"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jordanis gave Aidan a serious look. "You're putting yourself in a great deal of danger, even with that knife."

"I'm sure." Aidan was all too aware of how dangerous this was, but although he was scared stiff his determination still outweighed his fear. "My family can't live like this forever. It's fine now, they're all still fairly young, but it's not going to be long before they're old enough to want to move out, find spouses, start families, and how can they do that if they can't trust strangers, and can't be around other people? I'll wear this thing," he tapped his torc, "for as long as I live. And I'm probably going to live a very, very long time. I can't ask my family to spend all their lives in hiding because of me."

Jordanis nodded. "I understand. All right then. This will only take a few minutes." He lifted his hands, and an expression of intense concentration crossed his face. He said no words, but there was a hazy glow of power that grew slowly around his raised hands. Then it winked out and he lowered them. "It's done. You're behind shields here, but as soon as you step out of this room, you will no longer be warded."

Aidan nodded. He took a deep breath as he got to his feet. He didn't know how closely the demon watched him, though he was fairly certain it still did, but he half expected it to turn up the instant he stepped out the door. But he went out anyway. It had to be done.

Nothing happened when he went out the door. Nothing happened on the way back to his rooms either. He had almost hoped something would, that Asmodeus would turn up in that instant, and he could confront the demon and get it over with. He slept restlessly that day, and when he set out that evening he was nervous.

He was not flying home. He would return there eventually, but his home had wards yet, as did his wife and children. He was trying to find the demon, and going where it couldn't come wouldn't help. Instead he flew almost aimlessly. He thought for a while of going to visit Thomas again, but that was out of the question. The old man wasn't warded at all, and if the demon attacked while Aidan was at his house... No. So he flew in no particular direction through the clear night air. He passed over farmland that night. The farmhouses below sent a flicker of sadness through him. Down there were families, gathered together. And he was not with his family. Probably would not be with them until the demon was dead.

He meandered over farm and forest for more than a week and saw no sign of Asmodeus. Every day when he found somewhere to sleep he expected an attack while he was vulnerable, but every day nothing happened. He had told Flame Song that he would return and check in with her after three months, but he had hoped to have this over and done with within a matter of days. But it seemed that such hopes had been too optimistic.

After two more weeks of nothing at all, he realized that he would have to try something different. The first thing to do was to take a calculated risk. There was a slim chance that he would die, but from what Jordanis had told him there was no chance at all that the demon would get a working torc after his death, so it was worth risking.

He chose his spot carefully. It was far from any town or farm, so nobody would be hurt. Out in the open in an empty meadow so that nothing could sneak up on him. And in the middle of the night, so that he didn't have to worry about sunlight.

Then he pressed the catch at the back of the torc and removed it from his neck.

Nothing happened.

He stood there for perhaps five minutes, then sighed and put it back on. Now what? He's probably not following me around closely, or he'd have noticed that. But there's no way he's given up. So what is he up to?

Aidan sighed again. The demon was probably waiting on ground of his own choosing, where he would have potential allies and Aidan would not. Aidan had hoped to face him in more favorable circumstances, but there was no other option left. He would have to go to a city.