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“I do.” Austin came out from behind Dean’s legs and walked slowly down the stairs, the energy in the room fluffing him out to twice his normal size. He brushed against Claire’s legs as he passed and looked pointedly at a drift of orange cat hair on Diana’s jeans, then sat down just outside the old pentagram’s center. “So tell me, besides the latest Cure CD, what do you want?”

“How did you…?”

He smiled at her.“I’m a cat.”

“But…”

“Let it go,” Dean advised from the top of the stairs.

Byleth looked at him, realized he was nothing more than human but, more importantly, nothing less than human, looked at the two Keepers, looked at the cat, and sighed.“All right. Fine. You want to know what I want? I don’t know, okay?”

“You don’t know?”

“What, are you deaf?”

“Sounds human to me,” Austin declared as though that settled it.

“Well?” Diana demanded, spearing her sister with a dark gaze. “We haven’t got time for DNA evidence. Which one of us blinks first?”

Claire could feel Dean behind her, even through all the building possibilities. This was more than a Summoning, this was her chance to fix things between them. Balance of good and evil aside, if she didn’t banish the demon, they’d be condemned to long nights of playing cards with a cat who cheated.

“Claire, please?”

She had no intention of looking into the demon’s eyes, she knew too well how darkness worked, so she looked into her sister’s instead and saw Diana honestly believed in what she was doing. It wasn’t defiance, it wasn’t sibling rivalry on a grand and possibly explosive scale, it was, plain and simple and totally unexpected, an attempt to do the right thing.

But I was Summoned to deal with the demon.

Would it be enough to destroy merely the demonic?

“Maybe,” she said softly, “we’re both right.”

Feeling her eyebrows singe, Diana smiled, relieved.“I can live with that. Byleth?”

Byleth screamed.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

“Break her contact!” Claire commanded, gathering up the possibilities as Diana released them.

They had no more than a heartbeat before Hell reached her.“How?”

An orange blur raced past before Claire could answer, slammed into Byleth’s chest and, in flash of both black-and-white light, knocked her over backward.

“She’s clear!”

AND SO AM…

Claire hit it first with all the power that had been building against Diana’s block.

NOT YOU TWO AGAIN!

Then Diana slammed the power from the block against it.

WE ARE THE HEART OF DARKNESS; YOU CANNOT PREVAIL.

“Can too.”

“Diana, don’t argue with Hell.”

Together, they backed the heart of darkness down the narrow path, denying the possibilities it represented one after the other, until finally they shoved it right back where it had come from…

THIS IS REALLY STARTING TO PISS ME OFF.

…and sealed the hole tight.

I’LL BE BACK!

AND I’LL BE BEETHOVEN.

SHUT. UP.

OW!

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Dropping to her knees beside Byleth, Diana scooped Samuel’s limp body into her arms and peered anxiously into golden eyes. “Are you okay?”

He tried to focus on her face.“I, I can’t feel my tail.”

“Sorry.” She shifted her knees.

“Oh, yeah. That’s better.”

“He’s fine.” Austin laid a paw on the younger cat’s flank. “That was a brave thing you did, kid.”

“It was a dangerous thing,” Claire corrected, untangling herself from Dean’s embrace and coming to stand over them. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”

Diana sighed.“Chill, Claire. His name is Samuel, and he’s with me.”

A set of claws pressed into the sleeve of her jacket, releasing a puff of down.“I am?”

“Aren’t you?”

He rubbed his head against her face.“Yeah, I am.”

Claire opened her mouth to demand more information, but the look on Austin’s face stopped her. She smiled and shook her head. “Welcome to the family, Samuel.” When Diana glanced up, startled, the smile vanished. “You, however, are still in deep trouble.”

“I was…” About to say right, Diana glanced past Claire to Dean shaking his head warningly and said instead, “…wrong. I was wrong to defy an older Keeper in such a way, but there wasn’t time to for anything else. I’m not sorry I did it, but I am sorry we had to clash like that.” Settling Samuel against her chest, she held up a hand. “Friends?”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

“This is bigger than taking my bra to school for show and tell.”

“It wasn’t that big a bra.”

“Diana.”

“I know.”

Claire looked down at their clasped hands, unable to remember the actual moment when their fingers had linked.“This is going to take more than an apology.”

“Then tell me what it’s going to take, oh, older, wiser, shorter Keeper.”