"Okay. ...In that case, if you manage to get interworld transit working between the daeva worlds, I would like to be dropped off in Limbo."

"Okay, why? Actually what is limbo, I don't think you've explained that one to me."

"It's where dead non-summoners from my mortal world go. It is sort of okay. It is not great. One helpful demon would go a long way."

"Can you summon people from there? I can get to anywhere I've put down markers, but the markers need to get there, otherwise I can only go to near-random universes. I could probably get to Limbo if I put in enough effort narrowing down its dimensional coordinates..."

"No, you can't summon Limboites. But I could mail a marker to Limbo, during the next concordance - it's a few years off."

"That'll do, then. You'll have to give me a good time to expect it to arrive, though, I'd hate to interrupt the mail."

"The next Hell-Limbo concordance is in... I think six years, I'll look it up." He materializes a computer. He looks it up. "Six years, two months, four days, Earth time. Concordance lasts less than a day, and after that the package will be in Limbo."

"I meant that I or someone else would summon you closer to that time and you'd let me know how long it was likely to be in transit."

"The concordances are quite predictable. I don't mind being summoned in the meantime but I can get it on its way in a few hours of time-in-Hell."

"...Okay. Uh, if universes don't always sync up time-wise the concordance may be in more or fewer than six years two months. What with my not being in my universe right now."

"...Ooh...that is a point. Maybe I had better just give you a marker and unsummon you now and then summon you again soonish so you can let me know."

"I mean, when I made this computer I intended it for it to be an exact duplicate of the one that is currently in my house; no alarming amount of time has passed on the computer clock; and the making didn't feel weird in any way. But maybe you better had."

"I don't think there's anything we needed to do first, and I was planning on explaining you to my sister before having her summon you anyway." She reaches up the sleeve of her armor, the metal bending to give her hand room, and it comes back out with a metal orb. "Here."

He accepts the orb. "Do you have a spare for me to mail to Limbo, or will that wait?"

"I think that can wait. Most of the markers are back with my sister in the world she's currently in."

"Okay. Dismiss me at your leisure, then."

Okay. She just has to focus on wanting him gone--

- for about a minute. And then he's gone.

...Several hours later, he should feel the less urgent pull of a personal summon.

He pauses his movie and answers it.

It's Emily again. She's in the same place, without her sister, having laid out the circle design he gave her in some kind of silvery metal. She looks...frazzled.

"Hi again. What's going on?"

"I just--needed someone to talk to. Who wasn't part of the situation. At all." She swallows. "Remember how I said accidental psychic bonding wasn't much of a concern because people in the relevant universe would know how to avoid it?"

"...Yeah? I'm going to hate this story, aren't I."