"We may tell Keziah soon, too. What do you think, is she ready to find out?"

"I don't know," says Damaris. "You're her mother, you figure it out."

Isabella laughs. "Do you think we should have told you earlier than we did?"

"I don't know," says Damaris.

"Well, I suppose we'll think about it. There's one more thing. In addition to the magic doors - which we haven't found any of in a long time, now - there used to be another way to get from world to world. But it's broken now," Isabella adds with a sigh. "It might unbreak, later, but we don't know when if ever that will happen."

"Who broke it?"

"We don't know how it broke. It might have died; it was a person. Her name was Jane, and she was an unusual sort of person who could reach into machines - like the interfaces at the oracles' retreats, or the spaceship - and become them. She became lots of machines on lots of worlds and connected them all together, and then she lost her connection - to here, or everywhere, we're not sure."

"Oh," says Damaris. "That's sad."

"It's very sad."

"That's a lot of yous," says Damaris. "And a lot of Daddys."

"Yes. The me's were called Bells. We didn't all have the same name, but all of our names had the sound 'bell' in them. The Daddies called themselves Jokers, after one of them who they thought was a particularly good example."

"Is Daddy not a good example of Daddy?" wonders Damaris. "I think Daddy is the best example of Daddy."

Daddy laughs.

"Daddy is the best example of Daddy. But the things he had in common with all the other versions of him were - most pronounced, in the one named the Joker. Closer to what seemed to be the template. Like a cookie cutter."

"Daddy, are you a messed-up cookie?" inquires Damaris.

"Yes I am," he says, ruffling her hair.

"He's a cookie with lots of frosting on," suggests Isabella, "so it's a little harder to tell what shape he is under all the tasty decorations." And she kisses Micaiah's cheek.

Damaris wrinkles her nose. "If you're going to start talking about how tasty Daddy is, I'm going to bed," she announces.

Isabella laughs. "Sleep well, my treasure."

"Goodnight," she says, and distributes hugs - one per parent - and goes to bed.

"That went well," Isabella remarks to Micaiah.

"Yeah, it did!"

"I think Keziah in six months or a year, perhaps."