Frustration roiled i's stomach as he made his way out of the building. The library hadn’t beeirely a dead end, but it wasn’t going to help him get Jori bay time soon. He’d been hoping that he might stumble across something, anything that could help right now. As he had that thought, though, Bernt realized just how ridiculous it sounded. He wasn’t ag rationally, here – he was grasping at straws.

  This wasn’t helping. He o start thinking things through. Ed was gone, and so was Jori. Maybe he could eventually learn how to summon her without immediately being found out, but it wouldn’t be soon, or here. The Solicitors were going to watch him closely as long as he was iy, he was certain. And there was nothing he could do about Ed. Maybe nothing anyone could do. But at least he wouldn’t be the only oerested in finding a solution.

  He took the other way back toward the Uy Gate, cutting through the Temple District to avoid most of the destru. While the buildings here still stood, the pce ractically deserted. Most of the people who worked here would be tending the wounded for days yet – burns were difficult to heal properly, even for clerics.

  His moment of crity earlier felt as though it had kicked something loose in his mind, allowing him to finally step bad look at the situation more objectively – if only a little. And as he sidered what had happened more carefully, he kept ing back to a few specific details.

  Jori hadn’t waited to be deported. She’d gone back herself, despite the fact that she hated the hells. He’d felt her determination as well as her reluce, even as she did it. Besides that, there were her words to sider, both as she left, and in the hours and days before. She’d gone back to save someone. Someones, rather. Bernt recalled the strange ents she’d made, and her refusal to talk about it when he asked. The pain she felt whehought about home. And theerday, how she’d called out to the enemy imps by name. She’d goo save them, somehow, Bernt was certain.

  Them, and Ed. Hopefully. Jori liked and respected the old man, and she’d seen what happeo him just as well as Bernt had.

  But did that ge what he was going to do?

  Not much, Bernt decided. He o slow down, that was true, but it wasn’t illegal to learn summoning rituals, provided he could find the information. He could decide whether and how to use it ter. If nothing else, it would provide him with new options. The most obvious person to ask about it was Josie, but he doubted she would help. She was happy to see Jori uhe Solicitors’ thumb, and thought that if they simply waited long enough, the imp would agree to a pact with one of them.

  Bernt knew better, though – he’d felt Jori’s rea when he’d offered to pact her. Then a woman’s voiterrupted his train of thought.

  “That’s right! I heard the goddess blessed her and she tht through the Duergar army t their evil priraight down to the hells to punish his transgressions.” Bernt perked up, looki and right. That voice sounded familiar. “ you imagi? A demon with Ruzinia’s own favor! A goddess for desperate times, that is.”

  Whe found the speaker, he frowned in fusion. She was an old woman wearing a worn off-white robe with her gray hair tied back. She was gossiping to a young man selling sticky buns on the er. Her face looked so familiar, but he couldn’t pce her. The ludicrous nature of the gossip didn’t provide any clues, either.

  He shook his head and tinued on, stepping through the gate on the far end of the Distrito the ravaged Crafter’s District. Only then did it click. The old woman was a Solicitor – her hair had hung in a ragged bush around her head yesterday, but it was her. She’d been there st night, at the battle.

  The Solicitors were spreading rumors about what had happe night, trying to twist the narrative to their advantage. And they were trying to make it sound like Jori’s disappearance had to do with her defeat of Nuros, not the Solicitors’ ultimatum.

  Moreover, they were trying to give her credit for Torvald’s tribution to the battle to make her out as some kind of holy figure. Why not? It wasn’t as though anyone could prove differently, now that she was gone. Nobody iemple District would believe it, of course, but it made freat story. Bernt had no doubt that the rumor mill would t Jori’s supposed ization into the local lore feions to e.

  Ice cold anger densed i of Bernt’s stomach. Radast was trying to profit from Jori after sending her back to the hells, and it was going to work. He could see through it now – what they’d been doing. There was no way they could have p this perfectly, but they’d set themselves up to be able to capitalize on anything she did. Radast robably delighted at how it had all turned out.

  The Solicitors had insisted that the Underkeepers and the Mages’ Guild take responsibility for her, but they had worked hard to maintain Jori’s association with them in the mind of the public. Josie had seen to that. Now, they were going to burnish Jori’s image to a shine using a bination of half-truths and ht fabrication and leverage it for all it was worth.

  And everyone was going to let it happen. Why wouldn’t they? The Solicitors were Ed and Iria’s allies. This was going tthen their political position iy. Worse, with Ed gone for the foreseeable future, the Underkeepers didn’t have an archmage anymore – they would need all the support they could get.

  Bernt ground his teeth. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it. They’d set her up as a pawn, to be disposed of as soon as she became inve. It was so obvious in hindsight – they hadn’t even tried to hide it. No, he was the fool here. He’d imagihat, because of Jori’s growiation and the way she’d befriended Josie, the Soliight have started to see her a little differently. That they’d find a way to work something out, if he was willing to make a promise. But of course they hadn’t. He’d been naive and allowed his own wishful thinking to get the better of him.

  It was exactly the sort of thing he should have expected from Solicitors.

  ***

  “I don’t care if it was an act or who was doing what at whatever time.” Iria said sternly, staring at the Chief Solicitor over the rims of her gsses. “I am here to find solutions, and yoing to help me. If you choose not to cooperate, I will assume foul py and take appropriate measures on my own. Do I make myself clear?”

  The younger man maintained his posure admirably, but she could see the sheen of sweat at the base of his neck. He was nervous, and it was making him act foolishly. Why would she want to hear his version of events if she suspected him to purposely dispose of Ed? Besides, she saw what happened with her own eyes and k hadn’t been on purpose. Only an idiot betrayed an ally while they were being overrun.

  Of course, that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t personally destroy this man if he didn’t apply himself to finding a satisfactory solution.

  “There’s no need for threats.” Radast responded smoothly. “Of course we will provide whatever information and assistahat we . Our retionship with both Archmage Thurdred and yourself have been nothing but advantageous, and doing anything less would be nothing short of self-sabotage. Besides, mutual aid is a cuse in our tract.”

  “Good.” Iria said shortly. “Then, what do you have?”

  Radast reached into a hidden pocket in his robes and drew out a scroll, which he unrolled on Iria’s desk. “While our maps of the third hell are inplete, it’s still by far the best-uood of the hells. This map based on the reports of summoned demons, and includes major ndmarks, rivers, and cities.

  Iria frowned. “Demons have cities?”

  “Of course. Spawnlings behave much like animals, like some of the less-intelligent types of demons, but most kinds of demoually assimite into a sort of civilization they have. Their hierarchiature lends itself well to these kinds of efforts. Each major city is ruled by a greater demon, who might subjugate other powerful demons and their cities in turn to create a kind of empire. Nuros doesn’t rule any city that I’m aware of, but Varamemnon does.” Radast poio a dot on the map beled in demonies, which Iria couldn’t read. “He’s a css 9 demon and his city sits at the wellspring of this river, here. Nuros and his servants were most likely summoned from within his territory, so that’s where the archmage will have been pulled when they were banished.”

  Iria grunted nonittally. This was a godsdamned disaster. Who had ever heard of someoing bodily dragged into the hells? If she hadn’t seen it through her own sg lenses, she wouldn’t have believed it. “ we firm whether he’s even still alive?”

  Radast maintained his stiff posture, but fiddled with his robes unsciously. “No, but we should assume that he’s fine for now. Unless he appeared right in the middle of their city, he’s very uo run into anything he couldn’t handle. A css 3 imp like the ohat took him would spend most of its time outside, fing for uncimed souls t to its master.”

  “Alright. What we do with that, then? I assume you ’t just go a him.”

  The chief solicitor shook his head. “No. Traveling there is, as you might have guessed, retively simple. It’s even been used as a dramatic method of execution in some pces historically. The problem is getting back out. The only method that I’ve heard of is from old stories and imperial records.”

  Iria scowled at that, and Radast hurried to tinue. “It’s pusible, though! It runs parallel to the way the archmage was drawn there in the first pce. He o be toug a demon as it is summoned back to our pne.”

  “Oh.” Iria said, rexing. Why hadn’t he just led with that? “That’s not too bad. You just have to bind a demon to go find him, deport it and then summon it back at predetermined intervals with instrus to take him along whe makes tact.”

  “Well…” Radast said carefully. “That’s going to be a problem, actually. Demons don’t accept pacts that attempt to promise their loyalties and obligations on their home phere are some theories that posit we ’t bind them outside the material realm at all, though I sider those to be problematic.”

  That was, indeed, going to be an issue. Pursing her lips in thought, Iria sidered for a moment. “We only have maybe a week or two. Ed jure enough water to sustain himself, I’m sure, but I doubt he do food. you do something more informal? A trade of some kind, maybe.”

  Radast nodded uainly. “We could try it. Time pressure makes this even more plicated, though. The bomber that attacked our offices mao destroy ent stores, so I’ll o send my people out to look for what we need. It’s uhat we’ll have the resources to just summon random demons until we find one close enough to reach him in time. Fortunately, we do have the name of an imp that Josie recorded in one of her reports. It should be in the region somewhere, but there’s no guarahat it’ll cooperate. Demons rarely break their word directly, but they’ll still do it occasionally – especially if they sider the summoner an enemy, which this oainly will. ”

  “Then we’ll just have to make it a good offer,” Iria said with more fidehan she felt. Ed couldn’t afford for them to wait around wringing their hands. “I’ll arrahe supplies and notify the Underkeepers, so whoever’s in charge there right noass along a message if they like. When you do it?”

  Radast rose, her a respectful nod. “I think we do it tonight. ”

  “Wait a sed.” Iria said, as he turo go. “Speaking of imps, why don’t we se’s imp after him – Jori? She has both a tractual retionship and a personal attat to Ed. Even if she has to travel farther, she’d be more reliable, and we could send her right now. I assume you’ll o deport her anyway, now that she has asded again.”

  “Ah. yes," the warlock said with a wihat’s already been done, unfortunately, so I’m afraid we would o summon her as well. We certainly attempt it, provided we acquire enough reagents for multiple summonings. Still, Dzhorianath could be anywhere – we have no idea where she was inally summoned from, and she couldn’t tell us, as she wasn’t sapient at the time of her summoning. For all we know, she might be over a months’ travel away. She should be sidered as a tingency at best.”

  Radast turo go, but then tihe motion, spinning arouirely with his finger raised as if he’d just thought of something. “One more thing. It may also be worth it t the young Underkeeper into this, if he be persuaded to cooperate. The imp listens to him, and while she doesn’t appear to bear us specific ill will, she made it clear that she doesn’t wish to work with us for the time being.”

  As the ma out of her office, Iria took off her gsses and rubbed at her tired eyes. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to take measures to pull Ed’s ass out of the fire. This, though, was getting ridiculous.