A couple hours later, Jonathan dragged himself into the orphanage, tired, hungry, and footsore. Abigail met him at the door.

"Abigail! You're up! How are you feeling?"

"Loads better than this morning. Mr. Geiller says as long as I sleep under his array, I should be good for the next few days."

"Is he around? I was hoping to ask him a few questions."

"No, he went home. He said not to disturb him again today unless it's a life-or-death emergency, and that he'd come by in the morning to check on me."

"Of course he did," sighed Jonathan. "Did he find anything in that grimoire of yours?"

"Oh, right! He said he found a ritual that he thinks should work if we modify the…parameters? I think that's what he said. He'll supervise me as I draw it tomorrow; apparently I need to be the one to empower it because I made your original contract."

"Okay, that's good news at least. I'll wait to leave tomorrow until he shows up, then."

"You're going back to town? Did you find someone who is willing to make a contract with you?"

"Not exactly, but I have an idea how to fix the issue. How would you feel about more kids joining the orphanage?"

Abigail looked torn. "I mean…I guess that would be alright. There's certainly enough beds. But where are you going to find kids like that?"

"That town—what's it called, by the way?"

"Eldridge."

"Right, so Eldridge was pretty big, and there were more homeless people than I expected. I noticed some kids who seemed down on their luck, and although I need to poke around a little more and make sure they won't be dangerous that seemed like a good fit for the problem. I just can't think of many reasons for people to make a contract with me if all I'm providing is occasional magic services, and frankly we need all of my magic just for ourselves right now. But if we can make use of the orphanage, then we've actually got more to trade than just magic. It's food, shelter, the whole deal."

Abigail still looked skeptical. "Right, but how will you educate them? An orphanage has to provide more than just food and lodgings."

Jonathan waved that away. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now I need to make sure to find enough people to contract with that you're out of danger, and I'm hoping that having more than one orphan living here will actually help us if we need to take more legal control of the property."

"I guess." Abigail still looked a bit despondent

Jonathan stopped to face her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Abigail. You're the person who summoned me. A few more kids here and there aren't going to change that. Frankly, I'm really worried about inviting a bunch of strangers here, but I just don't see a lot of good options otherwise. I'm not going to just shove you in with a bunch of strangers and forget about you."

Abigail wouldn't meet his eyes. "Okay," she said quietly. "Okay, Jonathan. I'm really okay with that."

She just said "okay" three times. He was guessing that meant she wasn't actually okay, but that was going to have to wait. "Good enough. Now how about some food? I know I'm starving. What do you like to eat other than san—"

Abigail's face lit up. "Let's have sandwiches! I've really been craving one of your sandwiches ever since I finally got out of that array."

"…Right. Sandwiches. Why didn't I think of that."

----------------------------------------

Although Abigail started to flag earlier in the evening than normal, she was awake long enough for Jonathan to conjure a set of clothes similar to the ones he'd seen people wearing around the Eldridge square, and the next morning he awkwardly dressed in his new clothes before doing a little cleaning around the orphanage while he waited for Abigail to wake up. Fortunately, when he checked on her she seemed to be sleeping normally, so at least the metal contraption that Mr. Geiller had set up seemed to be doing its job.

Stolen story; please report.

Mr. Geiller himself arrived mid-morning, a bit after Abigail had awoken and she and Jonathan had eaten breakfast. After giving Abigail a brief once-over, he pronounced her about as fit as he expected and turned to Jonathan. "You not heading out yet, boy? You look almost normal today."

Jonathan took a deep breath and let it out. He wasn't going to snap at the old codger. He had more important things he needed to accomplish. "I need to know about this ritual you found. How many people will it support?"

Mr. Geiller eyed him. "How many people were you going to wrangle out here?"

Jonathan shrugged. "I don't know yet, but I spotted a group of what appeared to be homeless children in Eldridge yesterday, and I figured, well, I have this orphanage…"

Mr. Geiller groaned. "Just my luck, as soon as I get some peace and quiet some idiot decides to bring in a bunch more street brats. Ritual should be fine for multiple uses as long as Abigail feels up to empowering it, but if you're thinking you'll pull kids off the street, you better keep them and their thieving hands off my property!"

"Yeah, yeah, no one is welcome to cross the fence." As if anyone would want to after meeting Mr. Geiller once.

"And find and fix however Abigail's been worming her way into my begonias!"

"I'll see what I can do, though it might be a little while before I have the magic free to conjure the tools I'd need for that."

"Fine, as long as you're aware of the problem. Orphans, huh? Well, could be worse, I suppose."

"Speaking of alternatives, I learned there's a Mage College in Eldridge, though I'm not sure if that means what I think it does. Do you think it would be worth asking around there to see if anyone would like to contract with me?"

"Not worth it. The college is in tight with the Quints. You walk in there and proclaim you're a demon that looks like a human looking for contracts, and you'll have the Church up in your business faster than you can spit. Maybe not a bad place to look for a tutor for Abigail, though, if you do manage to weasel your way out of killing her."

Ah, Mr. Geiller always had such a way with words. "Darn, I was hoping that would be more useful short-term. Oh, well. One last thing: I need to get a better idea of what magic can actually do, because I don't want to over- or under-promise things for people who agree to contract with me."

Mr. Geiller gave him he hairy eyeball. "You're using demon magic. It can do just about any darn thing."

"Right, but I don't know what 'anything' actually constitutes. All I know for sure is that I can create sandwiches and other small physical objects out of nothing. Oh, and I can destroy small amounts of metal if I really need to. But I have no idea what these five realms you and Abigail keep going on about mean, or more importantly how magical power scales. Like, if I wanted to make a really big sandwich or a lot more little sandwiches, would I be endangering my life? How can I even determine what my limits are? Can I conjure things that are alive? Move things from one place to another without going through the intervening space? Create fire from nothing? Accelerate natural processes, like freezing or boiling water faster? Do I spend more magic to do that sort of thing, or would it be simpler to just conjure ice or steam?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down! Anthrax take me, I get the picture. Let me think a moment." Mr. Geiller lapsed into silence and stared at Jonathan. Jonathan stared back.

It was awkward.

At last Mr. Geiller finally sighed. "I was hoping to have constructed some better tools for this before I wasted any more time on it, but I need to see you do magic before I can give you good advice. I'm not going to describe what magic can do, because that seems like a perfectly good way to destroy your ability to think creatively. But you're right that you need to have a clear idea of your limits, or how to detect your limits, before you start experimenting. That's not something I can just do instantly, though. It will take me at least a day to set up the basic rituals we need. So get out of my hair!" He waved Jonathan off, and stomped away into the house, presumably to find and heckle Abigail, wherever she had scampered off to.

Jonathan started on his way to Eldridge. He supposed it wasn't the end of the world that he hadn't gotten any answers from Mr. Geiller about his magic just yet. After all, his whole plan for today was just to scope out the kids he'd seen yesterday, try to determine if they were the only group working that square, and see if he could assess how safe they seemed to recruit as housemates. Also, figure out if they actually needed or were likely to want to move into an orphanage and give up pickpocketing. That was kind of key, too, come to think.

And even without any answers, and Mr. Geiller's typically aggravating turns of phrase, he was beginning to wonder if the old man was secretly a softie. Despite the nasty things he said and his flat refusals to help, it sure seemed like he was sinking a lot of time and energy into Jonathan and Abigail behind the scenes. He was hoping to construct better tools before observing Jonathan do magic so he could offer good advice? That certainly did not sound like the emotionally-distanced old codger he tried to portray.

Though really, in a way that was almost more annoying than if he just honestly didn't give a damn. People who said one thing and did another really drove Jonathan up the wall.