"So hi!" says Tony. "What's this about favours?"

"I am a witch, as opposed to a z- as opposed to being not a witch, like my alt who assures me she's not a zombie," says Isabella. "I can do magic. Witches trade favors, instead of currency, so I don't have any currency, and neither has Shell Bell for what I imagine are different reasons. If you want to fund a Bell-Tower until we locate an alt with deep pockets -" She glances at Bell's wader pants, which have no pockets. "With pockets at all, to take over the payments, I will be happy to do you a favor. Nothing too unethical, please."

"Sure, okay," says Tony. "What kind of magic, though?"

"...Witch magic. Shell Bell, can your cunning device repeat my description so I don't have to?"

"Huh," says Tony. "Okay. I will think of something not-too-unethical for you to do, and in the meantime, you can have your Bell Tower. Which is an adorable name, by the way."

"Well, 'Bell' seems to be the consistent part of the name. I'm just Bell, and I think most of the alts I've heard about go by Bella which is short for Isabella, and they share my surname but I don't think this one does. So, Bell-Tower. Besides, it was my idea."

"Witches don't do surnames. If you have the same parents - except for not a witch mother - you'd be a Swan?" guesses Isabella.

"Bell Swan, that's me," confirms Shell Bell. "The shell part is just a nickname."

"An adorable nickname," says Kas.

"Thanks?" says Shell Bell, shrugging. She's not really clear on why two of her seem to have wound up with versions of Mr. Here's A Shotgun Shoot Me Please. Even if Isabella and Kas seem to be just friends.

"It'll probably serve as a suitable unique nickname for when there are half a dozen of us all together and we're trying to keep each other straight, anyway," says Isabella. "I'll go with Amariah, I suppose. Or everyone could just address Path instead of me if they're all z- persons with interior daemons."

Kas snickers. "You and your fuckin' zombies," he says affectionately.

"I am missing something," Tony observes. "Buuuut that's not news."

"The small animals are their souls," Bell says. "Isabella is creeped out that we don't have them and says that I must have a version of her owl 'curled up asleep inside me somewhere' or we cannot actually be alts."

"Yeah, um, some worlds have souls, some don't," says Tony. "Mine does! And if you take somebody's soul away, creepy unpleasant things happen. But I know there's a bunch of worlds where there is not even a thing like that at all and people get along fine."

"How can you take someone's soul away if it's not outside of them, being a daemon?" asks Isabella quizzically. "Does it involve surgery?"

"Noooo," he says. "Souls aren't physical, they're just—um okay, so my world has vampires, and if you get turned into a vampire, you become a selfish people-eating asshole version of you. But the soul is still around in some kind of weird metaphysical way, and apparently there are a few spells that'll put it back, and then the vampire starts paying attention to stuff like 'eating people is bad' again."

Isabella shudders. Pathalan hops from her shoulder to her hand and she holds him to her chest.

"Sorry," he adds.

"I've heard of a vampire version of us, but I think she must be a different kind. At least, she doesn't eat people. I don't think she has an external Pathalan."

"Am I the only one with an external Pathalan?" says Isabella incredulously. "A handful of worlds with people who have no daemons is one thing, but it's another to find that daemons are the exception. Haven't any of you ever seen someone with a daemon in here before? You've been here before, many times, right?"

"I've been coming here for twelve years," says Matilda. "I've seen a few people who might've had daemons—they were glowy in almost the same way—but I never talked to any of them, so I don't know for sure."

"Weird," says Isabella, shaking her head. "I wonder if your souls would come out and be daemons if they went to my world, that being how my world works?"

"Doesn't having your soul on the outside make it - him - vulnerable? What happens if something happens to him?" asks Shell Bell. "I'm not sure I'd want to risk it, even though having a daemon to talk to does sound useful."