“After today, I don’t know if I am ready to be a demon…” Evelyn looked down at Dis from the little picnic platform at the top of the waterfall.

“Your desire to kill your mother, right?” Kate didn’t need to read any minds for that.

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t do it. Even in the moment, when she hurt Mochi, you didn’t do it. You screamed her out of the house, but you looked after Mochi first. And…” She paused. “Recently two people from the city council visited, one was quite polite and the other was a bit pushy. He wanted to impose certain new rules upon us, including distributing what we consider war propaganda. Apollyon killed him. I don’t think any lesser of her for that, she just did what the treaty asked of her. I won’t judge you for the urges you had in the past, fuck knows people have had worse.”

“Kate… thank you.”

“Always. And just to have put it into words: you are ready to be a demon. Wanting to punish people who wronged you and those you love doesn’t make you any less demonic.”

An affirmative meow stopped Evelyn from answering. The cat was a better target of attention. “Mochi!”

“Perfect timing.”

“I was hoping you’d visit me later when I’m home. I suppose here is a good a place as any.”

Mochi rubbed against Evelyn before jumping into her arms.

Kate watched with a smile. “Now that you have someone to keep you company, I need to return to the library.”

“Of course. I don’t want to keep you any longer than necessary. Thank you again for taking time for all this stuff today.”

“As I said: always. That’s what friends are for.”

“Let’s hope I never have to return that favour. Your family seems so nice.”

“They are. Now that Lizzy is a demon too, maybe she can pseudo-adopt you as well.” Kate was only partially joking.

“Maybe. I want to hang out with her some more anyway.”

“Good plan. I have to go now anyway, talk to you later. And to you too, Mochi.”

“One thing before you leave. Are you free on the weekend? I have a few days off and I wanted to ask if you are up for hiking to that restaurant.”

“Sure. I’ll ask the others if they have time and get back to you about that.”

“Awesome!”

 

Back at the library, a man was waiting for Kate. He was engaged in polite conversation with Apollyon.

Kate stepped up to greet them both. “Hey.”

“Ah, we were waiting for you. I wanted you to witness this.”

“Witness what?”

This time the man spoke. “Witness what happens when the city council sees reason. I’m Frank Dougherty, Edmund Weston’s replacement on the council after his arguably untimely demise. I know the mistakes he made and I am here to reassure you that your message was received loud and clear.”

“You have amusing timing, mister Dougherty. I was just talking to a friend about what happened to mister Weston a few minutes ago.”

“The council talked about it too today. I came here right after our meeting. There are a few members who are quite unhappy with the freedom you have up here and would rather demolish this entire library. I am not one of them, for the record. I came here to make that clear and to ask a question. Two actually.”

Apollyon nodded. “We will answer as best we can.”

“I have the problem that quite a few of our citizens are religious, practicing Christians of various denominations. You have refused to hand out any form of religious media for any of the Abrahamic religions. I spoke to our rabbi who confirmed that his people don’t get anything here either.”

“I have to correct you. We do not hand out any religious texts no matter which religion they belong to. We made an exception for the current rabbi and the theology students at the university because they could prove purely academic interest.”

“I see. I wanted to ask if there is any way to sway you on that, anything we can offer to change your mind.”

“As long as there is a single person in this city that would use the texts of currently practiced religions for the purposes of worship or religious indoctrination, we will not provide any of these texts to the public. Of course with the exception of provable academic interest.”

“Alright. I’m not going to argue that, but I had to ask. We got quite a few complaints about that, but we always get them. It’s not a problem. The other pain point for the city council is the parking situation.”

“We have made concessions in that regard. Is that not enough?”

“It is and it isn’t. There is a group on the council and among our citizens who are displeased with the lack of oversight and control we have over your library. For those people, any concession won’t be enough until you basically hand over this entire building. But, for the interest of making people happy, I had to simply ask.”

“I understand. I appreciate your understanding as well. If you keep being this reasonable, I look forward to potentially cooperating with you in the future. We are willing to assist in city matters; we have taken over the funding of transportation and supervision for the school reading programs, for example. But we also have our internal affairs. As long as those are respected and we are left to act on our own, without any interference, we are willing to show some good faith towards the city and the council. We are always open to suggestions, like the implementation of an elevator or public sanitary facilities. But as mister Weston had to learn, we will not tolerate the attempt of enforcement of your rules on us.”

Dougherty nodded. “I have read the contract you have with us. It is peculiar, all things considered, but I am eager to respect it. You mentioned being open to suggestions and shows of good faith, would you be open to be part of potential festivals? Nothing major for you, obviously, just putting up some signs or a special display on the things we celebrate?”

“That depends on the celebration, but we are willing to negotiate.”

“That is more than I could have hoped for and it will make a lot of people very happy. Thank you very much.”

“Our pleasure.”

“I will get going then. My wife will be mad if I am late for dinner and I have more than I could need from you. I hope you all have a pleasant evening.”

“Likewise.”

Kate smiled at the councillor. “You enjoy your dinner and see you around.”

“Goodbye.” He waved as he left the building.

“That went well.”

Apollyon made a thinking noise. “I did. I expected the opposite, that’s why I insisted on waiting for you. Alas, it seems we have another friendly face on the council.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Polly, I know this will sound worrying, but I want to read through the research done on magical weaponry.”

“A shadow’s sting. Any reason why?”

“A what?”

“The humans would say ‘that came out of nowhere’.”

“Right. I thought a lot about what I saw in Ersetu and how the fight against you went. It’s alright to not have a chance against you, but it is not alright to not be able to defend my friends. I still have human friends and if someone like Arakiel shows up again, I will just be torn through and my friends will be in peril. I know that it is not in the spirit of things, not philosophically right, but I need a way to fight that might not be direct hand to hand, or sword to sword, combat.”

“It pains me to agree with Beleth, but your ‘human touch’ you used against me was a good idea. I will be here to answer any questions you have about the research, everything we did is available on the Hell side of the library.”

“Thank you. I will need you to keep me as close to the meaning of combat as possible. This is supposed to give me a chance, not be a rejection of our philosophy.”

“I see potential there. I would be willing to pivot our training, once we return to sparing every weekend.”

“When I have found something to try, absolutely. Until then, I would just like to get back to sparing with you at all. Just felt weird to do that right after we had the big fight.”

“I agree. That one weekend break was necessary. A small disruption of our schedule was enough.”

“It was. If you are okay with it, we might have another week off from sparing. Evelyn wanted to know if we are free for that hike this weekend.”

“Of course. We should ask the others when they return if they have time, but I am optimistic.”

“I’ll tell Evelyn when I return home then. For now, want to head over to the Hell side and see if we can find something magical to implement?”

“Only if you join me for dinner afterwards.”

“Deal.”