"It'll still work, but - do weird things. If you want to be safe, Cypress, Prime, Spring? You have languages he hasn't learned, should we use those?"

"Or I could just translate this into one of the demon languages," says Cam. He peers at the incantation and then utters a rendering of it in such a language.

A little globe of light appears, floating politely in the air.

"Yes we do!" He can take a moment away from attention to the ship controls to kiss her once. Okay, three times.

Make that four!

"I guess the first takers at the 'better than Dumbledore' school of runecasting run by Phix and I will be alts of ourselves," snorts Max.

"You have a school? The class she ran off to, is she teaching it?"

"No, we're planning to start a school, we're in college for useful things but it's rapidly looking more and more pointless."

"That happens. I skipped college, since I found out about summoning when I was seventeen, learned to do it, spilled the beans, got killed for it, and have been demoning it up ever since."

"Ouch. Um. I'm sorry."

"It was a hundred and fifty years ago, Hell is really comfy, and my remaining dissatisfaction about the situations is on track to being brilliantly solved, assuming you folks can make portals to other places later. I can see my parents again and don't have to wait indefinitely to see Adana again and I can interact with the mortal world!"

"Hell is really comfy, huh?"

"The lakes of fire are not and have never been intended to contain people."

Cypress snorts. "Okay then. Well - yes, we can make portals to various places, though with how powerful daeva are I think we'll have to be very careful about it. But you can definitely see your parents again."

"Are the portals permanent? Sticking one in a tree doesn't seem like 'permanent portal' behavior, but maybe I'm wrong? Since it's pretty straightforward to get specific non-dangerous daeva out of their realms, all that's really necessary is for me and Adana and Zane to, ideally, have non-summoned status so we don't go poof if our summoner dies, and then portals between the mortal world and Limbo."

"The portals are permanent as long as the item that they're in isn't damaged," says Cypress.

"That particular portal was a bit less permanent than others, but it'll stay for quite a long time, even so."

"And they can be destroyed at the maker's whim."

"So - reunite Adana and Zane with their dad, fly back to random tree portal in Wyoming, go sightseeing in some other worlds, I think I heard something about mana, so wait for your little real-life videogame mechanic to fill up again and then - unsummon us, put portals in my house and Adana's so we can just walk here without being technically on a summon, break 'em, proceed with safer portal configurations summoning daeva to consult as necessary. Unless you've been making lots of friends in Heaven, angel darling?"

"They're reasonably nice people, but - nope. I'm fine with ditching them."

"Oh my god," laughs Max. "I hadn't even realized it was like a video game mechanic, that's hilarious! It takes a bit longer, but - still. Hilarious!"

"Sweetie, are you secretly a video game character?" inquires Ice.

Cypress snickers. "How do I tell? I haven't noticed any video game mechanics in my day to day life, but how can I be really sure?"

"Well, let's see, you acquired a new inseparable companion to accompany you in a new world you visited when you were going bizarrely long distances to fetch tea, you recharge mana, you would make a very recognizable pixel sprite," hairfluff, "you've died, twice, and are still running around doing things, I think you might be a video game character, love."