"Awww." Jisa looks disappointed for a moment, then bounces again. "Is it magic? What kind of magic?" 

"Apsel magic! Apsels can all make things."

"Like what? Can you make houses? Can you make pretty clothes? Can you make flowers? Can you make puppies?" 

Vanyel sort of feels like he should interject and get this conversation back on track, except that he has no idea what track it should be on. 

"Not puppies, if I make animals besides bugs and stuff like that they come out wrong but the other things sure."

"You can make bugs? What kinds of bugs? What's your favourite bug? I like the kind of butterfly where the caterpillars are yellow and blue and poisonous." 

"I like crickets."

"Crickets are pretty but sometimes they wake me up early by being loud by my window," Jisa says, plopping herself on Vanyel's bed and swinging her legs. "Uncle Van can we have a tea party?" 

It's really hard to concentrate when Jisa won't stop talking. 

Vanyel ruffles her hair. "Listen, pet, I think I probably should, er, tell your parents about this?" 

"I guess," Jisa mutters, somewhat resentfully. "Ooh! Cam can you make catapults? Can you make catapults that throw barrels of oil that're on fire? I read about that in a book once and maybe we could kill all the Karsites that way." 

"Jisa." 

"How bloodthirsty of you," Cam says blandly to Jisa. "I just finished telling you guys I wasn't going to hurt anyone here, though."

"Right, but you wouldn't hurt people here with it, it'd be people in Karse who're trying to kill our people, so really you'd be helping people here." 

"Jisa." Sigh. "I'm sorry, Cam. Jisa, I don't think we should talk about this right now. I need to, er, find out if your papa is busy, probably call a meeting or something..."

It sounds like so much effort and he's supposed to be having a vacation, damn it. 

"Can I come to the meeting? I think I should get to come because I drew most of the anti-demon ward, except apparently it's a bad anti-demon ward that does the opposite of keep demons out - sorry, apsels, I guess that's different - I should tell Sandra though..." 

"Jisa, no, you can't come to senior Heralds' meetings." 

Scowl. 

He's so tired. 

"Has this sort of thing, er, happened to you before?" Vanyel asks Cam. 

"Being summoned is a regular occurrence. Being summoned to this planet absolutely not, nobody I've ever heard of has ever had that happen, it's very interesting."

"This– wait, where do you usually get summoned to? You're saying there's - an entire other planet, not just that you're from another plane we hadn't discovered yet..." 

"That's right! It's fascinating. I look forward to getting to know this place."

Jisa grins. "I could show you around! I know where everything is in the Palace. Do you like playing hide-and-seek?" 

"It's been a long time since I've played! I'd be able to cheat, though. I don't know if it'd be fair."

"Ooh, how could you cheat? Is that another kind of magic?" 

Vanyel sits down heavily on the bed beside her. "Please, er, give me a minute, I need to talk to some people." He closes his eyes.