"No! No, I just didn't think it was - for me. And apparently it is for at least one of me."

"It's a standard person-with-a-device thing," says Aurora. "I should really come up with a name for my kind of magic user, is 'sorceress' taken?"

"Sometimes used in lieu of explaining minting, but otherwise no."

"Standard sorceress thing, then."

"It's super cute," says Jellybean. "I kind of want to make out with you now."

"Uh, no thank you? Is this want going to distract you from helping me deal with - what you were summoned to help me deal with?"

"No," he says. "I mean, I want to make out with Cam too, kind of perpetually, but here I am standing around talking about stuff instead of dragging him into the orgy chamber and pouncing."

"After I've properly met the new Bells, Jellybean," laughs Cam. "And helped this one. So - you think it's your sister's fault? That's weird that you have a sister, I'm not actually sure if that's any less off-standard than me being a guy is."

"I don't know if it's her - and fault would be the wrong word - just - priorities, they're a thing, they're more salient to me than most maybe because if you guys have favorite people before you have significant others I'm not sure how you'd go about it."

"Yeah, I kind of muddled along with that box in the mental paperwork occupied by 'Renée I guess' for most of my life."

"What's a favourite person like," says Jellybean, "I don't even know."

"Well, I don't know what it's like not to have one - or not to be anybody's, for that matter, and if I'm going around boyfriend-acquiring Lexi could start anytime. I guess the only-child Bells could count on your parents that way, but -"

"Shit, and you couldn't, could you," murmurs Cam. "I bet they wouldn't tell you even if there was an answer."

"Yeah. I'm gonna have to talk to Golden, about her husband and her kid..."

"Oh, I know that one, Elspeth wins but then Golden has to go into retirement and be depressed forever," says Cam. "I think Angela's going to have multiple children and I have no idea what that's going to do to her."

"...You know, that's kind of fucked up," Jellybean remarks.

"You're telling me, but I don't know how to operate the way you operate, I don't really get what the way you operate is," shrugs Cam.

"Um... I love people," says Jellybean. "For a while 'people' was pretty much Matilda, and I guess that's kind of like having a favourite person, but only superficially, because now I love you too and it doesn't make sense in my head for that to be a competition. I mean, I'd rather fuck you than Tilly but that's because Tilly's not interested in fucking me. If I had to choose between rescuing the two of you from something I wouldn't be thinking about which one I liked more, I'd be thinking about which one I had a better shot at rescuing, which one could probably take care of themselves without me, which one would be better at helping me rescue the other one after, stuff like that."

"Well, yes, obviously that all factors in, but I - maybe we, I'm still not sure how off-center I am in this department - need to know what we'd do if it was really one or the other. If somebody's going to die and somebody's going to live - and it's for good, not 'oh we can just get them resurrected tomorrow' - and you have to pick - I have to know that. And - and I want to know what anybody who might pick me would pick. Lexi and I worked it out between ourselves, and I'd given up on our parents ever telling, and then - there was Brilliance." Her voice gets mousier as she proceeds through this paragraph.

"...well now I want to hug you," says Jellybean.

"That won't actually clarify matters," Aurora points out, but she holds out her arms.

"I know, but," he says, and he hugs her.

"You smell like candy," mumbles Aurora as she hugs him back.

"He does that. He's a Jellybean. He did it before too, but now it's enchanter's aura. You should get one."

"Yeah, I will, I just - have to figure stuff out. Order of operations. Aura is nice but not urgent." Aurora disentangles herself from hug. "Also 'Aurora's aura' will be a terrible tongue twister."