"You came back here. I wouldn't, not without at least recovering my magic and being sure I could leave whenever I wanted - then I'd come back and try to accomplish something, but I wouldn't without. Why'd you come back?"

He shrugs. "I suppose I don't consider myself wholly useless here."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean - of course you're accomplishing something here. I mean do you not miss where you came from? Or didn't you at the not-recent occasion when you found the door?"

"I do, a little. But there is no opportunity to go back."

"If I found Milliways and my door insisted on opening to here instead of to where I was when I was alive, I'd wait for one of my alts or their friends or my girlfriend or her brother or - anyone I knew. And I would expect this to eventually lead to me going home, or at least somewhere nicer than here even if ultimately it was deemed too awkward to have two Empresses of Atlantis with only one Atlantis to go around. What do you mean, no opportunity?"

"Neither I nor anyone I know found Milliways while I was alive. I would certainly have remembered it. So I don't hold out much hope that they will if I hang around long enough."

"Fair enough. There's six of me that we know of who've been to Milliways. We have a shared room, there."

"I don't believe I've heard of anyone with so many duplicates."

"You've got lots, too," Shell Bell says. "Not as many, but plenty. We didn't work out a nicknaming system for your template so they'll be hard to enumerate now that I don't have a perfect memory anymore, but we'd collectively encountered four of you, not counting, well, you. And a number of me came with a different template; we called that template 'Whistles' and we know of five of those."

"Quite the circus, all together."

"Oh, yes. As of the last time I checked I think I was the only Bell who'd met all five of the others. I think Juliet's met more of you than I have, though. I can't remember exactly... but I think so. So it was never exactly group photo time. But it was fun."

Shell Bell waits.

"Okay. Thanks for the tea and conversation and invaluable warnings," says Shell Bell, swallowing the last of her beverage and getting up.

"Anytime."

"D'you want my res code?" Shell Bell asks as they head out of his place.

"May as well. Got a pen?" he jokes.

She giggles, and writes her code down on a corner of a file page and tears it off - very carefully; she might take a while to find more paper - and hands it over.

He reads it, then steps back inside to put it down. Things tucked in one's pockets are not safe during contracts.

She can move her eyes, yes, and she can talk. Whoever is puppeting her doesn't seem inclined to make themselves known, though. She walks down the unfamiliar street, and whoever it is follows along behind.

"I'm not interesting," Shell Bell squeaks. "I'm - I'm not a fun toy. I don't have anything to recommend me."