“Hey, you okay?”

I startled, then picked up a flat, round stone, dusting the snow off it. “I dunno.”

Abby reached up and put an arm on my shoulder. “It’s alright—you’ll get ‘em next time.”

From the rock in my hand, I looked up at her. She was a little younger than I remembered, but her wide, lopsided smile was the same as always.

Quickly, I turned away, flicking my arm to send the stone skipping across the pond. Bouncing over a dozen times, it hit the snow on the opposite bank, kicking up a plume of white and then brown as it dug into the dirt. Too much force…

I looked down at my clawed hands, all four of them, but when I clenched them into fists, old words came out in a new voice. “But you had to deal with them for me—I just stood there like an idiot.”

“They got in your head, dummy!” She playfully poked one of my horns. “You don’t need me.”

Blinking, I looked down at her. She smiled back up at me and I could have sworn there was a sadness in her eyes.

“It’s not like that,” I choked. “I want—”

“You’ve moved on. You should move on. You’re strong now—on your own.” Her voice was different now, sounding almost like my own. And then it was back to normal, the memory focusing again. “Come on!” she took my hand in her own smaller one. “Let’s get back inside—you’ll catch a chill out here like this.”

I followed her back toward a sleeping farmhouse, and the memory faded in a flurry of snowflakes. Something warm and soft was under my arms, and when I opened my eyes, I saw both Joisse and Seyari. The former I’d pulled protectively close to me with two arms, and she slept soundly in her demon form.

The latter… Seyari had wormed her way under one arm and pulled my tail over her as she slept. Freeing my last arm from under her, I pulled my fiancée closer and she shivered. I turned the heat up just a little bit.

I’d come so damn close to losing both of them. Much as I hated to admit, this wasn’t the first time I’d failed either of them. It was against my own philosophy to risk my family to save others, and I’d done it twice.

As I lay in my tent, watching the orange of the sunrise brighten the canvas, I thought about what horrors could await us in Astrye. I didn’t feel totally safe taking everyone into that kind of fight, even though I knew they’d say otherwise.

But, I also didn’t want to leave them. We were a team; we would simply just have different roles.

I kept thinking, carefully tending my fury like a warm fire until Seyari started to stir. Her stump pushed into my chest and I winced—not from the impact. Come hell or high water, I’d find a way to fix both her hand and her wings.

“Morning,” I whispered.

“Morning,” she mumbled back. Turning over in my arms and tail, she brought her stump around, inspecting the scarred skin at the end.

“Would a contract even work?” I asked, already knowing she wouldn’t take one. As we were, power imbalance aside, we were equals. If I put her “under” a contract of any kind, no matter how trivial, that would change in her eyes.

She took a long time to reply. “I don’t think so, and I know you know I wouldn’t take one anyway.” She surprised me by guiding one of my hands to her forearm.

I felt tendons moving under her skin.

“Hands are like puppets,” Seyari said. “I might not have had much training as a healer, but I know a little. All I need is something there to puppet again—something clockwork probably.”

“What about until then?”

“My sword only needs one hand, I have most of the other arm to balance, and I have my magic.”

“That still doesn’t make it okay that I fucked up so badly.”

Seyari leaned up and planted a quick kiss on my nose. “No, it doesn’t. But that’s in the past, and we need to move on.”

In an instant, I remembered my dream. “Yeah, yeah we need to, don’t we?”

“Mhmm. But before you go on a rampage, let’s just take a few more minutes and be warm together.”

“Sey…”

“You’re not the only one thinking about what she almost lost.”

“But it’s not your fault.”

“Funny how guilt doesn’t seem to give a fuck.”

“It doesn’t, does it?”

“Mhmm,” Seyari turned into me again. “Let me stay like this until your hard-ass sister starts shouting for us to break camp.”

“Okay.”

“Not gonna defend her?” Seyari’s voice was getting slower again, and I felt the beating of her heart pace don towards sleep.

“It’s not like you’re wrong,” I said, knowing Sey was already asleep.

I watched the sunrise from inside of the tent, and it was just starting to get warm when Kartania began rousing everyone.

Seyari woke quickly, extricating herself with some choice words for my sister. “I’ll go distract her and give you a few minutes with our daughter.”

Our daughter.

By the time I’d realized what Sey had said, she’d left the tent. Joisse stirred in my arms when the blast of cold air came in, and I turned us so we were side by side.

My daughter stretched, forcing me to let go or take a fist to my chin. She yawned and moved both her right hands to rub at one eye with her knuckles. Her lower hand bonked right into her nose.

Joisse startled, fully awake in an instant. “It… wasn’t a dream?” She looked down at her two right hands, slender and humanlike if not for the wicked claws tipping each digit.

As she inspected her own limbs, and as a small rivulet of blood dripped from where her own claw had nicked her nose, I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Mom!” Joisse protested, then jerked suddenly. “I didn’t mean—I mean…”

I pulled her into a hug. “What about last night?”

“That…”

“Do you not feel that way?”

“I…” She leaned into the hug. “I do, yeah.”

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From where her face was, I felt something warm—a familiar kind of burning warmth. But this time, it didn’t really burn. Joisse must have felt it too, because she yelped and pulled away, touching fingers carefully to the side of her nose. The scratch was gone, which wasn’t that unusual, but the warmth certainly had been. Magic of some kind.

“Did you feel that?” she asked.

I nodded, then I took a look at her aura again.

“R-mom, your eyes are glowing.”

“I’m checking your aura, Joisse.” I looked closer, and saw the same pale crimson, ringed by white. It pulsed softly.

The white ring got my attention. Seyari’s aura had likewise changed when she’d unsealed her angel aspects, though in her case the coloration was inverted. White obviously didn’t always mean holy, but…

No way, right?

That was impossible.

Or… was it? Demonic mana always served to augment other types, so maybe it was possible that it could do the same to holy aspected mana?

“Mom?” Joisse asked nervously.

I shook my head. “Do… can you feel any magic?”

Joisse blinked. “How would I do that?”

“You…” Now it was my turn to blink. I used to know, but ever since I’d become a demon, magic had just been instinctual. Luckily, I remembered Nan’s book, A Beginner’s Guide to Magic.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately as it wasn’t destroyed—I’d left it in storage with the Gelles Company in Linthel. But I still knew a few things from it, and from my lessons with Seyari and Tren.

“Alright, I continued, “the first thing you want to do is…”

***

Kartania was worried not just about her sister, but about her sister’s friends. The feeling gnawed at her, like receiving an urgent letter from a long-estranged friend. She just… didn’t remember how to feel and it made everything worse.

As a result, she’d had no problem staying up all night. She hadn’t dared find out what the emotion would do to her dreams. Even now, she tried to think about other things, like how she’d found Zarenna’s shoes earlier; the enchanted articles had either survived or regenerated.

She’d set them next to the fire. There’s so much I don’t know about her now.

What she did know was that Zarenna was definitely her older sister. She was also something that Kartania could lose, and she hadn’t had anything like that since the Great Linthel Fire. She hadn’t ever risked having anything like that since that night.

As Nelys and Brynna set about making breakfast and Taava tuned her lute while shivering on a nearby rock, Kartania’s stoic look almost faltered. She got up quickly and strode to the tent where her sister, her… sister-in-law-to-be, and her… niece were still asleep.

So much for “no living family.”

***

Seyari snuck one last look at Joisse’s aura before she left the tent to join the others by the fire. No, she thought, it can’t be. The smell of breakfast made her mouth water, and when she realized just how hungry she was, she put aside speculation about Joisse’s strange aura. Kartania seemed lost in thought and Brynna clearly was eating alone, so Seyari sat down next to Nelys and filled up a plate.

“Did you catch this?” she asked, pointing to the venison steak.

“Mhmm,” Nelys responded distantly.

Glancing back at the tent, Seyari took a deep breath. “What’s wrong?”

Nelys looked up at her, surprised. “Do you…”

“Yes I’m asking because I care.”

“Oh. Well… I’m just thinking about my family back home. I… kinda ran off, and I’m worried I made a mistake. I guess I’m also a little worried I made another mistake with this contract.”

Oh no. “Do you… do you wish you could go back—to before the contract that is?”

They shook their head. “No. Not like that. I don’t really know how to explain it. Like maybe I’m no longer the same person, or that my family won’t accept it, or that I forced Renna into it.”

They did kinda force Renna into it. “Renna knew what she was getting into,” Seyari answered as honestly as she could.

“Mhm.”

Shit. I’m no good at this.

Brynna looked up from her plate at the conversation, then looked back down. Taava started strumming, surprisingly choosing something mellow in a bright key. Something blessedly instrumental.

Nelys sighed. “I should go back home—at least to visit.”

“When?”

“Once we’re done in Astrye. We’re too close now to turn around.”

“Do you want us to go with?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I… I think it’s brave that you’re going back,” Seyari tried. “But you shouldn’t feel like you have to do this alone, or that what you need to do is less important than what Zarenna needs to do.”

“But it is.”

“Do you think she’d agree?”

“No… that’s why I feel guilty I guess.” They frowned and picked up their steak with one hand, taking a single big bite with sharp teeth.

“Sorry—”

“Thanks.”

Seyari’s brow shot up. “What?”

“For helping me think things through a bit. I still need some time to decide though.” Nelys looked up and smiled thinly.

“Sure,” Seyari replied, unsure what else to say. In lieu of more words, she started to eat in earnest. The hot meal helped warm her spirits.

A short while later, a burst of light and twin exclamations of surprise from the tent behind her made Seyari jump up.

“Renna?!”

“We’re fine!” Renna shouted back.

“What happened?” Seyari asked, setting her plate down to run over to the tent.

Zarenna and Joisse emerged from inside. Her daughter-to-be, now standing in the dawn light and dressed in one of Zarenna’s spare sets of clothing, the garments slightly loose, looked oddly familiar. No, she looked oddly familial.

Joisse’s face was the same as ever, but there were slight tweaks. In her leaner, no-longer-hunched build, Seyari saw other traces of both herself and Zarenna, and she had the realization of what such a thing could mean moments before Renna opened her mouth.

***

I glanced down at Joisse, who nodded for me to speak. “Joisse has demonic-aspected holy magic.”

Seyari nodded numbly. Taava’s playing faltered, and Nelys looked over, suddenly very interested.

Kartania dropped the knife she’d been eating with into the dirt. “What? That’s not possible.”

In response Joisse raised a hand and formed a ball of light that glowed pearlescent crimson.

My sister’s eyes glowed and she sucked in a gasp. “You cannot let this get out.” She spoke at me, but shot a glare at Brynna.

“I won’t tell anyone,” the lupael answered quickly. “I owe you all anyway, and I don’t know enough about magic to really know how big of a deal that is.”

Seyari bit her lip. “I thought I was seeing things when I checked your aura, Joisse.”

“Mom said the same,” Joisse replied. “But I scratched my nose and healed it on accident, and we both felt it. She taught me how to make this.” She gestured with two more hands to the glowing ball before it dissipated. “It’s originally a fire spell—something you’d use for light.”

Seyari placed a hand over her chest and leaned forward. “We need to tread carefully. I’ll teach you how to use your magic.”

“Seyari!” Kartania barked. “Do you have any idea how—”

“Yes,” the three-quarters angel answered. “More than you.”

My paladin sister drew her lips into a thin line. “It will corrupt those that it heals, and possibly those it harms.”

“And it will allow for great things when healing those who are already ‘corrupted,’” Seyari spat back.

“Don’t fight,” Nelys said softly. “Seyari has a point, though. She had to heal me, and it hurt both of us. Does this mean Joisse could heal demons or contracted people?”

Kartania set her jaw into a stiff line and stayed silent.

“I think so…” Seyari replied. “But it also means…”

A contract between demon and angel. “Sey…”

“Not now,” Seyari replied cryptically, though from the way Kartania’s eyes bulged, I had an idea my sister knew. “I need to think on it.”

“We could make it temporary—something to be fulfilled?” My instincts told me it wouldn’t be that simple.

“Not now, Zarenna.”

I nodded at Seyari. “Let’s get breakfast then, Joisse.”

My daughter nodded and walked over to Seyari. “Can you teach me magic after?”

I stifled an inappropriate laugh at my daughter trying to look small in front of Seyari, who was a few centimeters shorter than her.

“Zarenna,” Kartania said, walking over to me. “We need to talk.”

“Sure thing, Sis,” I replied.

Kartania tried not to smile and only barely succeeded. “Get your shoes and meet me by the edge of camp, just into the dead trees.”

I look at the fire with surprise, and saw that my shoes were sitting out to warm near it. With a wave toward Taava, I did as my sister asked, and met her just inside the field of burned sticks that used to be trees. To my surprise the first thing she did was hug me.

“Tania?”

My sister pulled away, wearing a smile that looked like it had fought a war to show itself. “Be careful with Joisse’s magic, Renna. If she heals a human, she’ll almost certainly corrupt them.”

“Is it really ‘corruption?’”

“That’s just the word—I don’t have a better one. What I mean is that it’ll change whoever she heals. Make them at least a little bit demonic.”

After a moment’s thought, I nodded solemnly. “In trying to help someone, she could do more harm than good—especially if she changes them physically against their will.”

“Exactly. I… be careful with it, Zarenna. I can’t even think about what this means.”

“I don’t think any of us can. But it’ll be worse if we ignore it, and I’m not going to hide my daughter or her power away from the world. I’m done hiding and she should be too.”

Kartania looked me in the eyes for a long moment, her thoughts hidden from me, then she hugged me again. “Don’t die…” she said softly.

I wrapped her in a hug back, using all four arms and my tail. “I won’t. Your sister’s not as fragile as she used to be, but she’s still just as careful.”

“Good,” Tania’s said with a muffled voice. “Because I don’t think I could survive losing you a second time.”

“Me neither,” I answered honestly. “Do you want to stay her a while?”

“We need to get moving.” She made no attempt to move.

“That’s not an answer,” I chided gently.

“…Let’s stay here for just a moment then, Sis.”

“Okay, Tania.”