"I can read his mind," Bella repeats. "Anytime I like. Information comes in a pretty visual channel with borders around the content according to how much he likes it and my name appears bordered in white every time."

"Does your fancy mind-reading tell you why?"

"When I tell it to. Why do you ask?"

"'Cause I wanna know," he says, "duh."

"You looking for storytime or something more list-shaped?"

"Storytime," he says immediately, perking up in his chair. "I like storytime."

"After we'd known each other for a few days and had a handful of casual conversations and I'd broken up a fight between him and a random classmate in the cafeteria, he invited me over to his house. Before I said yes, I told him I was going to conduct an experiment. I put my dad the police chief's number into my phone, hovered my finger over the call button, and called him a freak. And he asked me to marry him." She pauses. "I said no."

Bella snorts.

"My story isn't nearly that sweet."

"Storytime," Bella prompts softly.

"She dresses up as a bat?" Bella says quizzically. "And mob bosses hired you to kill her? Okay... what're you planning to do with a job like that?"

"Terrifying expensive non-festive bat," amends Bella. "Got it. Go on."

"And then, y'know, I bombed the place and took a hike, and it was all very exciting for a while, and at the end..." he looks distracted for a moment, smirks secretively, then shakes his head and continues, "We fought it out in a half-built skyscraper and she threw me outta the top floor. And like I said, caught me halfway down." He shrugs. "Now I'm locked up, and she's out there somewhere hating my guts, and someday I'll get out and we'll do it all over again."

"And as long as you have access to some door you can sometimes pop into Milliways for a bit," Bella says. "Interesting. Is it satisfactory for her to hate your guts? Wouldn't you rather she liked you?"

"She's never gonna like me," he says. "She couldn't. I mean, even if I hadn't killed a girl I'm pretty sure she was fucking, she is ve-e-ery much about law and order and I... am very much not."

"Well, yes, killing someone she liked is not conducive to such a plan," Bella says. "Although I feel compelled to point out that a fondness for law and order isn't incompatible with whimsy. Even a very, very terrifying-expensive-nonfestive bat costume requires some whimsy somewhere."

"Whimsy," he says. "Sure."

"Yeah, I'm getting the impression that Alice-types who do not encounter Bella-types quick enough go from whimsical to something a little less socially acceptable."

"Smart cookie."

"Yeah. I only had to cheat with a little magic to get into Stanford."

"Tell me, smart cookie," he says, "say I kidnapped a lady you had the hots for, and you had me locked in a room and could do annnnything you wanted to make me talk. Well, anything you'd do with half a dozen cops watching you through one-way glass. How would you play it? No cheating."