Tanalin crawls out from under the table, stands up, and puts her hands on her hips.
"You found us extra parents," she accuses. "Did we not have enough of those already?"
"I'm sure you have plenty of parents," laughs Shell Bell softly. "We're not exactly that."
"We," says Shell Bell, with half an eye on the local Sherlock to gauge her reaction, "are alternate versions of your parents, from another world. There's lots of us, actually. More of me than anybody - the Bella who's your mom will be the thirteenth we've found."
Oooof course. Shell Bell would like a peek at that conversation. And she has an avenue for same.
"Kiawen has found us extras," says Sherlock, kneeling down to offer Cricket scritches. "I am sure Bella would be much obliged if you would let her know that interesting things are going on in the kitchen."
Shell Bell considers that statement, fails to derive firm conclusions, and decides to wait for the local Bella.
The local Bella appears presently. She's trailed by Kanim, and she's quite bewildered. "...Hello?"
"Hi! I'm Shell Bell. I'm an alt of you from another universe. There's eleven more of you and me in other worlds. One of your kids found a door to the interdimensional hub and spotted my girlfriend."
"The place Kiawen found a door to is called Milliways, but it's no longer the only way to get from place to place," says Shell Bell. "One of us brought in a -" She glances at the architecture. "...Distributed person, who can inhabit objects, like, this," she indicates her Janegem, "and move anyone she can see from such an object to anywhere she can see from such an object. We've also got a couple of shareable kinds of magic, both of which are really powerful with certain loopholes abused. You're not the only one with kids but you're the only one with a Sherlock and kids, so far. There's me, the one who brought in wish magic, one who's a witch - not of your kind; cats are not involved - and one who's an angel and one who's a vampire and one from a world with different vampires who was a vampire Slayer and the one who brought our distributed friend and one with no distinguishing features yet and the one who brought in enchanting and a boy one and an elf one and a sorceress one with a twin sister."