In Which Sophie Enters Into a Castle and a Bargain
- Sophie goes to two different, giant black doors to the castle, but neither of them will open.
- Eventually, she finds a small back door, which opens even as the castle is moving away from her.
- Sophie quickly shoves her way in and finds herself in the Wizard Howl's kitchen.
- (You can tell it's a wizard's kitchen because of the skull and obviously magical stuff hanging around.)
- There is a boy in the kitchen and he introduces himself as Michael, Howl's apprentice; Howl is away for the night.
- Michael obviously wants Sophie to leave, but she insists on sitting by the fire and waiting until Howl gets back. (Wow, turning old has made Sophie grow some gumption.)
- After all, she needs to sleep somewhere—and next to Wizard Howl's fire seems like as good a place as any.
- Sophie jerks awake in the middle of the night.
- She looks into the fire and imagines she sees a blue face there.
- Of course, this is a wizard's house, so she's obviously not imagining it: the blue face belongs to a fire demon.
- The demon can see that Sophie has two spells on her, one from the Witch of the Waste and one from an unknown source.
- The demon suggests a deal: he'll end the spells on her if Sophie figures out a way to break the fire demon's contract.
- Here's the demon's contract: he is tied to Howl's fireplace, and he does most of the magic to keep the castle moving.
- Sophie agrees to break the contract if the fire demon will help her, and then she falls asleep by the fire again.