"Or he could bring you back to Sunshine and you could see if you can raise the dead," Juliet says.

"I don't know if I can, yet. I'd like to, but if a star can do it at all, I don't think it'll matter if I wait a year to have a better-stabilized empire to put the resurrected people in," says Shell Bell. "I don't think the other mints have tried it either. Angela would think Jovah takes charge of the dead and Stella - doesn't know that many dead people, although I think it's on her list for after things are stabilized, too."

"All right," he says. "I'll try Milliways before suicide or murder."

"Thank you."

"Time to go to the beach and play with fire?" asks Shell Bell.

She's so lovely when she does that.

Mid-kiss, he says, [Later tonight I will research the addiction potential of pleasant biting.]

[Oh good. Because then we will know, and knowing is half the battle. The other half will be getting past Amariah's bayleaf.]

[Which I've done,] he says cheerfully.

[Oh yes, I suppose her boyfriend probably has one. Then the other half will be getting a reasonable block of privacy without Shell Bell winking at me.]

[Impossible.]

[Well, possible, but only if I actually ask her not to wink at me, which would be just as bad really.] Mmmm kisses. [She's probably winking right now in spite of the fact that I've got my eyes closed.]

[Learn to ignore her,] he suggests. [Or wink back.]

[I suppose. ...Hey, is Tony putting Jarvis-cameras everywhere...?]

[Yes. If you don't want him watching us, you can ask him not to look.]

[And he won't, as opposed to just pretending not to but actually doing so anyway. I've barely met him, perhaps I wouldn't ask that if we were old friends.]

[And he won't. Any room without cameras and sound pickups is a room he cannot enter; he prefers to have as few of those as possible, but is willing to leave temporarily on request.]

[That's fair. Does he usually come with moving parts - little robots - or does he just be a house?]

[He is a house. He doesn't like the idea of having little robots.]

[Why not?] They're not kissing any more, just hugging - snuggling-standing-up, more like - and brainphoning. Shell Bell has been flying around, cackling at her own speed, since the fire wand practice concluded.

[Ask him. Perhaps he'll tell you.]

[I will when he boots up. What's the ETA on that?]

[Soon. A few more days,] he says.