[Welcome back,] she says. [It hasn't quite been a year. Your parents are worried, but everything else is doing fine.]

[- Okay! It could've been worse! I will go smooth parental feathers, I guess. Thanks for holding down the fort.] He kisses Jellybean and teleports away.

[No problem. It was interesting, but I wouldn't want to do it forever. Good luck with your parents.]

[Nothing exceptional. I ran the company. We've expanded in a few directions. Would you like to read the reports? I'm very proud of my reports.]

[I would love to read the reports.]

[Come have a look, then. I'm at the office right now, catching up with Jellybean.]

Pop! "Hello in person."

"We went to meet the new Bell - her name's Aether - there'll be a party after everybody who's been cut off has had a nice long time to reunite with people - and her world has an irregular causality feature that made Glass throw up when she looked at it. It broke Jane but good. Aurora and Aegis are going to make Jane her own body so Aegis doesn't have to sit at home twiddling her thumbs to safeguard the interdimensional transit. It was only a few days for us, and that was more than enough - all kinds of things are dangerous there."

"Oh, dear," says Matilda. "Well, at least you're all back now."

"Yes. Thank goodness."

[Heyyyy I am so awake and functional lookit me. Also there is a Rainbow Matilda calling herself Agent Honey. She exists. This has been an announcement.]

[I am up in all of the places! Agent Honey has met Matilda and acquired Wellspring magic! Yep.]

[You're so cute,] giggles Matilda.

[I am recovering from the Jane equivalent of a head injury. Also I am in a body now.]

[Congratulations, if those are in order. I'd like to meet Agent Honey if you don't mind.]

[You want me to put you there or put her here or relay messages or what?]

[I'd rather she came here, but I can go there if that's her preference.]

[Hey Agent Honey! Tilly wants you to visit Syntropy!]

[That sounds fine to me,] says Agent Honey. She transports herself to somewhere convenient for Jane to pick her up from.

Yoink.

"Hi, Agent Honey, nice to meet you."

"I don't mind," shrugs Cam.

[Matiiiiiilda. I am alive again. Also Agent Honey and Tilly invite you to Syntropy to talk to Adularia.]

[I'd be delighted! Congratulations on your aliveness,] says Matilda, and she appears in front of the Wellspring Janepoint.

Yoink.

Cam laughs when the Matildas speak in sync.

"Congratulations."

"Maybe eventually I'll figure out what's up with the Powers and Ordeals and fix it up a bit, and then it'll be a worthwhile project to figure out how to wizard adults. There was a person in Materia who went in for deicide, it could be highly entertaining to throw her at Iggy," muses Cam, "if the world weren't a biohazard."

"Biohazard? But anyway Aether's new aura fixes that," chirps Jane. "Near her, anyway."

"Refresh my memory - Iggy?" says Agent Honey.

"Local evil deity, sends nastiness after newly oathed wizards," says Cam. "He is not actually named Iggy, that's just how he introduced himself to me when he was pretending to be a talking rock."

"Don't understand enough about how he works," Cam says. "He has either confused motivations, intensely variable competence, or some kind of agenda beyond my comprehension - his pattern of behavior doesn't make sense if he's trying to achieve some result, has as much power as it sometimes looks like he has, and works, psychologically, like all the other kinds of people we've met."

"The fact that this world isn't Downsideable has me nervous about making a move, in case he gets backed into a corner - or some alien-psychology equivalent - and kills a bunch of people I can't get back," Cam says. "He hasn't been making an unusual amount of nuisance of himself so far even though he considered me threatening enough back when I was newly wizardy to try to strike a deal with me."

"I haven't been able to acquire any good detail about this world's afterlife," says Tilly, "but I'm pretty sure at this point that it has some kind of a one."

"That does appear to be the way things are not-Downsideable, based on a sample size of one that isn't this one."

"Two. Aether has the same problem, although she knows more about her afterlife than you do."

"Interesting," says Tilly. "Should we investigate that more, I wonder? Do we know if resurrection works on locals? Is it safe to experiment?"

"Before the Downside glitch was fixed that caused forking," says Cam, "and there are certainly worse-case scenarios - I'm not sure the set of people I want to resurrect and the set of people you could talk me into experimenting on even intersect."

"Then I think," says Matilda, "you should probably find out what your afterlife is like."

"Yep. Tackling afterlives is a peal job, though, and I think everybody wants a settling period - well, enough of us do, anyway - that peal parties, let alone peal projects, are gonna have to sit for a few weeks."

"It can go on the to-do list," says Tilly. Her Adularia shimmers; she pauses, then smiles.

Cam laughs. "Welcome to the magic book club."

"Yes," says Agent Honey, "I've been told you're in a similar situation to me and Adularia, but I didn't get details."

Cam reaches into his backpack and takes out Grace. "This is mine." She turns into a hawk, on his shoulder, in a cascade of gold, and starts preening Cam's hair. "She's not very talkative with people other than me though."

"Neither is Adularia," say all three Matildas in chorus.

"Have you," Cam says, "become a hive mind?"

"Well, Grace is a daemon, like Pathalan or Neptune, although they're both chattier - I think the part where she was a notebook who could not in fact talk to anyone other than me affected Grace some." He pets her feathers.

"Adularia just doesn't like talking to anyone other than - us," says Agent Honey. "And occasionally another Device."

"Understood. No need to put yourself out on my account," says Cam. "It is, however, nice to meet you; welcome to Syntropy, and I appreciate the incidental triple- backup syncing."

"Or double in Wellspring's case, our new syncing solution is spread a little thin and only a majority of Belled worlds have instances," Cam allows. "How long has it been in Wellspring?"

"Expect so, yeah."

"That would be nice. Glass does not approve of those worlds at all. Although not as much as she does-not-approve of Materia, which has a whole separate issue."

"What is the issue with Materia?" asks Matilda.

"Anti-causality. Regularities of the place stop working if you look too hard or they feel like it."

[Aether's new aura will fix it within a limited radius,] reports Jane. [Systematic fixes aren't in the works as far as I know.]

"The Sunshine project might keep you occupied for a while if you're going to do them all. We might even find more, since they're so populous."

"That's all right. We have plenty of time," says Matilda.

"I approve of this attitude."

Tilly laughs and hugs him.

Hugs!

Yes. Those.