IT CAME TO JANE ONE MORNING as the first sunlight of the day leaked through a gap in her curtains to spill over her eyes, rousing her from dreams of dubious pleasantness. As she was turning over, her sleep-blinking eyes saw the title of the book she’d fallen asleep reading—Ceremonial Practices of the Puritan Witches—and two thoughts about the problem of flight came together in her mind as eagerly as Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Odd how after weeks of reading and note-taking and theoretical maths, it was but the work of a moment to write down what Jane was certain would result in a diabolic formula capable of making an object fly. Her object was, naturally, her broom, so she worked out the equations for a liniment she could rub onto the handle and over the twigs of the brush. As she wrote it down, she felt a surge of fascinating energy filling her, a sense of contentment and fulfilled purpose she’d never before experienced.
This would work. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. She felt it like she felt the coming of spring.
The problem was, she couldn’t do it. Not as an apprentice—not even an apprentice who had an outside source of diabolic essence. In fact, looking at the formula, Jane wasn’t sure how many Masters would willingly sacrifice so much of their resources for something so frivolous as a flying broom. Eccentrics abounded within the Société, but most diabolists were fairly practical. They had to be.
A vanity item that took more than a year’s worth of resources would not tempt many.
But she’d done it. She’d worked it out. She couldn’t prove it—which was rather the point of the Practical—but she’d done it.
Despair claimed Jane, consuming her joy as a storm cloud swallows the afternoon’s sunlight. She couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. She didn’t want to do either; she wanted to bury herself in the earth for a hundred years like a grub, only emerging when she had metamorphosed into someone who could make sense of the world.
“Jane!”
Jane startled to hear her name called up the stairs, but looking at the time, it was indeed the hour of breakfast. A bit past it, actually.
“Jane Blackwood, breakfast is on the table and will be consumed by those not lolling about in bed!”
“Coming!” she called, throwing a dressing gown around herself and running down the stairs like it was Christmas morning. Her robe tie trailed behind her, sloppy and undone, but as she reached the foot of the stairs and went to grab it, a large gray cat pounced from the shadows. Before she’d turned around, Smudge had gotten three paws’ worth of claws into the fabric, and a few teeth too.
“Smudge, no!” cried Jane, almost stumbling and then really coming down on her rear end as she fought with the obstinate, surprisingly powerful beast. “Let go!”
“My goodness.” Nancy stood over them both, but only Jane felt embarrassed to be caught in such a compromising position. “What happened here?”
Jane had gotten one of Smudge’s paws free only to have him snag the robe tie again as well as a bit of her finger. With a yelp of pain, Jane relinquished the coveted item and stood without it, cinching her robe about her with as much dignity as she could muster. Of course, the cat lost interest after that, and scooted away into the parlor.
“If you’re done making a scene, we’re ready to eat” was Nancy’s only remark, and Jane was blushing furiously as she entered the kitchen to see wheat toast and oat porridge set out. Miriam had already tucked in.
“Good morning,” said Jane, as she reached for the tea. “I guess I must have needed the sleep!”
Miriam glanced up from her breakfast. If either of them needed extra sleep, it was Miriam. There were circles under her eyes—perhaps the puffiness that comes after a lost night’s rest, but it seemed like more than that to Jane.
She had her own concerns. As Jane chewed her way through her breakfast, she contemplated what to do about her problem of power.
At best it would mean more nights lost in the Library, dowsing for knowledge like a hopeful farmer dowses for water; at worst, there was no solution for an apprentice such as herself. Even if through careful study she was able to wring every possible bit of efficiency out of her equations, it might still be unworkable without an additional, renewable source of diabolic essence.
A renewable source . . . Jane watched Smudge slink into the kitchen, utterly remorseless and keen to see if there was a bit of milk left for him to lick. The waving of his voluminous fur was like a wheat field in high summer, a languid bounce of plenty.
Even if Jane could, somehow, temporarily summon a demon into herself, she would never produce so much raw material to render into diabolic essence. Smudge had a seemingly unending supply of fur, to say nothing of his nails and whiskers.
The audacity of the idea taking hold in Jane’s mind also took away her breath. But her father had suggested this too—hadn’t he? Perhaps not so directly as he’d suggested the strike chain, but Patrice had put the idea of a familiar into Jane’s mind during a conversation where they’d discussed the ways people got around the rules, why that was all right, and also how the rules weren’t as strict as some might insist . . .
There are no shortcuts to becoming a diabolist—only sacrifices.
Creating a familiar wasn’t a shortcut. Far from it. It meant more work for Jane, and a lot of it, but it seemed exciting. And it was secret, witchy work too, just as Jane liked.
Maybe those who practiced the Art weren’t witches, but when Jane was astride her broomstick, her diabolic familiar by her side, she guessed it would be all but impossible for a layperson to tell the difference.
Smudge jumped into her lap with a soft chirp, and Jane forgave him as always as he butted her chin with his forehead. But as she buried her fingers in his fur, she gazed at the copious fluff at his neck and his long tail with a more calculating gaze than usual.
Though Jane felt certain of her father’s sanction, she was curious about the official consequences of making a familiar. The next time Jane was sure she was alone in the Library, she grabbed a copy of the Société handbook and bylaws. She was shocked by what she discovered.
Execution.
Jane stared at the word and then shut the book.
The stakes were what they were. To hear Edith and her mother discuss it, as a failed apprentice Jane might have faced the same fate—and frankly, she’d rather die than become one of the Société’s drudges.
She’d just have to be very careful. It was ambitious, yes, but preliminary research made it seem doable. She would simply banish the demon within Smudge after she’d taken what she needed from him. No one would be the wiser.
Jane’s furtive perusing of an early modern German tome entitled Familiars and Their Uses indicated that the more obedient the animal, the more obedient the familiar. Too bad Jane didn’t have some loyal mastiff to recruit instead—Smudge was a cat in his prime, which meant he bit, and scratched, and made as much mischief as pleased him. The cat sometimes seemed already possessed, when he ran around the farmhouse chasing things no one else could see, every hair standing out from his body.
But after reading about a Dutch diabolist who had caused a fatal flood when her crested grebe familiar got loose and built a nest that fouled a windmill’s pump, and a West African practitioner of the Art who had been torn apart by his baboon familiar, Jane felt Smudge would probably work out just fine.
Reading those stories—as well as less dramatic incidents involving familiars wreaking low-grade havoc—Jane understood better why the practice was so very taboo. Forget any part of the summoning or binding: give it too slack or too tight a rein, provide less than explicit commands, and the results gave new meaning to all hell breaking loose.
The successes, though—oh, the successes! History was written by the victors, this Jane knew, but at the same time it was curiously exhilarating to read about diabolists all over the world who had achieved some truly astonishing feats with the help of their familiars. It seemed that over time, a real and potent bond might grow between diabolist and familiar; there were reports of diabolists’ armamentaria and other projects inexplicably increasing in strength and power once a trusting relationship between diabolist and familiar had been established. It seemed so different from the relationship between a diabolist and a demon summoned in the traditional method—and to Jane, at least, it was preferable. To get the same results as a Master diabolist, but without the mandatory intimacy of the Pact! If only it had been an acceptable path to Mastery, Jane would have skipped down it without a second thought.
“But which demon?” she muttered to Smudge as he slept on the back of a high-backed chair. He had once again sauntered down to the Library with her, as if he knew her plans and wanted to be a part of them.
The Book of Known Demons was the most comprehensive guide the Société had to summoning forth those beings that dwelt in the realm beyond. It was enormous, a giant tome of thick parchment pages bound in ancient but well-cared-for leather braced with burnished metal fittings. In the Library, it stood alone on a marble pedestal table, illuminated by its own lamp—one with an uncanny yellow flame that would only burn fragrant, diabolical palo santo wood. It was the best-known book in the Library, as it had been perused by nearly every aspiring Master diabolist in the Société, and it had perhaps the most contributors. Any diabolist who discovered the name and properties of a new demon was required by Société rules to make a pilgrimage to the Library and record it. Extra pages had been sewn in many times over the centuries, by diabolists who had practiced the Art long before the Société—and after the Société changed into something else, as it inevitably would one day, it would be studied and added to by the ones who came after. Jane had once called it their “unholy book” as a joke and received a lecture from her mother about “respect”—that was what it meant to the Masters.
And now, more than ever, Jane understood why.
Well over a thousand entries had been recorded in The Book of Known Demons, some more detailed than others—entries ranged from pages upon pages to a brief paragraph. And then, of course, there were the appendices, where vigilant diabolists had recorded their findings if they went beyond what the initial listing revealed. These were also crucial, as sometimes those discoveries made it clear a demon was unsuitable as a human companion for this reason or that, or could be channeled for other purposes than previously described, and so on.
The encyclopedia-like entries were a nice break from reading and comparing various methods for creating demonic familiars. Jane knew she had to make an intelligent, informed choice and was therefore taking her time about it. She even asked her mother, after spending quite a while coming up with a script that would neither make Nancy suspicious nor leave Jane open to some bizarre critique.
“Mother,” she said one afternoon, when Miriam was off on one of her mysterious jaunts. “I don’t mean to get ahead of myself, but some of the reading I’ve been doing for my Practical has made me curious. How did you choose your demon?”
Nancy seemed surprised. “Why, Jane, you know that story! It was your favorite when you were a girl.”
“I know why you chose the Patron,” said Jane. “Now I’m asking how.”
“How,” said Nancy thoughtfully. “That is a different question. I suppose it began when I started paging through the abridged copy of Known Demons that belonged to your grandparents, but even that small catalogue felt overwhelming. I started looking over what I could about diabolists who had similar careers to what I envisioned for myself. Even back then, I wanted to be if not the Librarian than at least a librarian—a librarian-at-large, you know, like Akane or Diego—and I found out that most librarians had summoned the Patron of Curiosity. That helped me make my choice, though I still took my time before I made my final decision. There were a few others I fancied—the Eye of the Hawk and the One Who Whispers—but the Patron of Curiosity won out in the end. Ultimately, it was its gentleness that was the deciding factor, but of course you know the rest.”
Ironically, the Patron of Curiosity would have been an ideal demon for Jane’s purposes specifically because of that gentleness. But to call upon a demon was to be seen by it, and she really didn’t want to be seen by her mother’s demon. When on good terms with their hosts, demons would often offer up information they thought would be of interest, and while they were mercurial and unpredictable, Jane felt safe assuming that summoning a fragment of its consciousness into the family house cat would be “of interest” to both it and Nancy.
Back to the Library, then, but with more direction. Recalling her mother’s admiration for the Patron of Curiosity’s amiability toward humans, she began to scan entries for the idea of inquisitiveness.
Not for the first time did Jane wish that The Book of Known Demons had an index.
Eventually her efforts were rewarded. After passing over a few entries that seemed less than promising—the Rampant Divine, Seven Hanging Lanterns, and Vindáss were all unsuitable upon further inspection—Jane finally settled upon a demon that she found in an entry beautifully illustrated with rococo embellishments that would not look out of place in a painting by Boucher or Fragonard:
The Ceaseless Connoisseur.
Two things made the Connoisseur ideal for Jane’s purposes: One, it was such a popular demon that its summoning was extremely specific, even including its location within the diabolic realm; two, it had never displayed any sort of malice toward humankind. Even the occasional fictional depictions of the Connoisseur were positive—save for one.
“The Ginger-Eaters,” a modern epic poem, had been written by the disgruntled child of a “wild” diabolist. It was a work as hyperbolic as it was evocative, and after reading a review of it in volume 29 of the Journal of Diabolic Studies, Jane felt fairly confident about disregarding the poet’s middle-class moralizing.
At its core, the Ceaseless Connoisseur was a demon that hungered for experiences, be they sensual, spiritual, or intellectual. It was pleased to enhance the pleasures of its host almost like an aesthetic aphrodisiac.
Like all cats, Smudge was a hedonist at heart. Jane hoped that meant this demon would be a good fit for him. She wanted that. It was not lost on her that she was taking a big risk with the only member of the household who seemed to genuinely like her, so she wanted to make the experience as pleasant as possible for him.
As pleasant as possible. What that meant, Jane couldn’t articulate, not even to herself. She was making a choice for her companion, a big one. She made choices for him all the time, true, but this one was different. It might change him forever, even if she planned to banish the demon as soon as possible.
The guilt didn’t stop her, though. She wouldn’t let it, not now, not when she was so close. As she gathered her ingredients, some of which were more esoteric than others, she labored in her mind to make this betrayal of her beloved cat feel righteous—or at least acceptable.
NAMES LIKE THE CEASELESS CONNOISSEUR or the Patron of Curiosity were just appellations invented by humans. A demon’s true name was something individual, and rarely pronounceable. Calling the Connoisseur by name for a summoning required charred beechwood, a lead pencil, a pearl, a red brick (red specifically for some reason), and “irregular pattering,” among other things. Its location within the diabolic realm, a place called the Quarry of Sensation, required other sounds and sacrifices in order to invoke it, but Jane wasn’t about to attempt summoning a demonic familiar with a more general invocation. She would call it properly, or not at all.
And really, in the end, it didn’t take so very much effort to obtain everything she needed. The worst part was pilfering her mother’s jewel box for a pearl; Jane worried about Nancy noticing the scratches on her teardrop earring that would surely occur when Jane scraped it across the bit of red brick, but there was no real reason for her to suspect Jane if she ever noticed.
At least, Jane hoped that would prove the case.