"What happened to him?"

"He disappeared - like a variant on Sue's trick, but not controlled. He landed in another world and dreamed his way to Milliways from there. Someone let him into Aurum and he told us about it, but then he woke up. They're - they have an alt of Chelsea."

"Get your mother. We're not opaque except Juliet," says Glass tightly.

[Well, that's convenient,] says Lizzie, and she teleports to Elspeth.

"Are you coming? Do you want to know what's going on?" Elspeth asks Agent Honey.

"I would very much like to know what's going on!"

"Unagumented human?" Elspeth asks.

"Act like it," advises Aurora after a glance at Adularia.

"Does she also need it that slowly?" asks Elspeth.

"I think that would be safest for now, pending a controlled test," says Matilda.

Shell Bell moves for the door. She flares. She concentrates, hard.

Adularia shimmers, then expands into a large, closed book with a sky-blue cover, which Agent Honey hugs against her stomach. If Aurora has her threat sensor out, it may note that Matilda is now prepared to get into some serious shit.

Aurora does have her threat sensor out. All the Bells have their auras out; hers and Shell Bell's unflavored and Glass's just barely sylvan, Juliet dripping flames and hazard, Golden every inch a vampire half stillness half speed.

Shell Bell opens the door.

"Will do," says Kers's voice out of the computer.

"Aurora, how are we?" asks Elspeth softly.

"...Covered. Not an overwhelming safety margin, but covered, and she's not hostile."

Glass is looking at the world. "I do not like this world," she concludes. "It's not as - the thing Sunshine is as Sunshine, but it's not nice."

"Let's hear about Tab," invites Juliet, in tones that do not match her general hellgoddessy-ness.

Elspeth, meanwhile, acts on Aurora's information and kills a hex to yoink Harley into her arms.

Whatever Aelise was about to say is interrupted by the air catching on fire everywhere it touches the incandescent figure in Elspeth's arms.

Juliet's aura slurps up the fire; she's very bright, for a moment, but then it calms down in among the usual harmless licks of flame that dance on her person. Nothing catches; it is merely warm while her aura performs.

Harley. It's me. With Bells. And she works her witchcraft on the vestiges of what Chelsa did to him.

Lizzie opens her hands slightly in an understated shrug.

Harley clings to Elsie and makes muffled sobbing noises.

Elspeth holds him and she works.

"Weren't you going to do the talking?" Juliet asks Lizzie. "Does she mean she wants me to turn my aura off?"

Tab writes to Aelise: Would you please ask them if they can grab me down there like they did Harley?

Aelise glances at the screen and says, "Tab would like to be included in this conversation, if you wouldn't mind fetching her. And since she is not currently buried in the sun, it shouldn't be quite so spectacular this time."

"Turning your aura off would be conducive to reasonable negotiations," says Lizzie. "She means that she wants to know what we're doing here, what we want, and that we're not going to harm her or Tab or anyone else who might drop into the line of fire while we're talking it over. And there are probably some dicey secrets in the mix that she would rather we not mention to anyone without her say-so."

Juliet withdraws her aura. "Tab's safe if she's a Bell like it sounds like she is, probably safe even if she's not, and if she is a Bell this is her jurisdiction and we are just here to hand her the ability to do whatever she pleases with the place; if you're lucky, she likes you." She snaps her fingers and spends a pentagon, and here is Tab.

"In the interests of full disclosure, Elspeth is not a suitable repository for secrets."

Here is Tab, indeed. The auras didn't come through on the security feed; she blinks a lot, when she gets a look at them. "Wow."

"All this and more can be yours for nine ninety-nine," Aurora mutters under her breath. "Should any subset of us duck into Milliways?" she adds at normal volume.

Aelise is now looking analytically at Harley.

"Good question," says Lizzie. She is looking analytically at Aelise.

Aelise says, very definitely to Harley: "Chelsa is retired."

He bursts into tears and clings to Elspeth.

"Just retired?" mutters Elspeth.

"World's Downsideable," reports Golden in an undertone.

"I don't know what that means, but it sounds murdery; don't just up and kill her, please," says Tab, "she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock."

Golden's aura is still out, like all of them except Juliet's; her hiss is very nonhuman, but she doesn't disagree aloud.

"And Corona is dead."

"He denied Kers's protection and died about a minute later, a little while after you dropped yourself into the sun," she says. "We never found his body."

He stares some more - frowns - licks his lips - shakes his head and hugs Elspeth some more.

"Corona was Harley's local alt," says Aelise, in case anyone might find this clarification useful.

"World's Downsideable," says Glass. "We can pick him up on our way out. We were going to Origin next anyway." She nibbles her lip, then says, "World's related to Eos and Aurum, in that way they have."

"...Pick him up," Aelise echoes.

"From the afterlife," says Lizzie.

"And is also some, although admittedly not most, of why I sounded murdery," Golden adds to Tab. "If we eventually come up with some way to safely store Chelseas - perhaps we accumulate a few hundred of them and can store them far away from anyone who doesn't produce informed consent in triplicate after Elspeth's gone over them - then they won't be irretrievable."

"What is Elspeth doing?"

"I am deprogramming Harley," says Elspeth quietly. "My power is oriented around truth. I can make people stop lying to themselves in the ways that support what Chelsa's power does. It's harder for this one than it was for the Aurum version, but I can do it."

"I hadn't even gotten to the point of thinking to offer. I'm only working on Harley. For Chelsea I could do a lot of people all at once. I can barely do one at a time with this one. It took almost half an hour last time."

"Well, just for future reference," she says, relaxing slightly. "I'd ask you not to spread it around, too, but apparently you can't."

"As far as I can tell," says Aelise, unruffled, "either people from my world just have a higher inclination to go to war with each other than people from yours, or throwing Gifts into the mix changes the game significantly. When I let Chelsa loose on the world, I was trying to avoid it being nuked down to a population of one. As far as I can tell from what Harley said to Tab about ten years ago, your world has never faced down a crisis of that magnitude, or at least not from such a short distance. Now that I've finally got her back in the box, I am not going to let the last three hundred years go to waste by ripping the band-aid off six billion minds."

"It's the Gifts," reports Glass. "That's what I was seeing - the world isn't meaner, it just has higher stakes, bigger powers than Aurum or Eos have."

"I think a subset of us should go to Milliways," puts in Aurora. "Shell Bell and Golden are the only Bells who need to be here - and maybe Tab but we'll only be out for a moment and she's got New Bell Stuff to do. Me and Glass and Juliet between us can get Downside to grab Corona, to Rainbow to snag Brilliance if Corona's not on board with enchanneling, and to Chronicle so Tab can dump power into the forest, and have her back all nicely Belled up, yeah? And Harley and Elspeth don't need to be here unless anyone besides him needs deprogramming. You have been safe, right, Tab?"

"Yeah, that's my Gift."

"I'm on board with going to do New Bell Stuff, trying to do diplomacy is -" Juliet shakes her head. "Shell Bell, if you would? Agent Honey, sticking around or following us?"

"Have fun," Aelise says dryly to Tab. "Don't stay out too late."

"...I think I will follow you," Agent Honey decides. Adularia shimmers back into her dormant form as a pendant around her neck.

Tab sticks out her tongue at Aelise.

Aelise grins at her.

Shell Bell's aura flares from normal to blinding, and she opens the door to let the departing contingent out.

Out they go. Juliet concentrates and reopens the door shortly after it closes. Downside! They don't want to split up, without Jane syncing them, so she just sticks her head in, torchables Tab while Elspeth starts summarizing things at her, and says to the admin, [Just added a world. Can I get its Joker?]

Aurora squares him clad in something Brilliance might wear.

"He might not want to go back to my world - do I get to name it? Is that how we do it?"

"That is how we do it," says Juliet. "If he doesn't, we drop him off in the Home for Wayward Jokers, also known as Pattern's world Origin." And she wakes clothed Corona.

"...What the hell?" says Corona, blinking. "Shit, why am I not dead?"

"You are! So'm I. We're the queens of Hell," says Juliet, waving him into Milliways.

"Juliet," chides Aurora. "Elspeth, could you - I know you're trying to concentrate on Harley and explain to Tab, but -"

"Some of me would be all over you. I'm not one of them," Juliet says. "After we've brought Tab up to speed we're headed for Origin. We can drop you off there with some other stray Jokers if you don't have anywhere else in mind."

"I don't really care where I go as long as it's not back and you scrub Chelsa off me first," he says. "And I get to hug Harley. I wanna hug Harley."

"Probably he will let you at some point," says Elspeth, looking down at Harley who she's holding so he doesn't have to support his weight, who doesn't currently appear to harbor any intention of ever letting her go.

Tab is now reading a copy of the Bellbook eagerly.

"One of the things on Tab's checklist is acquiring an enchantress's aura. This requires a helper. The helper hurts," says Aurora. "I dunno where you are psychologically; if it's not good I can lean into my world and get Brilliance instead, but you're more convenient."

Corona shrugs. "I can do hurting."

"Okay. Depending on how much hurting, this is gonna take at least an hour. I maybe should get Brilliance anyway for the taking of breaks." She leans around him to get the door. [Hey Sunshine?]

[What's up?]

[The repealing effort ran into Elspeth and we had to go rescue Harley from a nasty world. Had a local Bell and a Joker. Wanna come participate in the aura part of her checklist with him?]

[Nasty world one. Corona. Harley's in a state. He's seventeen - or, at least so, not clear how much time passed in Tab's world since he's been there - and we haven't asked him if he wants to help.] She greets Brilliance with a kiss.

"Brilliance, Corona. Corona, Brilliance."

"Hi," says Brilliance. Just for the hell of it, he turns on his aura. Colourful flares of light glint from his skin and hair and clothes. "Lemme guess, Aurora put you in that?"

"You're pretty," Corona says admiringly. He touches the hem of his T-shirt. "I have no idea who put me in this, I just woke up like two minutes ago, I'm still kind of dealing with not being dead. What is that?" He reaches out a hand, and a pink glimmer tucked into a curl of Brilliance's hair brightens into a tiny sun.

"Yeah, I put him in that, he apparently died naked," says Aurora, "and I'm the only person repealed so far who has a Joker in, you know, a personal sense, so I didn't expect anyone else to think of an outfit before I did."

Aurora does not deign to suppose that it might. "You're welcome."

Meanwhile, Elspeth is speeding along Tab's introduction while she deprograms Harley slow-and-sure -

- and Tab is putting the finishing touches on her very limited deviations from the Bells standard wish set. (She's taking something halfway between standard flight and Aegis's version.)

Tab is super-fast now and flipping through the end of the Bellbook. "We're going to go to Glass's world and I'm going to cheat at aura-getting with her enchanted forest."

"You can pick up an aura there too, if you'd like," Glass adds to Corona, heading for the door. "And Harley too, if he recovers enough while we're there. The forest likes the extra magic; Marianne has taken to low-level channeling almost all the time."

"Sounds like fun. What's channeling like?" he says curiously.

"Fun!" beams Brilliance, his aura swirling with colours.

"It hurts for the channel - sort of a stinging stretchedness? - and lasts awhile, if the channel isn't the same person as the enchanter." Glass opens the door. "Jarvis, please tell everyone who might care to know that we've found a new Bell Tab, a new Joker Corona, and a grown-up Harley, and we're stopping in for aura purposes." (Jarvis is handy for filtering for people who are likely to care to know, and he is better at timing than her previous strategy of "indiscriminate immediate brainphone".)

"We can go to Chronicle, or back to Aurum, or stay here," murmurs Elspeth to Harley, who she's still holding.

"Will do. Welcome, all," says Jarvis.

As the rest of them pile through, Harley clings to Elspeth and cuddles her wordlessly.

In the absence of a decision from Harley, Elspeth follows the crowd.

"...Hi, Jarvis," says Tab shyly. "So, um, I have enchanting all wished up, who's channeling for me first?"

"I wanna try!" says Corona, grinning at her.

"Start with something medium-sized because they vary in tolerance some, and, Elspeth warned you in her explanation this is a thing with Jokers, right, you don't have to do anything about it but if that bothers you we should go back Downside and see if Eights is free."

"It can be his thing as long as no one expects it to be my thing," shrugs Tab. "Symbiosis, yeah? I just dump power in the forest and it'll suck it up?" At Glass's nod, she tilts back into her mindscape - the orbital ring - and reaches for Corona's.

Corona's mindscape is a broad, bright field of wildflowers, dotted with trees and bordered by water. The shape of that ring of water almost suggests a moat, and there are piles of old, tumbled stones covered with ivy that hint at a tall building that might once have stood here. A castle, maybe. But it's hardly possible to tell under all that vegetation.

"Whoa, that is not in the standard enchanting manual," says Tab. "Did you run it through your Gift?"

"Not medium-sized at all," agrees Glass, "as it hit the forest. Wow."

"Yeah," laughs Corona. "This is fun." He hugs himself and beams and turns it up - brighter, hotter, more.

"I'm intensely curious to know if the aura counts what you're putting in or what he's putting out," says Glass. "Maybe he can have this all done in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," laughs Tab, and she carries on channeling at medium-size until Corona tells her otherwise.

Corona keeps on amplifying the stream of power, although he has to snuggle into Brilliance's lap after a few minutes. He doesn't ask for a break, though.

And in, indeed, about fifteen minutes, Tab is as brightly auraed as her counterparts. There's not a flavor to hers, though.

"Oh, it would have been more efficient to mint him first," sighs Glass, "I didn't think of it, that's a pity - anyway - I'm seeing stuff, but I can't tell you exactly what it does. Lazarus could, he gets interpretation with his magic-seeing. This feature here looks slightly teleportation-colored but not shaped like the Bell standard..."

"I'll find out," beams Tab.

Corona hugs Brilliance, since Brilliance is closer, and beams at Elspeth.

Carinna peeps around the doorframe into the room curiously.

Corona spots this new face and waves from where he's snuggled up in Brilliance's lap.

Carinna has not really met Jokers before; she was shy of most everyone at the only Bellparty she has attended, and that was five years ago when she was seven. She does not unhide.

"Do you want to come in, Carinna?" asks Glass.

Carinna shifts uncertainly. "I dunno."

Corona shrugs and cuddles down again, nestling his head on Brilliance's shoulder. Brilliance hugs him. Light plays over them both.

"What's wrong with that one Princess Elspeth is holding?" asks Carinna. Princess Elspeth is remembered, because she is a) a princess and b) Elspeth.

That one Princess Elspeth is holding has no answer for this; he just snuggles her and shivers.

"He's been to a world that is not as nice as this one, and some bad things happened to him," says Elspeth.

Carinna considers this, and then, slowly, tentatively, and ready to bolt if anyone makes a sudden movement, she steps into the room, takes Mossy out of her skirt pocket, and puts it (poofs have never been found to have discernible sexes) on Harley's chest.

Glass hugs her daughter.

"So we're waiting for Corona to come out of afterglow from an entire aura's worth of enchanting and then he'll get his own and then we go back to Tab's world, is the plan, right?"

"Yeah. Corona, you can torch, now, if you want to speed that up any."

"I'm gonna call my world Gift, I think."

"Torch? What, you mean like Harley? Awesome," says Corona. He snuggles comfortably into Brilliance's lap. "But I think maybe if we could just get a room, that'd be just as good."

"Yes, like Harley. The white guest room is open, I think - go left out that hall, through the double doors, down the stairs, up the other stairs, first on the right, Jarvis can help you if you get lost."

"Okay," Brilliance says cheerfully, scooping up Corona and starting off on the indicated route.

Elspeth has sufficient range to continue from this distance.

Bells set about gossiping and talking to Tab about how she's going to handle her world. They discover that her coins are glowing mirrors, which catch surrounding colors but give them back brighter. They fit her with a starting set, mostly in Brilliance's color, in all sizes.

Harley curls up and cuddles Mossy and doesn't say anything. But he seems more content now.

Carinna lurks, making sure he is nice to Mossy.

Are cuddles nice? Cuddles and sleepy petpets.

Those are acceptable.

Good. Because Mossy is fluffy and cute, and cuddling it seems to be extremely restorative.

"Mm," says Harley, smiling and petting Mossy.

Carinna looks him over, then says, "I think you should put him in it, Princess Elspeth. Then he can be in a pile of Gentle Animals. And he should try the magic spring water."

Elspeth looks Harley over for reactions to this idea.

Harley snuggles up to her and nods slowly.

She kisses his forehead. "Please let me know when the group is leaving," she says to the Bells.

"Of course," says Glass, taking Mossy off Harley and giving it back to Carinna.

Elspeth teleports them to the Gentle Cave.

Elspeth looks quizzically at poofs, but scoops some up onto Harley.

He leans on her and cuddles his armful of poofs. A few more roll up and bump into available bits of Elspeth, squeaking hopefully.

She continues piling poofs onto him. They seem to help.

Harley mumbles something. It doesn't come out as any kind of intelligible utterance. He tries again, and manages a slurred, "Love you, Elsie."

"I love you too."

He smiles and scoops a blue poof into his hand and, somewhat clumsily, rubs it against her cheek. It is fluffy and soft.

That does appear to be the characteristic of poofs, yes.

His feelings thus expressed, Harley goes back to cuddling the poofpile.

Meanwhile, Tab has started composing a profile to splice into the Bellbook when they go back through Milliways. As soon as she puts any of it on paper, she makes a face. "Oh, huh. I think - Glass, have you got a library? Without anything especially private in it?"

"Yeah," says Glass, and she teleports Tab into same. "Figured out an aura feature?"

Tab reaches out for a shelf-ful of books. "Yeah. I'm just - instantly reading everything I'm near. Within about a foot, but if I'm close enough to a little bit of a book, I get the whole thing."

"Do you want to suck up all the books I own, or just note it and move on?" laughs Glass.

"I'll finish the enchanting section, I think." Tab flies around the enchanting section, then says, "All done," and they teleport back to the other Bells.

"That's nifty," says Aurora, smiling.

Juliet is least impressed of the subpeal, but she smiles approvingly too.

Brilliance wraps his arms around Corona's waist and nuzzles his cheek, sparkling with his own aura's version of happiness.

Carinna, who has been sitting on the floor at Glass's feet with Mossy in her lap, is fascinated.

Corona grins and waves at her.

She waves back.

He giggles and hugs Brilliance, causing another brief coziness flare.

[Corona's all set with his aura, we're about ready to get out of here,] Juliet reports to Elspeth, conferencing in Harley as a courtesy.

"Do you want me to ask if you can take one of these things home with you?" Elspeth asks Harley.

Harley nods, hugging his armful of glowing, humming poofs.

Elspeth asks. "Glass says they are called poofs, and you can take one but they need the water that's found here, which can be replicated with coins to no ill effect."

Elspeth stands up again and teleports them to the subpeal.

"You kept one," observes Carinna. "What are you going to call it?"

Harley closes his eyes and pets his poof. After a few seconds, he shrugs.

"You'll think of something," says Carinna. "Mine is named Mossy."

"We ready to leave?" Juliet asks everyone.

Elspeth is deprogramming Corona again. "I'm going back to Aurum. I think my door-friendliness is back to normal, so even if Mama turns out not to want arbitrary numbers of Jokers in her world it should be relatively straightforward to send you to Origin instead."

"Okay," says Corona. "Count me in, then." He gives Brilliance a goodbye kiss.

"Jarvis, if you would?"

Through go Bells and Jokers and Elspeth.

"...Yeah," says Glass, after a long stare. "He's not - safe exactly, but it's not pulling on him, any more."

[Agent Honey, you still lurking in here?]

[Yep! Why, did you need me for something?]

[Nope, we're just going back to Gift if you want to come.]

[No, thank you.]

"Back to Rainbow, I think," he decides. And gives Aurora a hug and a kiss. "See you later. Grab me if you find more Jokers."

"Will do," laughs Aurora.

When Brilliance has gone, Tab opens the door, and they're back in Aelise's office. Her aura's out, bright as the other unflavored sorts, but she comes up short when she gets within a few feet of Aelise's desk. "Uh, Aelise, I automatically slurp up books I get near enough now and I don't know if it works on computers. Do you want me to stand back from yours or am I cleared?"

"Go right ahead," she says, with an inviting gesture.

Tab waves her hand over the computer. "Does slurp, doesn't decrypt," she laughs.

She smiles. "Well, that doesn't sound very useful."

"A square, maybe a pentagon, will probably do decryption, and that's before Jane's back online," says Golden, glancing at Tab's new bracelet.

Aelise raises her eyebrows slightly.

"Should I explain Jane?" wonders Lizzie.

"I got it, Elspeth was pretty thorough," says Tab. "Jane's an accidental AI who basically works for the peal of Bells. She's broken now, but when she works she does at-will interworld transit and eats Internets. She can avoid parts of them - she hasn't bothered the various Jarvises, who are non-accidental AIs who are attached to another template we don't have here - and I think she'll need to steer clear of a few things here, too. But there's no harm in just having a gem that connects up to her Belltower hub so she can talk to me if she reappears."

"Noted," says Aelise. "Thank you."

"Elspeth has gone home to Aurum with Harley, but it's still possible to get her back, if there is anyone who should be deprogrammed," Tab adds. "Oh, and Golden, she took Corona with her for the time being but he's aware you might send him to Origin."

"I have all the Jokers I need; if he prefers Aurum to Origin for some reason I suppose I have little reason to object to an extra."

[Aelise, lookit, telepathy,] Tab adds. [I was thinking - there is a problem, with Jane broken, that time doesn't sync between worlds. This sub-peal ran into Elspeth who sent them here in the process of collecting all the other Bells to regroup. The interworld signaling tech, ansibles, is one thing that works for syncing, but it doesn't do it without an awake person on both ends - Jane's ansibles are still hooked up but Aurum's been out seventeen years and Atlantis mere seconds. I'm wondering if Kers would count?]

[Ooh, telepathy,] says Aelise. [That does sound like a solvable problem. Can we manage a trial without markedly increasing the likelihood that someone here will assassinate me?]

[Well, I can make you Harley-style immortal,] says Tab. [I don't think they'll assassinate you. They take jurisdiction pretty seriously and I've been theoretically capable of killing you since I was twelve.]

[Please do make me Harley-style immortal. And try not to drop me in the sun afterward if you can possibly avoid it. Make Kers Harley-style immortal, more to the point. And after you've done that, ask her if she'd like to come down and say hello.]

Torchable. [I do not anticipate dropping you into the sun.] "One sec, guys." Pop up to the orbital ring! "Hi, Kers, wanna be Harley-style immortal?"

"You have been busy. That sounds like a great idea, as long as nobody is planning on launching me into the sun."

Tab laughs. Torchable. "Nobody plans on doing that. Wanna come talk to my alts?"

"Sure, why not."

Pop!

"There is definitely some interaction between your teleporting and your aura, I just can't figure out what," muses Glass. "Maybe we should go to Eos next and get Lazarus to look at you."

"Hello, you must be Kers." Juliet is the only Bell in the room without her aura on; it's paradoxically conspicuous.

"Must I?" says Kers, raising her eyebrows.

"Libbies all have aunts," Tab explains. "They just wanted the name variant; they figured there had to be one because Aelise isn't an Elizabeth and I'm not an Isabella."

"I have a Libby at home, myself," Juliet says. "Nicknamed James. I got politely introduced to her Chris like five minutes after I teleported uninvited into their house, are you some kind of secret?"

"I am the most secret of secrets," says Kers, "but someone has an excellent reason to want to introduce me to you guys and I would love to know what it is."

"I think you might be able to sync time between various universes," says Tab brightly.

"Oh, bravo, ways to do that are good things, I hate waiting for doors," laughs Aurora. "What's the mechanism?"

"How many universes? Special requirements? We'd just have Jarvises everywhere if they didn't insist on being inhabited houses."

"I don't think Kers wants to be houses. Kers, they've got instantaneous signaling that persists between universes," Tab explains. "It syncs time, if nothing's at relativistic speed - and if there's a person on both ends. Their usual person is not working, and the backup person insists on being houses. Very nice houses, but it's a constraint."

"Although I feel silly for not having thought of installing him in the castle before the most recent breakage."

"I have never had any particular ambition toward being a house," says Kers. "Sure, I'll try it."

"One of you is a werewolf," volunteers Shell Bell impishly. "One to start? Where should we put the other end, the Belltower?"

"Belltower's good. Tab, you want to run it there?"

"Sure." Tab conjures up an ansible with Gift-friendly plugs, twists it in half, waves one in Kers's direction. "Where do you want this?"

"Orbital ring would be good. It's not like we're short on network hubs up there."

Tab nods, pops up, inserts the half, pops back down, gestures at Shell Bell, goes to Milliways, plugs in the other half, and returns to Aelise's office. "All set," she tells Kers.

"Well, it's definitely a computer system," she says after a moment. "Weird aftertaste to it, though. And it's six kinds of fried. Some of the problems go right down to the hardware, I think. I can barely get it to squeak when I poke it."

"The hardware, really? I guess that's another reason to go to Eos next instead of Origin."

"I tried wishing it fixed. Maybe I didn't know enough to be specific correctly."

"Are the clocks synced up?"

"In the ring and the tower? As much as they can be," she says. "Right now there's such pervasive instability, the tower isn't synced up with itself. But the two ends of the link you gave me agree with each other. I'm guessing there's more links in the tower, but I can't reach them to tell you how their clocks are doing."

"She is so, so broken," sighs Shell Bell. "Last time wasn't this bad. What is in that world?"

"I'll stick my head in first and find out but I want Golden covering me while I do it. Or Tab, if Tab can do that," shudders Glass.

"I can blanket other people as long as I'm awake," Tab assures her. "I can also do it inside-out but that's probably not what you have in mind. And - Kers, I didn't wink out when I left the world, did I?"

"Nope," she says. "Do you want me to start covering your friends?" She eyes the small crowd. "I can get these, but how many more are there?"

"I'm number fourteen, total," says Tab. "If you only count Bells and not anybody's partners or children or siblings. It's mostly Glass, she's the one who'd need to peer into uninvestigated worlds like the one that broke Jane. The rest of them should be fine coasting on wishes and torching."

"Done," shrugs Kers.

"Thanks," says Glass. "I like my aura powers. On net. The part where I'm the bellwether for - oh, hey, that's a pun in English, cute - for nasty worlds is a little scary."

"Well, now you have fewer things to be scared of."

"...Why, what are you seeing?"

"...It looks like she almost killed you."

"It was an option on the table but I was pretty smart when I was six so she could stash me elsewhere instead, I sulked about it for a while when I was thirteen," says Tab. "How is that the sort of thing you can see? It's not exactly a Bell attractor, is it?"

"...No, it's not a template thing, it's a metacausality thing that isn't a template thing," says Glass. "It looks - ugh, this power - it looks like she retroactively didn't kill you."

"...What kind of sense is that supposed to make?"

"I don't know!" exclaims Glass. "My aura didn't come with an instruction manual, I just say things."

"...Well, I'm alive," says Tab. "And well. And I had to fake my death, but that's not unprecedented." She waves at Shell Bell and Golden.

"I was thinking of putting Toronto on Venus," says Tab. "And then they could just quietly emigrate."

"Putting Toronto on Venus would be a lot easier with Jane, but you should be able to do it with a hex for the city - maybe a star - on top of terraforming the planet, and the population will probably go with an arrow, and the admin solved the duping problem. I can spot you the coins, but you'll want your own mint. Maybe we can finagle Ghosty for you if Corona never wants to come back."

"We'll stop by Origin and you can talk to Stella about managing ingots. They're not as scaled-up and splashy as Gifted, but they do invariably 'win' versus coined stuff."

"Sure. Delphi sleeps forever, I crib Stella's notes," says Tab agreeably.

"Chelsa also sleeps forever, when she sleeps, even if you opt to let that be in a century," says Golden, "we have a do-not-wake order on that template, among others."

Shell Bell shivers slightly.

"...One of you is managing a world full of people with Gift-like powers?" says Aelise.

"Two of us, but on my world coined wishes can interfere with and modify witchcraft - although not with perfect reliability. On Eos with ingot powers, that's simply impossible - coins are native to there and they always lose the contest. Stella's experience will probably be more relevant to Gift than mine in this respect."

"Interesting," says Aelise. "I think I'd like to see Stella's notes."

"I have a perfect memory now," chirps Tab. "I can report back."

"Stella's also got a Libby - the eponymous - and it briefly looked like they were going to be nemeses," volunteers Juliet. "Instead, Elspeth sold Libby on Bells-as-benevolent-dictators and they started the trend of Libbies as Bell personnel officers."

"I think that's a pretty sensible trend," says Aelise.

"It's working out reasonably well for me," says Lizzie.

"Lizzie," says Golden, gesturing, "is my mother in law, in case that wasn't clear via any form of telepathy."

"I hadn't actually caught that part, no. Congratulations."

"And Elspeth's my daughter; I don't think that came up either."

"I'm the only one who's older than my Libby. She succeeded me at a mystical destiny sort of thing after I got assassinated; I showed up to warn her."

"I did actually know that Elspeth was your daughter," says Aelise to Golden. "Harley mentioned her to Tab once."

"Hey, Glass, why is it always daughters? And for that matter, albeit on two data points, sisters?"

"There's... a reason, but I can't interpret it. Something about faces?" says Glass vaguely.

"You have interesting powers," says Aelise to Glass.

"I do!" she chuckles. "It's an interesting party trick. And I predicted at the last Bell party that something awful was going to happen to Harley and there was nothing we could do about it - fat lot of help that was."

"...If he was in some way fated to have horrible experiences, that actually explains a lot about the last ten years," Aelise says thoughtfully.

"It's a template attractor. Horrible things have to happen to Jokers; there are strong tendencies for it to be a certain short list of things, and there's flexibility on the amount, but it's not escapable. Elspeth took Harley away from bad parents when he was a baby and he grew up happy and safe in Aurum, so of course he had to develop uncontrollable teleporting ability and land somewhere that wouldn't treat him kindly."

"If they re-run the Trauma Olympics I wonder if he's competitive with Aianon and Brilliance, now? Probably depends on how they count psychological tampering."

"He teleported three more times while he was here, apparently deliberately - once to the bottom of the ocean, once to the middle of the largest active volcano on the planet, and once into the sun. I managed to retrieve him from the ocean and the volcano. The sun was a tougher problem."

"Aianon was tortured by demons for a couple thousand years and Brilliance has an unprecedented pain ceiling," says Aurora. "If Harley's in the running at all, it's because of Chelsa."

"But now at least I have a better idea of why he teleported to those places in particular," she says. "Corona was rescued from a bad home situation too, for that matter. Was it the stepfather, with Harley?"

"Harley was taken from his biological parents. That's it in every case where parents are the thing, I believe, although I suppose it could have escaped common knowledge if Jellybean or Kas had stepfathers, and Brilliance is not an organism and has creators instead of any form of parent. And I don't know about the one from the Jane-breaking world; that Bell had a Joker but we don't know about his provenance."

"Corona's stepfather was an unpleasant individual. His biological father was just absent. Interesting that that appears to be the exception," says Aelise. "Any comments from the template expert?"

"There was a bit of an - off - twist to the attractor. Not as off as Brilliance, but nonstandard - or maybe an alternate standard. I'd recognize it if I saw it again."

"Hmm," says Aelise. "This alternate-universe information thing is fascinating. Are there more templates we should be keeping an eye out for?"

"We should do a sweep. And through Downside, too, now we've added Gift to it. I only found my Beth when I ran a check for all the templates I knew after meeting Agent Honey. I'll just run through the list we did in Chronicle -"

"And I think I'll look for some more people from Aurum who aren't known to be templates, since apparently Chelsea was one and there could be more... surprises, pleasant or un-."

"I can also tell by looking whether someone's templatey even if I haven't met any of their alts, if there's someone you'd like to be on the lookout for more of," Glass says.

"Found an Anna, found a Sandy. They're together."

"Chelsa comes with an Afton alt. Of course she does. ...Found a Demetri. I suppose if he's not a vampire he's probably not doing what Demetri did in Aurum. And no Allirea."

"...Anneia, Sandre, Amdon, Demauri?" says Aelise. "Do templates tend to cluster like that? I wonder if there are any alts of Luhan... your guess is as good as mine about where to find him, though, he's been roaming the Canadian wilderness for a decade."

"Templates do cluster. Some of them are attached to each other - Bells all come with the same set of parents, Libbies all come with Chrises, etcetera - and some just drift together a lot; Bells and Jokers do that. Will Luhan have a heart attack and die if I just teleport in front of him to see? Would that be a bad idea for any reason?"

"Luhan once survived being very close to the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, but he might be displeased if you just teleport in front of him without warning."

"That would've been a convenient talent to have," murmurs Shell Bell.

"I could brainphone him instead, would that be a bad idea? You seem to have some snug operational security at work."

"Luhan's cleared pretty high, I don't know about this high. Frankly I don't know how high 'this high' is. We are apparently a big deal."

"...actually," says Aelise, "given which nuclear explosion Luhan survived, you might want to talk to him before you set up on Venus, Tab. So by all means, brainphone away."

[Hey, Luhan, I'm an extradimensional visitor who is an expert on what person-templates repeat across universes and how, and Aelise wants me to look at you; is that okay?]

Silence.

[Hello? You can reply to me like this, just think it at me.]

[Who are you? Where are you?]

[I am in Aelise's office but I can teleport to you if you'd like to let me; I'm an alt of a friend of hers. My name is Bella but you can call me Glass.]

"Hi," says Glass, waving. "Possibly good news: you probably have alts running around somewhere!"

"Which means... what, in practical terms?" he inquires.

"If you make friends with the one of me who lives here and she invites you to parties, or if you get out of the world by other means, you might meet people who look like you and have the same basic personality and..." She squints. "You're also pretty attached to the kind of magic you have. And Canada, I think virtually all of you will come from Canadas when there are Canadas available."

"By 'magic' do you mean my Gift? Because damn right I'm attached to my Gift," he snorts.

"Sure, but most worlds don't have Gifts, they have other forms of magic, or in a few cases none at all. Your alts will do the same thing in different ways. My template has something like that too, except my world doesn't support it so I don't have a native version."

Luhan eyes her for a moment, then shakes his head. "We done here?"

"Sure, if you're through with my charming company," shrugs Glass. "Tab is the local me, she'll probably introduce herself and talk to you about Toronto in a short while."

He snorts.

Glass waves and leaves. "He's templatey," she reports. "Attached to the type of power - like Bells are - and to Canada."

"And none of you has heard of a Canadian man who self-regenerates?" says Aelise.

"No, but we can all check when we get home."

"He's not especially personable," says Glass. "Also sort of acted like he didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned his magic."

"There's a cultural thing about calling Gifts 'magic'. If you say otherwise I'll buy it."

"It's definitely magic. And that's not just my seeing rounding up; Peace's mutant powers don't register this way and they're just as good as the magic kind."

"I suppose using your perceptions as the litmus test at least gives an easy categorization. For you. If your perceptions are that clean-cut."

"I bet you Lazarus says the same thing when he sees Tab," says Glass.

"Magic in my world has genetic markers and interacts with advanced magical technology. Still magic," says Aurora.

Aelise shrugs.

"Speaking of going to see Lazarus, do we need to hang around here any longer? Should we just pack up some Kers ansible-halves, sweep Downside for more Gift alts, and move on? I mean, we are agreed that if anything needs doing about the dead babies and mind control thing Tab can do for the peal, right?"

"Grudgingly," mutters Golden.

"Your core staff is composed almost entirely of former serial killers," Tab says to Golden.

"How many ansible-halves do you think you're going to need?" says Kers. "I can do a bunch more connections like that, but not an infinite amount. And if they require active attention, there's going to be a problem when I sleep."

"Are you very attached to sleeping?" asks Tab brightly.

"And one per Belled world should do, optionally skipping either Chronicle or Sunshine but not both. We have regular contact with the other Jarvised worlds, but Jarvises do their own time-syncing amongst themselves."

"So, thirteen or fourteen? I think that's doable," says Kers. She smiles fondly at Tab. "And no, I'm not especially attached, although if your solutions to sleeping are particularly gruesome I might pass."

"Nothing gruesome! Just perpetually feeling like it's ten in the morning and you've had a cup of coffee," grins Tab. "Pealed Bells sleep only recreationally."

"In that case, hit me," says Kers.

Tab hits her. "Other superpowers for the two of you should probably wait till you have a full set picked out, because then I can stick them onto your torching all at once. Not that I expect either of you to need to torch."

"Ideally not," Kers agrees. "All right. Set for now? Tab, do you want an extra gem to carry around personally? For that matter, I think I want an extra gem to carry around personally, but installing it might get delicate and my usual connection is just fine for now."

"Yeah, I'll take a spare, if you can cover that many," says Tab. She conjures up a batch of the requisite size, including one with a charm that matches the dormant Jane-charm on her wrist. "I can probably wish the installation, if you wanted."

"...So, cyborg, Gift feature, other local oddity, what exactly is going on?"

"Cyborg," says Kers. "My Gift is an externally-focused multiple-target shield against various kinds of harm. I also happen to be hooked into the orbital ring's computer systems. And I think I'd rather wish the installation myself, Tab, if it's all the same to you. I'm the one who knows all my specifications."

"Sure," shrugs Tab, and she makes her three mirrory squares and hands them over.

"Sure." Tab scoops up all of the half-ansibles that will be remaining in Gift, and goes to plug them in. She is back a minute later. "All done. I guess we'll just stick the other halves in the Janepoints?"