Page 18 of By Mistake
Before Oresti could reply, Shimari said, "As charming as the two of you are, dancing around each other and pretending you aren't already completely smitten, romance will have to wait, because I need to know more about this Farthing fellow.
I know the name, and there's never been anything good attached to it. "
"That's going to wait too," Oresti replied.
"I want to know more about this, about you.
Where is the summon circle? The spell notes.
You must have had some. Most people can't even summon the weakest demons on purpose.
I've never heard of anyone summoning Shimari of the Harvest by accident .
" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Maybe somebody knew what they were doing after all in banning your family from magic. "
"Oh, fuck all of you," Andrus said. "Come on, then. But I swear to god if you reveal my family secrets to the world, I'll bury you in the basement. Possibly alive."
Shimari grinned, looking at Oresti. "He's fun when he's snippy."
"Shut up," Andrus said over his shoulder.
Oresti grinned despite himself, and motioned for Shimari to precede him as they followed after Andrus.
Shimari of the Harvest. Demons had no reason to lie about such things, but he still found it hard to believe.
Who accidentally summoned one of the most powerful demons to ever exist?
Demons who dealt directly in death were few and far between.
It was a level of power that even other demons tread carefully around.
One of the reasons he was so dangerous, though honestly one of the least important, was that he fed on life.
Blood, semen, essence, actual, literal life…
Shimari fed on all of it, sustaining himself by draining others.
He could cleave the essence—the soul, the energies, the whatever various cultures called it—from the body with his scythe, harvesting life like farmers harvested wheat.
The most infamous tale of Shimari held that he'd harvested the souls of an entire city in a single night before twenty mages had banded together to overpower and banish him, most of them losing their lives in the process.
Those tales seemed so at odds with the innocuous looking figure playing at personal assistant.
Andrus led them down to the basement, which was predictably large, a dark warren of rooms meant to store all manner of foods, casks of liquor, barrels of wine and beer, and many other stores.
This basement was still largely empty, but servants were diligently cleaning and some small measure of foodstuffs took up one corner.
Shimari sent the servants off with a word and gesture, leaving the three of them entirely alone. Andrus kept going, until he reached the farthest end, a small, empty room where he went to the back wall and lifted up a part of the floor.
"Smart," Oresti murmured at the way the door had been molded around the planks so that there was no tell-tale seam to find, nothing that needed to be hidden by a rug that would stand out.
They climbed down a ladder into what proved to be a workroom: books, table, candles, discarded dishes, a dusty bed in an alcove…
piles of paper with meticulously handwritten notes, but in various handwritings, some of the papers quite old.
"What is all this? Other than a mage's workroom.
These books…" They were honestly the most impressive collection of magical tomes he'd ever seen.
Sold off, they could easily buy Andrus's house twice over, but their monetary value paled in comparison to the knowledge they contained.
People would quite literally kill for some of these books.
Suddenly, he had a very good idea why Farthing wanted this house so damn badly.
Still, the location was hardly practical. "Why hide all this way down here?"
"To remain undisturbed," Shimari answered. "Your ancestors did many dangerous things down here—like summon me on purpose."
"I am never going to hear the end of this.
" Andrus threw up his hands and vanished through a doorway.
Oresti followed him, unsurprised to see a workspace, the kind meant for summoning, with plenty of room to draw the necessary circles, a table and shelves to hold tools and other items best kept near to hand.
Oresti frowned at the circle, increasingly troubled with every rune. He went back and gathered up the notes from the desk, dragged the chair into the summoning room, and started reading. "Where did you get this spell?"
"A few places," Andrus muttered, staring at his hands.
He'd taken a seat on the floor, far away in the corner.
"Mostly my mother's notes. She summoned a brownie when I was still a child to help her move furniture.
Her notes weren't complete, though, like she knew most of what she needed and just jotted down the parts she didn't, so I had to pull from other sources. "
"I see." Oresti went back to the notes, shuffling through them until he found the ones he wanted. "These are your mother's notes?"
"Yes."
Oresti sighed. "She lied to you."
Anger filled Andrus's face as he shot to his feet. "What in the hells are you talking about?"
"I don't know what your mother was really doing that day—"
"Furniture!" Andrus snarled. "The brownie helped her move furniture.
I remember very clearly because some of that furniture came from my bedroom!
" He blinked furiously, angrily wiping at a few small tears that escaped any way.
"My wardrobe. My bed . Our dining room table and chairs.
The only sofa left in the house. Some stuff from the garden, benches and all that.
The brownie piled it all in a cart my mom borrowed for the day, and they went off.
When she came back, she was alone, and we had enough money to keep us fed for several months.
I had to sleep on the floor for a bit, until she managed to buy the bedframe that I use now.
It was broken and creaky, and we had to fix it with scraps of wood we pulled from the trash pile of a house that was being renovated. She didn't lie about anything ."
Oresti's heart hurt. Andrus said everything so matter-of-factly, like it was normal for a child to worry about having food, normal to sleep on the floor , to go with his mother to dig through scrap heaps for usable supplies.
All because of the stupid decisions of people dead long before he'd ever been born.
It was all so stupid and mean. Why was Andrus being punished for the deeds of people he never would have met, even in a perfect world?
None of that changed the reality of what he was staring at, though.
He stood up and went to the table in the corner, spreading the papers out, pulling a pen from his front pocket to use as a point.
"These runes here, they're to mark what is being summoned.
These aren't for a brownie. The runes for summoning a brownie look like…
" He turned another piece of paper over and wrote quickly.
" This is what it would look like for a brownie, and then you'd add various other details for the specific type, all of that. "
Andrus's brows furrowed deeply, making Oresti want to soothe the troubled lines away, give him better, sweeter things to think about.
Near the door, Shimari stood as silent as a shadow, easy to overlook and forget about, his green eyes glowing ever so faintly. A shiver ran down Oresti's spine, and he turned his attention fully back on Andrus.
"So what did my mother do, then?"
"She summoned a demon, made it look and act like a brownie while it was here at the house. I'd wager once they were well away, though, that it wasn't selling furniture that made them the money she brought home."
Andrus stared at him, then at the wall, then strode from the room.
Oresti sighed and threw his pen on the table before raking his hands through his hair. "So much for getting back in his good graces."
"He's missed you," Shimari said.
Oresti cast him a look. "Like I'm interested in anything a crafty, conniving demon has to say."
Shimari only laughed. "Finish studying the spell, little prince. Then I have some other things to tell you, related to that little necklace that left powerful residue all over you."
"What could you possibly have to tell me about a necklace that belonged to Prince Kolik?"
"Whose power do you think they imbued the amulet with, little boy?
" Shimari asked, green eyes slipping back into red as he prowled across the room, planting a hand on Oresti's chest and driving him back into the wall with shocking strength.
"It was Sendrus who last summoned me to your charming little plane, Sendrus and Kolik whom I called friends, and it was my power Sendrus used to fill the amulet he was going to gift to Kolik. I'm not going to hurt your beloved."
"Call him that where he can hear you and see what happens," Oresti retorted. "Even a demon should tread lightly with his wrath." Shimari snickered, and despite all the knowledge and training that said he shouldn't, Oresti relaxed. "You knew Sendrus and Kolik."
"They were my friends," Shimari replied. "Come on, gather all this up and return to the study. I'll track down our errant lord and tell you both all about them—and why it's so fucking stupid anyone would think Sendrus murdered Kolik." He vanished, and Oresti rolled his eyes.
Dutifully gathering up the papers, he made his way back upstairs.
This was not at all how he had hoped this day would go, but it wasn't over yet, and he wouldn't be leaving until he could be certain for himself there was no way Shimari could hurt so much as a hair on Andrus's head.