Libby mints James and gives her a brief explanation of minting and stars over brainphone.
"That's what we call a certain template that doesn't have name consistency. We know a bunch of them. My boyfriend, Angela's fiancé - or maybe they're married now, neither of them has been by here in a while - Golden's staff mint, Amariah's boyfriend, and Aegis-who-hasn't-been-here-in-person's best friend all are Whistles. They are noted for being very productive mints, although Sherlocks can substitute with some magical boosting, and I have two staff mints who I haven't seen duplicated anywhere, hired from when I thought my Whistle was dead." She opens the new Friends of the Template book and flips to the section on Whistles. "A family photo album of sorts."
"So far they don't seem to have any overlap with Sherlocks. Oh, Juliet, by the way, Libby has just minted James for you, and told her about stars-plus."
"Okay," says Juliet, after blinking at Stella. "Sherlock is the aforementioned boyfriend," she adds to James. "Shell Bell has one too, but hers is a girl."
"Your boyfriend's name is Sherlock," she repeats. "Well, that's hilarious."
"It gets hilariouser. Were you by any chance following the news about Tony Stark?"
"Oh yes. Tony died, Sherlock got turned into a vampire and found me and we got together, and now that we've undergone the rescue mission to the land of the technically dead, Sherlock has his soul back and Tony is technically dead in the same way as me."
"There's a reason we're so suited to ruling empires. Power doesn't corrupt us, we thrive under the workload, and we are smart and thoughtful."
"I have some mixed feelings about today, since I got murdered, and stuff, but I am really glad to have finally run into a mint one of us who could induct me into the ranks," says Juliet happily.
"Funny story," Stella says conversationally to James. "Libby was originally looking to me like she was going to be my nemesis. She spied on me and kidnapped my magic-seeing-guy briefly and stuff. I had my Whistle boyfriend for insane coin output, she knew how to use stars and I didn't, I was paranoid and she had Chris's protection power on, it would've been a huge mess if we hadn't wound up on the same side. Then she walked into Milliways and met Golden's daughter Elspeth, and Elspeth sold her on Bells-as-world-dictators."
"Golden had some very convenient friends and family," says Juliet. "But yeah, she could've done it much more neatly with wishes. Probably even without a convenient helper-mint."
"That is why they are referred to in this way," says Stella brightly. "Hey, what's your coin color, do you and Libby match? For that matter, Juliet, what've you got?"