Here is Amariah, looking like she has had her - well, not her soul stepped on, her soul is sitting on her shoulder in perfect physical health - but at any rate like she is in very poor emotional shape.

And there is Aether, looking totally out of her depth.

"Wow, hi," says Tony, taking a seat. "You look - unhappy. I barely know what's going on, but I guess that might conceivably make me a better person to rant to? Jane just said 'spontaneous teenage relative' and I'd give good odds you didn't get hit with a Soph."

"No, her name is Helen. I hear Juliet has a sister now. I have a - a daughter."

"...Wow," says Tony. "Okay. What, like - happened?"

"Kas had her. He wasn't trying to have her be anybody's in particular but his, I guess, but the wish - filled in the gap. She looks like a thirteen-year-old Damaris or Yseult, I recognized her right away when she showed up. I was gone a long time."

"At least thirteen years, I guess," says Tony. "Wow. I'm sorry."

"Sixty-six. He didn't have her immediately. I mean, I understand he'd be lonely, I just wish he'd addressed that by - talking to the harpies or hanging out with that bear he was friends with or meeting new people - I could even get it if he'd met someone and fell in love with them and wanted to have kids with them - but this is so much worse."

Tony nods.

"We never talked about having kids. Not even the perfunctory conversation about prophylactics - witches can't get pregnant until the first time we want to, it's supposed to be literally impossible for me to have a surprise kid even more than it would be for anyone else - and - Now if I ever want to, the one we would've had is already grown, she's probably already settled and separated, at thirteen - if she's even going to settle, if she's even separating, she was wearing mortal clothes when I saw her. I don't know anything about how he's bringing her up - culturally, personally, induction into the mysteries of the multiverse; she didn't look surprised when she saw me but who knows why that would be. I don't know what possessed him to spontaneously reproduce at all, let alone anything about what he opted to do once he'd managed it. I wouldn't have wanted to name her Helen. I wouldn't have left her alone for thirteen years. Even if I hadn't meant to have her. If I'd gone home and he'd presented me with a newborn I could - I'd be mad, I'd be bewildered, but I'd step in. It's not like I'd decided to be eternally childless, you know? And now the - possibility I was supposed to have is gone. I'm not even old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter. I am only seven years older than her."

"That really sucks," says Tony. "On the subject of not being old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter, I can say some stuff about when I was thirteen if you want, Sherry wouldn't mind."

"- Yes, actually, that hadn't occurred to me, but yes."

"Also kind of relevant to spontaneously having children, I guess," he says. "Except that wasn't really what I was after, I just - I was a bored, lonely genius and I thought I probably could clone myself if I tried, and I'm not even sure I was expecting it to work, and then suddenly there was this baby and he had needs and I kind of freaked out and by the time I'd almost started to figure out what to do with him, he was practically my age and I had a whole different set of problems. Which I will totally talk about at length if you want, but I don't really know where it stops being relevant for you, you'll have to tell me."

"I'm not sure. It's probably closer to relevant than most things? I'm not sure anyone has had my exact problem before, so."

"- Yeah, quite apart from whether Kas thought through the effect on me I don't know if he fully thought through the effects on Helen. Even if it'd turned out how he wanted to and she was just some random kid, I was always going to come home eventually and then she'd have a - we aren't married, so not a stepmother, but the same general idea - who was there first and simultaneously had no idea she existed. And instead she's mine and she's been growing up without a mom except insofar as Kas counts, so even if I'd talked to Yseult and Damaris more I wouldn't know that much about her, I don't know how that will have affected her, I don't know what if anything she wants from me now, and I don't feel like I can ask her till I'm more calmed down and have read these - postcards. He wrote me a lot of postcards while I was gone." She brandishes her postcard bag.

"Huh," says Tony. "Postcards. Okay. Um, well, is this," he gestures between the two of them to indicate their conversation, "helping with the calming down part?"

"Yes. I am calming down," says Amariah. "Probably I'll be fit for innocent-thirteen-year-old company any minute now."

Tony smiles wryly. "Okay, good."

"You are totally getting a second recommendation next time a Bell comes down with Spontaneous Teenage Relative Syndrome."

"I appreciate it." Amariah closes her eyes. "I suppose the option of pastwatching her childhood exists, but that might make it worse. I can't exactly go 'no, I don't like the name Helen' or 'why are you letting her eat that bug' and have it change anything."

Tony winces. "You don't like her name? Ouch."

"I know, right? Don't tell her," says Amariah ruefully. "It's not terrible, it's not like he called her Euphemia or something, just - I definitely would not have named her that."

"Yeah," says Tony. "On the other hand, at least she has a name."