"Will do."

"So let me guess," she says, "you're on Milliways summoning duty?"

"Yeah."

"Wanna see a neat trick?"

"Depends completely on the trick."

Callahan beams innocently.

"Amariah said you wouldn't open a door for her even when she offered to trade you her spiffy knife she killed a god's right-hand angel with. So if that's it I must be way charminger than everyone thinks I am."

"I might open a door," she says. "Or I might cut your head off. Only one way to find out. You guys like experiments, don't you?"

"Controlled ones. Also last time somebody tried to kill me it was way classier than decapitation."

"No such thing," Callahan says promptly.

"No, it really was, they got hold of a superweapon that wasn't supposed to be anywhere in the solar system and launched it at my ship."

"I mean," she says, "no such thing as a classy way to die."

"I didn't die," says Aegis. "Technically. Some of us have died, though. None of it was very classy but there was definitely an ordering, you've got your car crash and your misaimed magic and your assisted suicide to escape a magic bond and your nuclear explosion." She makes gestures, ranking these from least to most classy.

"Hmm. I disagree," says Callahan. "Dead is dead. How you got there only matters to the people who write the ballads."

"Dead isn't very dead for those ones. We get to - well, actually none of 'em wrote ballads, but Juliet amuses herself telling the story sometimes."

Callahan snorts derisively.

Aegis shrugs.

She shakes her head. "You're not nearly as much fun as I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?" shrugs Aegis, swaying. "Like, I'm usually all kinds of interesting, but right now I'm kinda preoccupied, I miss my boyfriend and Jane and stuff and your world is kuso, I want to go home."

"Nah," says Callahan, "I think you're just naturally boring."

"Okay, I'll just open some more doors I guess," shrugs Aegis, and she floats towards the next one.

Callahan smirks.

Callahan snorts and walks away.

The Bells who can teleport bring those who cannot to Aegis's side, and they all cram through the door eagerly.