Midway through his despair, Jonathan had a thought. "Uh, Abigail, is your economy not using capitalism, by any chance?"

Abigail gave him a blank look. "I have no idea what that means."

How to sum up capitalism? "Do people own goods, and other people pay them money to obtain or use those goods?"

"Yes? Isn't that normal?"

Oh thank goodness, he wasn't stuck in a society with a drastically different economic system. That could have been really, really bad for him. "Right, I'm not saying it isn't normal, but then who owns the water? Or if no one owns the water, then who owns the pipes that deliver it to people's houses?"

"I don't know. Maybe Queen Tetra?"

"You live in a monarchy?"

"Uh…"

"Rather, does Queen Tetra make all the decisions about how to run the country?"

"Oh, no. Most of those are made by Parliament, I think. Or the Chief Executor or Prime Minister, maybe? I don't know; I've never paid much attention to politics."

Okay, so sounded like some flavor of constitutional monarchy. That was similar enough to what he was used to that his instincts shouldn't be too bad. He was curious what a "Chief Executor" was, but it was pretty clear Abigail didn't know much beyond the name, and it wasn't particularly relevant to his current predicament, in any case, unless she turned out to be the long-lost love-child of a high-placed official's tryst or something crazy. Regardless, it seemed that Abigail had no concept of utility bills. Maybe he could ask the neighbor, Mr. G-something-or-other, once he found time to go over, introduce himself, and pick the guy's brain.

Abigail was looking at him funny. "Why are you asking about this stuff, anyway?"

"Abigail, I'm completely new to your world. I have no idea how your society is structured, the basic common-sense things that everyone just understands about how to get along in the world, none of that. And our contract stipulates that I have to act as your guardian, so it's kind of important that I figure that out. Plus humans can only live for a couple days without water, so whether or not someone is going to shut down our water at the source is kind of important."

"Oh." She looked thoughtful, and a little scared, which Jonathan thought was entirely appropriate. "I never thought about that."

Yeah, you didn't think of a lot of things when you opted to summon a demon instead of moving into a new home. He absolutely didn't say that, though.

"Okay, enough about water bills for now. Do you have any money?"

"I'm a nine-year-old orphan, of course I don't have any money."

"Fine, fine, but if we needed money, how could we get it? Could we create it the way I did the oatmeal?"

Abigail looked horrified. "No, you absolutely can't conjure money! You'll go to prison, or they might just banish you to the Infernal Abyss straight out!"

"Right, so the government has some way to identify money made through magical means?"

"Yeah. I don't really know how they work, but pretty much every business has a magical scanner."

Interesting. Another thing he'd want to investigate, since the oatmeal, plastic utensils, and sandwich had all appeared identical to the real thing. Though that begged the question… "Would these magical scanners identify me as magical?"

Abigail got an intrigued look on her face. "Huh, you know I'm not sure. I don't think so? You're summoned, not conjured, and I've never heard of a demon that looked just like a human the way you do, so I'm not sure if anyone ever needed to invent such a thing."

Small favors. At least it sounded like he wasn't going to set off the equivalent of metal detectors everywhere he went.

Alright, what else was critical to know? They had water, food, and shelter sorted, although he needed to look into whether the water was potentially in danger. It sounded like the basic logic in his new society was similar to what he grew up with, so although he was bound to run headfirst into culture shock he was probably safe trusting in his past experience for the basics. He still needed proper clothing, and she'd better believe he hadn't forgotten about the pants thing, but that probably didn't need belaboring right at the moment.

Who was he kidding, the pants were definitely the most important thing. "Well, I think that sorts out my biggest questions for the moment! There's lots of things we need to do, but how about before we get to that we do a little more digging in the attic? It's nice and light, and I'd really love those pants you promised me. Oh, and how on earth do you tell what time it is?"

Abigail shifted from annoyance straight to sadness when he asked about the time. "The Campbells took all the clocks when they moved everything out, so there isn't really any way to tell time right now."

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"Huh, well that's too bad. The Campbells were the previous owners of the orphanage?"

"Yes, Missus Campbell was the headmistress."

"Are clocks expensive?" Not that he had any way to obtain money, regardless, but it would sure be nice to have a better way to track time than the relative position of the sun.

Abigail shrugged. "Probably depends on the clock."

Helpful. But Jonathan supposed that was fair. "Ah well, I guess we'll just have to make do for a bit. Now, about those pants…"

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Several hours later, Jonathan and Abigail had dug through all of the trunks, luggage, and various packages that were easily accessible, and several of the ones that weren't, and although Jonathan had secured another strange-smelling robe, five ill-fitting socks, and two more caches of blankets he was still prancing around in his boxers.

"Dammit, this sucks!" Jonathan slammed the latest trunk lid shut and glared at it.

"What does that even mean?" called Abigail from somewhere further into the attic. After the last half dozen failures, she'd wormed her way into the mess on "exploratory missions."

"Just a phrase from my world. Means something is awful."

Abigail's head popped up from the clutter off to his right. "How does sucking on something make it awful?"

"I don't know," grumbled Jonathan. "Slang is weird." At least she wasn't challenging him on the "his world" thing at the moment. Small blessings. "Look, we're not getting anywhere with this. Let's call it quits for a bit, and figure out a better sleeping arrangement. Those awful looking mattresses downstairs at least have to be better than hardwood."

Abigail's head disappeared, and he could hear her moving around, presumably trying to extricate herself from the mess. "Yeah, the mattresses here…uh, have to suck."

"No, you'd say the mattresses suck…you know what, you probably shouldn't pick up my foreign speech habits."

"Whatever you say, Jonathan!"

She probably couldn't see him, but Jonathan scowled in her general direction. That sing-song tone of voice was the most obviously false one he'd heard her use yet. "Don't even start with me, kid. I have just as much patience as I have pants."

"Look, I'm sorry you don't have pants! It's not like I have all that many changes of clothes, either, and I've never heard of a demon before who arrived in his underthings!"

Jonathan dragged a hand down his face. "I think we both need lunch before we go scouting for bedrooms."

"Great idea!" Abigail popped out from between two moldering cabinets and jumped over a trunk to finally exit the sea of ancient stored goods. "I could really go for a sandwich!"

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Back in the dining room, Jonathan once more leaned up against the table. He supposed he technically could probably conjure sandwiches while sitting, but something about doing magic just made him want to stand up. It felt more active, like he could focus better.

"Okay, this time I want to try something a little different, okay? I really need to figure out how this magic thing works. As best I can tell, I can only perform magic when you're actively willing it, so—"

Abigail interrupted him. "That doesn't sound right. We didn't have any provisions in our contract that would restrict your usage of magic, so you should be able to use it whenever you need."

"Well, it doesn't work like that! I tried to summon—sorry, conjure, a sandwich this morning before you woke up—"

"You mean before you cruelly woke me with those icicles you call toes?"

"Whose fault is it that I don't have proper clothes?"

Abigail stuck her tongue out at him.

"As I was saying, I tried to conjure a sandwich and nothing happened. There's this weird red mist stuff that shows up when I tried to make food with you around, though, and it wasn't until it touched me that the magic actually happened."

"Red mist? I've never heard of anything like that before. I thought demons were supposed to manipulate human desires or something."

"Desire?" Huh, okay, that could fit with what he'd guessed so far. Was Abigail's desire for food what was powering his ability to do magic? Although his gut instincts were saying that wasn't quite right, either. It was more like her desire unlocked and shaped his ability to do magic. He was pretty certain the actual power was still coming from the Infernal Abyss. You know, come to think of it, he'd never asked about demons. "Hey, this might seem like a weird question, but are demons in your world typically portrayed as evil tricksters who attempt to take advantage of their summoners?"

"Portrayed? Demons are evil tricksters who try to take advantage of their masters."

Jonathan gave her the look.

"…I mean you seem pretty nice right now, but that's probably just because I forced you into such an airtight contract."

Jonathan kept giving her the look. Abigail shifted uneasily in her chair. "Can you maybe conjure some sandwiches? I'm really hungry."

"One moment." Jonathan shut his eyes, and although he didn't try to connect to the Infernal Abyss, he did try to focus on Abigail…or at least where he thought Abigail was, although a few moments later when a reddish mist started to manifest, it was off to the side. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and refocused on Abigail, who was looking disappointed, presumably at the lack of sandwiches. The red mist persisted briefly, but as she came in focus the mist dissipated. Right, so he wasn't really seeing it with his eyes in the first place, but it seemed like his vision interfered with the sense, whatever it was. He was going to need to practice that.

"Where—"

"Hold your horses. And don't move, I want to test something. Oh, please keep focusing on how much you want a sandwich."

Jonathan moved around the table so he was within arm's reach of Abigail who was looking up at him with confusion and a bit of discomfort. "Horses?" he heard her mutter, but he ignored it and closed his eyes once more.

Now that he was "looking" for it, the mist showed up even faster. Trying to keep from focusing his eyes too much, Jonathan eased them open and carefully reached out a hand, brushing it right through where the mist appeared to be. The mist wasn't sucked into him, but he definitely got a sense of…something. It was really, really weird. He couldn't tell if the sensation was a taste, or a smell, or a texture, or all of the above. His eyes came into focus and he backed up a step. "Wow, that was weird."

"What did you just do?"

"I just touched that smokey stuff. I think it's some sort of sixth sense, though, and my brain has no idea how to make heads or tails of it."

"Huh, that's neat. So, you ready to create a sandwich, then?"

"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on." Jonathan returned to his side of the table, and leaned on it. "Alright, this time for real."

Steeling himself, he recalled the way he felt when he first experienced the Infernal Abyss, and sure enough there came the panic attack.

Did demons really need to eat? Because not doing this three times a day sounded really freaking good to him.