This is a such a sweet little story. Otta’s six, and lives on her father’s ship. One morning, the ship’s boy finds a rat, and Otta sees a pet. The First Mate doesn’t approve, and sends the rat overboard. What they don’t know is that the rat is hosting a baby elemental – the very first stage of a being that might later become a demon. And that elemental jumps to Otta.
How Otta ends up washed ashore is part of the discovery of the story. Penric and his demon, Des, are summoned to figure out what’s going on with this very frightened small girl, and happen into an existential crisis. There’s never been a child that young with a demon, and while they’d normally have one of the saints remove it, this young elemental is also remarkably pure, and Otta might just be in a position to handle it.
A lot of this only makes sense if you’ve read the other Pen and Des books, and understand what makes demons demons. If you have that back story, this is a great tale, with some great conflict between Pen and Des. I enjoyed it very much.