Alice, having no demands on his time that he can't blow off for this, flies invisibly overhead.

He's not invisible to Bella, though. [Tagging along?]

[I have good design sense,] Bella sends. [Going to stow invisibly onto the plane or just try to chase it the whole way?]

[Don't get sucked into an engine; you'll crash my plane,] Bella says. [And you'll probably need to magic goggles and maybe some way to breathe up high, but I assume you're stocked up on coins of all kinds.]

[I'm wearing mine like a half-bandolier, half-belt,] Bella offers.

[It didn't come off when I got hit by the car,] Bella points out. [Although it's getting heavy. By the time it gets long enough to need another twist over the other shoulder I'll probably start stashing extras in Elias's old trunk.]

[Unless I find a good use for a lot of coins that's as fast or faster than your rate of making them,] Bella says.

[Running the world,] Bella suggests. [How many hexes do you think it would take to render, say, malaria, extinct? I'm not sure I can even do it with hexes, not without investing a lot of time in travel and finding people who have it and mosquitoes that carry it. That kind of thing might take a star.]

[I bet you could,] she says. [I don't want to use any stars, yet, until I know why they are dangerous, when the other wishes are so safe to use while paying a modicum of attention.]

[That is because you are smart,] Alice says cheerfully.

[Yep. Also, things on the scale of eradicating malaria will attract attention, and I bet you a clever wishcoiner could find me via some divinatory power as soon as they knew to look. I have to find out more, I have to be more secure and informed. Even though people are dying of malaria right now.] She does not like this.

[There's more where those came from,] Alice points out. Death doesn't bother him the way it bothers her. He thinks it would be pretty awesome if she did manage to get rid of it, but he's not going to complain if she doesn't, or if it takes a while.

[People aren't replaceable like that. Everyone knows this about people they've actually met; you just have to extend it - I mean, there are more people where I came from. I would assume you don't want me to die, at least given that it doesn't appeal to me.]

[But not if they die of malaria first,] Bella says.

[I lose you around the part where you don't think the world is worse when people are dying of malaria regularly, than it would be if people were not doing that,] Bella says. [I don't individually care about everyone personally - it's just shitty that they have to die, so I care about them impersonally and will see that they stop doing that.]

[Well, yeah,] says Alice. [And that's awesome. It just doesn't piss me off that a bunch of people are dying right now who wouldn't be if you'd fixed it already.]

[Well, that's good, because if you were you might have to be pissed off at me.]

[Anyway. I will learn things and meet people and design-and-acquire personal superpowers and find out what the hell is wrong with the stars, and then I will take over the world and I will fix it. Step next: interview at Stanford.]

[I love you,] Alice says happily.

[Well, which one is it?] he asks reasonably, and indulges in idle speculation about a Bella-compass power.

[I don't know, they all look the same from the inside. This is gate twelve, are the gates numbered on the outside?]

[You're into autoerotic asphyxiation too?] Bella sighs. [Well, you could always decouple the two things - attach the sense of needing to breathe only to how much breathing you've been doing lately, not to how much oxygen that's been getting you. And have oxygenation and de-carbonization handled magically.]

[Handling a lungful of water is a different matter from just not breathing,] Bella muses.

[Whaddya mean?]

[Well, how are you planning to get the water out? Just coughing and coughing for a few minutes? And it can't be good for salinity either.] She's poking his medical skill now. [Whether it's freshwater or salt. If you just refrain from breathing, you don't have that problem. If you want to be able to inhale any random substance and suffer pleasantly and then cease at a moment of your choosing, you're looking at something more complicated.]

[Square,] he says succinctly. [It's not like I'm gonna take up drowning as a hobby.]

[I couldn't reasonably have guessed that,] Bella points out. [Putting a swimming pool in your lair and drowning five times a day, six on Sundays, is exactly the sort of thing you would do. Anyway. I still think it makes the most sense to tie your subjective sensations to how much breathing you've been getting done - make that the state of affairs when you suppress the power, so normally it won't trouble you, normally you'll feel fine and oxygenated - and meanwhile render breathing biologically irrelevant.]

[So you don't pass out by miscalibrating?] Bella says. [You can't make any wishes - such as taking the water out of your lungs and preventing it from doing whatever nasty stuff water will do in your lungs, preventing breathing aside - if you pass out.]

[It's not actually gonna kill me, though.] Or at least the risk of it doing so is acceptably low. [So I can just fix it later.]

[How about this: three states for the power,] Bella says. [By default, you don't need to breathe, but you will anyway if you're not paying attention, so you don't freak out observers. Change it on purpose, and you can inhale whatever you want, suffer the usual effects uninhibited, fun stuff. Fall unconscious, and you don't need to breathe anymore and your body will not automatically try to do it in case that would make things worse, but will expel whatever's in your lungs at the time.]

[Unconscious as distinct from sleeping, because that could get awkward fast.]

[I'm not sure how distinct passing out due to oxygen deprivation and sleep actually are,] Bella says. Her plane is starting to taxi. [But I guess magic is pretty good at telling those kinds of things apart.]

Good timing, too, the plane's starting to take off. [Well?]

Alice giggles over brainphone and gives her a thumbs-up.

Bella smirks and starts trying to nap on the plane.

It's a medium-sized flight. Bella gets off at the San Francisco airport and meets the helpful grad student who's hosting her overnight. [Blue Camry,] she informs Alice, when said grad student has showed Bella to her car in the parking lot. [Parking lot A.]

[Oh, like I know what one of those looks like,] he says, and contemplates whether he would rather have encyclopedic knowledge of cars or a Bella-compass. Definitely the second one.

[That seems awfully narrow. Why not just a general tracking power?]

[Fucked if I know,] he says serenely.

[Okay. It isn't going to involve breaking into Myra's apartment, because that would be creepy,] Bella informs him.

[Wait, what exactly would be creepy?]

[Breaking into Myra's apartment invisibly and crashing there overnight where I'm going to be, would be creepy.]

[Not enough that I'd make a fuss about it.]

[...That implies some, though,] he says. [How is the roof creepy?]

[Well,] Bella says. [Would Myra and her roommates want you on the roof? If you did it visibly, would they tell you to come down, and call the cops if you wouldn't? You're thinking it's an apartment in an apartment building, but we don't know that; what if she has a shared house thing? If it's an apartment building it's probably against some rule but not creepy, I suppose.]

[I don't think it's creepy. Unless somebody in that house is really attached to their roof, anyway.]

[They could have skylights,] Bella says. [Including into bedrooms or bathrooms.]

[Having a skylight into your bathroom is creepy,] says Alice. [Me sleeping near one isn't unless I look in it. Maybe I'll just break into a hotel, that won't creep anybody out.]

[Most people are never on roofs to make skylights problematic,] Bella says. [Breaking into a hotel is... well, no, not creepy, but they can book those rooms at any time of night.]

[Huh, I guess I could just get a room,] he says. It's not the first way that occurred to him, but he doesn't actually object.

[That'd work. You do have several million dollars.]

[Maybe you'll get used to it.] She's half-ignoring Myra now, who is droning on about her thesis.

[Meh.]

Myra finally pulls up to her place - which is indeed more houselike than apartment building like.

Damn. Guess he's not sleeping on the roof after all.

Bella lets Myra show her the couch she'll be sleeping on. It's getting kind of late, and her interview is early. [I'm going to crash as soon as Myra's roomies over there finish their video game and get off my couch,] Bella says.

[Okay,] says Alice, and thinks wistfully of sleeping on the floor beside said couch, and starts hunting for a nearby hotel and somewhere convenient to de-invisible.

[Someone would trip over you anyway,] Bella says.

[Are people actually going to be sneaking past your couch while you sleep? Because speaking of creepy...]

[It would be impolite not to sneak, if they need a midnight snack or something,] Bella says. [It's a crampy little house.]

[Well, that would be hilarious.]

[If they tripped on you? Slightly, I suppose. Mostly inconvenient.]

[I bet you're going to follow me to my interview, too,] Bella guesses.

[Yep!]

[Just don't be distracting or pull pranks on anyone I need to impress,] she sighs.

[I won't!]

[Good pet masochist,] she says approvingly. Myra's roommates have finished their game and cleared off the sofa. Bella ducks into a bathroom to change into her pajamas. [See you in the morning.]

[See ya,] he echoes, and also loves her very much.

Invisible Alice tucks himself quietly into an out-of-the-way corner.

Is there room for Alice in there? He is inclined to find out!

The office is full of books, but it is not incapable of holding three people. [Don't sit in the extra chair,] Bella says, [you'll indent it funny.]

[Wasn't gonna,] he says cheerfully, and sits on the floor next to Bella's chair.

Alice sits very quietly the whole time, gazing adoringly up at Bella. She is just so great, okay? Okay.

Alice, naturally, follows.

[Now I have an hour to wander around looking at stuff and grab lunch,] Bella says, [and then I'm supposed to meet the soccer coach real quick because I don't have enough of a game record to substantiate my claims of fantastic talent, and then I audition for the orchestra conductor.] She hefts her bag, which contains her flute, and swings it onto her back.

[Maybe. They're paying me lots of attention, so they at least think I'm in, but there could be bad luck, or a necessary recommender who takes a dislike to me, or a dozen more ridiculously qualified people who play basketball and violin and also spent two years working with tsunami victims or something.]

It's kind of a ridiculous system, when he thinks about it.

[Hmm?] She's admiring buildings, and the nice weather. [Ridiculous how?]

[I dunno, the whole getting-into-college process? Like, what does working with tsunami victims have to do with it?]

[So if you were running a school and ten thousand people applied and you could only take two thousand, which ones would you take?]

[I wouldn't run a fucking school,] says Alice. [And if I did, I'd pick people for terrible reasons. But we scrounge up enough high schools for everybody somehow; why not enough colleges? There's even less people!]

[Well, yes,] Bella says. [I assure you that if I went to a tiny, terrible community college in Port Angeles, all I would have to demonstrate would be basic literacy. Maybe they'd want to make sure I could add. The good schools are good because they're selective - people want to go there so they can get the best teachers, and fraternize with the best classmates. There aren't enough bests to go around for everyone.]

[I still think it's weird,] Alice maintains. He doesn't have a solution, but he doesn't see why that should stop him.

Bella snorts quietly. [Well, that's the system, so I'm gaming it.] There's a dining hall over there; she decides to see if they'll feed her or if she has to be a student.

Alice tags along. When it occurs to him that any food he conjures will get a free ride on his invisibility as long as he doesn't drop it, he spends a square on a turkey sandwich.

Bella pays for a one-meal pass to the dining hall and tastes small dollops of various offerings from the buffets. [Well. Nothing phenomenal here. The macaroni and the lemon pie is okay though.]

[Meh,] says Alice. [I'll stick with my invisible lunch.]

[Enjoy,] Bella says lightly. [Man, the weather is nice here. It's like I've time-traveled to a land in which it is already spring.]

[It's pretty great,] he agrees. [Snow's fun, too, though.]

[Well, I imagine I'll visit Charlie some holidays, when I'm not going to see Renée instead.]

[Well, she looks a lot like me, but we're not that similar in personality] Bella says. [She has no long-term attention span. I think the only reason she can teach kindergarten is that she gets to forget she was doing it once a year. Hobbies and stuff she's intense about for a few months, then drops. In a lot of ways she's very childlike - she used to screw up things like depositing her paychecks, never bad enough that we went hungry or couldn't pay the mortgage if the bank called to yell at her, but bad enough to be scary, so I learned how to help her with that sort of thing as soon as I could. She's good at her job, she's never embarrassed not to know how to do something new, she's often very insightful about people and how they relate to each other while completely missing plenty of relevant implications of whatever she's spotted.]

That is a pleasing notion to contemplate! He bounces happily after her.

Alice giggles over brainphone.

Bella warmly expresses her enthusiasm for playing soccer at Stanford and bids the coach goodbye. [I wonder if I should feel bad about cheating,] she muses, heading for the orchestra conductor's office.

[Nope,] says Alice, predictably.

[I suppose I probably shouldn't feel any worse than people who really do have this level of genetic gift do. I mean, I'll actually show up to practices; I don't have the history of putting the effort in but I will in the future. Still. Seems vaguely like doping or something.]

[Well, I don't think you should feel bad that you're cheating, but I'm not gonna tell you you're not cheating.]

Bella mentally laughs. She doesn't laugh aloud; she does not wish to look like a crazy person.

He grins at her.

Is there room for Alice to sit down and lean his head on her knee? He would like to do that.

There is. Bella doesn't pet him - someone could come around the corner at any moment - but she does smile a bit.

Bella cleans and puts away her flute, making concluding small talk with the conductor, and walks out. [I'm supposed to catch an airport shuttle next - I have all my stuff on me,] she says. [Flight's in four hours.]