"Mmm. Having people watching my back for pirates while not giving me a hard time about ungagged and variously specially-bound demons would also solve several problems. We should resummon you at some point, by the way. It's not exactly urgent, given that you are pretty clearly not secretly evil, but if we're going to become reputable enough to end death as we know it, then we should probably try not to go around committing really serious crimes."

"Yeah. You want another of what I was under before?"

"...no, less restrictive. I don't wanna have to commit another really serious crime the next time we run into a random emergency."

"I'll try to design something that won't get you shot, shall I."

"That'd be nice. Being a daeva would complicate most of my current plans, I'm in no particular rush to become indestructible."

"Also, you probably want to arrange with someone that they summon you if you die."

"This is true. This would probably be easier to arrange if I had more friends who were neither daeva nor incompetent weirdos on Pluto, but I know a couple trustworthy non-summoners who could be given instructions. And I need an actual certification and possibly some kind of advanced degree in summoning anyway, which I'm sure will involve making friends with someone who knows what they're doing."

"You probably want to obfuscate the instructions in some way so they don't peek while you're still alive and go 'why does she want me to try summoning an angel, a demon, and a fairy who all have the same name as her?'. Getting a cert for summoning from Federated Stations isn't hard, they have a very minimal test, you could pass it right now if you wanted."

"I can figure out a way to do that. And I should probably look up the test, if you conjure me the rules I can read them over now."

He hands them over.

And she will read over the rules, looking up occasionally to make sure that Connor and Zana are still playing nicely and not giving each other a hard time.

The Federated Stations test requires that you show up with a well-bound and tasked daeva ("well-bound" requires gags for demons but not for fairies or angels) and a proctor will examine this binding while you take a three hour written test with a fifteen minute break, for which you are allowed no outside materials.

Looks simple enough. "D'you want to be a well-bound and tasked daeva for three hours, or should I find someone I don't have to gag?"

"I don't mind. It's a bit outside the spirit of the test to use a circle made for you, but I don't think they check and don't know if you care."

"Oh, I'm gonna make my own circle. Even if I ask you, if can't be your circle, your circle is not remotely kosher. I do not promise to never ask for help on my quest to build enough cred to end death as we know it, but I can totally pass a basic summoning certification test."

"Academic honesty!" says Cam, ironically fist-pumping.

"I do try," she says, mock-seriously, and then gets to work on designing her circle.

Eeee they are going to have a space station and she is going to have a PURPOSE. Life is so much easier to handle when you have a clear-cut purpose, such as 'end death as we know it'.

Cam gets underway on designing her a space station.

Zana wants to stay here tonight. She likes Rozben, but Auntie Kalia is her auntie and also she knows how to tell bedtime stories.

Probably Zana can't get into very much trouble while she's sleeping, so hopefully that's all right. Kalia makes an omelette for everybody's dinner, and for about an hour everything is almost normal. Probably about as normal as you can be when you're making dinner for an unbound demon and two recent orphans, one of whom is also recently a demon.

"I could have made omelettes, you know."

"You could have. Cooking's good for, like, feeling like you can make things, though. You can make dinner tomorrow, if you want, I'm sure it'll be just as tasty and far more efficient."

"Cam is good at making ice cream," volunteers Zana. "I am good at making ice cream but only when I'm in Hell."

"When we're somewhere more private you'll be able to make some things, like ice cream," Cam tells Zana. "It's not about being in Hell, it's about the circle."

"Ohhhh," says Zana, though she's not sure she really understands how circles work. "Do you have a better circle?"