The tunnel seemed to go on forever, spiraling in a wide circle, as they ran deeper and deeper toward the bottom of Namah’s shop.

  “Where are we going?" Asa said, panting. Asa could feel the ominousness of Namah at their backs, the miasma of her anger filling the space they were in like smoke in a burning house. Asa knew they must still be in Namah's shop, even if he couldn't see how her shop could be this big—it was probably a dimension inside a dimension.

  "To the bottom of her shop," Rose said grimly, and that's when Asa realized that they HAD been running downward in slow increments, propelled even faster by slanting stone.

  "How did you know this tunnel was behind the wall?" Asa asked as they continued to sprint.

  "I sent one of my contracted demons ahead to investigate," Rose said. "They've been casing the place the whole time."

  “Where is your demon—“ Asa started ask, but he was interrupted by the tunnel suddenly coming to an end. Asa skidded into a large room, which held many magically divided rooms of varying sizes.

  "Sol!" Rose started yelling. "Sol, where are you? Sol!"

  Asa felt himself stagger in surprise at the idea of Sol—Luna's little brother—as the child that Rose was looking for. There were occupants inside rooms, and they started yelling back at Rose—some in languages that Asa knew, some that he didn't. If there were keys to these rooms, they were no where to be seen. The rooms themselves seemed to go on forever in a row as Asa and Rose searched for Sol. There were so many entities who were trapped in this never-ending maze—who knew how many of them had loved ones that were looking for them, just like Rose was looking for Sol?

  "Asa, we need to separate," Rose said tightly. "I need to find my demon, she’s in trouble."

  Asa squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus himself. "Rose, do you have an item of Sol's?"

  Rose wordlessly took out a glove that must have been Sol's from his pocket. The glove was blue, which was Sol's favorite color, and it was smaller than Asa's hand. Asa took the glove and held it out to his demon.

  "Scent it and find Sol," Asa said in a low voice, and for once, the demon did as Asa asked without complaining.

  Rose strode in another direction, presumably following the contract link to the demon on the other end of the connection. He disappeared quickly among the narrow paths without a word of goodbye. It felt like Asa was always watching Rose’s back as he left.

  Asa’s demon sniffed the air and then swiftly ran to the right. Asa followed him without hesitation. There was hardly any light now that Rose had left, leaving them in the gloom of the belly of Namah’s shop. But Asa instinctively followed his soulbond to his own demon, finding the bond like locating his own hand, his own feet. His demon led him unerringly to a room that was far in the back, near the wall—it was smaller than Asa had expected.

  Sol sat in the small room with no room to stand, trapped by walls formed of a magical barrier. He hugged his legs, his face resting against his knees, only his bright yellow hair visible over the top of his torn black pants. Asa slowed down as he approached. He noticed that Sol's shoulders were shaking a little, as if he was trying to stop shivering.

  "Hey," Asa said, crouching in front of Sol. "Sol."

  Sol shook his head, remaining silent.

  Asa frowned, surprised. "Sol, it's me, Asa," he said, leaning a little closer. "We gotta get you out of here."

  Sol curled up and started to turn away, as much as he could in the enclosed space.

  "Sol, come on, what's the matter?" Asa said, bewildered. "I thought you'd be happy to see me. We don't have much time, Rose's demon is in trouble—"

  "Stop lying," Sol said, speaking for the first time.

  "How am I lying?" Asa said, his eyebrows drawing even tighter together. "Sol, look at me."

  "No," Sol said firmly. "I'm not falling for this again." He gave a suppressed sniff, or maybe a low sob. "Go away."

  Asa’s heart broke inside his chest. "No, I'm not leaving," Asa said. "I can't leave without you."

  "You're not really Asa," Sol said, and now his voice was really wobbling. "You don't come to Rose's like you used to. Why would you come here?"

  "Because Rose asked me for help," Asa said, helplessness rising in his throat, as if it could choke him. "You just have to call me, anytime. Of course I'd come for you."

  "But you didn't come before," Sol said quietly.

  Asa winced. "Because Rose didn't want me to come," he said.

  "You should have come anyway," Sol said stubbornly.

  Asa exhaled slowly as his demon leaned against him. "Well, I'm here now," Asa said. "What do I have to do to make you believe me?"

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Sol finally looked up and then he blinked in surprise. He really had been crying, tear tracks streaking down his small face. Asa felt like the worst person alive. "You have a demon?" Sol said suspiciously. "You never had a demon before."

  "Call your demon," Asa suggested. Every person in the Red Seal Syndicate had a contract with a demon, which meant they had an accompanying demon as part of their training. The Red Seal Syndicate was modeled after the military, but of course it didn't have the resources the military had. Sol didn't have a lot of magical energy, so he had a small demon that wasn't very powerful.

  "I can't," Sol said, wiping his face with his sleeve. "The room has a ward."

  Asa examined the room more closely, PQ-9 taking pictures to analyze them with his software. The room that Sol was imprisoned in had several magical wards attached to it: a ward to lock the room, a ward to prevent demonic interference, and a ward to keep the occupant in a sort of stasis so their health wasn't affected by captivity. The wards were interlocked together like mechanisms in a lock.

  Asa sucked in air through his teeth. It wasn't going to be a quick or easy fix to get Sol out of there.

  "Keep on the look out," Asa told his demon, who stretched obnoxiously before curling his tail around himself. Asa turned to the wards and then to the tedious process of unlocking all three of the wards with PQ-9’s assistance. "How long have you been here, Sol?"

  Sol shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "It's not like she takes me out for a walk or anything."

  Asa snorted. "Yeah," he said. "She definitely didn't seem the warm and fuzzy type."

  "You don't get to where she is by being nice," Sol said seriously.

  It sounded like something Rose would say, which made Asa grimace. Sol shouldn't have to learn lessons like that when he was still just a kid. Being nice should be worth something.

  Being kind should be worth something.

  PQ-9 directed Asa through unlocking the first ward, which was the most penetrable, by figuring out the diabolical little puzzle Namah had embedded in her work. It had to be Namah's work, Asa didn't know anyone else other than Madame Katusha and his mother who could make work like this.

  "You doing okay?" Asa asked, as he started work on the second ward.

  "I'm hungry," Sol complained.

  Asa hadn't taken any supplies with him because he hadn't thought it would take this long to complete Rose’s errand. "Sorry, kid," he said, rueful.

  "I'm hungry too," the demon added.

  "You should be keeping alert," Asa scolded.

  "I can be alert AND hungry at the same time," the demon said, petulant.

  Asa rolled his eyes. "What were you working on with Rose?" Asa asked Sol, still fiddling with the second ward. This ward was trickier, and it was what was preventing Sol from using his demon to escape. Galatea used to set Asa to unpicking magical wards when he was a child. She would set up an enormous scavenger hunt of magical wards, and Asa would run around the whole day unlocking wards. On his birthdays, and sometimes just because, he would win his favorite candy and toys as prizes.

  "Magical combat," Sol said promptly. “Contracts, wards, demonic negotiation, demonic dialects—“

  "Whoa,” Asa said, holding up a hand. “Was he trying to send you planet-side for university or something?”

  Asa couldn’t think why else Rose would be drilling Sol in ALL of those subjects, even though Asa couldn’t remember the last time someone from the Station had gone planet-side to attend school.

  "No, he just didn't want to lose me like he lost Gemma," Sol said, totally guileless.

  Asa’s whole body cringed as he thought of—no, he couldn't think of her right now, it would just fuck with his concentration on the ward. It had been two years already. But he still couldn't think about her without—no, he needed to focus on the ward. He needed to get Sol out. There was no room for panic, no room for grief or self-hatred, or—or any of it.

  Asa swallowed it all back down until it filled his stomach like a stone: a heavy weight that would never leave him.

  "Luna was teaching me cooking though," Sol added. "She doesn't want me to die of malnutrition."

  Asa laughed hoarsely. "You mean like Rose?" he said. Rose couldn't cook for shit, mostly because he didn't care about cooking. Food was utilitarian to him.

  "Yeah, exactly," Sol said, nodding, and that was when Asa finally unlocked the second ward.

  "Got it!" Asa said, victorious. "Try using your demon now."

  Asa’s back was soaked with sweat, from pressure and stress and the suffocating weight of Namah’s magic.

  "Okay!" Sol said, brightening up, and he called his demon out from the tiny tattoo that rested on his upper arm.

  The demon was just as tiny as Asa remembered it—roughly the size and shape of a very baby monkey, and she clung to Sol's neck. "Hey, Mini," Sol said, affectionate. "Can you help us get out of here?"

  "Where were you," Mini grumbled, still rubbing her face against Sol in an affectionate gesture.

  Asa started work on the third and most complicated ward with PQ-9 sending him coding assistance. He had really reached his own limit on his restricted magic, and he hoped manual precision would be enough. Without the restriction, Asa would have been able to just fucking blast the wards with magical brute-force. Asa wondered what his mother would think about this work, and whether she would be impressed. Asa had never worked as hard at creating his own original wards or contracts as he did at breaking down other people's work. His mother had always been disappointed at that.

  "Look around," Sol said seriously, and Mini raised her fuzzy little face to look around the room.

  "Ah," she said, taking in the wards and what they meant. "Well. That's unfortunate."

  "You're telling me," Sol agreed.

  Mini closed her eyes, channeling power, and she started to glow orange with her own magic. It wasn't as bright as Asa remembered it. The demon must be weak after this amount of time with no access to energy to feed herself. The second ward should have kept her power in stasis though, so whatever the demon had when they were put into the room was what the demon would still have left.

  Asa tried to solve the third magical ward as quickly and carefully as he could. Asa had seen—and had this happen to him when he was growing up—when magical wards had been solved wrong. The wards tended to blow up literally in the person's face and then still be locked.

  Asa didn't want to think about what would happen if he got it wrong with Namah’s ward. Asa could feel some of Mini’s energy leaking into the ward, which was helpful but was not nearly enough to break the ward. The ward's magical protection was itself fueled by demonic energy. Mini’s energy was a different element—summer—than the ward's magical energy—ice—which meant that they clashed. But Mini was quickly tiring, and Asa tensed even further as he tried to just—figure out that last lock—

  —then Asa's demon bit him on his leg. "Ow!" Asa cried. "Why would you do that when—"

  "Hey, I was just doing what you told me to do," the demon said, and if he had eyebrows, he would be raising them in judgment.

  "That is not what I meant," Asa said, glowering, when another demon skidded to a halt in front of them.

  Asa hadn't seen Rose's first contract demon in years. Rose had had her for as long as Asa could remember. Asa tried not to think about what could have made Rose sign a contract as such a small child. Rose had never talked about it.

  But there she was—and she was running toward them at full-speed.