"I believe you," says Bella.

"Stealing and coercing devices is part of their usual operating procedure," she says. "I've been after them for a few months now over a series of similar incidents."

"Yikes. What are you going to do with the other Devices? Do they have nice people to go home to?"

"Not all of them, unfortunately."

"Maybe I should set up, like, a Wielderless Device Shelter or something, I have room." She nibbles her lip. "I don't suppose any of them want to work with my sister?"

"I don't believe any of them have met your sister," says Matilda. "Nor have I, for that matter."

"I mean theoretically would they like to meet her and see if they'd get along."

"I'll ask."

"Cool. Brilliance has ethical qualms about making Devices smarter than amoebas." (Pet pet.)

"I can imagine why you might," she says.

"So. What's the TSAB exactly besides a body that can arrest pirates?"

"It's an interdimensional peacekeeping and administrative agency that claims jurisdiction over all mages."

"Okay, can I get, like, a list of things that the TSAB might inconvenience me about if I chose to do them?"

"If you're not hurting anyone or damaging the fabric of space-time, we'll usually leave you alone," she says. "Especially on a planet like Earth. There are a lot more regulations in places where magic is more common."

"Cool, I do not plan to hurt anyone - I was throwing around threats when Brilliance was being hurt but they started it, if anything like it happens again maybe I can just teleport them all to you and you can make them stop - and I'm starting with Earth and it'll probably take me a while - what constitutes damage to space-time? Does space-folding and so on count? This village doesn't do it, but that's a thing that minting and enchantments can do."

"No, deliberate local space-folding and so on don't count. Handling large amounts of mana improperly can cause local disturbances in the dimensional fabric," she explains. "The usual case is a couple of careless high-powered mages getting in a fight. It's a pain to clean up, and if the disturbance gets big enough before we catch it, there can be lingering temporospatial distortions that make life unpleasant for anyone nearby."

"Okay. I mostly use my other types of magic instead of fussing with mana and incantations, especially for big stuff. I'll warn my sister. Dimensional fabric disturbances don't sound like anyone's friend." Pause. "Do you believe me about having met others of you and so on or is the fact that Jane's down really hurting my credibility? I could tell you more stuff about the other yous if that'd help."

"I don't think it's very likely, but I'm not ruling it out, either. What sorts of things can you tell me about the other mes?"

Bella conjures up illusions of the two of them, complete with party nametags and (in one case) magical girl outfit. "Tilly's a wizard from a world called Syntropy. There's a Bell there - that's what my template is called, Bells - and a Joker, which is what Brilliance's template is called. The Bell is Cam and the Joker is Jellybean. Also wizards." They appear too, also nametagged. "The other one without a nickname doesn't have any templates we know about in her world - she named it Wellspring - except the ones that are attached to you, which are: horrible parents, horrible school principal called 'the Trunchbull', and a Jenny Honey who is the niece of the horrible school principal. Wellspring's magic system isn't like Syntropy's and Matilda unlike Tilly was working alone - Jellybean went to Syntropy Crunchem Hall, he met Tilly there - but in both cases, prodigy-early magic starting with telekinesis, showdown involving same with the evil principal, biological parents signed them over to their respective Jennies. I don't have a clear picture of what Matilda did after that, although she did get Shell Bell to bring her Jenny's parents back to life - Tilly couldn't do that, Syntropy doesn't interact correctly with the afterlife we've got access to - but Jellybean and Tilly went around touring the universe getting into trouble, introducing themselves to stars and trees and aliens, occasionally saving the lives of new wizards who were about to get killed by a sort of malevolent deitylike thing Syntropy has. That's how they met Cam, they saved him when he was fourteen - they're a little older than he is."

"Yeah. I didn't talk extensively to either one of them, we just met briefly at a party, so this is mostly secondhand from Cam and some from Jane."

"I am increasingly convinced that you've met a couple of my alternate universe duplicates."

"Spiffy. Yeah, I would otherwise be way more concerned about you, but unless you're way off-model I expect us to get along fine."

"Concerned about me?"

"Threat sensor doesn't think you're hostile, but it does think you're a big deal, so if you were an unknown quantity I would be on my guard in spite of the admirable pirate-arresting."