Zana is kind of suspicious of all of these new people she has never met before, and also she is not sure how many parents you are allowed to have, but she nods and goes on thoughtfully munching her cereal.

Rozben points out things they pass - theaters and galleries and gardens and a zoo and sports fields and a shuttleport and "not exactly restaurants, but that's the closest idea" and clubs and, in between all these things, more or less beautiful demon's houses, in scores of styles and many varied levels of taste and restraint.

Hell is a very weird place. It has fewer fires than she was pretty sure Hell was supposed to have, and also there aren't other children and there isn't anyone she knows. These are both problems. But there are purple spaceship wagons and there are librarians who know lots of things, so it could be worse.

Rozben's house is in a house tower; his is the third up. "I usually fly up but you're too little to have wings, they wouldn't grow with the rest of you," he says. "There's a ladder around the back."

"I CAN CLIMB LADDERS."

She does not mention that she is really really bad at climbing ladders and is for this reason not allowed to exercise this ability.

He leads her to the ladder around the back!

Zana very determinedly attempts to climb the ladder. She falls on her butt a few steps up.

"I can climb ladders but it might take a while."

"I could carry you up if you'd like to not take a while," he offers.

"That might be faster," she says dubiously. She can practice climbing ladders more when she is done with her letter.

He scoops her up off her feet and holds her against his shoulder, and backs away from the house so he can flap. He takes off and spirals up around the house tower and lands on his balcony. Then he sets her down, not without reluctance.

"Thank you," says Zana, because it is important to thank people for things. She walks into the house.

The entrance leads into an open-plan living room, a dining room beyond and a movie-watching room off to the left, with a kotatsu in a pit surrounded by cushy seats in the middle; the walls are marble, where they aren't decorated or the entire side of the wall that is window. The house is cluttered and does not even really look like with a little work it would be in a state of superior organization. A cleaner robot is climbing the wall on its sticky wheels, dusting, and another is rolling around vacuuming.

"Welcome!" says Rozben.

"It's a good house," says Zana, because it is different from her house but it has a table and chairs and a TV and doors and windows and all of the things houses are supposed to have, apart from beds, and beds go in a different place.

"You can stay in one of the rooms I've been using for guests," he says, weaving through to show her to the hall with bedrooms branching off of it. The room in question is less cluttered, though still heavily decorated, sort of like the decor schemes of seven different fancy hotels were all superimposed on one another. It has a window-wall, with layers of various curtains, and a screen perpendicular to that taking up another wall.

"This is OK," says Zana. She goes over to the bed and sits on it and conjures a stuffed pig to hug. Then she thinks about it and gives the pig a helmet.

"Do you like pigs?" Rozben asks, sitting next to her on the bed.

"They're OK. Daddy gave me a stuffed pig for my birthday. His name is Porkcullis because he's really strong like a gate that defends people. And he is a pig. He didn't used to have a helmet but he can now."

"That's a cute name. How old did you turn on your birthday?"

Zana holds up three fingers.

"Three! Congratulations. What's your name, by the way, I don't think you've introduced yourself."

"I'm Suzanna Teller. My mommy and daddy and auntie and brother and everyone all call me Zana."

"Zana! That's a great name."

She smiles. "Rozben is a good name, too."

"Thanks, I picked it myself."

"Can you do that?"