A witch will never admit to her mistakes. They don’t even make mistakes. Everything that seems wrong must be part of a greater plan, and only appears evil to those who don’t understand. That’s what Emma told herself when the portal to the Gray World closed with Charlie on the other side. She looked down at the blue mushrooms in her hand. But if that were really true, then why did she not understand what that plan was? Why didn’t grandmother tell her more? What if her grandmother really was an evil sort of witch? What did that make Emma who walked in her footsteps, wearing her dress?

  The flying daemons must have sensed her distress. They ceased their frantic beating and settled peacefully around the room. One on top of the over stuffed chair. One on the desk, a few more hopping along the tops of the shelves.

  “Well? Are we to have a deal?” Emma snapped bitterly. She stalked across the floor. The daemons scattered out of her way to scuttle around behind. Emma picked up the hunting rifle Charlie dropped. Carefully, almost reverently, she placed it back in the case and closed it.

  “If I didn’t know my banishment spell, would you have really stolen me?” Emma asked. The daemons didn’t answer, but it wasn’t quite like talking with a pet dog. Their endlessly shifting forms were exquisitely expressive. They way they reacted must mean they understood her.

  “What does The Master want?” Emma pressed.

  The daemons hated that name. They squealed and bucked and threw themselves up and down in a fit. Why was she so attached to these strange creatures? Why was she so attached to her grandmother? What would she do without Charlie? How could she explain to his parents that another one of their sons was gone? What would happen when the police came back? Or even worse, her mother!

  Emma breathed quickly, starting to gasp. It was all too overwhelming to handle alone. “Daemons! Come with me!” she called over her shoulder, racing from the library down the stairs. Before she made a deal with them, she had to know if she made the right choice.

  The daemons crowded through the door in a rush and all tumbled down the stairs behind her. She remembered when she was a little girl and used to turn off the lights and race to bed, imagining such things in pursuit. But now they were real, and maybe she would be wiser to be more afraid.

  Emma entered the kitchen and went straight to the oven. She heaved it open and hurled the crumbling blue mushrooms inside. Then she slammed it shut again, so she didn’t have to watch the black tongue licking them up. She turned around and glared at the other six daemons as they crowd into the room around her.

  “I hope you’re proud of yourselves,” she snapped. “If you hadn’t run away, all of this trouble could have been avoided. Where did you go, anyway?”

  The daemons bounced and squeaked and said no more. Emma heaved open the great iron door of the oven again. The teeth were still there on the border, but the inside had all changed. By the first sulphuric wisps of dead yellow sky, she was sure she looked into the Gray World. The viewpoint panned over the barren landscape, drawn inexorably toward the obsidian mountain as though she fell across the land towards it. The fortress of black spires carved from the mountain grew to fill her field of vision.

  “I’m looking for Charlie and his brother Freddie,” Emma said.

  There was no change in the trajectory of the perspective. Emma felt like she flew straight into the fortress, sailing beneath an open iron portcullis gate with black spikes curling out from its frame. Not the same path she’d taken before through the balcony — this time she soared through the lower halls. Great lofty ceilings and marble pillars reinforced by bands of iron. It could have been the entryway to a great king meant to humble visitors into submission before the first word. Then her vision turned aside, down a hallway, and round a spiral stair.

  Emma’s pet daemons leaped and squealed in what could be excitement or fear. They recognized this obsidian stairway, polished to shine with the reflection of torches mounted along the wall. It was unclear how deep into the mountain the stair was carved, but it must have been at least twenty full circles before a hallway opened up again.

  The room at the base of the mountain was larger than even the great hall. There were narrow walkways which networked over a giant abyss. The columns rising from the pit were pure iron, with endless rows of iron cages below the walkways which disappeared beyond the feeble reach of torches.

  “Master no!” squealed one of the daemons behind Emma. The words were tortured and inhuman, as though mimicked by a parrot. Emma turned between the daemons, but could not tell which of them had spoken. They were all extremely agitated now, flailing themselves with sprouting limbs, or hurling themselves into walls or one another.

  Emma turned back to the oven and saw the viewpoint continue panning along the iron cells. There were dark shapes inside each, but they were below on either side of the path where the light did not penetrate. The perspective shifted as they seemed to land on one of the iron pathways, turning to the side to walk directly over an iron cage. There were two human shaped forms inside, huddled in the corner. It was still too dark to see who they were, but Emma felt she already knew.

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  “Charlie? Freddie?” Emma asked hesitantly.

  They didn’t lift their heads or react to her at all.

  One of the daemons behind Emma squealed. It was the one in the sink, straddling the faucet. He was holding the quill from grandmother’s desk. The daemon pulled its point out of its side and a red trickle of blood blossomed from the dark skin. Another one of the daemons hopped onto the counter beside it and laid out a sheet of paper. The second daemon smoothed and fussed over the paper until the first daemon shoved it aside and began scribbling. The scratching sound reminded Emma of its claws on the stone.

  The daemons wrestled briefly over the pen and crinkled the paper in their fight. One of them became distressed by this — it snatched both paper and quill to escape. The daemon scuttled along the counter and leaped on top of the refrigerator where it continued writing in peace. The other daemons gathered around the base of the fridge, bouncing and chittering, perhaps suggesting ideas of what to write.

  “You are making a contract,” Emma guessed. “It will be the same terms you had with my grandmother. Do you understand? You will serve me as long as you want to remain in this world.” She looked back into the dark oven. The image swirled and shivered as though it was projected onto smoke. It started to fade.

  “I also want one of you to go inside the oven.” They really threw a fit at this. Emma had to wait a full ten seconds before they quieted down. She patiently continued: “I want you to bring the prisoners back. Both Charlie and his brother Freddie — I want that in the contract too.”

  The daemon with the pen glared at Emma with all three of its yellow eyes. Emma glared right back, stomping her foot for good measure. “You’ve given me enough trouble already. What would grandmother have thought about the way you’ve been behaving?”

  They were still locking eyes when the daemon ripped its claws down the length of the paper. It shredded into three equal tatters before releasing them into the air. The other daemons bounced and howled in disobedience. They ran wild around the room, knocking over jars, opening and slamming cupboards, and climbing up the walls to leap wildly across the room.

  Emma stood her ground. “I understand you are afraid of the portal. I don’t think it will last much longer. If you don’t want to get stuck on the other side, you better hurry. Otherwise you’ll have no contract, and have to go back for good.”

  All at once the daemons froze in place. The ones in the air even seemed to linger there a moment. Then they all vanished in an explosion of movement. Dashing inside the drawers and cupboards. One into the dishwasher, one crawling under the fridge, flattening its body into a sheet. Emma congratulated herself on scaring them so badly until she heard a low chuckle from the oven.

  The iron cages melted and dissolved before her eyes. The smoke swirled into a humanoid face with three red eyes. It was the same type of daemon that bowed before her grandmother’s body on its throne of bones.

  “Little Emma,” purred the deep voice. “I’ve been searching for you.”

  Emma looked helplessly around the empty kitchen. Her daemons had abandoned her.

  “I haven’t been hiding,” Emma said defiantly.

  There was something very different about this daemon than her pets. Not only the clear speech — it was a presence about it. In that moment, Emma was irrevocably convinced that her grandmother was a good witch after all. If she was really evil, then Emma would have felt it, like she felt the evil in the thing before her. The aura of this daemon’s presence was suffocating, as though she breathed in the black clouds of its form. Its taste slipped like oil into her lungs and filled her up with a restless energy. Its voice weaseled into her ears and lit her head aflame with a buzzing anger, not toward it, but toward everything and herself. There was nothing so evil as this tangible will toward destruction.

  “You’ve lost your friend, poor thing. Aren’t you lucky that I am here to help you find him?”

  “Did my grandmother really steal Charlie’s brother?” Emma didn’t know why she bothered asking. How could she trust anything from this foul creature?”

  “She stole far more than that. How many of these cells have been filled by the granting of her wishes? She even stole from you, your sweet innocence.”

  The image in the smoke was already getting fainter.

  “You’re lying,” Emma insisted, hoping to convince herself with a conviction she did not feel.

  “She never told you how a daemon egg is hatched, did she? The witch probably pretended she was giving you a gift. But that is an evil gift indeed, for one soul is sold to the Gray World before ever the egg will hatch.”

  Emma was stunned. How many wishes had grandmother made over the years? There were six daemons in the kitchen with her, so it must be at least that number. Did she really use a wish for each, and give a soul just to expand her library? It was true that Charlie’s egg hatched when his brother’s soul was taken… Emma could only shake her head. But she couldn’t get out that evil feeling which came from the daemon’s laughter.

  “Your world does not need another witch. But mine does. Won’t you come with me and save these lost souls? Won’t you help me set your friends free, and undo the hurt your grandmother has caused?”

  “Yes, I’ll save them,” Emma whispered.

  The darkness purred. “Into the oven, dear. I will help you.”

  Emma shook her head. “Whatever my grandmother did, she did it for a good reason. And if you don’t like it, then all the better, because I don’t like you. You’re the one who made a deal with Charlie, aren’t you? You’re The Master.”

  “That is what you will call me. We can have a contract too, you and I. And such power I can give you that even your grandmother could only dream of. You could have an army, or conjure such curses to bring the mightiest to their knees and transform the world to your liking.”

  Emma performed an ancient ritual by plugging her nose with her fingers and sticking out her tongue. “Nothing you gave me would ever be mine. Not like my grandmother was. I hope you enjoy being trapped in your oven, Mr. Master. I will bring the lost souls home without you.”

  Emma slammed the oven door shut with her foot. The image was fading fast and probably wouldn’t have lasted long anyway. It was better to end things on her own terms. A cautious cupboard door opened, held by a trembling daemon claw.

  Emma was sure of one thing: Grandmother Orwell was a good witch. She gave Emma the egg because she trusted Emma to set everything right again. And now that Charlie’s soul had gone to the other side, perhaps the egg really was ready to hatch. It was time for her to have a wish of her own.