"Okay, yeah." He pats her arm; his wing snugs around her shoulders once before folding behind him, counterbalancing as he stands. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Thanks. Sorry for - thanks."

She will just. Sit here and cry and keep being useless for a bit.

"Of course."

He goes. He makes a third Elysium. He makes bridges to it from Elysiums I and II. He goes and gestures, pretending he's gagged, to someone who's still alive, till people trickle toward it. He shows someone else where the pirates are tied up and drugged.

He goes back to Kalia.

She's still curled up in a corner, sort of staring into space and feeling generally numb. She's not actively crying, but she looks like a particularly stiff breeze could change this. 

"Hey."

He closes the door behind him. He sits. He puts his wing around her again.

"I'm not sure where to begin to explain the thing I need to tell you," he says. "I guess I could start with - you were right back when you noticed I'd been teaching humans to summon, not demons how to be summoned."

She frowns at him. She's not really coming up with a lot of commentary right now.

"But it's also true that you're the only summoner to ever let me talk. See, I used to be a human -

- like Zana."

"...oh. Oh. How - are - are you all former humans, are - wouldn't someone have said something?"

"Most of us aren't. Most of us just appear fully formed adults one day. But if summoners die, they're daeva, and it looks like she had a demon before she died." This is probably why the pirates bothered to stab a three year old but he feels this would not be tactful to mention.

"OK. I am - gonna be slow processing this because I was not actually done processing half of my family being dead, but - Azalea and her husband are dead, Zana's - somewhere. Is what you're saying."

"Uh. Non-summoners go a place too but you can't summon those."

"Ok. That's. Existence is good, I'll take it."

"It's called Limbo, the extra place. You can write letters, they'll take years to get there but you can."

"Also good, also a thing I will take." She exhales shakily. "They can't send any back?"

"They can but that won't take years because they don't have to physically send them, I can just conjure them for you."

"Oh. I can - they won't know to do that right now but I guess - if we can send them letters then eventually they'll know and that'll be good. These are all improvements on being dead. I guess they're dead. Better than being dead in the sense that I thought dying entailed." Pause. "Is there- Zana's just alone somewhere?"

"She'll have appeared near people, whichever kind she is. Child daeva are very rare, so people will be trying to adopt her - I don't know the process in Heaven or Fairyland for that."

"I suppose they can't - I have no idea if anyone she runs into can hurt her, I have no idea what a three-year-old with daeva powers is even capable of doing. I guess it's just as likely that she'll panic and hurt someone else, though I guess she probably can't do any lasting harm? Is there a way to figure out where she is?"

"You can try all three possibilities, but I'll need to design a binding that'll keep her from... toddlering, her powers at anybody - it'll depend on where she'll be going how much she should be allowed to do with magic. If you just want to know and don't want to summon her I can also just check by conjuration."

"...I want to summon her. I also want to know, like, as soon as you can tell me, but I'm not - I don't think my brain is working at a hundred percent right now. What with the everything. I don't - we should figure out long-term plans later but I want to know if you can tell me."

Cam holds his hand out, palm up. Check, check -

"Demon," he says.

" - well isn't life just going to be terribly interesting from now on," she sighs. 

"It might be convenient that you live on Pluto, nobody will find it out of character for you to choose out of the way locations where no one will glance at you and see a weird binding if they squint."

" - yeah. I just. It's - even if there are nice people in Hell, she has a family, she shouldn't have to lose them entirely. She should get to see her brother. Crap, I should be hugging her brother somewhere, why don't I think about things?" She stands up and runs her hands through her hair. "I'm not going to tell him the entire situation because this is obviously, like, a thing you have some kind of reason for keeping secret? Thank you for telling me, you didn't - didn't have to do that and I appreciate it more than I have words for right now. But he should be, like, hugged and informed that he has at least one extant family member. Can you go make some very safe but non-horrible toddler bindings while I go be slightly less horribly negligent to children in my care?"

"Yeah, I'll get on that."