It takes a little while after the end of the party, but eventually the royal couple does leave the royal suite. Howard's first stop is the Skyvault; Marianne's first stop is the location of her daughter-in-law.

"Hello, Marianne," says Bella. She is in the new library with Carinna, alternating between reading and explaining to her eldest that if she's going to carry triangles around with her she will have to be responsible with them.

"Hello, Bella," says Marianne. "If you'd like to meet my husband, he's inspecting the Skyvault."

"Thank you," says Bella, and she closes her book, picks up Carinna, and goes out to the Skyvault.

Howard is wearing a shirt and trousers that look like they've been on the floor of someone's closet for approximately eleven years. Right now, his inspection of the skyvault seems to consist of tapping it lightly with his knuckles and listening to the sound.

"Hello," says Bella. "I'm your daughter-in-law, Bella."

She shakes hands with the one that isn't carrying his grandchild. "It's nice to meet you."

"Bella said you're my grandpa," says Carinna, regarding Howard suspiciously.

"Yep," says Howard. "That's me."

"Oh," says Carinna. She contemplates this information. "I already have one of those."

"You have two grandmas," Bella tells her, "and now you have two grandpas, too."

"Yeah," says Howard, "and I've got three grandchildren. Never thought I'd see the day," he laughs.

"It was somewhat magically challenging."

"I'll bet! Can't even imagine what kind of spell you used."

"I've got the notes around somewhere if you'd like a look! Kanim helped, too. It was mostly sorcery, and a touch of unicorn magic."

"Unicorn? Why unicorn?" says Howard, fascinated.

Glass laughs, makes a square, and calls her notebooks about the subject over; she sets Carinna down. She flips through the pages. "See, here, there was this gap, where the sorcery was perfectly happy to assemble the material and perfectly happy to make sure it went where it was going and grew there, but it wouldn't bridge the gap between the two, it couldn't cover it, without the unicorn part we spliced in this would basically amount to guaranteeing more traditional conception and obviously in our case that didn't help."

Howard snorts. "No kidding. Nice workaround. Who came up with it?"

"Me, but Kanim was the one who first noticed there was a gap, he was trying to fix it with elf magic but the unicorn idea turned out to be more elegant."

"Very nice," says Howard. "Now, did somebody say something about a flying suit of armour...?"

"Oh, yes, Tony made me one before I even married Sherlock, but she's still working on hers, she's trying to get it to fly without a cape attached and can't make it work."

He laughs. "That's my Tony. Never satisfied until she's done the impossible."

"She's made other things in the interim, too, and sometimes the girls go into the forge and poke hot scrap metal - they do the same thing with me and my workshop and hot glass, there are abstract little ornaments all over the place that they presented to us or to Marianne."

"Tony used to do the same thing," says Howard, laughing and shaking his head. "But she didn't start giving away the results until they did something."

"They do things!" says Carinna. "They are pretty."

"Yeah," says Howard with a grin, "exactly."

"How lost are you on how exactly you came to be alive again?" inquires Bella. "I can fill you in on the details of what's happened."

"I'm... pretty confused," he admits. "But Marianne says you did it using magic from another world and there's no hidden catch. There isn't, right?"

"No. Except insofar as being unable to die twice is a catch," says Bella. "If something happens to you that would kill you, you reset on the spot - it's called torching. Also I'm told that Jane is technically nonmagical, and she doesn't show up to my magic sight, but she's probably easier to think of that way regardless."

"I think being unable to die twice is the opposite of a catch," says Howard.

"Oh, I agree, I'm outfitted with the same thing now, so are the girls and Sherlock and Tony, but it is worth warning about; before my alts took over the afterlife we fetched you from it was a nasty place full of things not suitable for little-Carinna-ears and the torching mechanic was abused."

"Gotcha," says Howard.

"What's not suitable for little-Carinna-ears?"

"Tales of woe. You know you don't like sad stories," says Bella. She banishes her notes whence they came and picks up her child again. "They make you cry for such a long time."

(Nice dodge.)

"Have you talked to Sherlock and Tony yet? Or seen either of the other girls?" Bella asks her father-in-law.

"Nope."

"Do you want to go find them, or are you not done checking up on how the Skyvault's been doing these eleven years?"

"Not just yet," he says, patting the steel arch fondly.

"All right," laughs Glass. She picks up Carinna. "Well, for reference, the other two are Tanalin and Kiawen, Tanalin has an inch on Kiawen for the time being and Kiawen wears more blue if you can't tell them apart to start with."

"They are not exactly twins!" exclaims Carinna.

"Does that mean they're exactly not twins?" says Howard.

"It means they were conceived at the same time to the same parents but didn't share their real estate and were born a day apart," laughs Bella.

"They're just like twins, except for not being twins," says Carinna.

"Well, that clears that right up."

"Doesn't it just?" laughs Bella, and she strolls back to the castle with Carinna in tow.