What You Asked For - Chapter Four
With time running out, the only way to keep Clarence in the mortal world is to out-file Hell itself. Contracts, precedent, and one final bureaucratic showdown stand between a temporary reprieve and an eternity back in the queue.
The Appeal
Elspeth convened their council in a shadowed alcove between Botanical Incantations and Obsolete Grammars, where mistakes could be contained, catalogued, and, if necessary, burned with minimal risk to the wider order.
She gestured for Erin and Clarence to sit, and even Damaeus—looking for all the world like a paroled tax attorney—took a seat without protest.
Clarence perched on the chair as if still in a trench, boots braced for sudden retreat, hands folded tightly on the table. The only giveaway of his recent metaphysical ordeal was a dullness behind his eyes, as though some vital fluid had been drained off in the process.
Damaeus retained the posture of authority, but it was more performance than fact. Every so often, his gaze slid to the ledger in his lap, as if expecting it to leap up and bite him for insubordination.
Erin had her laptop and sat poised to take notes.
Elspeth began. “We are, for the moment, free from escalation. But we won’t remain so. If I know systems—and I do—it’s only a matter of time before another auditor is dispatched.”
Damaeus’s nostrils twitched, possibly at the phrase “if I know systems.” He folded his hands on the table and attempted a polite smile, which made him look even more like an actuarial werewolf.
“I suggest,” she continued, “that we transition Private Ashby into a temporary mortal-realm reassignment, with full compliance pending outcome of the anomaly review.”
Damaeus cleared his throat, a sound that came out like the bark of an annoyed goose. “The reassignments require a signed executive release from the originating division,” he said. “And that’s assuming the anomaly isn’t flagged for higher-level review. The risk of recursive escalation—”
Erin cut in, “I have documentation showing four precedent cases where such a transfer was permitted and the presence of a valid mortal advocate was sufficient to forestall escalation.”
She spread her printouts across the table and pointed to three entries. “If you’ll look here—here, and here—you’ll see that in none of the cases was an executive signature strictly necessary. There’s also an annotation about ‘rogue collateral’ in the footnotes.”
Damaeus traced a finger along the highlighted row. “Who annotated these?” he asked.
“Clea Morrow,” said Erin, pride barely contained.
Damaeus grunted. “She’s always had a gift for navigating compliance.”
Clarence, emboldened by the lack of immediate threat, said, “Would it help if I signed something? An oath? I read about magical contracts in the briefing packet.”
Elspeth smiled. “Yes, Clarence. That would help a great deal.”
She set parchment, quill, and ink before him. Erin produced a printed template. “You just need to copy this. And sign in blood, or essence, or whatever the standard is.”
“A drop of essence is sufficient,” said Damaeus. “Think of your happiest memory.”
Clarence closed his eyes. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a single luminous tear rose from the corner of his eye and fell onto the parchment, where it sizzled into a faintly glowing signature.
Elspeth laid her palm over the page and murmured an incantation. The script flashed blue, then settled. “It’s binding. He can’t leave the premises or initiate harm during the review period.”
Damaeus looked wounded. “You mortals and your workarounds. It’s undignified.”
Erin gave him a sharp look. “You’d prefer eternal paperwork sorting?”
Ignoring her, Damaeus opened his ledger. The pages riffled on their own, then stopped at a blue-edged slip.
He read aloud: “Temporary mortal realm reassignment. Permissible under Section 74, Subsection F, in cases of anomaly pending review. Authorization may be granted at the discretion of the assigned auditor if further retention is deemed inefficient or presents risk to system stability.” He looked up, shaken. “This was not in my ledger yesterday.”
“Systems adapt,” Elspeth said. “Even yours.”
Damaeus exhaled through his nose. “Very well. But the paperwork will be extensive.”
“Then we’d best begin.”
By morning, the paperwork had metastasized. Forms bred addenda; addenda demanded witnesses and seals. By late afternoon, through persistence and precedent, they had the final signature and an audience with the Department Head.
The station sprawled beneath piles of petitions and ancient grievances. Behind it sat a figure with a paper face and fingers tipped in fountain-pen nibs.
Without a word, it held out one hand.
Damaeus wheeled the stack forward. The Department Head reviewed it at impossible speed, annotating as it went. After precisely seven minutes and fifty-one seconds, it stopped at page 437 of form XJ-291 and tapped a single blank signature line.
Damaeus went pale. “We must have missed it.”
“Do we start from scratch?” Clarence asked.
Damaeus said nothing.
Elspeth didn’t hesitate. “Per Procedural Amendment 59.3, ratified under the Bureaucratic Reforms of 1843, that signature is optional in cases of accidental summoning.”
The Department Head paused, hand hovering over the rejection stamp.
From her sleeve, Elspeth produced the thin blue pamphlet Clea had slipped her and opened it to the marked page.
The Head read the citation, then the footnote. For one grim moment, Elspeth thought it might reject simply because it could.
Instead, it stamped the file.
APPROVED.
In the corridor outside, Damaeus opened the portal home. Elspeth stepped forward, but Clea intercepted her first.
“It’s only temporary,” Clea whispered. “They never really let a soul go once the paperwork has your name. He’ll have to build a case for himself in your world, or the next audit sends him back to the queue.”
Elspeth met her gaze. “I know. But sometimes a temporary fix is all the system will allow. The rest is negotiation.”
Clea nodded once, as if they had agreed on some unspoken point of philosophy.
Meanwhile, Erin sidled up to Damaeus, who was straightening his tie in the warped glass of the vending machine.
“Thank you,” she said. “For not ratting us out in there. And for the learning opportunity. I think you might actually make a decent teacher.”
Damaeus looked startled. He adjusted his lapels. “You mortals have an infuriating way of making sense out of chaos. The system never prepared me for contingency.”
Erin beamed. “That’s where all the interesting stuff happens.”
For a second, he smiled in earnest. “If you ever need a character reference, I’ll write you the longest letter in the afterlife.”
The portal steadied. Through it, the library shimmered gold and blue: home, though slightly unreal after the journey.
Clarence approached the threshold and stopped. “I don’t belong there anymore,” he said quietly. “The world moved on, didn’t it?”
Elspeth rested a hand on his shoulder. “The world always moves. But there’s always a place for someone willing to ask why.”
He took that in, then looked from Erin to Damaeus to Elspeth. “You’ll show me what’s changed?”
“Of course,” she said. “That’s what we do here.”
Behind them, Clea had already faded back to her terminal. Erin gathered her notes. Damaeus inclined his head toward Clarence. “Good luck, Private. And remember—efficiency is overrated.”
They stepped through. The portal closed behind them with the whisper of a page turning.
It was remarkable how quickly Elspeth’s cottage resumed its ordinary rhythm. By dawn, the apiary hummed with its old confidence; in the kitchen, the dough rose before the kettle boiled. If a spectral ex-soldier now occupied the breakfast nook, or if the library occasionally rearranged itself to keep an eye on him, no one seemed especially troubled by it.
A few mornings later, Elspeth called Erin to the library with her laptop and spellbook and set the battered pine table for a tutorial.
“We’re going to trace what happened,” she said, “from the moment you hit ‘format’ to the moment Clarence dropped into our library.”
Erin opened the original essay: annotated bibliography, cursed bullet list, and in the margin, the note that had started it all—“Summon proofreader (optional).”
“Walk me through it,” said Elspeth.
Erin nodded. “The spell matrix listens for key phrases. I wrote an instruction into the document instead of using the standard footnote macro, and the system interpreted it literally. It summoned a proofreader.”
“And then the ambient magic merged with the computer’s logic,” Elspeth said. “So instead of a digital proofreader, it went looking for a soul.”
Clarence, reading the morning paper nearby, glanced up. “Like orders at the front. By the time they arrive, nobody remembers the intent—only what’s written.”
“Exactly,” said Elspeth.
Erin looked down at the diagram. “I should have specified what kind of proofreader. Or set a boundary condition.”
“But you didn’t,” Elspeth said. “So the magic went fishing and caught the first compatible spirit it found.”
Clarence gave a small cough. “That would be me.”
For a moment they sat in silence, considering the strange logic of accidents.
Then Erin said, “If I’d been more careful—”
Elspeth shook her head. “You’d have found a different way to break it. That’s what learning is.”
She rolled up the diagram and handed it to her apprentice. “Be careful what you ask for. Magic is very good at listening, and very bad at guessing your intentions.”