Even though it went so well last time, Carinna's reserves of bravery are not infinite, and now she is sticking to her sisters.

Kiawen doesn't mind!

Kiawen agrees completely. Her piano bear Keys is sitting on her shoulder, wearing a tiny waistcoat.

"Do you want food? I might want food."

Carinna looks at large amounts of unrecognizable food before settling on some clearly identifiable strawberries with chocolate on them.

"I enjoy these little snacky things in particular!" concludes Tanalin of the eclairs. "They're puffy and tasty."

"Are they sweet, or... what?" says Carinna, suspicious of the eclairs.

"They're sweet and kind of cake-ish with chocolate on them and this creamy airy sweet stuff inside," says Tanalin, displaying a bitten eclair.

"Oh, that sounds nice." Carinna takes one too.

Tanalin scarfs down the rest of hers.

"Ooh, tiny cupcakes," says another girl, approaching the tiny cupcakes (which are close by the eclairs). She is sitting on a hovering pine branch, barefoot, wearing a lot of black silk arranged in mysterious configurations. And no nametag.

"You don't have a nametag," observes Carinna. This is consternating!

"Where are you from? You look kind of familiar, are you a template? We're Glass's kids, we're from Chronicle."

"Alethia," she says. "I'm the same template as Yseult and Damaris."

"Oh, so you're our cousinoid!"

"I guess!" she says, and takes another cupcake.

"Are those good?" wonders Tanalin.

"They are tiny and cute and delicious!" says Helen.

"Ooh," says Tanalin, and she grabs one.

"Kalavar's outside. She's kind of huge, so it'd be hard not to bump into anybody in here. And bumping into people would be bad."

"I like the tiny cakes!" says Tanalin. "They're tiny and cake-y."

"Apparently it's a template thing," she says, "my alts would both have enormous birds too."

"We don't have any alts. I wonder if we'd have the same animals if we did. I don't even know what we'd have. Bella said it doesn't stay put till you're - well, our age, I guess, I asked when we were ten."

"I'm not going to have any alts. Bella and Sherlock are going to tell the others not to make any."

"...Why not?" says Helen, cautiously.

"I asked them to. I don't think there should be more."

Kiawen pats Carinna's elbow. "She's very sensitive, even though we live in the nicest world."

"That's why I tell her about foods!" says Tanalin, beaming at her sisters and raiding the buffet table for a wee pie. She takes a bite and proclaims, "Tiny apple pie! I'll check to see if there's more kinds."

"Thanks," says Carinna.

"I'm not a very good food tester, I like everything."

Tanalin begins to systematically investigate the wee pies.

"Awww," says Helen.

"I can't remember which of Bella it is in Alethia. I mean, I guess it's the one with the soul animal, but I can't remember her peal name."

"Amariah. She's a witch," says Helen. "An Alethia witch - I guess there are different kinds."

"Chronicle has two all by itself! We're part fire-witch, just a little -" Kiawen pats the bottom of a chafing dish full of sausages illustratively. "On Sherlock and Tony's side. And Bella's a magician, which means she does all kinds of magic including witching, but not fire witching because that's a family thing."

"And we have friends from Toure-en-Marsh who are entirely fire-witches."

"Witching is just about the only available kind of do-able magic in Alethia - well, the subworld I'm from, I guess I don't know about the rest. And it's hereditary. You're either a witch or you're not, and witches' kids are witches if they're girls and not if they aren't."

"That doesn't seem very fair!"

Helen shrugs. "I guess it's not."

"Maybe her Bella is going to fix it?" Kiawen suggests to Carinna. "For boys who want to be Alethia witches."

"Maybe."

"...I'm not sure there are any of those," says Helen. "I guess it's always possible." She looks at Carinna, and decides not to continue on to mentioning the possible negative social repercussions of such a change.

"Which ones are peach?"

"The ones with the little spirals!"

Carinna takes a spiral pie and bites it.

"Why wouldn't boys want to be witches?" asks Kiawen.

"I don't know, I just can't think of any I've ever met who did. Which means there's probably not lots, even if there's some."

"Huh. I guess most not-fire witches at home are girls. Not anywhere near all, though."

"It's something about the way the magic works, in Alethia."

"But most magicians are boys. Not by as much, I think. Bella's best friend is another magician and he's a boy. So I wonder what you'd get if you counted all the magicians like they were witches? I mean, they mostly sort of are."

"I have no idea," says Helen.

"Apparently there are entire worlds without magic."

"I talked to somebody from one! I think so, anyway, if they have magic it isn't very practical. She said they can't even stack rooms, there."

"Stack rooms?"

"Make them be all in the same place."

"Alethia magic can't do that either," says Helen.

"What can it do?"

"Things," she shrugs. "Mostly subtle things. Making sick trees healthy, lighting fires, stuff like that. Sometimes bigger stuff, though, like flying," and she gestures to the branch on which she sits.

"Chronicle witches ride broomsticks too. Except Bella doesn't like them. She has flying armor and a flying carpet and she can just plain fly."

"Alethia witches ride cloud-pine," says Helen. "It's a special kind of pine. Amariah made her palace be a giant one. And because my daemon's so big, I can ride her, but I don't know of anybody else who can do that with theirs."

"Broomsticks on Chronicle can be made out of anything. They don't even really have to be broomsticks. You can make flying laundry baskets, if you want!"

"...Flying laundry baskets actually sound a lot more stable," she muses. "I mean, if it was a big enough basket. You could sit in it. Falling off of cloud-pine branches isn't a huge widespread problem or anything, but something basket-shaped has more of a sense of... snugness to it."

"Yeah, it's only they're not very aerodynamic, and hard to steer."

"I can imagine!" she says. "Maybe if it was more... boat-shaped? Like, I don't know, a flying kayak."

"Oooh, flying boats," says Tanalin. "I want a flying boat! I'm gonna ask Tony to make a flying boat."

"That sounds like fun! It could have sails! You could sail around in the clouds!"

"If she makes it big enough for more people, we could sail around in the clouds!"

"I like just plain magic flying best, I think. It just sort of works without being all complicated."

"We can sail around in the clouds and you can fly next to us like a sky dolphin!"

"This is such a great idea," says Tanalin.

Helen giggles.

"That does sound fun," admits Carinna.

"I have fun ideas," says Kiawen.

"You do! You're a fun person."

Tanalin giggles.

"What is that, by the way? It looks like a tiny panda," says Helen. "A really adorable tiny panda. In a really adorable tiny waistcoat."

"This is Keys! He is my piano bear. I made him the waistcoat so he would be able to get dressed up for the party, too." (Kiawen is in a pretty princess dress being a pretty princess.) "Piano bears are from the Gentle Cave, like fluffbats -" She waves at Sunrise. "And poofs. Carinna has a poof."

Carinna takes Mossy out of her pocket.

"So many small cute fluffy things!" says Helen.

"The Gentle Cave is the best cave," says Tanalin. "I love my fluffbat."

"A couple of people have taken poofs home with them who don't even live in Chronicle. This is because poofs are obviously best."

"It is very round and fluffy," says Helen. "I think Petaal might want to be one."

"Maybe!"

"Petaal's one of the soul animals, right? One who can change?"

"Yeah, she's Kas's daemon. All Joker daemons can change," says Helen. "There's something like four of them now."

"How come they can?"

"Because they're peculiar!" says Helen. "I don't know. Usually daemons change when you're little, and then settle into something when you grow up, something that suits who you are. Jokers just... don't ever settle. It makes sense to me but I don't know if that's just because I grew up with Kas and Petaal around being themselves all the time."

"Huh. Bella, our one, checked what she'd have if she had a daemon. She got a kind of flying squirrel."

"Huh," says Helen. "Amariah has an eastern screech owl."

"I wonder why alts wouldn't all be the same."

"Well... because alts aren't all the same," says Helen. "I have alts and they're like me but they're not... me. And not me enough to have teratorn daemons, apparently."

"I wouldn't know, I don't know anybody with a soul animal besides you and I don't have any alts and I'm not going to. They all look the same, more or less, why wouldn't their souls all look the same too if you can see them?"

"Well... because what your soul looks like is different from what you look like," says Helen. "Maybe there's some people whose alts would have the same daemons. I don't know that many people with alts who've checked."

Kiawen hugs Carinna's arm. "What makes people have different animals at all?" she asks.

"Being different people, I guess," she says. "Your daemon's shape means something about you, but it's not always clear what."

"Do you know what yours means?"

"I'm the only person I've ever heard of with a teratorn. I think it means I'm peculiar."

"I wonder if ours've settled yet. We're thirteen now."

"Maybe. You can check."

Carinna doesn't get a poof. She gets a nervous-looking rodent with big feet.

Tanalin gets a little spotted kitty!

"I don't know what any of those mean," giggles Helen.

"What would you know what it meant if we had it?"

"I'm not really sure," she says. "Mostly I don't, but every so often something just makes sense. And there are all these things people say about what different daemons mean, but I've seen them be wrong as often as they aren't."

"...Like what?"

It does rather look like an alt of her friend Shura! She is standing around, holding a glass of wine, looking distinctly unwitchy both in visible age and in clothing choices and lack of bird. She seems to find the party a bit overwhelming.

Now thoroughly distracted, Helen directs her cloud-pine over thataway. Perhaps Shura's mystery alt is wearing a nametag!

Helen giggles. "How could you tell?" she teases.

"Damaris has wings. And she's older."

"I know," she confesses. "We've met. I'm Helen Ianthe. I think I know an alt of yours!"

"I didn't know I was supposed to have any, I'm only here because Isabella - I refuse to call her 'Angela', it's ridiculous, we've been best friends our whole lives - invited me."

"I invited Shura! You look just like her, only old and not a witch."

"I'm not even forty yet! 'Shura' - that's pretty."

"Shura Talkaivan. You still look older than witches ever do," says Helen.

"Well, that hardly sounds fair."

Helen laughs. "Maybe it isn't."

"So what are you, secretly a hundred?"

"Not-at-all-secretly thirteen."

"And I suppose Shura is approximately yea big too and she's going to make me feel like I'm already arthritic and forgetting why I walked into rooms?"

"Well, the second part's up to you."

"I might risk it. Where is she?"

"I have no idea, but I can look!"

"I wasn't really expecting to be interesting enough for two universes to have me in them," muses Serah, craning her neck to look for a younger version of herself.

Helen, of course, lifts herself on her cloud-pine until she is high enough to survey most of the room.

Shura is over in a corner, talking to Lexi, not that Helen is liable to recognize Lexi.

"Wow! Really?"

"Man, everybody has alts but me."

"Aww," says Helen. "Anyway, Shura, want to come meet her? Her name's Serah!"

"That's a lot like my name! I guess that makes sense? Anyway, yeah, sure!"

"C'mon! She's over there," says Helen, pointing.

"You said you weren't forty but you didn't say what you were," says Helen.

"A daemon," says Helen. "People have them in Alethia. They're like your soul walking around outside your body as an animal. My Kalavar's a teratorn, and Shura's Nicoa is a ptarmigan."

"I don't know what either of those are," says Serah. "Why would your soul do that? Isn't that dangerous?"

"That's just how it works in our world. It's dangerous sometimes, but I still wouldn't want it any other way."

"Weird is relative," says Helen. "I could show you yours if you want."

"You could - show me? How?"

"It's just a square, to get an illusion of what your daemon would be if you had one."

"Oh. One of those coin things. You have those? Well - all right. As long as my real soul stays where it belongs."

"Round cute souls," giggles Helen. "Aww."

"Witches can go far from their daemons, which is lucky for me because mine is a six-foot-tall bird," says Helen. "I'd barely be able to go indoors if Kal had to stay close like most daemons do."

"I have the hugest daemon I've ever heard of," says Helen.

"Does... that mean you have... I have no idea what that is supposed to mean," says Serah.

"I think it means I'm peculiar."

"Yes," says Helen. "Micaiah and Kas are both Jokers. Jokers are extremely peculiar."

"I want to hear the cute story!" says Helen.

"Well, er -" Serah peers at the witches' arms, sees no Kisses, and rolls up her sleeve. "We get these, when we're babies," she says. "And they say that when they light up it means you've found your true love. When Isabella and Micaiah met theirs were glowing like falling stars and he looked at her like she was the whole world."

"Awwwwwww," says Helen.

"And soon enough she had made sure that if she was going to be Archangel he was going to be angelico, and they got pregnant, and married - I planned the wedding and it was beautiful if I do say so myself. And then they had a little angel baby who looked just like you, and then three more."

Helen giggles. "That is cute."

Peninnah has been wandering around aimlessly when she sees someone she recognizes. She makes her way up to Serah and hugs her leg.

"Hi, Pen'," Serah says, petting the little angel's hair. "This one is number four. Are there more of her too?"

"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," says Helen. "Hello, number four."

"Am Peninnah," mumbles Peninnah.

"And I'm Helen! It's nice to meet you."

"Are one Dars," observes Peninnah.

"Pen' sometimes talks a little funny," says Serah. "It takes some getting used to."

"But she does be," says Peninnah.

"An alt of Damaris? Yes I am," says Helen.

"I haven't one."

"Well, maybe you will, one day, I think that's how it works?" says Serah uncertainly.

"If another Bell and Joker get around to having four kids," says Helen. "Maybe it'll be Rose and Beast; I hear they've already got three."

"So that's one of you and one of Keziah and one of Ariel, I guess? Are they always in order like that?"

"Am last," sighs Peninnah.

"If one of the sets gets around to having five kids someday, you won't be last anymore," Helen points out.

"Am last from us," Peninnah says, but she seems to find Helen's remark cheering anyway.

"Probably not forever."

"Why?"

"Your parents have had four kids in the - how long have they been together?" she asks Serah.

"Seventeen years, now, they had Damaris awfully quick."

"Right. Four kids in seventeen years," says Helen, "I'm guessing they'll probably have another one someday."

"A little sister," muses Peninnah thoughtfully. "Little little."

"Or brother. Or sibling in general," says Helen.

"All girl sisters," says Peninnah. "Cousinoids also!"

"Actually, we have one cousinoid who's a boy!" says Helen. "The Joker and his vampire boyfriend Nathan in Aurum have a son named Kerron."

"A cousinoid is somebody who's got a parent who's an alt of your parent," says Helen. "A vampire's a kind of person from Aurum that drinks blood and doesn't get older."

"Ew!" exclaims Peninnah.

"I think we're sisteroids!" says Helen.

"But you and Damaris are alts. Right?" Serah asks.

"Is complicated."

"Yes we are, and yes it is. You might even call it peculiar," says Helen.

"...Why is funny?"

"I just really like the word peculiar. It's fun to say, and so many things are it."

"Peculiar," says Peninnah experimentally. She does not appear to see what is so much fun about it.

Helen giggles.

[Hey, button,] says Kas, [want some hugs?]

"You mean you guys are finally done?" she says, audible to Kas and only to Kas. (Using her power still comes more naturally to her than the brainphone.)

"You moved but don't sounded!" exclaims Peninnah.

[Yep!]

"I do that!" says Helen. "I was talking to Kas. He says all the Jokers are going to come hug me." And she adds, "Go right ahead," to the Jokers as a whole.

"Why not brainphone and not sound or not move but talk?" asks Peninnah, with some difficulty; apparently extended sentences are trickier.

"I was using my ingot power way before I knew the brainphone was a thing, so I'm more used to it," she says.

And

then

the

Jokers

start

appearing.

"Daddies!" exclaims Peninnah.

"Lots of 'em!" says Micaiah, getting down on her level to give her a hug. "Didn't know you were with the button."

The button is giggling as she is engulfed by a pile of cuddly Jokers.

Peninnah hugs her very own daddy. "Button?"

"Kas calls Helen his little button," says Micaiah. "It's cute. Do you want a big pile of hugs like she's getting?"

"All piled hugs! Careful, feathers," she adds, waggling a wing.

"All right," he says, and beckons to the Jokerpile without really looking at them.

Aianon is the first one to detach and come over and sit with them and give Penninah feathers-careful hugs.

Peninnah hugs him happily! Yay!

"Yep," says Shura, almost to herself, "that's a demon hugging a little angel."

Beast is next! He is fluffy.

"Softs!"

"That I am," he agrees, nuzzling the top of her head.

Peninnah snuggles up. "Softs softs softs."

Beast chuckles.

"Is there room for me?" inquires Queenie, snuggling up to Micaiah-and-Aianon-and-Beast-and-Pen'. It turns out that there is! It also turns out that Queenie is remarkably snuggable.

"Eeeee!" says Pen' when she discovers this, not even attempting words, just flinging all six limbs around Queenie.

Queenie beams and snuggles her carefully.

Peninnah doesn't have to be particularly careful! Snuggles.

Snuggly snuggles.