[Whee!] says Alice.

[I'll be there in a minute,] says Lazarus.

[Coming, plus two,] says Libby.

When everyone has assembled, through they go!

"We would like the door held, presently, but Alice won't be coming through," Bella says. "Did you want to see if you can grab ingot powers like witchcraft?"

Addy nods rapidly. "You didn't let me last time," she says reproachfully, holding out her arms as though for a hug towards Alice. "Congratulations on being a vampire, by the way, how new are you? You're very well-controlled around the humans."

"Few days. I have a magic air filter," he says, bounding toward her for an exuberant newborn-strength hug. "Don't smell 'em unless they want me to. Hi!"

"That is fascinating," Lazarus remarks.

"No, I can taste it," Addy objects. "Your gelato does things, for you. I can't do a thing with it because none of the help on offer is Addy-shaped. Why would I want to be immune to any sort of magic, even the mind-altering stuff? How in the world would I test it if it bounced off me?" she laughs. "Oh, that's really lovely, have you got another in the party? I can't suss you 'ingots' out from a distance like regular witches..."

"Ingot," says Lazarus, pointing at Alice, "ingot," Chris, "ingot," Bella, "ingot," himself.

"Well, I really doubt I can manage her," Addy says, waving at Bella with a dismissive frown. "C'mere?"

"No hugs, please," he says, orbiting closer.

"Eep," says Lazarus, raising his eyebrows.

She releases his face, holding up her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. "Oh, come on, you of all people should know that's not me threatening to literally drink your blood, can't you see how I work? Goodness! Everything's so pretty! I can even see magic on Her Majesty over there! I might want this one back again, if you're going through to my world," she says. "Oh, everything's so pretty."

"If I thought you were actually going to eat me, I wouldn't just be saying eep," he says. "I am slightly less ineffectual than that. You're still a little unnerving even when I know you're mostly harmless. And yes, isn't it?"

"It is," she gushes. "Bella is so terribly shiny... Oh my. Is that why he was turned into a vampire. What an odd way to arrange magic. But - oh! That must be the mate bond. I was wondering what would do that. Looks different when I'm using Marcus's power, let alone compared to Chelsea's... Goodness. Is that normal? Do you know? The... cuddliness?"

"I've only ever seen one mate bond," he says. "But I'm betting not. You know what his power's like. When the bond first showed up they had a little standoff before they got this friendly."

"Oh, I bet they did. Now I can't wait to look at Bella-back-home. I bet her witchcraft wasn't too friendly to her mate bond either, but as far as anyone knows it's there. But she's immune to Marcus so he can't check. Oh, and I've got to look at Marcus too - I wonder if I can arrange to keep this long enough to get to Safesun and back, given that I can't borrow one of your toes? It's such a pity you can't work over electronics, have you ever worked on that?"

"How would I work over electronics?" he asks wearily. "Look at my power, it just... looks. What it sees is not a thing that electronics transmit. I did find a way to use it at a distance, but it takes, what else, more magic."

"I am the expert on this sort of thing," says Addy severely. "Now, maybe ingots just don't grow the way witches can, but don't you even care? Haven't you even tried?"

"You are an expert on this sort of thing," Lazarus corrects firmly. "No, I haven't tried, but I'm telling you right now electronics is a dead end."

Addy licks her lips thoughtfully. "Admittedly it wouldn't be the first thing I'd push you on. Range is usually the easiest thing to expand on powers for which that's a factor... and I wonder if you could learn to share visions like Alice did, the Alice back home... Please promise I can have this back again later if I take a look at her next?" Addy points out Chris.

"You can have this back again later," Lazarus says. "Absolutely. I want to compare notes with you somewhere with less... noise," this with a wave at Milliways in general.

"Oh, absolutely," Addy says. "Somewhere less distractingly beautiful." She turns to Chris. "May I?"

[I'm pretty sure that my alt has put a stop to this kind of thing,] Bella says to Lazarus, [but you might want to know that when Addy was "training" Elspeth, she responded to a brief flagging of Elspeth's motivation by sending her to be tortured by a since-deceased witch whose power was rather like my agony beam. Be careful of her. Consider only working within range of the Emperor even if you don't want company directly.]

Chris extends a hand toward Addy.

[Noted,] says Lazarus.

Addy shakes hands in a terribly friendly way. "Oh, this is cute," she says. "What a polite power. Why would anyone object to you protecting them?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, of course," says Lazarus.

"I know, it's a little tricky to see," Addy says to Lazarus sympathetically. "Tastes obvious, though. You can protect people who wouldn't mind if you did, but the magic will back right off if they'd disapprove. I wonder why. Maybe you haven't noticed? It tastes... still. You could move it around but you haven't much. Have you not even been systematically checking people for protectability? Where is everyone's sense of scientific investigation?"

"Protectability of third parties is kind of a moot point for me," she says, patting her niece's shoulder.

"But don't you even care what you could do?" says Addy pleadingly. "What if you could add more targets?"

"...Okay, slightly tempted," she admits.

"You know, I don't think it would even be that hard, if you started the right way," muses Addy. "Whose loss would just devastate her? Is there anyone she sits up at night worrying over? It would just take the tiniest stretch..." Addy undergoes a brief all-over shudder. "See, this is why I have to help people, I can feel how close the improvements are but I can't touch them unless the original witch - ingot - does it first."

"Good luck with that," Chris says flatly.

"Well, you don't have to work on it the straightforward way if you don't want to, and honestly, I didn't even describe it," huffs Addy. "Anyway. I'd like to try you again, Your Majesty, if I may? Now that I have the hang of ingots?"

Bella permits a brief handshake.

"Nope," sighs Addy. "Like biting tinfoil."

"Alas," says Chris.

Libby snorts.

"Could I," Addy says, "hold a coin? Just for a moment, just to see if I can do anything with it, it can be a little one, I won't wish on it."

"I'm thinking not," Bella says.

"Do what with it?"

"Copy it," says Addy plaintively. "That's what I do. I'm a mimic."

[...I kinda wanna see what happens,] he says to Bella.

[Oh, it'd be fascinating, but she's only not doing evil things because she can get access to more and more different magic by cooperating with my alt. On the off chance she can render herself a mint or some mintlike thing by holding a coin, that goes out the window and she may well go back to torturing five-year-olds and the like instead of being useful.]

[Aww. Okay, no coins around Addy. Love you.]

Libby looks thoughtful.

"I'm not about to give Addy a coin," says Libby.

"Please at least don't do it without clearing it with my alt, whose Factotum is the one such a behavior could potentially turn into a loose cannon. Addy, despite this little disagreement about whether you get to hold any of our magical currency, I assume the offer to hold the door is still good?"

"Oh, fine," huffs Addy, swallowing the rest of her drink, patting Lazarus on the head, and stalking towards the door. "I'm full anyway, so I may as well come back with you."

"No one has done that to me since I was thirteen," Lazarus remarks.

Alice ruffles his hair.

Alice wishes up an umbrella and hands it to Bella, then wanders off into the bar.

"Love you," Bella calls over her shoulder, and out she goes with everyone else.

Addy lets them all out, shuts the door behind her, and then opens it up again. "The Forks capital," she says. "Also, the only place in the world where random people in town mostly know who and what we are."

"Also, magic," says Lazarus.

"Yes, a fair amount of it. Pretty, no?" says Addy, like she's personally responsible for all resident witches.

"Extremely," he beams. "Oh, that must be your Empress. Like ours, but... witchier."

"Yes," Addy says, peering speculatively at Lazarus, "turning into a vampire often does that. The only effect we know to be down to her turning is that she's immune to Marcus and wasn't before, but since her transformation she's also acquired other features, which could have been accessible before or not, we don't know."

"Will she mind if I sit nearby and stare at her power a lot?" he inquires. "I can be very quiet."

"She'd prefer it if you weren't very quiet, and reported on what you found," Addy laughs. "She's curious."

"Hopefully she is also very patient," he says, "because getting coherent descriptions out of me can be a bit of a trial."

"She might haul me in," Addy shrugs, "and see if I can help, but I don't imagine that will be a serious problem."

"I'm not sure you'll be any better at it," he says. "At least I have practice."

"Sometimes I am better at things," Addy shrugs. "Especially compared to humans. A number of powers benefit from the brain speed, or the capacity, or the memory payload even. And besides, I can taste at once how they work. I was able to tell your friend something she didn't know." She nods at Chris. "Oh, the wolf village is through a tunnel that way, if that's where you're going," she adds, looking at Orfeo and Chris and wrinkling her nose. "There are signs."

"My power is still me-shaped even when you're borrowing it," he says. "If you're better at it than me anyway, I think I want to be a vampire."

"I know where the wolf village is, Addy," says Orfeo mildly. He turns to Libby and Chris. "Want to see this one or follow these guys around?"

"I was better at Elspeth than Elspeth for a while because of memory payload," Addy says, ticking off fingers, "I knew more than the wolf who needs a haircut over there when I borrowed her because I could taste it, I did something with Jasper's power once that he could've done but never imagined, I was better than Pera till she turned because I was faster or I couldn't've caught her, and before Vasanti turned I was better than her because I could pay attention to possessed animals and myself at the same time." Addy shrugs.

"Village," Libby decides.

"Can you taste anything about my power that I don't already know?"

"What do you already know?" Addy asks, waving in a rather twee manner as wolves and imprint depart.

"I know my range is like sight range except without caring about obstacles. I know my power is coding the way I see things so that they'll make sense to me. I wasn't quite as sure about that until I saw it on you," he adds. "But it's speaking the same language to you even though you don't know it; it's... well, look at it," he says with a gesture that attempts to encompass the shape of his power on Addy. "It's happy enough to talk to you but it won't go out of its way to be understandable the way it does for me. It's still going out of its way to be understandable to me even though you're the one listening."

"Like sight range," Addy says. "Listen to yourself! Why haven't you boosted your sight yet, cheap as a la carte magic is where you're from? And it doesn't have to twist itself around for me to understand it. I learn new magical languages all the time. Or do you think it came pre-installed in my head, the ability to borrow Vasanti and possess a bat and not crash it into walls in pitch darkness?"

"This is really a fascinating conversation," comments Bella.

"Why would I want to boost my sight? They're not linked," he says. "Although I didn't actually know that until you drew my attention to it, so thank you for that. You're very helpful in an annoying, antagonistic way."

"I do try," says Addy with a sharp grin. "And I know they aren't directly linked. But without your attention on the similarity at all, I couldn't know if they were linked in your head - if you see that far because that's how you think seeing works."

"It's not even seeing, that's just a convenience," he says. "I'd need a whole new set of terms to—how many languages do you speak?"

"Most of them," says Addy primly.

"In that case, when I talk to you about my power I'm going to use my entire vocabulary. Maybe that will help."

Addy spreads her hands invitingly. "Please, do."

Addy replies in a comparable admixture of languages, mostly her native German because why not and it's so good for long compound words too, and talks about what she knows of the history of Golden Bella's power and its functions and what, based on Lazarus's power's information, she thinks is due to what else.

Addy grins broadly, and invites him - and Starry Bella too, of course - on a tour of the whole complex, with visits to each witch's quarters. "A lot of them are mated," she adds.

"I wish Marcus were here," Addy said, stomping her foot.

"Maybe next time," Lazarus says optimistically.

"Only if we're in Safesun next time you come by. That's where he and Didyme and their kids live."

"Maybe we can visit anyway," says Lazarus.

"Of course." Addy grins brilliantly.

He appeals to Bella with a look, since he can't independently teleport.

"I'll need a more specific destination than 'Safesun'," says Bella.

"Will 'Marcus's house' do?" Addy asks.

"Perhaps. Is anyone going to be alarmed if we teleport there? No? All right." Bella brings them all to the front door of Marcus's house.

"Oh," says Lazarus. "That's new."

"Ooooh," agrees Addy.

"'Worshipful' is definitely a new quality."

"Worshipful?" laughs Bella. "What's worshipping what?"

"Their—that must be Marcus?—his power is worshipping his mate bond," he says. "It's kind of sweet."

"That is sweet," Bella says.

The door opens. A hybrid girl with almost glowy golden skin and shiny black hair and huge brown eyes opens the door. "...Can I help you?" she asks.

Lazarus looks helplessly at the other two.

"Your dad's power is really cute," Lazarus volunteers.

"It's cute," Lazarus confirms. "Although I still think Alice's power snuggling with his mate bond wins the cute contest. Sure, let's go visit Eleazar."

"His mate's not a witch, so I imagine they don't interact, but Eleazar himself should be interesting," says Addy.

"My destination is what, please?"

"Second Denali coven house," says Addy.

And they're off!

"...Huh," says Lazarus. "That's weird. It's like my power's cousin, or something. Great-aunt."

Eleazar dispenses with further attempts at politeness and just stares at Lazarus. Addy, meanwhile, begins humming to herself and switching between both men's powers every minute or so and then staring around her.

"You can translate," Lazarus says to Addy. "What are the differences like here? Ooh, I bet you can't see coins," this to Eleazar. "You don't look like you can see coins."

"One of those actually wasn't me," he says. "Do you see differences that subtle? It's hard to tell. Actually," this to Addy, "can you see who wished things? It's trickier, it's not an inherent property, you kind of have to get to know them. Libby's and Bella's are always really obvious; everyone else is case by case, maybe because I see so much fewer of them."

"Yes," says Lazarus. "She's rather spectacular, isn't she?"

"Shiny is also a word for it," says Lazarus.

Addy beams and updates her copy of her power and shuts her eyes and twirls. "Oh-oh-oh you should turn into a vampire so I can borrow one of your toes," she sings.

"That's even better! Toes I have to give back or they die," Addy says cheerfully.

"Let's just stop talking about toes," says Lazarus. "And weren't we going to go compare empresses?"

"We were!"

Bella shrugs and teleports them to the throne room.

"Hi!" says Lazarus. "See, Addy, what'd I tell you about the—" and he's off into multilingual sensory metaphors.

"They're comparing our powers," Bella explains to her counterpart.

"That makes sense," says Golden Bella. "We've collected some more technological specs for you. Alice brought them in earlier from wherever they were being kept." She hands them over. "Trade you for three stars and five hexes."

"You want to wish on them yourself? Fair enough," says Bella. She quietly declaws the stars and hands over the eight coins. "Don't let Addy touch them. I don't know what would happen."

"—but what really gets me is the silence here," he says, interrupting himself in the middle of talking about Golden Bella's power extensions. "I honestly think I could distinguish every witch on this planet if I had the time and the detail range. It's so much clearer than back home. I wouldn't have thought we had magical background noise before, but the difference is like looking through air and then looking through vacuum."

"So tell me about the 'air'," says Addy.

"It's air," he says. "Stand on the Moon and describe the visual quality of Earth's atmosphere. In other words, I'll have plenty to tell you after I've gone back home and studied it for a while."

"We don't have a moon base," Addy says exasperatedly. "It's on the agenda for later."

"That was a hypothetical instruction."

"At any rate, I suppose you'll just have to come back, then," says Addy.

"I'm planning to!"

Addy grins and gives him a hug. She's quite experienced with handling humans and knows how to not squish him. That doesn't mean he can get out until she feels like letting him go or he gets help.

"I am not sure whether I am disturbed or endeared," he remarks.

"Most people settle somewhere around 'both'," says the Golden Empress dryly.

"So noted," says Lazarus. "I would like to stop being in this hug now."

[Why then and not now?]

[Because I want time to design it first.]

[Something wrong with mine?]

[I don't know, I haven't studied it enough yet.]

After Bella has patiently ferried Addy and Lazarus around to look intently at things for some time, she gets a message from her counterpart, who has turned out to be able to use the brainphone network just fine even though she can't communicate telepathically with her telepathic witch staff member. "Elspeth found a door, we can go home now if we don't want to wait another few days," says Bella to Lazarus.

"And come back later," says Lazarus. "I'm especially enthusiastic about the part where we come back later."

Goodbyes are bidden; the rest of their party is collected; and through they go.

The rest of the party piles back through the door in fairly short order.

"See something interesting?" Bella asks, pausing.

"Maybeep!"

"Hiiiiiii," purrs the woman who has suddenly appeared out of more or less thin air with her arms draped around his neck. She is only a few inches shorter than he is, wearing a graphite-coloured strapless dress so thin and skintight (albeit perfectly opaque) that body paint would probably be less revealing, and there might be something more than a little familiar about the cast of her face.

"Uh," says Bella. "Who're you, where'd you come from, and why are you making him eep?"

She giggles.

"Those are all really good questions," says Lazarus.

"I eat a lot of carrots."

"You're familiar," Bella accuses suddenly.

"...Kind of like a combination of Addy and Alice, actually," says Lazarus.

"Look at her face, she's like a female Alice," says Bella. "I suppose she's got some Addyesque properties too but she doesn't physically resemble her."

"Magically she's nothing like either of them," he says. "Magically she's nothing like anything."

"Well, he would have if I'd let him get a bit older before I turned him into a vampire," says Bella. "So what are you?"

"It is both really gross and really fascinating when you do that," says Lazarus.

"Agreed on both counts," says Bella. "What kinda world has this kinda ghost?"

"Mine," she says impishly.

"Well," Bella says. "Now I am enlightened, aren't I."

"Aww, I'm sorry," she says with apparent sincerity. "But I really don't know! I'm the only one of me I've ever found."

"Huh. Do you think you'd be able to see another of you if there were one? Since others who aren't Lazarus can't see you?"

"Maybe," she says. "Maybe not." She grins at Lazarus. "Maybe I should stick by you for a while."

"...I am so torn," says Lazarus.

"I'm considering sticking my head out the door and fetching Alice. You aren't," she gestures vaguely at the ghost, "evil or anything? I like it less when he hangs out with the evil one we met. I'm not gonna stop him but I'm not gonna go out of my way to facilitate, there."

"Evil?" she asks. "Really, honey?"

"Well, come on, the other alt of my Alice who I've met was a terrorist because he liked a certain lady who went around executing vigilante justice and he wanted attention. We could argue about his underlying moral fiber all day but it'd take longer."

"I don't have underlying moral fiber," she says.

Bella rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to fetch Alice, then. Oh well. What can your kinda ghost do besides take yourself apart and put yourself back together?"

She rolls her eyes right back, and disintegrates.

"She's... sort of...?" he says. "It's hard to explain. Harder than usual, even."

"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."

"He had scars, I bet," the still-discorporated ghost says wistfully.

"That one? Yeah. Can you not build yourself scars if you want them?" Bella says. "Or does that not count?"

"Alice doesn't have any scars at all," Bella volunteers. "They didn't grow back after he set himself on fire that one time."

"Mm. Did he use to have," she licks her lips, "these?"

"Nope. Had the injuries briefly but he let them heal."

"He must bounce back pretty good, your Alice."

"Occupational necessity," says Bella, smirking.

"Ooh, this I gotta hear."

"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?"

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."

Alice opens his arms. "Hi, me!"

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.

"...I don't feel possessed, or anything," says Alice.

"Does it feel like anything?" Bella asks, looking him up and down.

"No-o..."

The ghost reassembles herself in front of him, tangles both her hands in his hair, and kisses him enthusiastically.

Lazarus turns quite pink.

"Huh," says Bella. "What was that about?" she asks the ghost. "Also, do you have any sort of nickname or should I just call you Ghosty or something?"

With some reluctance, Alice stops kissing her so she can answer some of those.

"I wanted to see him," she explains, running her fingers through his hair. "I usedta be the Joker, but I don't think you're a fan. Ghosty works."

"...Are you the same Joker I met before or a different one going by the same name?" The same Joker plus Milliways temporal fuckery would probably still remember her, but there's always lying or even, after long enough that asteroid confinement is a distant memory, forgetting.

"Different," she says. "Never seen you before. Never came here before I died, either, so you wouldn'ta met me then unless you were in my world, and I don't think you are, are you?"

"I don't think we're from the same world," Bella agrees.

"I think it should be the other way around," he says with a grin.

She laughs. "Ooh, tell me more."

"Uh, remember the self-control thing," Bella says to Alice. "I probably can't route around that because ingot - can you? She might or might not count as human for that purpose."

"Mmm..." he says, and pentagons self-control relating to vampire thirst. The pentagon goes. "That work for you?"

Bella peers into his mind briefly, although she backs out again when he's done, as she's not interested in supervising another Alice-and-alt session of perversity. "Yeah, drink up," she shrugs, "from consenting donors, that is. Please don't turn her, that seems like a terrible idea."

"I'm not sure that she couldn't be a vampire right now if she felt like it," says Lazarus.

"You're a smart cookie," Ghosty says approvingly.

"Really," muses Bella. "Hm. Well, all right, Alice, I think I'm out of dire warnings." She shrugs. "Have disturbing amounts of fun. I'll see you back home presently, I guess, because Milliways. Love you."

"Love you too," he says, and detours to hug her before wrapping his arms around Ghosty and teleporting away mid-kiss.

Lazarus comes through and wanders off.

Alice comes through and scoops Bella up and hugs her, exuberantly but squishlessly.

"Have fun?" she asks him needlessly, opening up a read.

Well, that can be arranged. And it is.