Celestine was looking at me, and both the frown and the smile that had graced her face a few seconds before were gone. What was left didn't move at all.
Personally, I had long confronted the idea that the creatures I was summoning were somehow going to be the best of character. Quite the opposite, really. I expected them to be the worst of character, and I had prepared my heart for that before I ever performed the summoning.
At first, I had almost thought that Celestine was going to be different, but alas, I wasn't surprised or disappointed to learn that she wasn't. And this felt a bit strange to say.
She wasn't going to kill me. At least, not by her own reckoning. She was just refusing to let go, from what I saw of it. Granted, her grip was insanely difficult to endure. The gauntlet had closed around my forearm without any hurry at all, the metal warm from her own skin, and somewhere underneath it my bones were quietly filing a complaint.
I sighed and said to her.
