I flop down on the sofa, wiping chalk on my skirt. “So it was only a metaphorical summoning.”

“Why not?” He’s still smiling. (One nice thing about talking to Shepard is that I don’t even have to pretend not to be patronizing. It rolls right off of him.) “After all,” he says, “your magic is based on clichés…”

I wince. “I think you mean that we use the power of language to harness the world’s magic in a way that you can only contemplate. But go on, you drew a door … Where?”

“In my bedroom.” Shepard cracks open another boxed sandwich. Coronation chicken this time.

After an hour of list-making, I let him take a break to get dinner. With all the sandwiches on the coffee table right now, it’s like Simon never left. (It’s very much like Simon left. I can hear him—and Baz—not saying anything, not here, not wanting to be here. It’s like giant gongs of silence. Shepard’s constant chatter does nothing to crowd it out.)

I’m crushing the end of my chalk with my nail. “So, you created a door to hell, in the room where you sleep…”

He finishes his bite. “Oh,” he says. “It’s curry. I wasn’t expecting that. The queen was coronated with curry chicken salad?”

“Shepard. Focus.”

He tilts his head. “I’m focusing, focusing … I like the raisins.”

I groan, and wipe some chalk on his leg. He pulls his thigh away, laughing.

“What’s your surname?” I ask.

“Is it that hard calling me ‘Shepard’?”

“It’s awfully familiar,” I grouse.

He laughs some more. He’s very good at smiling and laughing while he eats. It isn’t even a little disgusting. “It’s Love.”

I frown and pull away from him. “It’s not—”

“My last name. It’s Love.”

“You’re joking.”

He takes another bite, still smiling. “I am not. Feel free to call me that if it feels less familiar.”

“Ugh, you’re inherently impossible.”

“Untrue, I’m Normal. I’m utterly possible.”

“Tell me more about the door,” I say. “Why’d you do this in your bedroom?”

Shepard’s smile falls a notch. He looks down at his lap. “Well, I didn’t want to do it in anyone else’s space—and I don’t think demons live in hell, by the way. I think they’re more like beings from other dimensions.”

“What did you use to draw the door?”

He sets down the sandwich, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Blood, soil, water, ash, and milk.”

“Your own blood?”

He licks his bottom lip. “It had to be my own blood. The guy who sold me the ritual was very clear.”

“How much did the ritual cost?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Nothing?”

“Is that an answer or a question?”