"Not that I would know."

"Me neither," says Damaris.

"Yeah, me neither," Helen agrees. "I wonder why that is? I wouldn't mind one or anything."

"Search me. I'd offer to set you up with somebody or something but I know - peal people who you could find yourself and not all that many of those - and my school friends who don't know about Things In Capital Letters, so."

"I don't have any," says Damaris.

"You have sisters though, does that help?" Soph asks Damaris.

"Well, yes. But I am not going to suggest that Helen date them."

"Yeah, that'd be weird," Soph agrees, making a face. "I just meant for the nobody-knows-all-this-stuff-and-that's-kinda-lonely thing."

"Yes. The sisters help with that."

"And on your world everybody knows everything?" Soph asks Yseult, not quite sure if she remembers right.

"Everyone knows about enchanting. Not everyone knows about other worlds, or other kinds of magic. But plenty of people do; it's not secret, just not common knowledge."

"By rights more people in Sunshine ought to know about magic. It's not really uncommon, especially in the town where we live. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is just pretending not to know and doesn't know everyone else is pretending. Like we're all putting on a no-magic-themed improv play together without knowing it."

"But how would you find out? You'd have to tell somebody, and then if they didn't know, they'd - look at you funny."

"Well, yeah. And I mean, I remember finding out when I was, um, hallucinating being sixteen, so probably some people really don't know, like, I found out because my sister was the Slayer."

Helen nods. "Yeah. It must be so weird living in a world where most people don't know about magic," she says. "I get a little of that when I'm out around mortals - they sort of know it exists but they don't really know much about it, you know? Even though there's the thing with the afterlife. But I guess that's different from what witches do."

"What is the thing with your afterlife? I sort of heard the adventure-story-type leadup, it was when Bella found out she would have a tiger if she got a daemon, but I don't know what actually happened at the end except that it seemed reasonable to summarize it as 'then Amariah made everything better'."

"Oh - well, the dead have their daemons now, or their daemon-parts if their worlds don't have those. And they can contact the living in dreams, and if enough people want them and the harpies let them out, they can come back as revenants. My grandpa Charlie's a revenant," she adds.

"Good for alt-of-Dad," says Soph.

She laughs.

"What do he and Mom have how they are in your world, for daemons?"

"Castarilan - Granatee's daemon - is a broad-tailed hummingbird, and Charlie's Kesathi is a wolverine."

"I guess my parents wouldn't necessarily have the same things. A tiger isn't very much like a little puffy owl."

"Pathalan is little and puffy," says Helen. "Tigers are not those things. Well, I guess they could be puffy if they had very fluffy fur."

"I saw the illusion tiger. It was super puffy, and about the size of a sedan, it was ridiculous."