At Inari's suggestion, Zhu Irzh held his Earthly engagement party on the houseboat. The Chens had been invited as well to the party in Hell, but did not know if they would attend. Chen was trying to be diplomatic, but he needn't have bothered.
"Don't come if you don't want to," Zhu Irzh said. "I wouldn't, if I didn't have to. It's being held on the lawn of the Imperial Palace. Mother's hired a marquee."
"Zhu Irzh," Chen said. "Do you actually want to go through with all this?" They were standing on the deck of the houseboat, a little distance from the main gathering which, by necessity, was small: some acquaintances of Jhai's, plus Sergeant Ma, Inari, and Robin Yuan, who was treating it as her last social engagement before heading up to Heaven in the wake of Mhara. Still recovering from what had apparently been a nasty encounter with the kuei, Mhara was now Emperor of Heaven.
"Might as well," Zhu Irzh said, gloomily. "She's certainly the most interesting girlfriend I've ever had. And I suppose one has to settle down at some point. Besides, I've committed myself now. I actually broke down and asked her to marry me. Bit late, admittedly. But it's done now." He did not look altogether miserable, Chen thought, despite the air of gloom. "Anyway, we're staying here on Earth. Jhai's got a business to run. And I've no wish to go back to Hell, not with my mum running things alongside that lizard."
"There'll be a place for you," Chen said. "The captain's over the moon. Thinks there's a chance of some real possibilities, what with the son of the Empress of Hell working for the police department."
"Equal opportunities?" Zhu Irzh asked, smiling.
"Perhaps." What an odd trip to Hell that had been, Chen thought. He did not feel that they had got anywhere near to the bottom of things. Why had the Ministry of War invited Miss Qi to Hell, to go to so much trouble to bring down a Celestial, then without demur, let her go again? Whatever the rights and wrongs of recent events between Hell and Heaven, it was not like Hell to be accommodating and conciliatory. War had wanted Miss Qi's presence for a reason, and Chen did not like not knowing what it had been.
Zhu Irzh had evidently been following a different line of thought. "Not to mention Robin over there as the Empress of Heaven," he remarked.
Robin had been standing several yards away, but she appeared to hear this. She wandered over. "Don't know how much of an Empress I'll be," she said. "Mhara's mother is still the Dowager Empress."
"How much of a say will she have in things, though?" Chen asked.
Robin grimaced. "Not much, if I have anything to do with it. She's in favor of this detachment from Earth thing. Guess what? I'm not."
"I think," Chen said, "that we'll all be having a lot more to do with one another in the future."
He looked thoughtfully down the deck of the houseboat. Three demons, one Celestial (Miss Qi, shadowing Jhai, in her new Paugeng uniform and looking not displeased with the way things had worked out), one ghost—shortly to become a major Celestial power—and a handful of humans. Three worlds it might be, Chen thought, but who's counting?