Jury stood from behind her smaller desk and presented one of the contracts to Asa. Asa passed the still-unconscious demon to Mouse to hold before grasping the contract, which was dense with Jury’s neat hand-writing. The Madame watched Mouse with polite consideration as Mouse held the demon very gently and very seriously, mindful of his injuries. Asa moved to block her view of Mouse as he reviewed the contract, which didn’t contain boilerplate language. Jury must have started notating this as soon as the holo footage hit the satellite waves.
Jury extended her hand to present the other contract to Mouse, but Asa snatched this contract from her hands too. He activated his holo visor and scanned through both of them, his eyebrows furrowing as he translated the most commonly used demonic dialect. PQ-9 digitally recorded the contracts over Asa’s shoulder and instant messaged Asa with annotations to the scanned-in text, which matched Asa’s conclusions. Jury had the same signature style in this time-line as she did in his: clean, technical, but lacking in originality. The estimated amount of money that was owed written at the bottom of the first page of both contracts. Asa couldn’t find the metrics for how these numbers had been calculated.
“How did you compute the numbers for total damages?” Asa said, looking sharply at Jury. For a single disorienting moment, Asa felt like he was Head Apprentice again, and he was running Jury through her paces as a Senior Apprentice.
But the walls of this Madame’s office were covered in bookcases that were stacked with paper books, which Madame Katusha would think was a waste of money and space. Madame Katusha utilized her office walls as vertical storage for useful theurgical objects and paraphernalia related to the process of crafting demonic contracts. For the first time, Asa wondered where Madame Katusha was in this time-line, if Galatea Rex was the Madame of the House.
Jury raised one slim eyebrow. “There are quite a few sources that had to be taken into account due to the amount of infrastructure damage that you caused,” she said. “It would take too long to explain.”
“I’m not signing a contract unless I know where these numbers came from,” Asa said firmly. The numbers were astronomically high even just for one contract. No person—even a child with a lifetime ahead of them—would be able to pay both amounts in this lifetime or the next. Asa didn’t see how these contracts could actually be geared toward infrastructure damages. “I have significant doubts about your sources.”
“Are you really in a position to argue?” Rose drawled from he stood in front of the door.
“I have the right to consultation,” Asa insisted. According to systems’ law, every individual had the legal right to consultation before signing a contract. However, Asa had seen very few people actually ask for this when they signed House contracts.
The Madame laughed. “Go ahead,” she said to Jury. She sounded amused. “Send him the source files.”
“But Madame—” Jury protested.
The Madame raised her eyebrows. Jury’s mouth flattened, and she immediately sent Asa the source files.
In a shared feed, Asa duplicated these files for PQ-9 before skimming through them himself. With a sense of rising dread, Asa realized that these files were so enormous that he would need at least two days to make sense of these files, even with PQ-9’s assistance. Asa would bet his life’s savings that the Madame had known that, so acquiescing to Asa’s request would have been sufficiently entertaining for her. Asa attached an instant message to holo visor screen, super-positioned over the files.
:PQ-9, what do you think?:
PQ-9 dropped a simple accounting sheet template with new numbers and a total that were half of what the contracts combined stipulated. This suggested that the House had inflated the charges at least one hundred percent. Asa could negotiate that it was only necessary to sign one contract. But Asa didn’t want to sign a contract at all. He had spent the entirety of his life avoiding demonic obligation to the House. Even when his mother’s privilege as the favorite of the House had run out, and he could no longer be protected by her, he had chosen to leave.
“These contracts are inaccurate as to the amount of money that is allegedly owed,” Asa said flatly.
“Oh?” the Madame said, the corners of her mouth curling upward. “You’re from another time-line—it would make sense if you don’t understand the origin of the numbers.”
“I worked for the House,” Asa said. “I doubt that it’s very different, based on the files that I was sent.”
The Madame smiled wider, and Asa cursed himself for behaving like a humanoid in a demonic trap. “So you did work for the House. You either still work for the House or you’ve stolen that collar.”
“No, this collar is mine,” Asa said, unequivocal.
The Madame tapped her mouth with her index finger, thoughtful and performative in her thoughtfulness. “Well,” she said slowly. “I’ll tell you what. I’m willing to negotiate the terms of the contract. If you give the House your collar, I’ll consider cutting the price of the damages in half.”
“No,” Asa said immediately. “You can’t have it”
The Madame shrugged one shoulder. “Then I’m afraid these are the terms.”
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“Why do you even want this?” Asa said. “You must have plenty of House collars. You don’t need mine.”
“Take it or leave it, Asahel,” she said in a final tone.
His mother never called him by his full name unless he was in trouble. “Half of the price is what’s fair,” Asa argued. “Frankly, even that amount is utterly ridiculous. If the House is truly in such a state that you can’t afford to pay damages, the person who does the bookkeeping is truly an idiot.”
“Don’t talk to the Madame that way,” Jury snapped.
“You can’t tell me how to talk to my—” Asa said furiously, and then cut himself off. He didn’t want these people to know anything about his mother. Asa didn’t know what their access was to different time-lines, especially since the Madame seemed so knowledgeable about everything else.
“Hasn’t anyone told you that life isn’t fair?” the Madame said smoothly, as Jury’s face went pale with anger. “But fine. Everyone who is not Asahel or the girl—you may leave.”
“But Madame, at least one person should stay here,” Jury protested. “You can’t trust him.” She shot Asa a look of vicious disdain.
“Jury, it sounds like you would like to clean the newly settled time-line,” the Madame said calmly. Asa winced inwardly—he had hated scouring new time-lines for remaining demons after the alarm.
Jury briefly possessed a look of dread before she set her mouth in a stubborn line. “Someone needs to be here to protect you,” she said.
Asa knew his mother so well that he could tell even on this version of her that she was losing her patience for Jury’s defiance. “I have been the Madame for a long time. An individual doesn’t continue in my position unless they can protect themselves very, very well,” she said. “Leave now, or I will assign you to scrubbing the time-line of demons.”
The expression on the Madame’s face was very stern, and Asa reflexively winced. His mother didn’t wear that look unless he had really overstepped.
Jury appeared to realize this, and she left in a swirl of red uniform with a lingering glance at Rose. Asa felt his face scrunch into a scowl, even though that wasn’t his Rose. Rose pushed himself off the wall, making a hand signal to Luna.
“We’ll be around,” Rose said to the Madame, and Asa couldn’t tell whether that was a threat. Then Rose and Luna also left, which just left Asa, Mouse, and the Madame.
Asa understood why his mother—why the Madame was upset. Jury had made her look weak in front of strangers and members of the Gold Seal Syndicate. Madame Katusha had been exceedingly strict about this with Asa, way more strict than Galatea Rex had been so far in the same position of Madame.
The Madame schooled her face into calmness before pressing a little button on the wall. “Please, both of you take a seat,” she said, gesturing behind her to a connected area with a small seating set-up. A little velvet sofa was located in the center of the area, along with a couple chairs and a small wooden table. PQ-9 trilled to Asa in a soft sound of warning. Asa himself had no desire to venture further into the room, but Mouse was already carrying his demon to the sofa and trying to sit while still carefully holding the demon at the same time.
Asa sighed and lifted Mouse by her collar to seat her more firmly on the sofa with the demon in her lap. Mouse was surprisingly light, which made him frown. “Hey!” Mouse protested. “Don’t manhandle me.”
The Madame smiled as she sat in one of the chairs, leaning her arm on the armrest in order to prop her chin on one hand. “I like your spunk, kid,” she said to Mouse.
“I’m not a kid,” Mouse complained.
Asa didn’t want to sit, but when the Madame looked at him with one raised eyebrow, his body moved automatically, in reflexive response to his mother’s expectant look. He threw himself next to Mouse on the sofa, the contracts crumpling a little in his sweating hands. PQ-9 protested the rough treatment, which caused the Madame to glance at him again.
“It’s funny,” the Madame observed, her tone light. “I have never thought about having a child.” Asa held his breath, trying not to let the hurt flash over his face like a beacon of weakness. “But if I had, I would hope my child would be like Mouse.”
He tried to remind himself that this wasn’t his mother. Asa exhaled in a controlled manner in an effort to calm his heart rate. But his body still registered her words as if they were his mother. There was a knock at the door, and Asa’s body tensed all over again.
“Come in!” the Madame called. An initiate apprentice, who appeared approximately six years old, entered the office in a white uniform with accents of red. He carefully balanced a red metal tray with beautifully cut fruit, three cups, and a carafe of water. “Very good,” the Madame said warmly, as the apprentice set the tray on the table and meticulously poured three cups of water. “I see that Master Lumen is training you well.”
The apprentice tried to remain calm, but Asa could see how excited he was to receive a compliment from the Madame of the House. When the door closed behind the apprentice, Asa imagined that he would immediately run to the kitchens to tell everyone what had happened.
“Go ahead,” the Madame said, gesturing at the table. “Eat as much as you like.”
Mouse’s face lit up. She carefully scooted forward to grab fruit, but she couldn’t quite reach with Asa’s demon on her lap and her short arms. Asa sighed, annoyed, but was unable to stop himself from making Mouse a plate of atypically fresh fruit. He was more than fifty percent certain that the Madame wouldn’t poison them yet, considering how much money they allegedly owed.
“Now,” the Madame said, putting her hands together. “I can understand if we appeared too—aggressive. You see, it’s just very shocking to have an incident like this happen right in the middle of the downtown area. But—surely you must understand the protocol with your own experience of working for the House.”
Asa didn’t know what to say. His collar perfectly matched the collar that this time-line’s Jury Stone wore. Jury was Head Apprentice in this time-line, just as she was in his own current time-line. The difference was that Asa just didn’t seem to exist here.
Asa ignored the welling of sadness deep in his gut by pouring himself a small cup of water.
“You feel it too,” Mouse said suddenly, her cheeks puffed up with half-chewed food. “On the necklace.”
The Madame chuckled. “How astute!” she said. “I don’t feel it—but I can certainly see it.”
“What are you talking about?” Asa said warily. The fuse of his nerves lit with a creeping sense of alarm.
“The demonic energy, of course,” the Madame said, sipping her water. The cup hid her eyes, but he could see the up-tilted corners of her mouth as she set down the cup.
Asa reflexively touched his collar, but the gems felt as they always had: smooth, hard, warmed with his body heat. “The collar has protection spells,” he said, defensive. “Just like all the other House collars.”
It was just that it was his mother instead of Madame Katusha who had given it to him, who had laid the spells on his collar. His mother was the one who had first placed it on his neck when he was a small child. It had been too big for him, but his mother had told him he would grow into it.
“I don’t think you understand,” the Madame said, raising one eyebrow. “That collar holds the single-most complex demon contract spell that I have ever seen.”
