"So anyway in the department of Your Closely Related Bell Is Alarmed To Discover Your Existence, I have been there, do you want a hug?" Soph asks Helen.

"I will absolutely take hugs," says Helen.

Hugs!

"I know what I would have. It's a shiny cowbird. What's weird about it, though? Sherlock - the Sunshine one - Minus - has one but she's almost never out."

"Well - I just had the thought, 'oh, Kalavar isn't here, or she'd be trying not to maul your—' and then I realized I didn't even know what species you'd hypothetically get. Because you don't have a daemon. Kalavar's a teratorn," she adds by way of explanation. "Huge extinct birds, when she snuggles my friends' daemons she does it really carefully."

"I am led to understand that if I had my shiny cowbird I would be really unhappy if he got mauled. Bella - my one - would have a tiger though."

"Tigers are cool," says Helen. "Kalavar has never actually mauled anybody."

"That's good! Not-mauled magic talking soul animals are the best kind."

"Is two enough for a club?" muses Soph.

"It is if we say so!"

"Okay. We can hang out in Milliways and eat madeleines and drink interesting coffee beverages - well, do you drink coffee, you're thirteen, whatever, interesting hot chocolate variations - and stuff."

"I haven't tried coffee! I should try coffee," says Helen.

"It's an acquired taste, but I went and acquired it," giggles Soph.

Helen laughs.

"I started with mocha though, it's like beginner dessert coffee."

"Good to know."

"Should we all go and have coffee?" wonders Yseult.

"Maybe we should all go and have coffee!" says Damaris.

"Let's all go and have coffee! I don't have any alts of my own, I'm stealing you guys."

"I accept," says Yseult.

Helen laughs. "Awesome. And hey, I guess the bar thing's right here, isn't it? Right - where?" She looks around for an obvious way out of the tower.

"Uuum, Jane?"

"Just go out the tower front door and the bar is the only other building in evidence," says Jane serenely.