Pen even recognizes some of them! She identifies some things she would voluntarily eat.

Miles is by no stretch a cook, but he can warm up things that need warming and introduce food items to dishes and locate cutlery. He does that.

And Pen eats with a very healthy small-angel appetite.

Goodness.

"Mother!" Thank God. "So, supposing your only known point of entry into the multiverse was a mysterious bar named Milliways with a habit of capriciously usurping arbitrary doors, and supposing you had someone in another universe you urgently wanted to talk to, what would you do?"

"Ask Simon if he knows anything," is her immediate response.

"Yeah, that's about what I was thinking."

"Who he?"

"My boss. He has a perfect memory and he knows a lot of nosy people who might've heard rumours about someplace like Milliways if there were rumours to be had."

"Okay. I brainphone?"

"I think I'll call him first, in case he's busy. Shouldn't take long."

"'Kay."

Off goes Miles. Miles calls Simon.

Miles blinks. "What? What'd I do?"

"I have never before seen you with quite that expression on your face. Please, tell me the scope of the incipient disaster so I can decide whether to retire on the spot."

"...Possible source of instantaneous interstellar person-to-person communication," he says. "In the form of, um. I fully acknowledge how crazy this is going to sound. An eight-year-old girl with functional angel wings, who showed up tracelessly in some nameless street in the capital, where Ivan Vorpatril found her and rescued her from some nasty customers who probably objected to the wings, and claims she got here via the malfunctioning door of a magical multiversal bar called Milliways. Apparently her parents are some kind of interdimensional big shots. I have verified the magical person-to-person communication, though not whether it obeys the speed of light. I can add you to the circuit; it will involve a little girl saying hello in your mind, and then you'll have 'brainphone' access to - well, currently, me and my mother and the interdimensional eight-year-old."

"You're right," he says. "It sounds extremely crazy. Your mother is involved? Let's hear from her, please."

Miles fetches his mother.

"Hello, Simon. Miles is not experiencing bizarre delusions, nor is he playing some kind of elaborate joke."

"...Demonstrate this 'brainphone' phenomenon to me, then."