"Golden's daughter. She has magical truth-telling powers and runs Golden's PR department; if she tells you something true you're going to believe it. I imagine she's very effective at shutting down unwanted rumors."
"Yeah, except then, and then I suppose Elspeth's silence would be fairly damning. So perhaps it's just as well I don't have one, especially since by all accounts her father's not such a prize. I haven't gotten to meet him because Bells who aren't his wife make him uncomfortable, except Cam, who doesn't count."
"I could listen to you talk about your other universes all day."
"It's nice to have an audience who doesn't already know it all. The staff are mostly imports from other worlds already, or the multiverse doesn't fall under need-to-know and we don't hang out socially."
"There are twelve others of me," she concedes, "all of whom are more interesting than I am and told me all the highlights."
"One of them," says Bella, "is a naturally immortal witch whose soul takes the form of a talking screech owl. She has assassinated a president, defeated an archangel in single combat, rescued all of the dead shades from her Downside-incompatible worldsheaf from an eternity of sleepless despair, and co-founded the Belltower that allowed us to all find each other."
"But," says Ripper, "she's not standing here telling me all this." He winks. "And she's not single."
"And that's more interesting than the owl soul thing?" Pause. "I checked to see what my soul would be if I had an external one - they're a thing you can get, if you go to that world. I'm a firefly."
"I think that's some kind of kingfisher, but I don't know what kind," muses Bella. "I could conjure up one of the books of possible daemons to look it up and what it's supposed to mean, if you like."