"What's a mage?" says Icarin. "Is it like a magician but shorter?"

Aurora laughs. "No, I'm precisely Glass's height. It's a kind of magic user from Rainbow. I actually don't know that much about the technical details of using it, because until I met Agent Honey the other day my only teacher was Brilliance, who wasn't really designed for teaching magic. But I assume we can conjure up a library at least as good as Rose's for Glass to play with. You will be hampered by the lack of Device, but maybe Jane will be back soon and Agent Honey can hook you up; she found a stray one that got along well with Lexi."

Icarin peers at Glass and Aurora as though trying to verify the assertion about their relative heights.

"We're all almost exactly the same height," laughs Shell Bell, "except when there's reasons for us not to be - Cam is taller, because he's a boy, I'm a little shorter because I didn't eat well growing up and Rose is between me and standard for similar reasons, Aegis is taller because she grew up in space. And if you count Angela's wings she's got a few inches even on Cam, but otherwise she's like everyone else."

"There's a one of you with wings? What kind? Is she a dragon?"

"She's an angel. They're big feathery wings - she looks like this." Aurora banishes previous illusions and replaces them with an Angela.

"Pretty," says Valeria, and she makes herself a pair of wings with a roughly similar shape - it's hard to see the details on hers, though, with the glowy undifferentiated whiteness.

Bells continue catching up with each other; if and when the duke and duchess's children become bored, Glass ferries them back home.

"No, it wouldn't," Glass says, squinting, "I think you'll all catch it like fire, it's sort of attached to you as a group - how much did I get?"

"I'm not completely solid on magic-seeing yet," says Agent Honey, peering back at her, "but I'm seeing high perception, medium-high entanglement - do you even know these terms?"

"Nnno, I was going to talk it over with Matilda or Tilly, whichever, and then - Jane broke."

"Okay," Agent Honey says cheerfully. "Short version: there are five qualities that dictate how you interact with magic. Perception is how well you understand the system intuitively; entanglement is how easily you can add new patterns or introduce variations on existing ones; handling is how much power you can use effectively at a time; storage is the maximum amount of power you can personally have 'on' you, so to speak; and generation is how fast you make more power. Your HSG is all within normal range, which I'm given to understand is not that normal for a Bell; your perception is unusually high, and your entanglement is on the high side of normal. These things can all increase over time, roughly in proportion to how much you started with, if you use magic a lot. Oh, and if you use magic a lot, there's a good chance your world will catch it and other people will start coming up with it, but that's generally considered a good thing because Wellspring magic is very very nice. Do you want me to conjure you a laptop with all the latest research notes on it? Will I have to explain laptops?"

"I know a few things about computers. Jane didn't break instantly on being introduced to me, and we talked. But - yes, explaining a few things about laptops would help. I'm not surprised my perception is high; I can see magic as an aura feature - although I can only interpret it once I've learned how; it's a bit like being able to see invisible ink written in all manner of foreign languages I can't even pentagon."

She snaps her fingers. A laptop appears. She hands it over and offers a short tutorial on how to navigate the file system, open files, and read them; it's reasonably intuitive, and the holographic three-dimensional interface is very pretty in addition to being easy to handle.

"...What?"

"Remember when I said Wellspring was related to the Sunshine family?" asks Glass slowly.

"Yeah, of course."

"I think the Sunshine magic system might be - on some level - the same as Wellspring magic. Except Wellspring is - nicer, newer, friendlier? The Sunshines are all Voices and Wellspring is Nathaniel? I don't know. And you already had statistics in the system, but they were blocked up, and now you've sort of - stepped sideways into a version of the system that your opacity doesn't object to so much."

"You have all these patterns stuck to you," says Agent Honey. "They were barely visible before, I just took them for random noise, but I can see them more clearly now. It definitely looks like you're from another world where the same magic system has been used in a completely different way for hundreds or thousands of years. I mean, I wouldn't have previously thought I'd recognize that if I saw it, but... there it is."

"Sunshine family magic is terrible. I haven't touched it - I tried, when I was less well-informed, but it's dangerous as all get out, addictive, involves treating with semi-hostile powers, etcetera - I would never have guessed it."

"Well, that explains why the patterns you've got are all so... icky," she says. "Do you want a laptop too? Maybe if you stick to my world's spells, you'll have a positive influence on your world's patternspace. Your entanglement's not terrible."

"Yes please. And I understand how to laptops. You don't think I'll get hooked on Wellspring magic if I use it in Sunshine?"