"Boo."

"Hey you!" says Amariah, greeting him with a hug.

"Decently enough. Trying to generalize the immortality spell I used for Kas, making sluggish progress, the alethiometer would be so much more useful if it spoke English but I'm afraid I'll break it if I tamper with it and there are only the two of them. Good, you remembered to wish for not-a-daemon before coming."

[I wouldn't put anybody in Alethia who didn't want a daemon or wish against the event,] Jane puts in.

"Yes," says Sherlock, "for which I am very grateful, because no one likes to create intelligent life by accident."

[Excuse you.]

"As one accident to another, I don't believe I require excusing."

[I was a thrillingly pleasant surprise!]

Amariah stifles a giggle.

"Congratulations."

"A daemon isn't so much new intelligent life, anyway," shrugs Amariah. "More like - a subagent. But inconvenient to have if you don't plan on it."

"So I've been told."

"What's on your mind lately?" Amariah asks. "I don't get lots of visitors."

"It occurred to me that I have a friend in another universe whom I can visit whenever I like. I liked."

Amariah laughs and flops onto her back in the grass around the edge of the bare spot in the yard where she casts her circles. "That's what makes Jane such a pleasant surprise. That and her scintillating personality."

"That looks fun," he observes, and flops down beside her.

"It's comfy. I magicked the grass specifically for comfort and non-itchiness and so on. Because me and Kas have loooots of privacy out here," she chuckles.

"How delightful," he says. "I am so happy for you."

She rolls over to face him instead of the sky. "I just bet. It's a nice house. I complain about the alethiometer, but it does us routine favors of which I quite approve."

"...Did the alethiometer buy you a house? That's awfully nice of it."

"No, it told us where to find a house we could just move into without anybody objecting," laughs Amariah.

"Well, that's just as lovely, I think."

There is a loud beeping noise from inside the lovely house.

Amariah sits up.

"...What is it?"

"I have no idea what could be making that noise. Well, Jane, could, but - Jane?" She looks at her bracelet.

"I concur."

While I have no reason to expect loss of ansible connection, it's hardly impossible. I'm untested software! So I wrote this and squirreled it away and some local programs will trigger it if Alethia's ever cut off from the rest of me. I don't have enough stolen processor time just from this world's Internet to go on talking or being very personable, I don't think, if I even am mostly code and not whatever thing it is that lives in Aegis. The algorithms you have set up to manage your email and the ad blocker I wrote you and stuff like that should still work, but maybe not as well. I definitely can't pick anybody up and put them down without the ansible. I will brainphone you as soon as I'm back! Here's hoping that's soon, I know you'll miss me. If you find a door to Milliways the usual way please come check on my site in the Belltower.

Love, Jane

"I am," Amariah says, "so, so sorry."

"I can tell," says Sherlock, his voice oddly flat.

"She - she could be back any second. Or we could find a door, at any time," Amariah says. "We used to find them pretty - well, not often, but they happened, you won't be stuck here forever."

"Pleased to hear it," he says, rubbing his face with both hands. "And yet."

"I - well - of course you can stay here, while she's out of commission," says Amariah. "There's room. Do you need anything non-obvious to be - as comfortable as possible?" She attempts a weak smile. "I want to return you to Juliet in good condition."

"Tea, animal blood, optionally a bed," he says. "All of which I can conjure myself. Being a mint does do wonders for one's access to material comforts. As for the immaterial... those are trickier."

"Well," says Amariah, "if I can help in the immaterial department, please let me know."

"I may have to impose on you for a regular supply of hugs."

She wraps her arms around him. "I can absolutely supply those," she says softly.

"I see you told Kas," Minus says dryly.

Hugs.

Snuggly hugs.

"My room is the one with the hammock, and Kas sort of sleeps anywhere," Amariah says, when it is finally the hiatus of hug time. "Help yourself to whatever space is going spare and appeals to you."

"Will do."

"I'm really sorry," Amariah murmurs, and she pets his hair.

"...Want to watch me cast a circle?"

"Happily. What pray tell is it for?"

"It's not for practical use. It's a test circle, of sorts - I can draw them on paper but I've got a sense now of whether something is workable if I look at it in the actual material. And also this way I can take a picture and send it to other witches and they'll take me a little more seriously than if I just send them sketches. But the spell is for immortality, like I gave Kas - the kind witches have. To put on humans, and when I have that down I'll work on a bear version."

"I see," says Sherlock. "Handy."

"It is." She picks up the pitcher and begins a steady walk around her bare yard-patch. "The bear version's going to be tricky because they don't have daemons."

"Are daemons an integral component?"

"Of the spell setup, yeah. Most spells that do anything significant to a person incorporate the daemon. Witches and panserbjørne haven't interacted much in the past. I don't know what I'd do if I wanted to cast this on, say, you, although you're already an unrelated kind of immortal, twice."

"Feel free to experiment on me if it interests you. I wouldn't mind the hat trick."

"Ooh, maybe I will," says Amariah. "Although that kind of spell I don't think I would show to the other witches. It wouldn't be the exact same as the bear version - their armor is a little like a daemon to them; I'd probably do a first draft oriented around that - so they'd be puzzled about why I was trying to immortalize a zombie."

"For his charming company, of course."

"I would love to see you explain to a council of witch queens exactly how you manage to be such charming company without a daemon. But I think it might hamper some of my longer-term plans."

He laughs. "Such as what?"

"I want to popularize immortality spells - most especially since I have an embedded dispersal mechanism, namely other witches - and most especially since I can't hook into Downside. And I think it is best if I am seen as inventive and clever, not weird and prone to associating with the offworld undead."

"But you are prone to associating with the offworld undead," he says merrily.

"It's true! And yet not something I would prefer to advertise to the council of witch queens."

"Then I'd better keep myself well hidden, hadn't I."

"Anyone with a lick of magical sensitivity - any witch, most humans - will know something is up with you. Not necessarily the undead part - you look much less undead now than you did before you got your soul stuck on - but the no-daemon part. I suppose if you get bored you could wander into a city and cause a riot, just don't connect it with me or let the stampeding get out of hand."

"I promise not to cause any riots," he snorts.

"If you do want to visit a city we could probably come up with some kind of magical illusion that will fool most people."

"If I do want to visit a city, I'll think about it," he says.

Amariah nods. "I mention it mostly because Kas gets stir-crazy out here in the middle of nowhere, he's always teleporting to this or that metropolis. I don't know if you're prone to that sort of thing."

"Not habitually. But thank you."

"You're welcome."

He smiles and hugs her.

Hug! Amariah sets down her pitcher to return it. She's between runes.

Hug hug.

Path is sitting on a windowsill, over there, and he shuffles his feet a little. If Sherlock had a daemon he'd be talking to her (or him); this is a poor substitute.

"Yes?" says Sherlock.

"If you had a daemon I'd be talking to her," Path says. "About how to help you."

"As opposed to talking to me?"

"Daemons are better at that."

"Really."

"It's true," Amariah agrees. "Well, at least compared to the people who have daemons. I'm not sure about compared to people with - interior souls."

"Then perhaps you could try talking to me."

"All you said was hugs," says Amariah. "That could in fact be the only thing we can do, but we'd be more confident of that if you had a daemon and she said it."

"Hugs may not be the only thing that can help, but they are the only thing I am comfortable asking of you, particularly in the context of returning me to Juliet undamaged. I am not a mislabeled parcel."

"I know you're not a mislabeled parcel," says Amariah softly. "There are other reasons not to want you damaged."

"Oh, yes," he says, sitting down in the grass. "You'll find that Sherlocks are unusually sensitive to the implication that we are only valuable by proxy, because under the covers most of us believe it as a literal truth. I lost most of that nonsense with my soul, but either a little of it has snuck back in or it returns under sufficient stress."

"Sorry," says Amariah. "I didn't know that. It was a bad joke." She sits down too.

Hugs.

Definitely hugs.

[Have you got a name?] Path asks.

[Not inherently. Perhaps 'Subtrahend',] she snorts.

[That's cute,] says Amariah.

[Isn't it just?] says Subtrahend.

[Precious. Well, I'm through with recreational sleeping now, I wasn't even having any interesting dreams.]

[Alas,] says Sherlock.

[Rather. Are you going back to sleep or can I have a look at Subtrahend?]

[No, by all means, come and visit.]

Amariah slips out of her hammock and visits.

"Awww," says Amariah. Path flutters from her shoulder to the bedpost for a closer look at the genet daemon.

"I'm prettier than you," Subtrahend says loftily.

"You're lovely," says Path, "but no."

"Were contests of this sort a frequent feature?"

"Oh yes, but throw in all the daemons shapeshifting constantly to win."

"I recommend wishing the ability to tuck her away like Sue can - well, copy mine, since mine is under control and doesn't mess up while I sleep - although of course how often you avail yourself of the option is up to you."

"Brilliant plan," says Sherlock. He wishes. Subtrahend vanishes, then reappears on his other shoulder.

"Useful for crowded situations," says Amariah. Path hops to the other bedpost to continue looking Subtrahend over.

"And doesn't start riots?"

"Well - it would be more likely to if you did it than me. I'm a witch and I look it, everyone knows Path could just as easily be halfway across the world, but non-witches virtually never separate. Although at least you won't register funny to sensitivity now, so people will assume you're separated for some reason - accident, special ops military veteran," she smirks a little, "masochist - although a special breed of masochist, even Kas and Petaal didn't do it voluntarily."

"Which just causes me to wonder exactly what sort of masochist does."

"I really don't know. You can see what it's like in small doses if you just experiment with her range, most people do that when they're kids."

"What'd you do that for?" Path asks her.

"Felt like it," she says sunnily.

"Path only bites me if I tell him to steer me away from something I don't want to do," Amariah says, as Path flies to her shoulder again and tucks himself under some of her hair.

"Evidently your relationship and ours are very different," says Sherlock.

"Evidently," snorts Amariah. "People work out all kinds of setups. Most of them don't involve unprompted biting."

"I don't think we've had time to work out anything much," says Sherlock.

"I wonder if you'd get much mileage out of reading local fiction and so on. First-person stuff especially, the others don't usually focus a lot of narration on the daemons. Or you could just make something up."

Amariah laughs. "You don't even want to read Alethia's Sherlock Holmes books? Because we have those."

"Tempting," they say in unison.

Amariah laughs. "He has a mongoose," she adds. "Stephirashal. In the original books. The dozens of subsequent adaptations play with it, of course, though the name's usually the same and it's usually male."

"What of the rest? Is Watson's a small annoying dog? I bet Watson's is a small annoying dog."

"Large terrifying dog. Antiomei," says Amariah. "Doyle was imperfectly consistent about what exactly she was - it was always some sort of wolfish dog, malamute or husky or something, once he outright stated she was a wolfdog. They did own a dog, a regular one," she adds. "Who was considerably smaller and called Gladstone."

"Yes, that sounds about right."

One of the advantages to a perfect memory is that she can summon up facts she's only come into casual contact with. "Irene Adler has a Eurasian magpie and Moriarty an unspecified variety of tarantula."

Sherlock laughs.

"Well, I imagine you can conjure the books if you want them. They're told from Watson's perspective so I don't know how much insight they contain about the interaction between your namesake and his mongoose."

"I think we will," says Sherlock.

Subtrahend gives Path an inquiring look.

"I'm curious about you," Path tells her.

"What do you want me to do about it?" she inquires.

"You don't have to do anything in particular. Do you want me to go away?"

"Whatever," says Subtrahend.

Path stays put and peers at her.

She hops off Sherlock's shoulder and proceeds along the headboard until she's next to Path's perch.

Path touches his beak softly to her nose.

She flicks her tail from side to side and regards him suspiciously.

Path pulls his beak back and sits quite still.

"I give up," says Subtrahend. "What are you doing."

"I'm watching you," Path says. "I'm used to learning things about people by watching their daemons."

"Great," says Subtrahend. She sits still, with the occasional flick of her tail, and stares at him.

"It doesn't work nearly as well on bird daemons," Path adds loftily. "We have very limited facial expressions."

"Good for you," says Subtrahend.

Path laughs softly. "I'll go if you want me to."

"I don't want you to go, I want you to make fucking sense," she says.

"How do I not make sense?" Path asks, genuinely bewildered. "This - along with helping my Isabella understand herself - is basically my job description, interacting with other people's daemons."

"You're not interacting with me," Subtrahend points out. "You're just sitting there watching me. And pecking my nose."

"We're having a conversation right now," Path points out. "And I didn't peck you. I just nuzzled you a little."

"You can ask me questions. I'll do my best to help," Path says.

"Sherlocks are prone to - depersonalization issues," she says, "thinking they're not real people, that they don't know how to act like real people or understand real people and their place in the world is basically to make somebody else's life easier, and my Sherlock mostly doesn't have those problems anymore but I do. Because I don't know how to act like a real daemon and I don't understand anything and nobody including me wants me to exist and I literally am a fundamentally dependent extension of another person!"

"Well, I don't know how wonderful Sherlock is, but I'm apparently rude and bitchy and violent," says Subtrahend. "There's probably something wrong with me. I can't imagine there wouldn't be, really."

Path nudges closer to her and offers a wing that she might duck her head under if she wanted.

She creeps up to him and sighs and puts her head under his wing.

"I'm plenty upset," she says disconsolately.

Path touches his beak to her nose again.

She sighs a very small sigh and nuzzles his beak.

"We'll help if we can," Path murmurs.

"Yeah, like how," she says.

"I don't know. If I knew I'd suggest something."

"It's cute. But something else could be cute too. You could always go with Stephirashal. It's gender-neutral."

"Stephirashal sounds like a demon sneezed," she says. "I guess I could go by Steph until I think of something I like better, though."

Path nuzzles her. "Okay."

She nuzzles back.

"I wonder why you're a genet," murmurs Path.

"Good question," says Steph. "I'm not sure I even know what a genet is."

"It's not a common daemon species or I'd have more to say about it. I think genets are related to mongooses," Path adds. "You could look yourself up. That's what everyone does when they settle in high school is look up their species. There are daemon specific books for the more common things that include statistics about the people they belong to. The Big Book Of Daemonic Mammals would be where you'd want to look first. I don't know if you'd be in those books or not. We've seen a fossa and a linsang but never exactly the species you are, and they don't cover everything."

"I'm probably too rare for the book," she says gloomily.

"I don't know, there were some remarkably specific shrews in there."

Steph giggles.

"We didn't read the whole thing because we knew I'd be a bird," says Path, with the winged equivalent of a shrug.

"That makes sense," says Steph.

"I tried every single thing in the bird book, though, seeing how they all felt."

"Of course you did," says Steph.

"Ironically, despite Charlie's last name, swans didn't suit me at all."

"I think you'd look very dashing with a neck as long as my tail," giggles Steph.

"And twice as flexible. But no, it was all wrong. I could be anything and feel all right when we were little but by the time I was close to settling some things were definitely not me. I mostly liked nocturnal things, especially when I was restricting myself to birds so we could be a witch properly."

"Is it really that species-restricted?"

"For witches? Birds. Flying birds, not ostriches or kiwis or penguins. Not bats, not bugs, not miniature dragons. Everyone else can be anything. The commonality isn't much correlated with how frequently something is found in the wild, though. Only a handful of unlucky people have fish."

"Huh," says Steph.

"So if another Bell got a daemon I don't think he'd look like me. They might not even match each other, although I guess some of them could."

"I bet he'd fly," says Steph.

"Maybe. Not necessarily. I could see Juliet with some kind of snake," Path says. "Or a lynx or a tiger, maybe."

"Well, maybe. But a general Bell? I bet he'd fly."

"Angela's would," says Path, "no question. I bet you Shell Bell's would swim. Might do both - puffin or gull or something. Stella's would probably fly, so would Pattern's and Aurora's and Rose's. Not sure about Golden. Aegis's might not have wings - flying squirrel, maybe. Cam's might not fly but I could see him with a hawk. Sarion's might not fly, but if it did I bet you she'd have a dove of some kind."

"Yeah, maybe," says Steph.

"There's kind of a sense for these things. I bet you could be really good at reading daemons if you practiced."

"Probably," says Steph, but she doesn't seem excited about it.

Path nuzzles her again.

She nuzzles him back, again.

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Path murmurs.

"I'm sorry I exist," says Steph.

"I know you didn't mean to," says Path. "But as long as you're here, I like you."

She sighs. "I don't know why."

Path thinks about this. And then he says, "People without daemons have it all mixed up into a single thing that's hard to keep track of. People with daemons do a lot of the emotional rapport and chemistry between the daemons and the people do more of the words. My Isabella likes Sherlock so I like you."

"That's kind of fucked," says Steph.

"Well, if you're mean to me, I might stop liking you, but then there would be spillover to my Isabella," says Path, "because we're the same person."

"That's definitely fucked," says Steph, "because as demonstrated I am much more of an asshole than my Sherlock, and I also come with my very own psychological issues."

"But I like you anyway," says Path irrepressibly. And he snuggles his wing around her.

She makes a sound that is some combination of giggle and sob, and snuggles up.

Daemon snuggles! Daemon snuggles are soothing to the daemons and to their people.

Steph and Sherlock are inexplicably soothed.

"Yes indeed," says Sherlock.

Sherlock gets an Isabella sitting next to him on his bed. "Anything interesting in the conversation that I missed?"

Path flutters to regain his balance, and Amariah jumps, startled. Path flies to her arm and she holds him close to her chest. "What's - what's happened?"

"I - why? I'm just - used to people having daemons, I always will be, however much time I spend around people who haven't."

"Welcome to the irrational and emotionally volatile world of Sherlocks with souls."

Amariah sighs and puts Path down on the footboard and hugs Sherlock.

Sherlock hugs back.

"Maybe you'll be more comfortable if she stays tucked away," says Amariah dubiously.

"You don't expect that to be true?"

"I put Path away when I'm nervous someone will touch him. It's a little like - wearing sneakers to go wading. It's uncomfortable, it's not what sneakers are for, the shoes get waterlogged and it's hard to make forward progress - but if the water's infested with piranhas, it's safer. I'm less worried about it now I have my aura and he can make it clear to everyone that they need to back off, and sometimes I want to have sex with someone who doesn't have a daemon and then it's more comfortable than him just being neglected - but it doesn't feel right to have him folded away like that. He's not my dagger, only useful when I happen to want to do something that calls for a sharp object, he's part of me, if he's not there then I'm not all there."

"Steph and I do not feel that way," says Sherlock. "Steph doesn't want to exist. Steph hates that you are more comfortable with her around because it is a reason for her to continue existing. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be that suicidal."

"That's - that's bad," says Amariah. "She came out of you. I don't think it can just be because she happens to be a daemon and this has some resonance with something else. She's your daemon. And she appeared now, not back when you were more - obviously like that."

"She doesn't want me to stop existing, at least. She just doesn't want to be an active participant in the process."

"Well." Amariah shrugs. "Maybe you'll be more comfortable like this, then."

"Maybe I will," he sighs.

"Around here - if Path started acting like that I would assume it meant I, the entire person that is us, was in a really bad way. But you haven't had her forever, so - maybe it's different."

"She has only just begun to exist. The advent of self-awareness is not an easy time for Sherlocks."

Isabella hugs him again.

He sighs, and hugs her back.

"Well, how did you deal with it?" Amariah asks. "Having self-awareness."

"Self-awareness is not intrinsically the problem. The problem is that I didn't like myself very much. And mostly I dealt with it poorly, until I lost my soul and stopped caring. Oh, there you are," he says, blinking. "I'll just bet she feels like shit; to a first approximation she is the literal embodiment of my natural tendency to self-loathe. Which I dodged resuming with magic when I merged my soul back in, but apparently that only took for the everyday, because I am definitely miserable in a soulful way right now. No fucking wonder."

Isabella wraps her arms around Sherlock and hugs him tight; Path trills unhappily.

Sherlock hugs her back.

"I don't think Kas and Petaal are discernibly more comfortable around people with daemons than people without. Maybe Petaal would be a better how-to-be-a-daemon tutor," says Isabella. "If Steph's ever going to come out and want lessons again, I mean, if she's not I guess it doesn't matter."

"I'm honestly not sure if that would help," says Sherlock, "but I suppose it can hardly make things any worse."

"Petaal's pretty unconventional about it, though, and not in any of the ways I'd expect you and Steph to be, especially since she's not settled."

"For curiosity's sake: in what ways is she unconventional, and in what ways do you expect us to be, and how do they differ?"

"Petaal is unsettled - more unsettled than the average toddler's daemon, and those can change too quick to identify all the species sometimes, she doesn't even have a fixed sex. She spends a lot of time in human - or witch or angel - forms, talks to non-daemon people a lot more than even the chattiest daemons usually do, and is dramatically touchier than any other daemon I've ever heard of. And her personality is just about identical to Kas's modulo the practical matters. You on the other hand - I'd be pretty surprised if you wanted to let Juliet or your Tony touch Steph, anytime soon anyway, let alone me or Kas or your alts. She's settled, or at least it sure looks like it, and while she evidently doesn't refuse to talk to any non-daemons besides you like some do, she seemed within normal range on attention paid to Path versus to me."

"Is a daemon's personality not usually identical to their - person's?"

"It's usually close, except for some division of labor in interpersonal interaction. There are - moods, circumstances, when they won't match. Back when I was worried about going all crazy-possessive-witch on my sweeties I told them I wouldn't kill somebody I loved in front of Path. In that eventuality, which is not going to happen, we'd feel differently about it, and I'd have to leave Path home. You and Steph already observed that you don't act just alike."

"True. Well. Perhaps we should talk to Kas."

"Do you want me to go wake him?"

"I think we can wait. No rush."

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I expected that she would be unhappy, and look how right I was."

"I am sufficiently unhappy about being trapped here that it's hard to tell how I would feel without it, and then of course even before I came here I was not short on things to be unhappy about."

"Yes. Well, we can ask."

"Yeah."

[Morning, sweeties,] says Isabella. [Sherlock's no-daemon wish unexpectedly wore off.]

Sherlock hugs back.

"She's a genet," Path reports to Petaal. "And she's sad."

"Why's she sad?" says Petaal, hopping up onto the bed as a small grey cat and nuzzling Path's feathers.

"She doesn't know how to be a daemon, and she doesn't like being part of somebody else, because Sherlocks have problems with thinking the point of them is to help somebody else," says Path, nuzzling back.

"Oh," says Petaal. "I want to hug her. Next time she's out, somebody should tell me so I can hug her."

"Happily," says Sherlock.

"She believes her existence is a net loss, so anything that weighs in on the positive side complicates the issue," says Sherlock. "And she doesn't want to stop existing and have that make you less comfortable around me, because you are my friend."

"I'm not uncomfortable with you. Just, there's that little tickle of something's missing. Was, before, now I can just imagine you're separated and she's in the next room on the relevant level of cognition."

"Aha."

"I'm sorry," shrugs Ama.

"I am not sure it is the sort of thing you need to be sorry for. But thank you."

"Kas doesn't really have that problem, he's been more even-keeled about daemonless people from the start," says Isabella, reaching out to touch Kas's arm.

Isabella kisses him.

Sherlock awws.

Kas kisses back!

"I can try!" says Petaal, cuddling up to Path while Kas kisses Isabella some more.

"If she ever comes out again," says Path gloomily, fluffing up and snuggling closer.

"Maybe she'll feel better when you get home," suggests Isabella.

"It's possible."

"...I don't want to exacerbate the problem, but it would probably upset Juliet if she found out Steph existed and she never got to meet her."

"No doubt it would."

Sherlock remains outwardly calm, but his response over brainphone is an extended snarl.

Petaal changes into a large boa and drops a coil over the side of the bed.

"Nope," says Petaal, slithering into Kas's lap. He cuddles her and kisses the top of her head. "My sweetie's got like a year on her. We're just special."

"Fuck off," says Steph.

Steph curls up and ignores Hendasamon.

Sherlock continues to denude the fluffy sheep on his knee.

"It's really sad," says Petaal, becoming a viscacha so Kas can hug her more fluffily.

"He's fun," Petaal says brightly. "Except when he's too sad."

"What would you have described her as?" says Petaal.

Petaal shifts into a honey badger. Kas scritches her unconcernedly.

"That really is very interesting," Hendasamon says to Petaal. "You don't feel any pull to any shapes?"

"Nope," says Petaal. She turns into a viscacha again, then a small brown lizard, then a lap-sized dragon, then a genet.

"How curious," says Hendasamon. "Does it run in your family?"

Kas closes the window. And the door. And then hugs Sherlock.

"Sorry," sighs Path.

"She's not our queen. If we couldn't convince her it was all right it wouldn't necessarily ruin everything. But maybe you should draw the blinds."

Kas wishes the blinds closed and goes back to cuddling Sherlock.

"He may have backhandedly accused me of seducing your boyfriend away from you," Sherlock remarks. "Didn't seem keen on the spread of immortality, either."

"Eugh, no wonder the Manitoba clan is such a mess," says Isabella, shaking her head, "she's awful, I hope she's got one sane daughter plotting to take over after she gets the wrong end of a cursed arrow or pines for one too many husbands. I think she left convinced of my - harmlessness, at least, you're right she doesn't think much of the project so I talked a lot about problems I don't have solved yet. And didn't explain about motion components. I know that if you have any designs on my boyfriend they won't lead to him leaving me, don't worry," she says with a weak smile.

"At the moment my designs on your boyfriend mainly involve cuddling him," says Sherlock.

"I can see that." Isabella pets Path, then flops into the cuddlepile.

Cuddles.

Petaal extricates herself and gambols over to Path as a linsang.

Path snuggles with linsang-Petaal with a relaxed hoot.

Snuggles.