"Oh! Right, his real name's Cecil. He's part of the unofficial club I mentioned earlier. We all have nicknames. I'm Little Bird."

"You don't look particularly avian to me."

"My full name is Daphne Major. This is also the name of an island in the Galapagos where some important research is being done on finches."

"Aha. My full name's Campbell Mark Swan, if you're curious."

"That seems like a very human name. I take it your advice on what happens when someone who summons daeva dies was at least partly from personal experience, then."

"There's a few reasons I don't usually tell summoners that, but yeah, I used to be a human."

"I'm sorry if I intruded on something private."

"Well, one reason is they usually summon me bound and gagged and I am literally unable to communicate with them."

"Why would they do that?"

"Aforementioned rumor about demons taking people's souls. No one wishes to be cajoled out of theirs. The binding is a legitimate safety precaution when you don't know who you're getting - the gagging is ultimately quite pointless."

"Okay, the binding part makes sense, but if they don't want to be talked out of their souls why don't they just resolve to say no?"

"Because some demons think it's really fun to convince summoners to offer up their souls and have gotten very good at it. This is really the safest equilibrium, because the souls are being traded for something, the something is real and the soul is not - or at least the claim on it isn't - and if it were common knowledge that there was nothing on one end of this bargain you'd still have an asshole demon and a desperate summoner and that gets less pleasant fast."

"That part makes sense. I've just never understood how you can be so afraid of someone persuading you to something that you don't let them talk--if you expect them to have arguments you'll find swaying, that should sway you. I don't understand what irrational appeals could be made that wouldn't fit into that category--verbally, anyway. I do understand how the application of...stimuli can impair one's judgment."

"Stimuli. Threats. Insinuations that there are loopholes in the binding. Outright bribery - you summoned me for this thing, but imagine if I also did that thing, which is not in the scope of what you asked and would require additional payment?"

"Demons who wish you harm are scary when you're mortal. Mind, so are angels and fairies wishing the same, but demons do have better range and scale and need know less about what we're doing, and the worse reputation. And we're harder to pay, because, well. We're demons."

It takes her a moment to parse this. "And can make stuff, right, for a minute I thought you meant something about wilful obstinacy or wickedness or some such."

"Nah. Fairies are easy to pay. They live in a very naturally rich world, but they only move things, so it's just economics: it's easier for the fairy to move your furniture than to bake cookies, so this is a trade you can get a fairy to make a decent fraction of the time. Angels are harder, they can change matter into whatever they like, but they need to do all their own detail work, so they'll take electronics or potted plants or books. And then there's demons. If you are reasonably fortunate, what you do is you pay demons in information. Lists of music, the news of a new art museum, your favorite author's name. Then we go home and conjure up the discography or the gallery or the complete works. But those of us who take summons have a pretty efficient network for sharing that information and if it's not new and your demon is in the loop, you're out of luck. And then you can try to pay the demon in live animals - we can make those, but we can't make minds, so they don't make very satisfying pets - but there are animals in Hell, now, most of the particularly charismatic varieties, either made painstakingly with the mindless kind as parents or imported. And then you're left with - intangibles."

"Like souls. Or sex."

"Yep."

"Honestly, I can think of worse things than paying for arbitrary objects with sex. But that's me--I'm aware most people put more emotional investment into it."

"Yeah. And it complicates the matter that the demons are almost never allowed to talk. I know they sometimes are - I once had an extremely fortunate series of summons to a linguistics department, they were learning demonic languages from a different demon they had and wanted me to confirm translations, they had to have been letting the other demon talk. But usually we can't negotiate, which means not only no suggesting souls as payment but also no saying look, I will totally fill your entire soup kitchen back room for literally the least token of payment necessary to count for dismissal, if you insist on offering me your physical charms we're just going to sit here very awkwardly between the rice and the beans before you notice that I'm not collecting."

She bursts out laughing. "Oh dear. That's terrible, did that happen to you?"

"Yes, that happened to me. Summoners and their daeva can renegotiate payment on the fly as long as they come to an agreement, so faced with someone who literally just wanted food to give to the needy and couldn't think of anything to trade for it - well, I didn't want her to summon more demons until she found one who'd go through with it, the poor girl, so I made all the food and then just sort of stared at her until she asked if I might have remembered I left the stove on in which case I could have one of the nectarines and call it good. And then it was 'yes summoner' and that was that."

"Poor dear. Was it a tasty nectarine at least?"