Bella finds Milliways next, too, on New Year's Day, and calls in Alice (he's not coming to Goldenworld even if they find a person who can take them there, but he might find someone interesting to talk to in the bar) and also Lazarus. She mentions the door to Libby, too, in case she and/or her wolf want to take an excursion and see if his friends and family back home can be visited.
"That's something," snorts Bella. "Well. After what happened last time I don't think I care to take risks in this department. It's a pity, I'm sure they would have had fun."
"I don't know, she seemed nice enough to me," he says. "Albeit in a slightly creepy way. Definitely fewer axe murderer vibes than Addy."
"I've never murdered anybody with an axe," says the same voice out of thin air. "Well, I'm pretty sure. Not in a while, anyway."
"I highly doubt Addy has ever murdered anyone with an axe either," remarks Bella. "And the terrorist alt seemed decent company to start with too, albeit aesthetically bizarre. Less bizarre," she concedes, "than intermittent discorporation."
"That one? Yeah. Can you not build yourself scars if you want them?" Bella says. "Or does that not count?"
"Sure I can," she says. "But it's different, y'know? That whole..." She waves a hand vaguely. "It's just not the same anymore."
"Alice doesn't have any scars at all," Bella volunteers. "They didn't grow back after he set himself on fire that one time."
"I'm making a habit of not explaining the details, but suffice it to say I plan for me and Alice to both live forever, and I wouldn't want that to interfere with his hobbies or vice versa."
"Aren't you precious," she says affectionately. "Can I see him pretty please, even though we're both awful terrible people?"
She pauses.
"Actually, what am I even thinking? My original objection is moot. I'll go grab Alice real quick."
Because if the Emperor and the Seer and the other ex-inhabitants of the witch dungeon are anything to go by, their sort of vampire is straight up immune to trauma.
Bella pokes her head out the door. [Hey Alice, want to meet another alt of you? She's a funky sorta ghost thing.]
Bella ushers him in. [I'm pretty sure your shiny new species is immune to being traumatized in any lasting way,] she says. [Although I wouldn't like you to go around taunting anyone with this information, the Emperor survived five years in small pieces in a dungeon believing his mate was dead and he is perfectly functional now. As long as I'm alive I don't think you can get to an irrecoverable state, and I have every intention of remaining alive.] "Alice, this is a female ghost version of you who has not introduced herself. Ghost, this is my Alice, as described."
And she dissolves into dust that dissolves into smaller dust that dissipates into apparent nothing.
Lazarus makes an incredulous sound, which was not his reaction the last few times she did this.
"What's going on?" Bella asks. Lazarus or Alice or both could answer her, whichever one knows.
"Ghosty Alice is inhabiting him the same way she was inhabiting those bodies she kept making out of and dissolving into thin air," Lazarus explains rapidly.