Micaiah beams and hugs her and dashes inside.

Angela follows, at a more sedate pace.

Huh. It's mostly humans and human-looking people around here. But Angela herself has no room for perplexity on that subject; next to that unusually shaped person she's probably the most outlandish sight in the bar right now.

Well, this wouldn't be the first time someone recognized Angela after having met another Bell. She waves a bit, tilting her head.

"Belle," he says, "why do you have wings?"

"I'm not Belle," says Isabella. "I'm Isabella. I may be a version of Belle from another world, though. In my world, sometimes people have wings."

"Isabella," he echoes, and shakes his head. "What a dream."

"Oh, did you dream your way here?" asks Angela, peering at him more closely. "You may call me Angela, if you like - there are a number of us who look the same and have similar names, so we've chosen different nicknames to keep ourselves straight. If you dreamed here and you know one of us - Micaiah, love, come here?" She calls the last phrase to her husband.

"I'm not sure, but he recognizes me and he may be dreaming - and I think he sounds a little like you."

"You think he is to me as you are to Belle?" he asks, and peers interestedly at Micaiah. "Oh, I was handsome."

"I think so. Something happened to you? Are you not supposed to look as you do?" Angela asks.

"An enchantress cursed me," he says. "Belle is helping."

"She's going to - disenchant you?" guesses Belle. "She has magic of her own?"

"She... is trying," he sighs. "But she might not learn enough in time."

"Some kind of deadline," Angela concludes, sitting down with some awkwardness due to her pregnancy. She's had to stop wearing flying leathers lately; she could conjure some that fit but everyone would wonder where she got them. "I wonder if we could help - I can't visit your world, if you dreamed here, but maybe there's something else."

"...Could you," he says slowly, "tell her what it's like to be in love? Or tell me, since she isn't here."

"...That is an interesting question," says Angela, tilting her head. "Why do you ask?"

"The other way to break the curse would be for her to fall in love with me. She wants to, but she doesn't know how," he explains.

"I wouldn't worry much, if I were you," says Angela, looking at her husband and smiling. "Of all of us that we know, quite a few have versions of Micaiah to match, and the only one who hasn't fallen in love with hers yet is just fifteen years old. Unless you got off to a bad start with her somehow?"

"I don't think I did," he says. "I did say she wants to fall in love with me."

"Well, yes, but I don't know what happens if she doesn't, if the curse comes due," Angela points out. "I don't think she'll have any trouble. You can tell her about me and Micaiah, and the others too, if you like - assuming you really are one of them and not someone else with a similar voice."

"She's already having trouble," he mutters.

"Really? What kind of trouble? How long has it been?"

"She's never been in love before, and she doesn't know how," he explains. "And I don't know, a month? Two?"

"Neither had I, neither had any of us," says Angela. "A month or two - well, if she'd done it already she'd be quick but not the quickest, I think that was me. How long do you have?"

"A year and a half."

"I think you'll be all right. If you're a Whistle. I wonder if anything bad would happen if I magicked you into what you looked like before you were cursed, to check? Would you like me to try?"

"Try!" he says immediately.

He laughs.

"And you're a Whistle," says Angela.

Micaiah is now eyeing the newly identified Whistle speculatively.

The newly identified Whistle is eyeing him right back.

"Do you want more advice about Belle or do you want to go borrow my husband for a while?" inquires Angela archly.

"I want more advice about Belle," he decides, if reluctantly. "Then I want to borrow your husband."

"For one thing," Angela says, "it will almost certainly come as a surprise to her that you are the husband-borrowing type. If you've made no commitments to her, there will be no particular consequences from borrowing Micaiah even after she finds out, but it's not the sort of thing you should spring on her."

"There's no one else around to borrow," he snorts. "I'll be sure to tell her all about this dream when I wake up."

"Yes, do that. As for the trying to fall in love - you know - I'm not sure that's a good idea. The others managed it quite naturally - I was encouraged, after a fashion, but not under anything like a year and a half time limit. What will happen if you run out the clock?"

"I stay in my castle alone and fluffy forever, unless she can break the enchantment from outside."

Micaiah shivers.

"Oh." He blinks. "I'll ask her about those."

"Do you have a reassuring answer for the second?"

He shrugs. "I don't know what I'd think of her. I don't think it would change much. She hasn't managed it yet, and I love her anyway."

"Yes," says Angela, "but if you were stuck alone forever - I assume she understands that as far as you're concerned that's a fate worse than death? - because of something she failed to do, she might imagine you'd be angry."

"Oh." He frowns. "What would I be angry with her for? She didn't do it. She even tried to help."

"She expects to succeed at things," Angela says, "when she really tries."

"Of course she does," he says, smiling fondly. "But no one succeeds at all things."

"Still, she expects that if she means to strongly enough she will manage, and she may assume that you expect the same of her, and so she could suppose that if she fails you'll believe she didn't really try."

"Then I'll tell her differently."

"There you are, then. Let's see. Where does she come from? I'm trying to imagine what sort of world hers is."

"I think she said she was from the village of Les Fourches," he says.

"...Well," says Angela. "That's cute, but it doesn't help me. The specific village almost certainly doesn't matter. I mean the world. The magic, the politics, the sorts of people who live there."

"I've been trapped alone in a castle for a hundred and fifty years," he says. "I don't know much."

"But, for example, you don't expect people to have wings. Things like that," says Angela, fluttering her feathers.

"They're very pretty," he says. "But no. Of course, I don't expect people to have fur and fangs, either."

"I was born with my wings," says Angela, "to a mother with wings; it's not any sort of magic."

"Are there a lot of people with wings around?"

"Not very many. Shy of a hundred and fifty. But we're generally known to exist."

One of Angela's wings goes around Micaiah, settling there comfortably. "One of us, nicknamed Stella, comes from a world with a form of magic that works by wishing. She's been able to share this magic with several others of us, including me. If I wish on a wishcoin -" She makes a little triangle, and shows it to him - "then what I wish for happens, as long as the wishcoin is the right kind. Triangles like this are for trivial little wishes. Turning you human took a pentagon."

Micaiah snuggles up to her.

"You're sweet," says Beast. "Do you have any more advice for me, or can I borrow your husband now?"

"I think I'd have to meet her to get any more specific," says Angela. "Borrow away."

He holds out his arms.

"Apparently there is an afterlife and it has got to go," says Isabella. "I am also advised in the strongest possible terms not to ever turn into a Sunshine vampire. Juliet has been minted, with some mishap. Awful things have befallen Shell Bell but she has recovered. Coins can apparently be made with as many as nine points."

"Nine," he says, and grins. "Imagine that."

"I'm not sure I want to imagine that. But the Joker has made several and Stella wrote that she intended to see about her Alice and the staff mints."

"Imagine how much fun I'll have trying to make one," he amends.

"You might have to boost your Kiss again," she points out.

"I'll try it without first," he says cheerfully.

"We hardly ever get even evils that way, let alone the next thing up," Isabella points out.

"I know," he says. "But I want to try."

"All right. I'll try to sing especially prettily," says Isabella, kissing his forehead.

"I love you," says Micaiah, hugging her.

"Hello, Nathaniel," says Isabella.

"Hello," he says in that soft voice of his, emerging reluctantly from behind the table that wasn't really hiding him in the first place.

"How did you enjoy the Gloria?"

"It was very beautiful."

"I think so too. It's my favorite time of year. Did you want to talk to me about something?" she asks, getting up to push open the door that will lead from this part of the Eyrie pavilion to the next. They haven't left the Plain of Sharon yet.

"It's a magical restaurant," she says, because it's probably better to tell him that now than when someone he recognizes turns out to be someone he doesn't expect, or until Bar appears food. "It connects a lot of different worlds together. Sometimes different worlds have the same sorts of people in them, so you might see someone who looks like somebody you know, including me, or Micaiah."

Nathaniel takes a few steps into the bar and looks around at all the people with open wonderment.

Why, look! It is someone who looks like Isabella! She is holding hands with a girl.

"Is she one of the same sorts of people?" he asks softly, glancing between the stranger and Isabella.

"Yes. That's Shell Bell and her girlfriend Sherlock. In here we have nicknames, since our real names are all a lot alike, and that's hers. I just go by Angela," says Angela. "Hello, Shell Bell! Hi, Sherlock!"

"Hi, Angela!" says Shell Bell. "Who's that?"

"This is my brother-in-law, Nathaniel."

"Hello, Shell Bell," Nathaniel says quietly. "Hello, Sherlock."

"Hi."

Nathaniel flinches and edges sideways to put Angela's wing between himself and Sherlock.

"It's nice to meet you," adds Shell Bell politely.

"I take it your project hasn't worked out, or I would've seen you before now," says Angela.

"Yeah, not even the new ones can do it," says Shell Bell. "We'll have to think of something else or make do with Milliways alone."

Nathaniel continues to hide, silently, behind Angela's wing.

"Nathaniel, are you okay?" asks Angela. "Do you want to go home? If you go out the door it'll be right when we came in and I'll be along in a second."

He doesn't say anything, but he does glance at the door.

"You can go or stay, either one. One of the ways that this place is magical is that if you leave before me, I can still stay as long as I like and you won't have to wait more than a second."

"I don't want to be rude," he says softly.

"People come and go as they like, insofar as they can," says Angela. "Although, if you leave, there's no guarantee you'll find a door again any time soon."

He sidles a little farther behind her.

[I would like to know,] says Sherlock, [what about this person keeps making you nervous.]

[I - don't know. It's only when he talks. He can't be more than ten, he's Angela's brother-in-law, I can't imagine why he'd scare me -]

[Something about his voice?]

[...]

Angela's quite unaware of all this. "I'll certainly check the Belltower before I go, but is there any major news since my last?"

"...No. Just little check-ins."

Nathaniel continues to hide.

[...Is it? Is he? Should we warn her, do you think?]

[I don't know. I can't be sure. They could just sound similar. Although come to think of it I don't like the way he's hiding.]

[He appears to be very frightened of me,] Sherlock observes.

[I know, but - the other characteristic Voice had was not wanting people to look at them.]

"Nathaniel, are you scared? You don't need to be scared, they're nice," murmurs Angela.

"Yes, angela," he murmurs, and reluctantly comes out from behind her wing.

"Shell Bell's just like me, only she's from a different world and has had a different life," explains Angela. "If that makes sense."

"I don't think I'm technically alive anymore," murmurs Shell Bell.

"Didn't we decide that was a silly question as long as you're awake and can do things?" asks Angela.

"We did. You're right."

Nathaniel frowns in puzzlement, but doesn't say anything.

"I died," Shell Bell explains for Nathaniel's benefit. Ostensible benefit. "Sherlock brought me back, and I'm all right now, but I did die."

"Oh. I'm sorry," he says softly.

"Me too."

He nods.

"What do you do, Nathaniel?" asks Shell Bell.

"For the last few months he was rehearsing with a children's choir for the Gloria, but that's just concluded, so the choir has disbanded - Nathaniel, is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Yes," he murmurs.

"Have you thought about where you want to go next?" prompts Angela.

"I think that will be fine. It's not uncommon for angels to move one or two in-laws in, and you are that." And she finally notices what is up with her counterpart. "Shell Bell, are you okay?"

"...I'll tell you later. Alone."

Nathaniel looks very nervous.

Shell Bell makes an awful face, mostly at her lap but distinctly about Nathaniel, and she mutters, "I'm going to the Belltower," and disappears.

"Do you know what that was about?" Angela asks Sherlock quizzically, putting a hand on Nathaniel's shoulder.

He shivers.

"Yes," says Sherlock, and also disappears.

"I... don't know what that was. I'm sorry, Nathaniel, they were being unkind and I have no idea why. It's not like them."

"Is it all right if I go and wait for you in the pavilion?"

"Yes, of course, go right ahead. I'll be out a moment later."

Out he goes.

Shell Bell turns her face towards Sherlock's shoulder, and presses it there, and makes a soft noise.

Sherlock hugs her girlfriend.

"Did we just run into each other at a bad time? Nathaniel's easily frightened, I wouldn't be surprised if between the two of you you'd managed to give him nightmares."

"Well, that would be only fair -"

"- no, I don't mean that - Angela, I think he might be an alt of Voice."

"An alt of - Nathaniel? Micaiah's timid little brother -"

"Who hides, who wouldn't have gotten away from his father without your help and could've grown up to match like some people do in bad families, who makes me feel like I'm about to start flinging myself onto a bed of coals whenever he talks."

Hugs.

"...I'm not going to ask you to do that, but if that's something my brother-in-law has in him somewhere -"

"I could hold the door for you. I won't go along."

"Of course not," murmurs Sherlock, snuggling her.

"I love you," sighs Shell Bell.

"If I go look for Voice, what should I do when I find them? If they're a Nathaniel, if they're not...?"

"I don't know. I just - I haven't been thinking about them when I can avoid it."

"...I'm not sure if it's safe to confront a torturer. Alone, at any rate. The control only works on one at a time?"

"One person at a time," confirms Shell Bell. "I don't know if they get sensory feedback from it so they could tell if you were there even invisible."

"...Sherlock, would you mind accompanying me, so that one of us will be able to bail us out no matter what?"

"If I accompany you, it should not be necessary to get close enough to be noticed at all."

"Why is that?"

"I can inspect objects in the same world from an arbitrary distance away. You could copy the power, but you've never seen Nathaniel with it."

"And this will tell you if they are alternates or not."

"As well as looking at them would, or better."

"All right. And Shell Bell, you can hold the door - you'll be okay?"

"As long as that's all I'm doing."

Sherlock hugs her girlfriend some more.

"I'm all set."

Then Sherlock teleports them all to the door.

Shell Bell closes her eyes -

- and opens Downside.

Angela steps through.

Angela spends a moment studying the apartment the door opens into - she'd like to have a shot at forcing the door in case she ever needs it - and then she turns around. "Now what do I do with Nathaniel, though?" she murmurs. "Templates are usually well-matched instance to instance - but Nathaniel's a child, he hasn't hurt anyone -"

Sherlock shrugs.

"It could just be Downside. Downside can change people," murmurs Shell Bell, letting the door close.

"I suppose as long as Nathaniel's seen Milliways and you, now, I can explain to him - in age-appropriate terms - what happened. Warn him."

"If you are comfortable doing so."

"Not really, but it seems worse not to tell him. At least in general terms."

"I see what you mean."

"For the same reason I'm planning to ask Juliet just what happened to her in her vaguely described misadventure, when I meet her. It's important to know the pitfalls. Nathaniel's happen to be particularly dire."

"It could just be Downside. We need to fix Downside."

"When we can get in and out without having to wait for Milliways, then yes, absolutely."

There should be more hugs now.

And there is Nathaniel.

"Hello, Nathaniel," Isabella sighs. "I found out why Shell Bell and Sherlock reacted like that."

"There are several of me - Shell Bell's just one of them. We're all a lot alike. We look the same - though I'm the only one with wings - we have a lot of the same quirks. The same basic personality formed in different places and times. And it turns out that Shell Bell has met someone who is a version of you. She didn't realize it at first. He was older, and she never saw his face. But she recognized your voice."

"Oh," he says softly.

Isabella squats so her face is level with Nathaniel's. "You're not the same person as that other one. Just like I'm not Shell Bell, only myself and the things I choose to do. But you should be warned, because you might have some of the same tendencies as your alts. And Shell Bell was so, so badly hurt, when she met that one, that when she heard you speak she was afraid."

Isabella pets his hair. "What are you thinking?" she murmurs.

"Am... am I going to be punished?" he asks hesitantly.

"No. You didn't do anything. I wouldn't be punished for anything Shell Bell did and you aren't going to be punished for anything your alt did. I'm only warning you just in case."

"You're welcome," she says, glad he didn't ask for details about how Shell Bell was hurt.

Softly: "May I go now?"

"Yes, of course. I think your group leaves to go back to the Eyrie in an hour and it won't do if you're missing when they set out."

He nods, and goes.

[Micaiah?]

[What is it?]

[It turns out that Nathaniel is an alt of 'Voice'.]

Stunned silence.

[I found a door when Nathaniel was following me around, and I thought I might as well take him through and show him the place, and Shell Bell was there, and every time he spoke she just twitched like someone had pricked her with a pin unexpectedly. Nathaniel left, Shell Bell doored Downside, Sherlock confirmed the match.]

[...So what do we do about it?]

[I... warned him. Not in specific, but I explained why Shell Bell reacted the way she did and about alts. He wanted to know if he was going to be punished; of course I said no. He could still easily turn into someone else. Shell Bell said it could be 'just Downside' - that maybe Voice is only the kind of thing that happens to Nathaniel's template if they spend goodness knows how many years stuck there. We can't assume Nathaniel's going to turn into - anything bad.]

[So... I guess we don't do anything,] he says. [Except that.]

[Except that, and - paying attention.] She grimaces into the empty room of the pavillion. [And taking apart Downside, when we can.]

[That too. I want to hug you right now,] he says.

[This room's empty. If you can get away from any company you're with you can teleport right in.]

Hug. [I think Voice may have simply - never have been rescued. Not everyone comes out of terrible households the way you do.]

[That's awful,] says Micaiah.

[I know. We're going to fix it. We're going to fix everything.]