"I am a big deal," Matilda says serenely. "If I wasn't a big deal, I would be kind of concerned about you."

"If you knew the other twelve of me you would not be concerned. We are nice," says Bella merrily.

"Most people are, once you get to know them."

"So there aren't a lot of regulations about handling Earth? That is good because I have been up to things on Earth."

"What kind of things?"

"Uh, eliminated a number of common diseases, reversed some desertification in Africa, fixed some failing Pacific fisheries, cleared Southeast Asia of land mines, for my mom's birthday I hid a lot of extra panda bears in various parts of China and they'll be found any day now, that sort of thing, and I'm in talks with assorted world leaders to reveal my existence and explain all of these phenomena and allow people to start colonizing this planet we're on now."

"Speaking of which, where did this place come from?"

"It's a copy of a planet in another dimension that I liked. One of Brilliance's alts was visiting and thought it'd be funny to give me one closer to home," says Bella.

"And which kind of offworld magic does casual conjuring of planets?"

"Minting. It might be possible to do it with enchanting... hmmm. Yeah, I could enchant a little one, if I really wanted to for some reason. More efficient to do it with minting though."

"Good to know," says Matilda.

"This one was made with minting, anyway, I would've noticed if he'd enchanted it."

"Oh?"

"Minting is amenable to magic storage and enchanting isn't," explains Bella. "And I was looking right at him when he did it."

"Aha. How do these things work, exactly?"

"If you tell me that your magic is powered by the souls of the damned, or something similarly unpleasant, I might have to pass it on," she says. "But if the information isn't concealing harm, I don't see why it has to go any farther than me and my partner." She pats the cover of the book, which is still tucked under her arm.

"No souls of the damned. Overwhelming net benefit to damned souls. People vary on how unpleasant they find the idea, though."

"What did the other Matildas think of it?"

"I haven't spoken to them personally, but I don't think Tilly and Cam have had a falling-out and they show up to the parties and stuff."

"Then I think it'll be fine. Go on."

"Okay. Enchantment hurts as a byproduct of the spellcasting. Since it's a bad idea to lose control of an enchantment while you're doing it, we channel through helpers - consenting helpers. Although Sarion can do it by herself because she learned an elf meditation thing, but that's beside the point. And minting also hurts - that's how you make minting-type magic, is you take pain and turn it into a sort of a coin, like -" She nibbles her lip, makes a triangle, holds it up. "The more points, the more pain was invested in it, and the more it can do. Again, this is all consensual." (She pets Brilliance.) "Stella and Golden and Pattern have staff who do it, and the rest of us - including Stella - have significant others who do it."

Matilda shrugs. "That all seems fine to me."

"Okay. Some people are kinda weirded out. I was kinda weirded out, at first." She puts her coin away in her sorting wish.

"How exactly do you get these unnerving otherworldly powers?"