’s body giving out and dissolving back into mana, and their spirit returning to the Abyss. You can’t even reliably imprison a demon because they can just burn up all their mana and dissolve themselves, like what you nearly did.”

Chad found himself sitting up straight as Ruby went on, and despite his own inner heat staving off the dungeon’s chill, he felt goosebumps start to rise on his skin. He was pretty sure he already knew where this was going, and though he would have liked to be wrong for once, he wasn’t holding out hope for it.

“They figured out a way around that, huh?” he asked, and Ruby cocked her head at him, all three eyes narrowing slightly.

“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Yeah, they did. Don’t ask me how, I still don’t know anything about mortal magic, but they… did something to the summoning ritual, adding some kind of barrier to it. Once they bring a demon over, they can activate it, and it acts like another tether, keeping you anchored to this plane, and then they just… wait.” Ruby’s head lowered, her shoulders sagging, and she stared down at her hands again. “You can throw everything you have at the barrier, and it won’t ever budge, in fact they probably hope you do exactly that, because it means it’ll be over quicker.” Slowly, her hands curled into fists, and her breathing became heavier. “Because as long as they keep that ritual powered, you can’t escape back to the Abyss. It feeds you mana from the outside, but only a tiny trickle, so once you do use up the last of your reserves, and the hunger pains kick in, there’s nothing you can do but writhe in agony until the mage comes and offers you a deal: establish a pact, with as many rules and stipulations as they want, and they’ll let you out. Refuse, and you get to see which runs out first; your resolve, or your summoner’s funds…”

Ruby trailed off, and Chad got the implication. He imagined anyone willing to do… that would not go into it unprepared to spend as much as it took to get their hands on a demon. He didn’t have the first clue how expensive it might be to perform a “ritual” like that, but he imagined the value was less than that of acquiring a powerful magic servant that literally couldn’t disobey orders.

“God damn, that's… that's fucked,” Chad said, again feeling like he was vastly underselling it. “Is that why you've got all those…”

Ruby let out a subdued laugh and held up her arm again.

“That's right. Just like the rest of our bodies, our tethers are made partially of pure mana, so their forms are malleable and respond to our emotions,” she explained, shaking her wrist back and forth. “The more restrictive the pact, the more trapped you feel, the more they resemble fetters and bonds. I've heard from demons who got summoned outside the Empire, with more fair pacts, that theirs took the forms of rings or bracelets or necklaces.”

“Huh…” Chad looked down at the shackle clamped around his own wrist. However he'd ended up here, he hadn't been summoned, and he definitely hadn't made a pact, so was this just the default look? Or had its form been chosen for him? He didn't think Ruby could answer that one for him. She said it could change based on how he felt, so could he just… feel his way to something less…

“Wait,” Chad said, lifting his head and raising his eyebrows. “Did you say your bodies are malleable?”

“Hmm? Yeah?” Ruby shook her head. “It's not instant, we're not like mimics, but we are capable of shape-shifting, up to a point.” A small smile appeared on her face. “It’s actually one of the best parts of being in the mortal realm, if you ask me; being in control of your form, without having to worry about it changing on you when you’re not looking. It can be hard to explain to non-demons what it means to not take solidity for granted. Even after… everything that’s happened, not having to worry about coming apart in your sleep can sometimes feel like the one spot of light in a very dark cave.”

Chad wasn’t so sure about that, but then again, technically he was a non-demon, he just happened to look like one, and he had no clue just how bad this Abyss place was. For it to be so bad that the alternative—being magically tortured into a one sided contract—was somehow preferable made Chad all the more eager to never experience it for himself. There was just one thing he still needed to know.

“So, how do we do it? Shape-shift, I mean,” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. He must not have done a very good job, because Ruby’s smile widened at him.

“You just need to hold a clear vision in your head of the changes you want to make, then focus and try to feed your mana into it. It takes time, of course, and you have to hold that clear vision of the form you want in your mind over the course of however many days or weeks it takes, but it should come intuitively, once you start.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Chad said with a relieved sigh, kicking one of his legs out. “I can get rid of these stupid fuckin’ hooves, for starters.”

Ruby actually let out a small chuckle at that, before her smile disappeared and she frowned again.

“Not before the archbishop arrives, you can't, and even if you could, whoever ends up becoming your warlock will probably make you grow them back,” she said, and Chad narrowed his eyes at her.

“What?” he asked, and she held up one of her four-fingered hands.

“Well, if your pact holder is anything like the archbishop, they’ll order you to make yourself look a certain way, less… human, and more exotic,” she said, wiggling her fingers and flapping her little wings. “It varies from warlock to warlock, some of them want their demons to look hideous and terrifying, some of them want a creature of ‘uncanny beauty.’ The archbishop, he wanted a mix of both, I think.” She scoffed, and brought a hand up, very blatantly and obviously grabbing her chest with one hand. “That’s the only reason I can imagine he wanted me to have these.”

The outraged outburst that Chad had been building up to at the mention of him ending up with a warlock whether he wanted one or not died in his throat as he fully processed what she’d said, and he jerked back so suddenly his head struck the bars behind him, letting off a sound like a dull gong.

“You… you mean you’re… not a woman?” Chad asked, and Ruby’s brows furrowed.

“That’s what gets you worked up?” she… he… they asked, scoffing incredulously. “We’re demons. We don’t really come with genders the way mortals do, and living in the Abyss, where there’s a chance you could fall asleep looking one way and wake up looking another, you learn to not get too attached to anything. Sure, I’m a woman, for now. If that evil bastard ever dies and I get out of my pact, I might decide to be something else. It’s not like it really matters one way or the other, does it?” Ruby capped off her speech, crossing her arms and shrugging.

Chad felt numb, felt his heart rate speeding up again. A dozen responses came to him, a dozen nasty, hurtful, snide comments, all in the voice of his father, repeating things he’d heard ad nauseam for the better part of the last decade of his youth. He had to bite down on his tongue to stop one of them from jumping out, and was pretty sure he drew blood.

Shooting to his feet, er, hooves, Chad paced away from Ruby with a mixture of a growl and a sigh, one hand held to the side of his head.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” he finally said, turning back around. “I am not fuckin’ getting magically enslaved, I am not gonna become some shit wizard’s magic battery, and I am not turning into a fuckin’…” he trailed off, turning away again just as quickly, clenching his hand into a fist and slamming it into the rough stone wall of the cell. Ruby didn’t answer, and for several long moments, the only sound in the dungeon was his own heavy breathing.

Then, as if on cue, a distant rattle of metal and creak of hinges sounded from somewhere Chad couldn’t see. Turning around, Chad stared at the corridor outside his cell, listening as the sounds of footsteps accompanied by a rhythmic wooden tapping grew louder and louder, until a man in red and white robes with a staff—no, not a staff, the decorated metal top came to a sharp point, making it more like a short spear—rounded the corner and approached the door of the cell.

He was middle-aged, or maybe even older, with pale-blond hair combed back sharply. A pair of spectacles rested on his nose, and he peered in at Chad with tired, half-lidded grey eyes and a pleasant, fatherly smile.

Well, no, not fatherly; Chad could count on one hand the times he'd seen his father smile, so maybe more like an uncle-y smile.

“Ah, I see our guest is awake, and making itself at home,” the man said, his voice deep but subdued. “Has it volunteered anything useful, Ruby?”

Ruby, who had also risen to her feet at the sound of the man's approach, glanced over her shoulder at Chad before shaking her head.

“No, my lord, nothing useful,” Ruby said, and Chad saw her clenching and unclenching one of her hands behind her back. “He seems very confused, and I've determined he is most likely recently reconstituted, and hasn't gained back many memories.”

“Mmh, I see,” the archbishop said, stroking his chin with his free hand. Chad saw that he had three rings on his index, middle, and ring finger, featuring three ostentatiously large gemstones; a ruby, an emerald, and a sapphire.

“Well then, demon,” he continued, lifting the ornate, gold-topped spear he held and tapping the floor twice. “I don't suppose you're feeling cooperative enough to tell me which fool summoned you and let you escape, hmm?”

Arching an eyebrow, Chad stepped forward, passing Ruby on his way to the bars. The archbishop’s expression didn't change as he approached, but he did tilt his chin up, peering down his nose at Chad. When there was only two feet of space between them, separated only by thick iron bars, Chad took a deep breath and leaned forward.

“Suck my dick, dude,” he said, then spat a glob of spit straight towards the man's face. The shimmering wall of blue light appeared again, intercepting the shot, and the glob splashed against its surface. It hung there in the air, sliding down the magic barrier before it winked back out, then fell to the floor.

“Charming,” the archbishop said, chuckling through his nose and smirking. “Thank you, Ruby.”

“You’re welcome, my lord.”

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter who summoned you, does it? They’re most likely slain by now; such is the fate of anyone foolish enough to underestimate a demon. Thankfully, I am more than well-versed enough in the ways of your foul kind to know how to deal with you.” The archbishop reached deep into the folds of his robes, pulling out a pair of manacles made of a matte, jet-black metal. He tossed them dismissively through the bars, where they sailed past Chad and landed with a clink on the stone floor.

“Ruby,” he said simply, and Chad turned around, finding the woman stooping to pick up the cuffs. “Restrain it. If it does choose to put up a fight, try not to let it injure you too badly; I don’t feel like paying to have you healed again.”

“Oh, you fucking bastard…” Chad hissed through his teeth. Ruby looked at him ruefully, and held up the manacles by the chain that connected them.

“So, how—”

“Shut up!” Chad snapped, turning his head and glaring daggers at the archbishop over his shoulder, who was simply watching with the same not-quite-paternal smile. He could think of a hundred different ways he could insult this guy, a thousand different ways to tell him exactly what he’d do if those bars weren’t in the way, but in the end, he knew it wasn’t worth it. As much as he wanted to explode like usual, reason won out for once. He was in a hopeless, helpless situation, and nothing he could do from inside this cell could change that.

Chad stepped forward, and when Ruby raised her free hand, he scowled.

“I’m not gonna fuckin’ fight you,” he said, raising his arms and holding his wrists out. Sure, he might have, when he first woke up and before he found out she had basically no choice in the matter, but now the thought made him feel sick.

Ruby eyed him warily, and approached slowly, but when he made no move to stop her, she lifted the manacles open and encircled his wrists, struggling for a moment to find space with the large shackle that was already around his right wrist, before closing them and locking them in place with a series of clicks. Almost immediately, Chad could feel that there was something odd, something off about them, and when he experimentally tried to summon up the fire he’d thrown around so effortlessly before, nothing happened except for a feeling of pressure behind his forehead.

“Don’t,” Ruby said quietly as she checked the fit of the cuffs, her eyes downcast. “They’re adamantite. Anti-magic.”

“Psh,” Chad scoffed, rolling his eyes and tugging at the chain once, testing its limits. “Of course they are.”

“We haven’t got all day, Ruby,” the archbishop interjected, and Ruby winced, stepping back.

“He… it is secure, my lord,” she said, folding her hands in front of her and bowing her head.

“Excellent.” With a rattle of keys, the cell door was unlocked, and Chad turned around to glower at the man as he pulled the door open. “Come along.”

“Fuck you,” Chad grumbled, lifting his hooves and stepping out into the dungeon corridor. The archbishop turned his back to him, and Chad felt every muscle in his body tense, the urge to tackle the man almost overwhelming, but Ruby’s hand fell onto his shoulder. She caught his eye and wordlessly shook her head, and Chad sighed through his nose. He started to follow the archbishop down the corridor, but paused to cast one last glance into the adjacent cell.

Red eyes stared back at him through a curtain of white hair, and Chad clenched his fists, making a silent vow as he turned and continued towards the corner where the blond man waited. Rounding it, Chad nearly jumped out of his skin as a dark shape detached itself from the walls, resolving into the form of another demon, standing with her arms crossed. She was huge, easily as tall as Zangari had been, and nearly as muscular. Her skin was a bright, brilliant green and her hair was black, cut short and messy like it had been roughly chopped with hedge clippers. She had three horns, two smaller ones beside a larger central horn that spiraled like a drill, and below that, only a single large green eye that was narrowed suspiciously in Chad’s direction.

Like Ruby, this demon wore heavy cuffs on both of her wrists and ankles, and a thick collar around her neck, but Chad also spied a large ring running through the middle of her nose as she glowered down at him and sniffed.

“So he came quietly, huh?” she rumbled, and Chad noticed a tail similar to his lashing behind her back, except much thicker, and topped with a mace-like ball covered in thick boney spikes. “Tsh, disappointing…”

Ah. So that’s why Ruby had stopped him. Chad was not used to encountering more than one person every so often that he didn’t think he could take, but it seemed like this world had no shortage of people he was certain could flatten him like a pancake.

“It seems that way, but do not let your guard down,” the archbishop said without bothering to look back. “It has quite the fiery disposition, much the same as you. I would not be surprised if it attempts something on the way to the ritual chamber.”

“I’m right here, y’know,” Chad said, and the man chuckled.

“And I suppose you’d like me to believe you’ve been completely subdued, hmm?” the archbishop asked over his shoulder.

“Maybe Ruby talked it into submission,” the larger demon said with a smirk, having moved to flank Chad on his right side, opposite Ruby on his left, who lowered her head at the remark.

“Be nice to your sister, Emerald,” the archbishop admonished, and her smirk melted back into the same scowl she wore when she appeared.

Chad felt a shiver chase itself down his spine at that, continuing all the way to the tip of his tail. He couldn’t let himself start to panic, he needed to think of a way out of this, but how far could he make it if he couldn’t even throw fire around anymore.

The path the archbishop took led them past more offshoot hallways with more dark, dank cells, and several small rooms sealed with sturdy metal doors, all the while climbing higher and higher up several small stone staircases, until they emerged from one cramped corridor, through a wooden door with thick metal bands, into the wide open, cavernous room. It was a church, that much was obvious from the decor alone; rows of wooden benches all facing a raised dais, rows of towering stained glass windows depicting what Chad assumed were important scenes in the canon of the Empire’s goddess, and two enormous candelabras hanging overhead. The only thing it was missing was a huge pipe organ behind the podium, but instead that space was taken up by—

Chad stopped dead in his tracks to stare at the towering statue that dominated the back wall of the church.

It was a woman, that much was immediately obvious, standing proudly and completely nude with one arm raised in front of her, gigantic sword in hand, pointing straight towards whatever she was supposed to be looking at with that fierce, determined grin. To either side of her were two other figures, short compared to her looming stature, but obviously meant to be two humans, standing shoulder to hip to shoulder with the goddess between them and the hands meeting in the middle, clasped together. Behind the trio in the front, there was a gaggle of other figures, carved to be shorter than the humans, and Chad could see the pointed ears of what he assumed were elves, and the short, squat proportions of dwarves, as well as others he couldn’t begin to guess at. Lastly, as his eyes finished traveling down the length of the statue, he noticed a final figure, hunched over on its knees with its hands clasped in front of it as if begging for forgiveness, and the goddess’ foot on its back. The only discernible features Chad could make out on the final figure were large, pointed ears like that of a cat or dog, and a furred tail.

“What the fuck, man…” Chad said in daze at what was, perhaps, the least subtle thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

“I see even a creature like you can appreciate the majesty of the goddess.” Chad turned at the sound of the archbishop’s smug voice, giving him an incredulous stare. His hopes for finding anyone normal in this entire country were plummeting fast, if its people could look at this thing on a regular basis and not figure out they were the bad guys. Not only that, but there was also something eerily familiar about the goddess herself, something about her face, her hair, that tickled Chad’s brain and told him he should recognize them. Then, of course, there was the fact that it was naked…

“Yeah, it’s a real fuckin’ feast for the eyes in here,” Chad snapped, tearing his eyes away from the statue again and gritting his teeth.

Something seemed to amuse the archbishop, because he chuckled once before he resumed leading the trio of demons through the church. Now that he wasn’t ogling—staring at the statue, Chad could see other people milling about throughout the expansive space; more people in uniform red robes, as well as patrons who were obviously there to worship, all of whom watched their little procession with open contempt.

Slipping through some curtains behind the obnoxiously gaudy statue, the group entered the inner workings of the church. More corridors and more stairs finally led to an expansive room that looked like a combination library and laboratory. Bookshelves lined two of the walls, and long tables topped with glass and copper instruments took up another, and in the center, a large perfectly circular ring of dark metal had been set into the wooden floor.

There was also another demon in here, sitting on a stool and reading a book. Her skin was pale blue, and her hair was so blond it was almost white, done up into fluffy pigtails. Unlike the other two, she didn’t look particularly “demonic;” she had two eyes and five fingers, and her ears were only slightly pointed. When she looked up with a smile, Chad could see even her teeth looked mostly normal, except that her canines were particularly prominent. She had horns, but they were tiny, easily missable nubs that started just below her hairline, and when she rose from her seat, the wings that appeared from her back were covered in downy feathers the same pale yellow color as her hair.

“Welcome back, Father!” she exclaimed, performing a little curtsey, spreading her arms and her wings out to her sides and bowing her head low. She had the same combination of cuffs and collar as the other two, except where theirs looked like crude, dull iron, hers appeared to be made of gold, and even had large blue gemstones embedded along their lengths.

“Thank you, Sapphire,” the archbishop said as he reached her, reaching out and indulgently patting the still-bowing demon on the top of her head a few times before continuing past. Chad shuddered again, and out of the corners of his eyes he could see both Ruby and Emerald squirming with discomfort as well.

The blue demon, Sapphire, lifted her head, her blue eyes alighting upon Chad.

“So there was a loose demon running around the city!” Sapphire exclaimed, rushing up to stand inches away from Chad, forcing him to take several steps back while she bounced on her feet and eyed him up and down. “Ooouh, and such a pretty shade of purple, too! Will you make it our new sister, Father? We could call her ‘Amethyst!’”

Chad’s heart rate, which had already been resting at a pretty elevated rate, suddenly skyrocketed, and he snapped.

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“Absolutely fucking not!” he shouted, lifting his cuffed wrists and trying to shove the bizarre girl away with both hands. Her wings flapped once and she lifted off the ground, floating out of the way of his swing like a balloon on an air current, giggling all the while. It took one of Emerald’s slab-like hands latching on his shoulder to stop him from chasing after her and trying to wring her neck.

“Settle down, Sapphire,” the archbishop said, his back still turned to the commotion, the majority of his attention set on searching the work table for something. “We’ll still need to discover who summoned it and how, and there may be more benefit in auctioning it to an aspirant state warlock whose family could not afford to summon a demon of their own, but…” The man picked up a leather satchel, opening it and taking a sniff of its contents, before turning his head to glance dismissively over his shoulder at Chad. “Well, we will see.”

“You just try, I’ll fucking kill you!” Chad roared, pulling against Emerald’s iron grip, the green-skinned demon now using both hands to hold him back while he dug his hooves into the carpet and thrashed his tail.

The archbishop took in a breath through his nose and let out a long suffering sigh, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“And some people wonder if your kind truly are dangerous… Would that I had a heart half as kind and naive as theirs,” the archbishop said, turning around and raising his spear, tapping it on the ground once. “Emerald, reprimand it, then place it in the circle.”

Chad heard Emerald ‘tsk’ through her teeth, and then he was spun around with such force he felt dizzy, coming face to face with her dour expression. Her eyes softened, as if to say “Sorry,” before she drew back one of her brick-sized fists and slammed it ruthlessly into his gut.

Chad doubled over in pain, and it was only Emerald’s grip on his shoulder that kept him from collapsing. He coughed and gagged, and was surprised he didn’t toss up the hunks of rat meat he’d eaten earlier. Still dazed, he felt his hooves leave the ground, and the next thing he knew he was on his side on the smooth wooden floor, the black ring and the room beyond dissolving into fuzzy outlines as hot tears filled his vision. He wanted to curse and shout and swear bloody revenge, but it was hard enough just sucking in enough air to breathe, let alone form words.

A blurry red shape appeared, looming over him, and the archbishop’s voice reached his ringing ears.

“Poor, wretched creature,” the man said sadly, kneeling over him. “I assure you, the pain you’re feeling now is but a prologue to what you will experience next. Unless, that is, you make the wise decision, and offer me your contract now…”

The blurry shape moved, and Chad’s vision cleared enough to see the man’s hand extended toward him, the same hand which already had three bejeweled rings on it, their facets catching the lamplight and filling his vision with fuzzy colored spots. Three times, at least, that the archbishop had succeeded in binding a demon to him and stripping away their free will. Ruby had said the ritual had a cost to maintain, but even if Chad were somehow able to summon up triple the amount of willpower as literal, actual demons, he doubted that would push the archbishop’s resources to their limits.

So, was this it? He’d been brought to a fantasy world, the kind of world with magic and knights and monsters and demons, a world of endless possibilities and limitless adventure, and he was doomed to end up the magical pet of some slimy old weirdo from an evil empire?

Well, if he was, he still wasn’t going out without a fight.

“Bite… me…” Chad said through painful, wheezing breaths, and the archbishop disapprovingly clicked his tongue, withdrawing his outstretched hand.

“So be it,” he said, turning his head. “Sapphire, fetch the ink and brush, Ruby, the chest of reagents on the second shelf; let us get this over with.”

Chad closed his eyes and laid there, listening to the sounds of the other demons moving about the room, fetching the requested supplies. That was about all he could do at the moment, and he hated that fact more and more with every passing second. Cracking his eyes open again, he found his right arm laying limply in front of him, with the giant obtrusive iron shackle glaring back at him, taunting him.

That’s right… it's still there…

Maybe it always was…

His thoughts were scattered and aimless. The form of the archbishop reappeared, brush and inkpot in hand, and Chad glared up at him defiantly. He stared back with cold indifference, and dipped the brush into the glass jar, leaning down to begin the ritual that would only end with Chad giving up his life, giving up his freedom.

Chad coughed, spitting a glob of bloody saliva onto the floor, and as he stared at it, he felt his mind drawn back to the enormous, ugly statue that he’d seen on his way through the church; The Goddess of Love and War, with her sword pointed towards the horizon, proud, defiant expression on her beautiful face. He wondered, pain drunk and delirious, if he ought to try praying to her for a way out of this.

Fat chance… why would a goddess take prayers from a—

A series of rapid knocks suddenly sounded at the door to the laboratory, and the archbishop froze, a fat blob of ink falling off the tip of the brush into the floor. He lifted his head, looking towards the door, then turned and snapped, “Emerald.”

The larger demon crossed the room to the door, pulling it open a crack to peer at whoever was outside.

“A miss—ah!” Whoever was outside yelped, momentarily thrown off before he composed himself and rattled off his message in full.

“Ah, uh, a missive from the castle has just been delivered, Your Holiness! For your hands only!” the messenger announced, and Chad heard the rustling of papers. The archbishop, who had been kneeling with his back to the door, looking like he might resume the dreaded ritual at any moment, finally stood up and turned around when he heard that.

“Can this not wait?” he asked, irritably.

“N-no, Your Holiness!” the messenger said, and Chad weakly lifted his head. Emerald had opened the door wider, and he could see him now, a scrawny boy wearing one of the more plain red robes of the church attendants. He thrust a folded envelope towards the archbishop as far as he could without actually stepping inside the room.

The archbishop’s shoulders rose and fell, and he reached out and accepted the letter, holding it up and examining the wax seal for a few moments before tossing it onto a small side table and turning back around.

“Very well, thank you page, I shall attend to it just as soon as I am finished here,” the archbishop said, kneeling back down and swirling his brush in the ink again. Emerald tried to close the door on the boy, who squeaked and suddenly jammed himself in the way.

“A-ah, but, Your Holiness!” he protested, face squeezed between the edge of the door and the frame. “I was told you were to respond to its contents immediately!”

Even though he had no idea what was going on, Chad took an almost perverse amount of pleasure in seeing the archbishop’s nostrils flare in anger as he stood back up. Wordlessly, he retrieved the dropped envelope and fished around inside his robes, producing a small knife which he used to break the seal, withdrawing the folded sheet of paper inside, reading it in agitated silence.

Several seconds passed, and Chad’s heart hammered in his chest, until the archbishop asked aloud, “What is the meaning of this? A summons to the castle, now?” Turning his head and fixing the pageboy with a glare, he demanded, “Who delivered this?”

“I-it was one of the city couriers,” the boy answered nervously. “A beastkin with gray wings—”

“Are you a fool, boy?” the archbishop asked with venom in his voice, and Chad saw the boy widen his eyes and take a step back. “A royal missive from a common street courier? And I suppose I am to fly out the door at the drop of a hat on the words of what is likely a forged letter?” The archbishop scoffed, waving his hand in a shooing motion. “Off with you, page. I will verify this letter’s authenticity myself, and then and only then shall I—”

“That will not be necessary,” a new voice announced from behind the now trembling pageboy, and a man decked out in armor stepped out from around the corridor’s corner. He was a knight, a literal knight in shining armor, and Chad didn’t know whether he wanted to cry or throw up.

“I can confirm that that missive comes directly from the castle itself, and I should think one of your eminence would be able to discern the genuine royal seal from a forgery,” the knight continued, moving to take the boy’s place in front of the door, resting a gauntleted hand on one of his shoulders. “The message was dispatched by a winged courier to ensure that it reached you with all due haste, as it pertained to a matter of much urgency.” Chad saw the man’s helmet shift slightly, and was certain he could feel his eyes on him. “I see it has reached Your Holiness with perfect timing; I shall have to commend that lad.”

Tilting his head down to the other boy, he gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, much more quietly, “Go back to your work, page, you have done your duty.”

The boy cast one last nervous glance at the archbishop before giving the knight a grateful nod and turning, bolting out of the corridor as fast as he could.

“Ah,” the archbishop said, stooping down and picking up the envelope he had dropped. “Mmh, yes, upon closer inspection, it does appear that this seal is genuine. You must forgive me, I am a very busy man, and cannot be too careful with these things. I suppose you lead the retinue that is to accompany me to the castle?”

“Of course, Your Holiness,” the knight said, the nod of his head causing his armor to clatter subtly.

“Very well, I shall need a moment to prepare myself. Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, keep our guest company until I—”

“Perhaps,” the knight interjected, raising his voice well over what he needed just to interrupt the archbishop, “Your Holiness could be troubled to read the missive more thoroughly? You have been ordered to present yourself at the castle as promptly as possible, and you are to bring the demon that was captured earlier this morning as well.” The armored man deliberately crossed his arms over his chest. “I presume that pathetic heap sprawled out on the floor there is said demon?”

“That… is correct,” the archbishop answered after a moment of hesitation, and Chad felt relief crash into him like a speeding train. His whole body went slack, like his bones had simply disappeared, and he rolled over onto his back and began to chuckle hoarsely. He could see Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire in the corners of his vision, all exchanging confused glances with each other.

“I’m afraid I had some trouble subduing this one,” the archbishop said. “I will have one of my girls—”

“Your Holiness need not disturb himself.” Chad was starting to lose count of the number of times the knight had cut the archbishop off, and the fact that he was doing it with such superficial politeness made him want to laugh harder. Soft metallic clinking and heavy footfalls accompanied the armored man as he invited himself into the room, and soon he was looming over Chad’s prone form.

“Can you stand, demon?”

“Probably,” Chad said with a cough, and the knight grunted, kneeling down. Chad expected to feel the rough grip of his armored gloves on his shoulders or arms, perhaps to be grabbed by the chain connecting his manacles and hauled to his feet, but instead he was simply offered a hand. It was so… incongruous with almost everything he’d experienced so far, he didn’t want to believe it at first, suspecting a trick, to have the hand pulled out of his grasp when he reached for it. When he did reach out, and the strong hand closed around his own and pulled him, gently, into a sitting position, he was convinced he had to be dreaming.

As he was helped to his hooves, Chad allowed himself to feel a tiny, miniscule amount of appreciation that even this shitty place couldn’t ruin knights for him.

That’s right, knights were always some of my favorites…

He just as quickly buried those thoughts as he tested his balance and made sure he wasn’t about to collapse again. His whole torso still felt like one big bruise, but his head had cleared and he was thinking rationally again. Clearing his throat, he gave the armored man a curt nod.

“Eh, thanks, man,” Chad said casually, and the knight let out a chuckle that echoed in the confines of his helmet.

“I am simply doing as my liege instructed,” the knight said, and his tone was much softer than when he’d been repeatedly rebuking the archbishop. Turning his head, he found the blond man where he’d left him by the door, and called, “A carriage awaits your earliest convenience, Your Holiness. We will meet you outside.”

Saying this, the knight took hold of Chad’s upper arm and led him towards the door, and for a split second, it looked like the archbishop would refuse to move out of their way, but the armored man didn’t slow down in the slightest, forcing him to stand aside or be bowled over. Before Chad and his… savior had even rounded the corner, he heard the door to the archbishop’s laboratory slam shut.

Once they were alone in the corridors, the knight stopped pulling him so quickly, but did not remove his hand from his arm.

“You’re not just some regular city guard, are you?” Chad asked, not wanting to let the silence linger now that he had another friendly, or at least non-openly-hostile, person to talk to. “You said ‘my liege’ back there.”

“Correct,” the knight said quietly, his voice still amplified by the tight confines of his helmet. Up this close, Chad could almost make out the face of the man behind the visor as he looked at him. “We cannot speak here. Things will become clear once we reach the castle.”

Well that was… ominous as hell. Some of the dread that Chad had left behind was starting to seep back in now, and he found himself wondering if he hadn’t just been snatched from the frying pan to be tossed into the fire. He was on his way to the castle after all, and he couldn’t imagine what anyone there would want with him. But, on the other hand, he wasn’t currently being magically starved to near death in order to coerce a magic contract out of him, so, small blessings.

A frantic rustle of cloth and tapping of wood sounded behind them, and the archbishop stormed around the corner, with Emerald in tow. His face looked slightly red, and he was pulling a heavy cloak over his robes with his free hand.

“Ah, Your Holiness,” the knight said by way of greeting. “I was worried we would’ve had to depart without you and send another carriage.”

Chad couldn’t fully suppress his snort of laughter, and didn’t bother to hide his smirk when the archbishop’s eyes, no longer placid and half-lidded, but baleful and wide open, snapped over to him.

“Mmh, yes, quite,” he said, and that was that.

The four of them wound their way out of the back rooms of the church, returning to the main hall with the goddess’ statue. Chad couldn’t help but cast a quick glance up at it as they shuffled past, but otherwise he remained silent, even in his own mind.

The grand double doors at the entrance of the church were closed, and Chad wondered if they would have to shove one of those enormous, intricately carved slabs of wood out of the way before they could leave, but the knight just altered their course, leading them to a smaller side door, through which they stepped out onto the streets of the city, and Chad took in several deep lungfuls of fresh, non-dungeon-scented air.

If Chad didn’t know better, he would have assumed he was in a different city entirely, as the street he now found himself on looked nothing like the ones he’d spent the better part of the early morning running through. The buildings weren’t all crammed up against one another, for starters, and the streets were cleaner, as were the people who walked them. Predictably, the vast majority were humans, wearing colorful and well tailored outfits, but Chad also got his first actual look at the elves of this world, and they were… not what he expected.

At first, he thought he was looking at more demons, as every elf he spied had skin and hair that ran from one end of the rainbow to the other, and the same long, pointed ears, but the way they were all well-dressed and walking along without the rest of the cityfolk going into a panic solidified his certainty that they were the elves he’d heard about.

He could also still spot the occasional beastkin, but they were almost always in the company of other groups, from the large bull-like types carrying packs and luggage, to armed and armored figures with dog and wolf ears shadowing the more well-to-do humans at a close distance, down to the occasional winged figure soaring overhead.

The knight’s insistent tugging on his arm kept him from stopping and gawking, but he still craned his neck this way and that, momentarily getting caught up in the excitement of all the fantastical people and impressive architecture, now that he actually had an opportunity to take those things in. Even their accommodations were exciting; an actual horse drawn carriage, complete with a quartet of knights on horseback surrounding it, keeping gawkers and onlookers from getting too close.

As they stepped out onto the street, the knight’s head began turning, scanning the skyline above them. Chad wondered if there was some possible danger he was looking out for, when the man raised his other arm high, waving at something across the street. A small figure that had been perched on the awning of an adjacent building detached itself and swooped through the air, landing on the cobblestone—actual cobblestone!—road with a slight woosh of displaced air. He stood up, and Chad saw it was a young boy, much like the page boy from the temple had been, with clothes that looked distinctly hand-me-down, and he had gray feathers sprouting along the length of his arms and between his fluffy gray hair. Large feathery wings folded themselves behind his back, and bare, taloned feet clicked on the pavement as he approached the knight.

“No need to be afraid, boy,” the man said, waving the boy closer and reaching for a pouch at his hip. He withdrew a large, brightly-polished silver coin and held it out to the youth, whose eyes lit up as he snatched it from the man’s hand. “Excellent work, lad. My liege extends his most sincere thanks for your outstanding service.”

“T-thank you, sir knight!” the boy said, the coin vanishing so quickly Chad hadn’t even seen it happen. Dropping into a deep and clumsy bow, he continued, “Give my thanks to your lord as well!”

“I shall,” the knight said with another chuckle that reverberated inside his helmet. “What did you say your name was, lad?”

“Callum, sir!” the boy said, still bent over awkwardly.

“I shall be sure to commend you to your agency, Callum,” the knight said, and the boy’s head shot up, his eyes wide as saucers.

“T-thank you, sir!”

With that, the boy’s wings unfolded and he lifted into the air, rapidly ascending while dodging out of the way of another flying messenger, who squawked angrily at him as they passed each other by.

Beside them, the archbishop let out a completely unsubtle scoff at the display. It was so unnecessary and so petty, Chad couldn’t help but snort, once again drawing the man’s hateful glare back onto him.

The quartet finally approached the carriage, and an elf man in a sharply tailored black suit coat moved to open the door for them. Chad took one look at the interior, then glanced back at Emerald, whose head was already taller than the roof of the carriage even while standing outside of it.

“I don’t think we’re all gonna fit in there,” Chad said, and the archbishop scoffed again.

“Of course we will not,” he said, turning his head and tapping his spear-staff. “Emerald, you will follow.” Saying this and nothing more, the archbishop climbed the short steps up into the carriage.

Chad glanced up at Emerald, who wore a sardonic smirk. “I’ll be fine,” she said quietly, pre-empting his question before he could even ask it.

Sighing, Chad nodded, and grabbed the handle beside the door, ascending the steps into the carriage. The interior was a dark, cherry-red wood, and there were two wide bench seats of well-padded plush red velvet on either end. Chad obviously took the seat opposite the one the archbishop had chosen, as did the knight when he came clattering in. The door closed behind him, leaving the three of them enclosed in the confines of the carriage, with the knight beside him and the archbishop’s slate-gray eyes boring holes in him across the gap. Chad wouldn’t admit it, except maybe under pain of death, but in that moment he pressed himself a little more tightly into the knight’s side, clawing back a sliver of comfort in a situation that still seemed utterly bleak.

Turning his head, Chad stared out the window at the city streets outside to avoid meeting the other man’s gaze, and when a whistle was blown and the carriage started to move, he could almost imagine he was back home, riding in the car with Mandy.

Well, no, not really, Chad thought with a small, bitter chuckle. Mandy doesn’t drive this slowly or this carefully…

Or, rather, didn’t drive. Because Mandy was still on Earth, and he was stuck here in this toilet bowl of a city.

Still, depressing thoughts aside, it was relaxing; the motion of the carriage, the muffled street sounds, watching the buildings roll past. It was a nice distraction from worrying about what awaited him at the castle.

Maybe that’s why the trip felt like it was over before it even began. At some point, the buildings surrounding them thinned out, and then gave way to an open view of the water as the carriage began to pass over a bridge. If the streets outside the church made the lower district streets look shabby in comparison, the area they arrived in on the other side of the bridge made the streets outside the church look like run-down slums. The buildings on approach to the castle were all massive manses of painted wood and expertly carved stone, each one with a gigantic courtyard sectioned off from the streets by towering iron fences.

Chad found himself pressing his nose up against the glass as he strained to see better, completely engrossed in the majesty of his surroundings for perhaps the first time, feeling a bit like a kid again, about to arrive at a fantasy theme park or renaissance fair.

So, of course, the archbishop had to butt in and ruin it.

“Imagining how it would all look set ablaze, demon?”

Closing his eyes, Chad clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow. He was calm now, he was… relatively safe, with the knight beside him who seemed to have a vested interest in keeping an eye on him. He did not need to take the man’s bait and fly off the handle.

“No, actually,” Chad said without turning away from the window. “I’m admiring the architecture.”

The archbishop scoffed again, but seemed to have no further rebuttal, and Chad was able to enjoy what little remained of the ride. Eventually, the carriage passed over a drawbridge and through a gatehouse, and Chad’s excitement and nervousness both redoubled. They were inside the castle courtyard now, and he could see the towering walls curving away into the distance. The carriage came to a stop, and the elven driver appeared outside the window. The door was opened, and Chad nearly tripped over himself getting out.

The courtyard was magnificent. They had stopped just before a central fountain that featured another statue of the Goddess of Love and War, with wide, smoothly paved footpaths woven between immaculately manicured grass lawns. Rose bushes lined the paths, and tall, red-barked trees were arranged in neat rows to provide little pockets of shade. Down one path, Chad could see the beginnings of a garden beyond a row of decorative iron fences. Down another, the work buildings for those that likely lived and worked within the castle directly; stables, and a barracks next door, and large storehouses and a row of what Chad assumed were servant’s housing.

And then there was the castle itself, looming over everything. Like Chad had suspected, it was built so that its back was pressed flush against the sheer cliffside side of the mountain that thrust upwards into the sky, disappearing beyond the cloud cover. Its walls and towers were built out of the same dark stone that the mountain appeared to be made of, their roofs tiled with bright red shingles that were curved and layered over one another like giant scales. There were six towers that Chad could count, forming a hexagon around a central keep, which itself had four inner towers at its corners that connected to the outer towers through shorter walls, like the spokes of a wheel. Smack dab in the center of the keep was a gigantic circular stained glass window, and Chad had no doubt that it overlooked the grand hall. He wondered if that was where they were going, and if he’d get to take a closer look at it once they were there.

Curiously, Chad could also spot dozens of tall, narrow copper rods, like lightning rods, topping not just the towers, but dotted along several of the walls at even intervals. He was… pretty sure that wasn’t how lightning rods were meant to be placed, that you only needed one and it was supposed to go at the highest point. Sure enough, there was a truly gigantic copper pole jutting out of the tallest point of the central tower, but that didn’t explain all the others.

Before Chad could get any more lost in the vistas, the gauntleted hand of the knight closed around his arm and brought him back down to earth… or, wherever the hell this was. Chad turned around and—

“Huh?” he blurted out without thinking, staring wide-eyed.

“Is something the matter?” the young man with curly black hair staring back at him asked, his voice no longer muffled. He had removed his helmet at some point, and now Chad could see that he was not the grizzled older man with years of experience on his lined face that he’d been unconsciously imagining under there, but someone who looked like he could be, at most, in his late twenties. Sure, he still looked a bit rugged, but his cheeks was still smooth, and his eyes were soft, and his—

Jerking back like he’d been struck, Chad yanked himself out of the man’s grasp, bringing his own hand up to rub at the spot he’d been holding.

“I’m fine!” Chad shouted, much too hastily, grinding his teeth and turning away, searching for something, anything else to look at, to wash the man’s appearance from his memory. His eyes settled on the fountain, a few feet away, and he stomped over to it. Compounding his shame and frustration, he was finally able to notice the way his hooves made obnoxiously loud clopping noises against the courtyard stones with every step. Reaching the edge fountain, he stared down into it, seeing his glowing eyes and blue hair and purple skin reflected back at him. Scowling at himself, sucked in a quick breath and then plunging his head beneath the water. He kept it there for a count of two before pulling himself back out with a gasp.

Why the fuck was I staring at him like that?

The question reverberated off the inside of his mind like the beating of a drum as he turned back, finding the young knight, the archbishop, and the rest of the guardsmen who had followed them on horseback staring at him with bewilderment. Emerald, who had been keeping up with the carriage and the horses the entire time on foot and looked like she hadn’t even broken a sweat, was just looking at him curiously.

Obviously sensing an opportunity, the archbishop turned to the young knight.

“I do not think it wise to bring this creature any further into the royal palace. It is clearly more unstable than most demons, and though the anti-magic cuffs will keep it from causing serious harm, safety cannot be guaranteed until it has been bound by a pact. Please, let me—”

“No,” the young man snapped, and without his helmet Chad could see the way his face contorted as he glowered at the man who had to be almost twice his age. It made Chad want to stick his head back into the fountain and hold it there. A second later, the expression vanished, and the knight corrected himself “I mean, Your Holiness need not bestir himself. My liege will be expecting us shortly, yourself and the demon.” Turning and motioning to the other knights, he dismissed half of them, sending them towards the stables with the horses, while sending the other three on ahead.

To Chad’s mild disappointment, they weren’t directed down the path towards the central keep, but instead towards the fenced-in gardens. He supposed he could also get excited about that, if he could fucking focus on anything other than how surprisingly—

“Are you sure you are well, demon?”

The fucking young knight appeared over his shoulder again, and he sidestepped to put distance between them again.

“I’m fine, don’t stand so close,” he growled through clenched teeth. The man arched an eyebrow, clearly confused, but did not press the issue, walking at a more respectable distance as he and Chad and the archbishop walked the smooth stone path.

“Perhaps you begin to see that your kindness is wasted on these creatures,” the archbishop said snidely, walking behind Chad and the knight with Emerald at his side. Chad snarled, jerking his head back to glare at the archbishop, but Emerald caught his eye and gave him a warning look, so he smothered the impulse to turn around and lunge for the man’s throat.

Arriving at the gates to the garden, the guards that had been sent on ahead were waiting, two standing at attention on either side of the gate with the third standing inside holding the gate open. They entered, and the gate was shut behind them. Continuing along the narrower path between rows of flowers and berry bushes, they eventually arrived in a clearing surrounding a small artificial pond, with benches arranged around the edges. There were three figures already waiting there; an elven woman with rosy-pink skin wearing a white and black dress holding a bottle of wine, a man in armor similar in design to the young knight’s holding a parasol, and standing as still as a statue behind the third figure, an older, distinguished-looking blond woman reclining on one of the benches, a book in her lap and a glass of wine in one hand. She was wearing a red silken dress embroidered with shimmering gold thread that looked far too luxurious for just lounging around on a park bench reading and drinking, but Chad supposed that was the whole point of being royalty.

Stopping a good distance from the woman, both the young knight and the archbishop went to one knee, and the knight loudly announced, “Imperial Highness, The First Blossom, Preeminent Spear of the Fulminous Empire, Duchess of Lichtford, Princess Aurelia Ippolita Rosenfeld, I present to you: High Archbishop Hugo Havener, as requested.”

Princess? Is this not the Empress?

The woman did not even look up from the pages of her book. For many, many long seconds, she continued to read in silence, occasionally turning a page or taking a sip from her glass. Every so often, the elven woman leaned down and refilled the woman’s glass without prompting, then went back to standing by. It was, Chad understood, a blatant and obvious display of how much less important any of them were compared to her, and even he knew it would be the worst possible idea to open his mouth and call this lady out on it.

But he so wanted to.

Finally, she spoke.

“Rise,” she commanded, and they did. “Approach, Archbishop Havener, we have matters to discuss. The rest of you are dismissed.”

Huh? That’s it? That’s what they came all this way for?

Obviously, the archbishop was just as confused, clearing his throat as he stepped forward. “Ah, yes, Your Highness. If I may, what of the demon?”

The woman finally turned her head to regard their group at that, her eyes slipping from the archbishop to land on Chad, and he sucked in a breath in sudden surprise.

This woman, whoever she was, could have been Mandy’s mother, or perhaps one of her aunts. Chad had met both, the former several times, the latter only during holidays, but this woman looked uncannily like all of them. She had the same beautiful, naturally well-proportioned face, the same shade of blonde hair with a little bit of a curl to it, and the same frosty blue eyes.

“What of it?” the woman, Princess Aurelia asked, just as quickly dismissing Chad and dropped her gaze back to the pages of the book in her lap.

“I… believe I was requested to bring it here,” the archbishop stated warily.

“I care not what you do with your pets, archbishop. I made no such request,” Princess Aurelia said, taking another sip from her glass, the barest hint of irritation slipping into her voice.

“Apologies, sister,” a new, softer voice announced, another figure emerging from one of the branching paths that led away from the clearing. A younger girl, and another person who could be a dead ringer for a member of Mandy’s family, an older sister perhaps. Her hair was cut in a short, messy bob, and she was dressed much more casually than Princess Aurelia, in a loose white shirt with a half-cape draped over one shoulder, and baggy, flowy pants that were tucked into high black boots. She also had a sword with an intricate basket hilt hanging from her hips, Chad noted with no small amount of interest.

“When I heard you wished to have words with the archbishop, I took the liberty of having him summoned ahead of schedule, so that he might carry out a request for me as well. I heard of the rogue demon he’d recently captured, and requested he deliver it here,” the new girl explained as she stepped further into the circle, giving the reclining princess the tiniest of respectful bows.

The young knight, who up until now had been hovering beside Chad, cleared his throat and stepped forward, now placing himself behind the newcomer.

“Ahem, His Highness, Duke of Cinderfield, First-Class Illuminator, Prince Mylo Placido Rosenfeld,” the knight announced, and Chad did a mental, and then physical, double take.

“Prince?!” he blurted out, and everyone except the seated princess turned to look at him in alarm. “What do you mean prince? You’re a guy?!”

The young… man cocked his head to the side, arching one delicate blond eyebrow.

“Indeed, I am,” he said, an amused smile appearing on his way, way too soft looking face.

“But you’re so—ghlk!” Chad cut himself off, quite literally biting down on his tongue when he realized what he was about to say. Sure, alright, he could admit that the young knight was… ridiculously good-looking, but still in a manly, hard edged kind of way. This newcomer, Prince Mylo, was…

Chad couldn’t even bring himself to think it, and just raised his chained wrists so he could grind his palms into his face while groaning in frustration.

“I don’t care what game you’re playing, Mylo, but play it somewhere else,” Princess Aurelia said flatly, making a shooing motion with her drinking hand.

“P-pardon me, just a moment!” the archbishop protested weakly, turning from the princess to the prince. “Prince Mylo, may I ask why you requested I bring this highly dangerous, unbound demon out of the safe confines of the temple?”

“Because,” Prince Mylo said, taking a few more steps forward, now placing himself, and by extension the knight at his back, between Chad and the archbishop. “I want it for myself.”

What?!

“What?!” Chad shouted out, and was summarily ignored.

“Y-you want it?” the archbishop sputtered, even more thrown off than when the young knight continuously interrupted him. “I… had no idea you’d changed your mind on pursuing the career of a warlock, my prince! S-surely, I can find a more suitable demon for you, one with a better… temperament, this one is—”

“This one is the one I want,” Prince Mylo stated plainly, and Chad’s head spun so much he felt like it was about to fall off his shoulders. Turning his head, the young man looked at Chad out of the corner of his eye. “An unruly temperament simply makes the conquest all the sweeter…”

Ex-fucking-scuse you?!

The comment was so startling, so out of left field even for what Chad had been through, that he couldn’t even manage to choke out a response. Meanwhile, the archbishop, clearly not a man overly used to being so thoroughly denied something he wanted for himself, opened his mouth again.

“But, Your Highness—”

He was interrupted again, this time by a sharp CRACK. In an instant, Princess Aurelia went from reclining on her bench to standing before the stunned older man, balanced on one of her legs while the other shot straight up into the air, like a clock striking six. A split second passed, and the princess’ heel came crashing down onto the archbishop’s head like a falling star, driving him into the pavement. The trees and bushes around them rustled from the force of the impact.

And she hadn’t even set down her glass of wine.

“Archbishop Havener.” Princess Aurelia spoke with complete calm, like she hadn’t just teleported from her bench and heel-dropped a man into the ground. “I think you may need to be reminded of a fact crucial to your station. You may speak the goddess’s words, but myself and Prince Mylo are the goddess’s blood. Our word is her word, and that counts for my brother as well, soft-hearted disappointment that he is. If he says he wants that demon”—she pointed lazily with the hand holding her wine glass at Chad, and he felt every hair on his body stand on end—“he will have it. If he says he wants that demon”—her arm shifted, and she pointed at Emerald now—“he’ll have it as well. Is there any part of this arrangement that is unclear to you, Archbishop Havener?”

The whole time she spoke, she continuously ground the heel of her slipper into the downed man’s cheek. Chad wasn’t even sure he was still alive, until he let out a pained groan, coughing a mouthful of blood onto the stones beneath him.

“No… Your Highness…” the archbishop croaked, and Princess Aurelia removed her heel from his face.

“Wonderful,” she said, raising her glass and taking a long, deep drag from it, emptying it entirely. Then, she turned, snapping her fingers at the elven attendant. “Evelynn, attend to the archbishop. Mylo, take your new toy and leave us.”

“Of course, sister,” Prince Mylo said, crossing one arm over his stomach and bowing.

Chad wasn’t sure if it was the culmination of everything he’d suffered up until that point, or merely just the last few minutes that broke him, but something snapped, whatever had been holding him back from throwing all caution and sense to the wind. He had, finally, had enough.

“That’s it!” Chad roared, lunging forward and throwing his arms over the prince’s head, using the chain that connected his shackles to yank him back by his neck, applying just enough pressure to make breathing difficult, but not impossible. “I’m done! I’m done with aaaaall of this! I’m not gonna be some weird old pervert’s magic slave, and I’m definitely not goin’ anywhere with this… this… fruity little prince, except out of this castle and then out of this shitty city! Anyone got a problem with that?!”

Amongst the other occupants of the clearing, the only one who showed the appropriate reaction to Chad’s outburst was the young knight, who had already drawn his sword and was holding it at the ready while glaring daggers at Chad. Princess Aurelia turned away with naked disinterest, returning to the bench where she left her book, while the knight who had been holding the parasol for her simply stood there and watched, and the elf maid, Evelynn, didn’t even look up from administering some kind of syrupy red liquid to the injured archbishop.

Lastly, Prince Mylo, the one who Chad expected to be reacting the most strongly to being taken hostage, was not struggling in the slightest. He wasn’t even squirming, even as Chad put more pressure on his neck to start dragging him backwards.

“I am losing my patience, Mylo. Control that thing, or I will take it away,” Princess Aurelia warned, talking as though Chad were a misbehaving dog and not a demon threatening to choke the life out of her brother.

“Apologies, sister…” the prince croaked out hoarsely, turning his head and giving Chad a soft, rueful smile.

“Wha—” Chad started to speak, flexing his arms to try and pull the chain as tight as it could go. He was too slow, on both accounts, as Prince Mylo’s hands came up and gripped both of his forearms. Suddenly, every muscle in Chad’s body was flexing and spasming, with visible arcs of lightning shooting up his arms, emanating from the prince’s hands. White-hot pain lit up every nerve ending, overtaking every other sensation, and it lasted for only a few seconds, Chad once again found himself hitting the ground when the prince finally released him, reflexively curling up into a little ball.

What happened after that only came back in flashes and vague impressions after the fact. He was dimly aware of being lifted off the cold stone pavement and being carried away. Bright, unforgiving sunlight was replaced by softer shades of tinted light, coming in through windows and emanating from mounted lamps. Indistinct faces and voices flashed by in a blur, but he could take in none of them. The only constant was the sensation of being carried in the arms of another, a sensation he could not recall having ever experienced, not since…

Not since…

When Chad’s head finally decided to stop spinning, and his eyes fluttered open, he found himself laid out on the surface of a large, luxuriously comfortable four-poster bed. His body ached all over, like the day after a full-body workout, but the cool, silken sheets and pillowy-soft mattress beneath him were doing wonders to alleviate some of that pain. He even realized, dimly, that the anti-magic shackles had been removed, and he was free to stretch his arms out as far as he wanted. Chad groaned fitfully, and rolled over on the bed.

And came face to face with the young knight, sitting in a chair beside the bed and glaring right at him.

“H-ah! Fuck!” Chad shouted, attempting to bolt upright but instead just flopping clumsily onto his side. The man’s stare remained intensely fixed on him, but one of his eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Were you fuckin’ watching me sleep, man?” Chad asked irritably, trying once again to sit upright, moving more slowly and carefully this time.

“You threatened Prince Mylo’s life,” the young knight stated, and it all started to come back to Chad. That’s right. He had lost it a little at the end there and made one last desperate play to take control of his life back into his own hands, and failed miserably.

“Yeah…” Chad said, grunting and swinging his legs out over the edge of the bed and sitting forward. “Yeah, I did. You want a fuckin’ apology? Do you have any idea the kind of morning I’ve had?”

Instead of answering, the knight just sighed, turning his head to the side and muttering, “I told him this was a terrible idea…”

Before Chad could ask the man to elaborate, a door on the far end of the room opened with a clatter, and Prince Mylo poked his head in through the gap.

“Is he… oh, you’re awake, wonderful!”

Chad furrowed his brow as the prince stepped fully into the room, holding a tray in both hands and using his heel to close the door behind him. He continued to eye him warily as he approached the bed, placing the tray down on a bedside table.

“I wanted to have something ready for you when you awoke, since I figured you’d be feeling poorly after…”

“After you zapped the shit outta me,” Chad finished for him.

“Ah, yes,” Prince Mylo said, lowering his head, looking completely abashed. “I also wished to apologize for… what I said in the garden. I thought it was the best way to sell the impression that I brought you here for purely utilitarian reasons.”

Ah, so all that “conquest” stuff was an act? Chad wasn’t sure he was ready to buy that, but then, he didn’t really have a lot of other options at the moment.

Sitting up, Chad peered down at the silver tray. It was loaded with assorted bits of food; two thick sausages, a wedge of cheese, a pile of dark purple berries, and…

“Is that fuckin’ caviar?” Chad asked dryly, pointing to the small glass dish of translucent reddish-orange orbs.

“Hmm?” Prince Mylo followed Chad’s finger, tilting his head. “That is roe from a fulmine eel.” He then proceeded to point to the rest of the items on the tray, naming them as he went. “There’s also fire drake sausage, cheese from the milk of an earthshaker mountain goat, and abani berries. I understand you demons prefer your foods to be rich in mana, yes?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Chad said, sighing and reaching out, pinching one of the “abani berries” between his fingers and lifting towards his face, giving it a sniff. It smelled… like a berry, but there was also something else there, reminiscent of the weird smoky aftertaste of the dusk rat meat. Chad popped it into his mouth, tasting sweet but tart juice, and as he breathed out, a small puff of black mist wafted into the air.

“Hmm, not bad…” Chad admitted begrudgingly, and began to dig into the snack tray with reckless abandon. The sausages were savory and spicy, and the cheese was robust, very sharp, with a strong nutty flavor. The roe, which came with a tiny spoon in it that Chad ignored completely, burst on his tongue with a rich, salty, fishy taste that also made his tongue tingle, a bit like licking the two prongs on a nine-volt battery. Another person, someone with more regard for what other people thought, might have felt embarrassed to be seen shoveling meat and cheese and berries into his mouth by a knight and a literal prince, but Chad was not that person. In short order, the tray was picked clean, and both young men were looking on with a mix of surprise and uneasiness.

“Well, thanks for the grub,” Chad said, chewing and swallowing the last mouthful, already feeling much better than when he’d woken up.

“You’re most welcome… ah, I don’t believe I got your name? I wouldn’t want to continue referring to you as simply ‘demon,’” the prince said hopefully. Chad, taken aback by the man’s polite request, and his soft… demeanor, scooted a bit further back away from the edge of the bed. The bed that was, in all likelihood, the prince’s.

“Chad,” Chad said plainly, turning his head to admire some of the decor inside the room.

“Chad? Hmm, an odd name, to be sure, but I’d say it’s bluntness does fit you rather well,” Prince Mylo said with a light chuckle, and Chad ground his sharp teeth together slightly. “And, forgive me if this is not the correct method of asking, you are… a ‘he,’ correct?”

“What?” asked, snapping his head back around and slapping at his bare chest. “Is that not fuckin’ obvious?”

“Well, it does not do to assume these things, especially where demons are concerned,” Prince Mylo said, and Chad blinked. After what he’d learned from Ruby, he had to admit, that was… probably true. “As you already heard, I am Mylo Placido Rosenfeld, and this is my companion and bodyguard…”

“Alfonso Bartolomei,” the young knight supplied, and Chad looked back and forth between the pair.

“Mylo and Alfonso, eh?” he repeated, smirking. Those were definitely some fantasy-ass names. Sitting up and crossing his arms, Chad asked, “Alright. So, what happens now?”

“Now?” Prince Mylo asked.

“Yeah, now that I’m awake and not about to keel over.” Finally meeting the prince’s eyes again, Chad held up his right arm, showing off the shackle that hadn’t been removed, the one that came bundled with his transformation into a demon. “Is this the part where you try to nicely and politely talk me into becoming your magical servant? Tell me I ought to be grateful to you for sending your own personal bodyguard to rescue me from the archbishop, and in return I should offer you my pact?”

“N-no, no, nothing like that!” Prince Mylo said hastily, waving his hands. “I have long felt the methods employed by Archbishop Havener and the temple of the Goddess towards your kind were much too extreme, even for demons. I want to extend my deepest apologies for whatever treatment you have endured during your time in the Empire.” Chad wanted to doubt his sincerity, but the young man really did look and sound genuinely sorry for him, which didn’t exactly make Chad feel better.

Well, okay, it kind of did. A little.

“Alright, alright.” Chad held a hand up to forestall and more overly enthusiastic apologies. “So, you didn’t have me delivered here because you wanted a demon of your own. Let’s say I believe that. That only raises the obvious question: why did you bring me here? Why did you go to such great lengths to make sure you got to me before the archbishop could bind me?”

Chad didn’t want to sound ungrateful. Between waking up on the cold stone floor of a dungeon at the mercy of a man who saw him as an inhuman monster best used as a tool, and waking up here in this ridiculously comfortable bed, he knew which one he preferred, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t suspicious. Prince Mylo could just as easily turn out to be as cruel as the archbishop, but wrapped up in a much less obvious package. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down.

“I suppose that is a fair question,” Prince Mylo said, nodding his head slowly. “Would you not simply accept that I felt compelled out of the goodness of my heart and the spirit of the Goddess to help when I heard a rogue demon had been spotted rampaging through the lower districts?”

“Pffha!” Chad barked out a laugh, and the prince jerked back in surprise. “Would I believe that a prince born and raised in a literal evil empire would help a lowly demon for absolutely no reason other than to be nice? Fat fucking chance!” Chad laughed derisively again, and Alfonso actually started to rise from his chair, but Prince Mylo placed a hand on his shoulder, easing him back down. Good, because Chad wasn’t finished yet.

“In fact, I’d be surprised if anyone in this entire city has ever had a kind thought in their life! Your ‘goddess’ is super racist and that archbishop is fucking creepy, and everyone seems to think that’s normal!” Chad scoffed, throwing his hands into the air. “And don’t even get me started on the beastkin! They get treated about as bad as demons do, but the only one who’s shown me even an ounce of compassion was that bull guy and his family! So, no, I don’t believe you helped me for any reason other than because there’s something you want from me.”

Chad was out of breath and panting by the time he finished, and actually thought he could see steam rising off of his skin as he slumped back into the bed.

Turning away, Prince Mylo walked towards the row of enormous windows currently covered by thin red curtains, pushing one of them aside to peer out at the city beyond.

“An… evil empire…” The prince spoke absently, pressing his hand up against the glass. “Funny, how simple these things can seem, when looked at through fresh eyes. For my entire life, I have been told that the Fulminous Empire is the one, true noble nation in the world and that my very blood carries the will of the Goddess of Love and War. That every action we take in pursuit of power and territory is justified, because the other nations of the world refuse to heed the true word of the gods…”

The hand he had pressed to the glass curled into a fist.

“And yet, I found myself doubting. It was one thing, at first, a tiny, little thing, but one that I knew in my heart, fundamentally, to be wrong, and from that moment I couldn’t help but begin to question everything I’d ever been told. I began to notice the… problems, many of them the very things you’ve just detailed, and started to ponder how I might fix them, give enough time and power.”

Sighing, Prince Mylo turned back around, motioning towards Chad.

“And then you, a demon, an invading entity from another realm said to only crave chaos, sits up in my bed and decries the entire Empire evil, as though it were as plain as the nose on my face,” he said, chuckling and running a hand slowly through his hair. “Either what they say is true, and I have had that last of my good judgement completely corrupted by your wicked influence, or it truly is just as I had begun to fear many years ago; this Empire is evil.”

Huh… Well, now that was interesting…

“If you have been corrupted, My… my prince, then so have I,” Alfonso finally spoke up, rising out of his seat and turning to face the prince. “The demon’s words ring true to me as well.”

“I’m glad I could point out the obvious for you…” Chad said dryly, scooting to the edge of the bed and swinging his legs forward, letting his hooves dangle above the floor. “Well, I can tell you’re buttering me up for something, and it’s gotta be big with that much flowery language behind it, so hit me.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” Prince Mylo said, stepping away from the window, placing himself beside Alfonso again. “You had the right of it the first time; I did not rescue you out of the goodness of my heart, but that is not to say that I would not have done so, given the opportunity.” Chad rolled his eyes at that, and the prince frowned. “Okay, perhaps… I would have considered doing so… Regardless, it just so happens that… you may be the only person in the entire Empire that can help us.”

“‘Us?’” Chad asked, and Prince Mylo nodded, reaching over and grabbing one of Alfonso’s gauntleted hands, slipping his thin, delicate fingers between the other man’s large, leather and mail-covered own.

“Yes. I wish that I could say it is simply because we have had our eyes opened to the true nature of this place, as you say, but in truth our dissatisfaction with the Empire has much simpler, more selfish roots,” Prince Mylo explained, and Chad felt his eyebrows climbing up his forehead and his eyes widening. When Alfonso, the taller of the pair, tilted his head down so that he and the prince could meaningfully lock eyes, Chad threw his hands up in front of him.

“Hey, woah, time out!” he shouted, instinctively placing his hands in the T-shaped signal. “Get a fuckin’ room, I’m sitting right here!”

The pair broke off their stare, but remained clasped at the hand, and Prince Mylo furrowed his brow, looking around at the expansive bedroom.

“This… is my room?” he said, sounding confused, and Chad groaned and rubbed at one of his temples.

“I mean don’t just start making out in front of me!”

“Making… out?” Alfonso chimed in, and Chad ground his teeth. Did they seriously not get it?

“You know? Swapping spit? Tongue punching each other’s throats?” When neither of them seemed to catch on, Chad sighed again. “Kissing! I’m saying don’t just start smooching right in front of me!”

“Oh!” Alfonso said, looking rapidly back and forth from Chad to Prince Mylo. “You mean… elvish kissing?”

What…

“We… weren’t going to?” Prince Mylo said, chuckling and shaking his head, patting Alfonso’s breastplate with his free hand. “I’ll admit we got a little carried away there, but we weren’t about to start engaging in intimacy here and now. But I’m curious, what made you assume we were?”

“Well you’re obviously gay, and… and…” Chad trailed off, rapidly losing the head of steam he’d been building up.

And you’re obviously overreacting.

“Fuck…” Chad hissed, dropping his head into his palm. It was so easy to fall back on what was familiar and comfortable, to default to what he’d seen his father do and say a hundred times when he was younger, that he’d done it without thinking, again.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Chad said, forcing the word out like it caused him physical pain, ignoring the voice in his head that screamed at him that apologizing was a sign of weakness. “That was… not me. I’ve kind of had the shittiest day of my entire life, here, so, sorry if I’m a little… prickly.”

“I’m not sure that you’ve done anything requiring our forgiveness, but, apology accepted, Chad,” Prince Mylo said, at last untangling his fingers from Alfonso’s. Chad sighed, tracing his fingers along his brow and around the outer edge of one of his horns.

“Right, yeah, let’s just… get back on track. So, that’s your beef with the Empire?” Chad asked, pointing between the pair. “You two got some kind of forbidden romance going on, and if anyone finds out you’re gay you’ll get executed, or exiled, or some shit like that?”

Again, Chad was met with two blank faced stares.

“I’m… not certain I know the meaning of that word you keep using,” Prince Mylo said, tapping a finger against his chin in thought. “Or what you mean when you say we have ‘beef.’ I suppose you could say the difficulties between me and Alfonso are of a forbidden nature.”

“Gay? It means you’re guys that like other guys,” Chad said bluntly, figuring it was just easier to spell things out with these two.

“Oh!” Prince Mylo said, his face lighting up with comprehension, before his brow furrowed again. “Do you mean, one who prefers the company of men over women? Or prefers only men?”

“And why would either be cause for execution?” Alfonso asked, and Chad felt his own brows knitting together. He thought he’d nailed the situation here, but if that wasn’t the case…

“Are you telling me that’s not why you two are unhappy with the Empire? That the Empire doesn’t care that you’re both guys?” Chad asked, and both Prince Mylo and Alfonso actually laughed at the idea, which in turn left Chad even more confused.

“Are you… are you joking?” Alfonso asked.

“Is that a demon thing?” Prince Mylo asked right after.

“Well then if that’s not it, what’s forbidden about your forbidden romance, huh?” Chad asked irritably, and Prince Mylo had the grace to stop chuckling.

“The fact that I am a prince, and Alfonso is merely my bodyguard,” Prince Mylo said, motioning back to the other man, who nodded.

“Oooooooooh…” Chad groaned, and felt like slapping himself. He’d gotten so caught up on… the other thing that he forgot about class barriers, and now he felt like an idiot. “That… makes sense, actually… Yeah, that’s just as dumb.”

“That is, in fact, the reason we first began to feel the Empire had lost touch with the Goddess’s true word,” Prince Mylo said, waving one arm towards the window. “We are meant to revere the Goddess of Love and War above all, and she teaches that all love is sacred. Why, then, is it forbidden for those of differing social standing to marry? Why, then, can even a prince, one of Her Blood, not choose who he truly wishes to spend the rest of his life with?”

“Yeah, no, I… I get that,” Chad said, scrunching his face a little and hunching his shoulders. Now, it seemed like he was the one who needed everything spelled out, but with that added context, the prince’s plight made perfect sense.

There was just one question that still hadn’t been answered.

“So, really, why did you go through all the trouble of bringing me here?”

Prince Mylo and Alfonso exchanged another glance, and Chad found himself wondering if they could actually communicate telepathically or something. He waited for several moments as they deliberated silently between themselves, until finally Alfonso nodded, and Prince Mylo nodded back.

“I brought you here, Chad,” Prince Mylo began, standing up straighter, holding his head up high and folding his arms behind his back. “Because I think we can both help each other.”

Chad sat up on the edge of the bed at that, cocking an eyebrow.

“You need my help?” he asked, giving a little chuckle. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

One last knowing look passed between the prince and his bodyguard, and Prince Mylo took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and spoke.

“I need you to help me fake my death via failed demon binding, so that we might flee the Empire,” Prince Mylo said, his voice firm and full of conviction.

“What,” Chad said flatly, and Mylo placed a hand over his chest.

“Well, as you yourself experienced, I am quite capable of defending myself, but a rogue demon is one of the most dangerous creatures in the world, worse than a monster, because they can think, and plan.” He motioned towards Chad again. “That is why a demon binding gone wrong is the only possible danger that I could be exposed to that could realistically end in my death. It would certainly not raise many eyebrows, when the story gets out.”

Having seen how most people responded to his presence as a demon, Chad couldn’t help but agree.

“In exchange for your help, I will arrange a place for you on the same ship that will be smuggling myself and Alfonso out. After that, if you wish, we may part ways entirely, and you will be free to do as you please.”

Chad’s eyebrows shot up, and he tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling. He continued to lean back, until he flopped back onto the bed, for once utterly at a loss for words. The offer was, in a sense, perfect, no less than exactly what he needed. He didn’t doubt that without the prince’s help, finding another way off of what was apparently an island would prove exceptionally difficult. It sounded like they already had all of the particulars worked out, so all he would need to do was follow along, and he’d have a one way ticket out of this shithole empire, and then he’d be free to do whatever the hell he wanted, free to….

To what? If he had free rein to do whatever he wanted, what would he be doing, right now?

Looking for a way back home, obviously!

Right. That made sense. He wasn’t supposed to be here, that much was painfully obvious. He had a life back on Earth, friends and family and things he wanted to do with that life. In the less-than-a-day that he’d been here, Chad had been pursued like an animal for hours, captured, imprisoned, fed rat meat, passed out twice, and generally put through the ringer. And, lest he forget, he wasn’t even human anymore! Obviously, there should be nothing he wanted more than to get home.

There was nothing he wanted more than to get home, right?

Red eyes stared at him through a curtain of white hair. A red, four-fingered hand, held up to the light with a heavy shackle clamped to its wrist. A single green eye, soft and sorrowful before a fist is driven into his gut. A cherubic face stares up with devotion at a man with no heart.

“Yeah, sure,” Chad said, clearing his throat and lazily shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll help. Not like I got anything to lose.”

Prince Mylo’s face brightened, and he turned excitedly towards Alfonso, who had finally stopped looking at Chad with poorly disguised mistrust.

“But,” Chad said, holding up a hand before the pair could start celebrating. “There’s… one other condition I have…”

“Name it,” Prince Mylo said, smiling at Chad in a way that made him feel an indescribable mix of emotions, until he shook his head and looked away.

Chad steeled himself, took a deep breath, and stated his condition.

“We kill the archbishop on our way out.”