"Respects us enough to negotiate. That's what matters. If we ask some other imp for something, anything that recognizes its name is that much more likely to pay attention."

"Yeah. We'll need to work to not let it become a trend that only demons get this Seal, though."

"This one said it'd spread it, and there aren't very many demons around to spread it to."

"Yeah, I suppose."

"It's going to try to use this to weaken the first Seal. I'm not very inclined to care; that could take centuries."

"And in any case for Others this Seal subsumes the first, agreeing to it is tantamount to agreeing to the first plus some restrictions."

Shrug. "You and I see it that way. And we do have the advantage of being right. Not really our problem anyway."

"I guess. And, hey, good news, we won't have to have the headache that was washing these last time," she says, removing her robe.

"Or the headache that was making them need washing. We don't really know that we would have beaten Hauri."

"Counterfactuals are useless, and we didn't have to find out."

"Yeah. Best-case result, this time."

And Sadde waits a couple of days—dealing with demons always brings some bad karma by default, animals and people being more aggressive, bad things happening—and after he's reasonably sure he's good he calls Diana up and asks her out on a date.

That...in retrospect should have been less surprising. What with him having been her favorite person this side of the magic/mundane divide in a long time. She's all in favor.

Awesome! Does she have preferences about venues?

She mentions the name of a bookstore before thinking. (Then she realizes that probably makes her the kind of person whose first thought that is, and sticks with it.)

Sounds great! Time and place and he'll be there.

She's there.

They'll end up in the attached coffee shop doing very little reading, despite being loaded down with books (mostly science fiction in her case).

He's getting fantasy and some science, and he thinks she's adorable.

She is well aware of that, and kind of already thought the same about him. That being a decent fraction of the point of a first date, she barely has to think twice before suggesting a second one.

Oh good he thinks that's a great idea. How about she show him a place he's unlikely to have visited since moving?

He's new; there are lots of places like that. She picks one.

It's a second date, then.

Now, how inclined is she to kiss him, he wonders?

It doesn't immediately occur to her, but once he signals it occurred to him she's not opposed!

Oh good! This date was a Success.

Diana can't hear the capital letters, but Agrees.