Nyx and Dulcen’s fellow adventurers slept around the electric lantern...except one of them: Hue the summoner, who stood tall and in shadow. Dulcen stayed sitting, playing cool. Nyx had leaped into a fighting stance—perhaps foolishly, but perhaps smartishly. Who knew what Hue might be after?

Hue coughed into his fist and held his head back like a swan. He said, “I’ve been wanting to speak with you alone, Athalie, but this will have to do.”

Disguised Nyx’s eye twitched.

If this was related to what they thought it was related to, then the only possible response was, no...not again.

Ever graceful, even now demure, Hue descended to Nyx’s feet and kneeled there. When his forehead touched the ground, Dulcen laughed suddenly. Nyx could imagine how bizarre this must have seemed to him.

“I desire a summoner’s contract with you, my lord,” said Hue. “I apologize if this tongue should seem vulgar, for I have never been a demon’s liege before.”

Nyx’s forehead burned.

They wanted to scream. You know too!? Are you serious!? How? Why? Was it Lark, or am I just bad at every fucking thing I do!?

Was Dulcen even confused, over there? Was he just laughing because the ruse was that obvious? Was Nyx’s weird demon status just common knowledge among the divers now? That would really piss them off, if so. The concept alone was pissing them off.

After that flurry of thoughts came a resigned, Dammit...

And then the defeated admission that...okay, so be it, they would have to carry on knowing that three people in the group had this forbidden knowledge.

Meanwhile, Hue was taking Nyx’s pensive silence as permission to blather on about his legacy as a summoner witch.

“...and was able to charm wild animals from the next continent over,” he proclaimed, his forehead hovering, shaking, just over the ground. “Not to be cocky, but I believe I am bound to outlive any other human servant you might get your hands on. If you will only serve as my summons for a time—for as few as four months—then I will repay you fifty times over, with my whole lifeblood...”

It wasn’t just Hue’s posture that was shaky. It was his voice—his mind, his bravery, his whole heart, Nyx could tell. He wasn’t like Lark—he was feeling himself in the presence of a transcendental lord.

Nyx almost wanted to let him down easy and say, “I’m only a human-turned, so I’m basically demi-demon level, if that. Call back in a hundred years and maybe I’ll be to your satisfaction. Then again, call back in a hundred years and I’m bound to care for your offer just as little as I do now.”

Half-turning to Dulcen, who was currently staying still and quiet, Nyx wondered if there was any chance to convince him they were just a halfling. They decided, nah.

“I refuse,” Nyx muttered. There was no world in which they would have taken Hue’s offer—they wouldn’t be beholden to anyone if they could help it, not anymore.

“A demon?”

The new voice came from Linzy. He was up on his knees, and he looked really scared.

Aw, shit.

“Demon!?” he screamed, and that woke everybody up.

“Whuh?” said Ethel, groggy.

“WHAT!?” said Ragnorre, pounding her fists together in a seismic wave of shock and thunder that nearly pushed everyone over again.

“Eh,” yawned Catamaug, wiping one eye with the edge of a metal whip, which was sharp, so it cut his cheek.

“What the hell?” snapped Lark. “Dulcen, can’t you do your damn job?”

Dulcen simply gritted his teeth and shoved a hand toward Hue, wordlessly saying, “I tried to do my job.” Hue looked like a deer in the headlights, perfectly guiltless, even though he was in some sense the instigator.

Linzy was pointing a shaky, glowing hand at Hue, trying to stammer out what he had heard—or his interpretation of it, anyway.

Nyx let out a silent sigh of relief. Nobody was pointing their way.

The divers began to bicker. Well, three of them did: Lark, Hue, and Linzy. Somehow Dulcen and Nyx had been able to back out of this conversation, though they sensed they’d have to defend their position soon.

During the crossfire, Dulcen leaned over to Nyx and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’re allies—all of us, but you and me especially. I won’t spill your secret. And...frankly, I think it’s kind of cool that you’re a demon.”

Nyx cringed. “Uhh, thanks?”

The crappy demon lord took this away from the night’s conflagration: attempting to go into this dungeon in a “mortal” form was, from the start, a comedy of errors. Living a life with any sort of proximity to mortals, besides the odd hanger-on in their castle, would be...harder than they’d hoped.