"Hullo," says the girl. "What's rude? Stealing your doors?"

"I was sort of freaked out, but I don't think it's so much scary, especially if you've been before, which it seems you may have done."

"I found it very scary! I don't know about wherever you're from, but in my world, we're supposed to be the only world. And anything claiming to be a different world is actually a tentacle monster that wants to eat your face. It's kind of a thing. But when I ran away the first time I asked some much smarter wizards about it, and they said it was fine, so here we are. Not fleeing and/or gibbering in terror."

"Well, it's customary where I'm home to think we're the only world too, but you have to admit the decor here lacks tentacles."

"The cuttlefish tell elegant lies," Harry says gravely. "The barstools? Tentacles. The countertop? A cunningly disguised beak. My coffee? ...Something. Another tentacle, probably. Maybe just an impossible geometry."

"Well, I'm glad you are no longer afraid of the bar. She's been very nice." Pat pat.

"I'm a witch, technically, but that doesn't mean I can't tell you my name, I'm Isabella. Yours?"

"Harry." He nods. "Wizard. Nice to meet you. Does the fluffy one have a name too?" he asks, looking admiringly birdwards.

"Pathalan," says the owl. "We weren't sure if we should introduce me, since you're a zombie and all over there."

"He's not a person, he's my daemon," says Isabella. "We're jointly a person. You know, when Bar told me that entire people were multiversally unusual I tried to think of a good way to explain it and I didn't get very far."

"...It sounds extremely magically weird. I could probably use the Sight to get a decent read on that arrangement, but I don't know if I trust the very nice magic bar enough to permanently etch her into my brain."

"Well, and you keep yours, what, tucked away in your head or something, that seems like a really paranoid thing to do to me," Isabella remarks. "I can barely tell you have one, maybe you don't, how should I know?"

"But- that'd be like having one of your organs in your pocket. It's, that's supposed to be part of you, if my liver grew a pair of wings and flapped around hooting at people I'd be very concerned! What if someone stepped on it! I don't have a spare liver! I especially don't have a spare soul!"

"I mean, I can see some practical advantages to having your soul internal," Isabella agrees. "It'd also be a lot safer to just stay home all the time, eat delivery pizza. Won't get sunburned or hit by a car that way, for sure." She pets her owl. "I appreciate safety as much as anybody but it's not the sole point to life and I can't help but feel sorry for your poor cramped soul which doesn't know what it's like to fly."

"Well, you might not have a bird. Witches always do, mortals can get whatever. Kids' daemons can change shape, though, so everybody gets to at least try flying."

"I mean, my dog can't fly, but he still has fun." He considers. "I'm pretty sure he can't fly. But anyway, it's - there's still something to the sentiment. Letting yourself be that little bit more free. Even if I ended up with a cockroach or something, the principle's still there. Wait, cockroaches can fly. ...You get what I'm saying, though?"

"Yeah, of course. Plus, there's the company. It's not like having a whole other person around, but witches separate so our daemons can go far away from us and there's definitely a difference not having Path in the room to talk to. I mean, he still runs me errands, but never having him there..."

"Is there anything particularly sinister or asking-first-worthy about that I should know?"

"Um. Not really? I'll see some vague broad-strokes symbolism about what kind of person you are, like, fiery avenging angel or loving mother or whatever, but usually I would probably have gotten more about someone from talking to them for fifteen minutes, so it's not exactly invasive. It's just polite to ask in case you'd drive me mad with the sight of things Man was not meant to know."

"I don't think I'm eldritchly unknowable or anything, although I have no idea what witchiness looks like to you. See at your own risk."

"Are you okay?"

"Well, I can't say I disapprove of the description."

"Uh, if anybody touches them that's bad. Really bad. Extremely super bad. And by default they won't be able to get more than a few feet away from you and I can't guarantee you won't have something really inconvenient ranging from 'giant tortoise' to 'minnow'. Everybody knows not to bump into a daemon at home, but..."

"You said you sent Pathalan away on trips sometimes, though."

"Yeah, but he's still a daemon? People don't touch him."

"...I meant about the distance, thing, but okay, that's also a bit strange. I was mostly just asking how you get past the default range limit."

"Oh, that. Yeah, that's mostly a witch thing but for cultural reasons, not practical ones, you get mortals doing it if they want to be Special Forces or if they have a squid or something. You can't get too far away from your daemon. If you do it anyway, then you can, basically. It's like - a mile? If you get a mile away. It feels terrible. Sometimes takes witch kids a few tries."

"I mean, thirteen-year-olds do routinely manage the trick, I'm not saying it's impossible, but you really don't have any context for what it's like. Also your daemon might be mad at you after and not talk to you for a while, they sometimes don't like being left."

"If it feels like having your soul physically ripped out of your body, I actually do have some context. Not my top ten sensations, but probably not my bottom five either. And if my daemon gets mad then he gets mad, I'm not expecting him to be in the greatest mood regardless."

"You're more likely to have a female one. Not guaranteed, but it's usually opposite-sex."

"Oh. Any particular reason for that? I feel like I have a very masculine soul, personally."

"Nobody knows the reason per se. Same-sex daemons are correlated with minority sexualities."

"Female it is, then. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Quite."

"...Do they even have Seinfeld in your universe? That was a Seinfeld joke."

"I don't know, maybe, I'm not really in touch with mortal culture. I have heard the phrase?"

"If you're sure you want one. I'd be really nervous about having one in a world where nobody knew not to touch them."

"I... am not totally sure on that front but if worse comes to worst I have options for mitigating the badness of that. All else fails, she can just hide out in the wilderness and we can meet up every day. But I think it's more important that she be everything she can be than that I have her with me."

"And you really might get a sardine or something, which is hard even in a society designed to expect that occasionally... But yeah, if you want one given all that I'll let you stick your head in."

"Daemons aren't usually that big," remarks Isabella, letting the door close. "Big animals are usually somewhat pygmy."

Path swoops off Isabella's shoulder and hops up to Livingstone. "Hello," he says.

Path laughs a little. "My Isabella and I don't have this problem, but we're unusual."

"We didn't have that problem either," remarks Path, "although sometimes it comes up with mortals, I think."

"The trick is a light touch," Livingstone advises.

"Council?"

"Governing body of wizards. They- um. We, I guess, I forget I'm, you know, employed by them now. We make sure that wizards don't turn to evil magic and destroy the world, subjugate humans, drive people insane, that sort of thing. Also we serve as a sort of wizardly DMV, so that you can get educated and registered as a wizard if you're powerful and you need training."

"Why doesn't your daemon like them?"

"What the hell kind of governing body doesn't allow self-defense?"

"Your soul doesn't look very eaten-away-at," Isabella points out. "Also, if they were concerned for your safety I agree with Livingstone that the correct reaction would be something other than decapitation."

"I agree with Livingstone again," says Isabella dryly.

Path giggles again and pats Livingstone on the nose with a wing.

Livingstone nuzzles him in a friendly manner. "It's not as though the Council is- well, actually, I'm going to rephrase that. The Council is an unadulterated shitshow, but it's founded on good principles. The Seven Laws of Magic - thou shalt not kill by the Arte, thou shalt not transform another, thou shalt not invade the mind of another, thou shalt not enthrall another, thou shalt not reach past the veil of Death, thou shalt not swim against the currents of Time, thou shalt not seek that which is past the Outer Gates. That's all bad news. I approve of the Laws. The Council, however, can shove their nice shiny swords up their collective wrinkled ass."

"Why shalt thou not reach past the veil of Death? And how exactly does killing by the Arte do any harm worse than killing via decapitation?"

"Huh. My magic isn't like that. I'd have a sort of hard time killing someone by outright accident, but I don't have to feel any particular way to cast any spell. Still, why does the believing-this-is-how-things-should-be expand to cover killing-in-general and not just the relatively specific case of self-defense, or killing of abusive jerks, or something?"

Livingstone coughs genteelly. "The body of research into the precise mechanics of lawbreaker morality is... lacking. The Council mostly sticks with 'don't do it'; the lawbreakers tend not to give a damn whether they turn into moustache-twirling murder addicts, and if one of them did chance to gather that kind of data, the Council probably burned it as part of their actually very sensible 'don't leave warlocks' grimoires lying around where people can use them to break the Laws more effectively' initiative. The theories that do exist include 'murder is for some reason abhorrent to magic in any context whatsoever, and so the act of killing actively corrupts the soul whether justified or not,' 'killing for a good reason opens a slippery slope towards killing for any reason,' and my personal favorite, the previous option combined with 'but actually if you had a good reason it really isn't going to turn you into a raving maniac unless you keep killing people'. Hence why Harry is not a raving maniac who can't stop killing people, as opposed to say Victor Sells, who killed for stupid and petty reasons like money and power, and who was a raving maniac who couldn't stop killing people."

"I see. I mean, I can see why it would be hard to do direct research on this but the observational evidence - as I said, you don't look very eaten-away-at..."

"I used to," Livingstone says mildly. "If he'd gotten me when he was sixteen, I don't think I'd have looked so pretty."

"But the damage is rehabilitable."

"Oh, yes. But it takes a great deal of effort, and most of the Council just doesn't have the spare time between pyramid-sitting and meditating under the North Pole."

It is probably eminently clear what Livingstone thinks of both of these activities.

"Does meditating under the North Pole and sitting - on? under? - pyramids serve any purpose...?"

"Oh, naturally. It makes them more powerful."

"Which power they then use to..."

"Live in beautiful alabaster towers secreted away in the Nevernever, frolic with nubile succubi, and accumulate more power. Rinse. Repeat."

"...Literally?"

"There are exceptions. They are not the rule."

"That's not the point of having power! I mean, if they were doing really important shit with their power it might be shortsighted for them not to recruit rehabilitable kids on the wrong side of the law for long-term alliance reasons but it would make some sense if they had a lot of short-term emergencies going on, but alabaster towers and succubi, that's just outright offensive."

"Yes," Livingstone says. "Harry would disapprove of me saying this, I'm sure, but I did the math back when I was living in his skull, and around sixty percent of the White Council would accomplish more for humanity by being hooked into specially designed power plants. At least then we could get rid of coal."

"Well, I don't approve of power planting people either, but the math alone is damning."

"You'll note I don't have the blueprints written up."

He considers. "Well, partly because I'm not sure how I'd work the chalk. But also because there's better things to do with terrible wizards than Matrixing the damn things."

"Yeah, what's your actual policy proposal?"

"Well, ideally we'd actually talk to them first. I don't imagine the problem will turn out to be that no one asked them to get off their asses nicely enough, but if it does convince at least one of them then I'll be happy. Failing that, while Harry's temper and attention span are both too short to do anything about it, he actually has a decent amount of potential political weight on the Council through his mentor and his mother's connections. If he could swallow his anti-authoritarian bile long enough to cozy up to a voting bloc, we could actually force political movement, glacial though it might be."

He lowers his voice slightly. "And, if all else fails and the system still doesn't work... You don't make it very far in our line of work without running into a couple of assassins. The current Merlin protects himself very well, but there's only so much you can do against a bullet you can't see coming. Harry would hate it, but... unpalatable and wrong aren't always the same word."

"They've got a lot of overlap," murmurs Isabella. "Careful."

"I did say if all else fails. But beheading teenagers who could be saved if we infringed on the wizard bourgeois' copious free time is... very unpalatable. And Merlin Langtry has had his centuries wearing the funny hat and carefully doing nothing; if he won't budge when I ask nicely, than I will not hesitate to move him myself."

"Even if they don't help when they're alive I don't think killing them will improve their helpfulness much unless death works differently where you're from."

"Following the assassination, the most obvious choice to assume the funny hat would be Ebenezar, who is also our mentor and one of the perhaps ten sensible human beings on the Council. Other obvious choices include Ancient Mai, who is semi-conservative but would still mark a vast improvement, or Martha Liberty, who stands with Ebenezar among the ten Councillors I would trust to pour water on me if I were on fire. I'm not just going to kill people for the sake of it."

"This is a for-life position?"

Wolves do not have eyebrows. Livingstone raises his anyway. "It is a for-life position, yes. The Council does not have what you might call a political cycle, unless you mean the cycle of life and death. Langtry has been in power for coming up on two hundred years."

"Well, I suppose witch clans work that way too, although there's ways to shuffle things around short of murder if a queen isn't doing her job."

"If I thought I could gather the necessary votes for the 80% consensus, I would be delighted. Unfortunately, the last time over 80% of the Council agreed on something was in 1940, when they were voting on whether to take action against a genocidal necromancer attempting to ascend to godhead. I believe that only thirty voters opposed the motion."

"Wow, your government is really screwed up."

"They thought that we should let the situation unfold a little while longer before taking action. It wouldn't do to seem too rash, you see."

"Seem it to who?"

"Ourselves, as far as I can tell."

He pauses. "I truly hate the old guard. You may have worked that out already. I really do not like them."

"Why are you and your human at such odds over it? I mean, it could just be that you haven't had much chance to come to an accord..."

"Harry... he lies to himself a lot. If he could let himself believe the Council is as wicked as they are, he'd feel like he had to thwart them. But the first time he went up against them, he was a malnourished, traumatized high-schooler in shackles and a blindfold. He couldn't even speak in his own defense. That powerlessness... it's never really left him, when it comes to the Council. He once spit in the face of a woman who could literally freeze the blood in his veins, yet a few hundred old men have him so terrified he can't even think them wrong." He laughs humorlessly. "Let that be a lesson to anyone who thinks child abuse doesn't pay off. But me, I embody a lot of the things he didn't want to be able to think. I'm the one who hates what those old men did to him. I'm the one who thinks Justin needed to die, no matter how black the magic we had to use. Christ's own sake, I'm the one who had to tell him he swings both goddamn ways. What kind of twelve-year-old bullshit is that?"

"I'd wonder if you needed messianic help but I'm not sure how I'd ever get home."

Livingstone sighs. "I'm not doubting your credentials, you understand, but you may be better off messiahing your own world first. It sounds like it has fewer entities who can kill with a stray thought."

"Yeah, yours might be a little less entry-level."

Path flutters up from where he was interacting with Livingstone - since that conversation doesn't seem to require him at all - and says, "Are you okay?" to Harry from a safe distance.

"...Yeah. It's not- apparently splitting off a piece of your soul leads to very awkward conversations. Or maybe that's just me."

"For us it happens at birth, so we didn't know to expect it to be particularly awkward," apologizes Path.

"I mean, it's not like I haven't had this particular conversation before. At least now there's apparently a less depressive part of me to talk about it for me."

"We're good for that!" agrees Path. "You can spread the topics around."

"It is nice. I imagine it'll get better still once we have time to like each other a little bit more."

"If your daemon doesn't like you something's wrong," says Path sagely. "But he seems to mostly be irritated on your behalf so that's good."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, that does come into it. But he's also very, very irritated with me. And I think he's being a dick about it, but ultimately he does probably have some good points, on account of he's my soul. So if we work that out I think we can get along a bit better."

"Good!"

Harry nods. "So, since that's apparently all retroactively taken care of, I've got plenty of time to work over the fact that I'm apparently gay. Which is, um, strictly better than thinking about Justin. I guess."

"He says you're bisexual. It's different," says Path.

Path chuckles.

"Yes, many things have permanent effects. The most portable options would be blessed weapons and things like that. What do you have?"

"Mostly combat-oriented, really, ours is a kind of violent world. Speaking of which, would you be able to bless a handgun?" Harry goes through the voluminous pockets of his ridiculous coat. "I've got a shield amulet that slows down objects heading towards you at velocity, I'm quite proud of that. I've also got some rings that gather kinetic energy as you move and release it all at once with enough force to flip a small car. Um, there's another amulet that'll divert the attention of malevolent spirits, but you don't seem to have those. What else... I've got a burst of sunlight in a handkerchief, that can be handy. Moreso in worlds with vampires, though. Ooh, sensory enhancement potion too, useful and fun. Aaaand another love potion, goddammit Bob." He removes a small glass vial and pours it conscientiously into the trash.

"A gun is harder to bless than a bow or a knife, but not impossible if you'll buy the materials from Bar," says Path. "Can non-wizards use your things? ...And who's Bob?"

"I can buy the materials. Non-wizards can indeed use enchantments, it's just a bit harder to activate active ones. ...Now I'm curious if you could activate one, wonder how we'd test that. And Bob is my, uh, assistant. He knows a preposterous amount about magic, and he helps me out for very little pay, but he's also got a weird sense of humor and sometimes he makes me make love potions, for 'practice'. I try to toss them as soon as I'm out the door, but. Remembering things, y'know."

"As long as you don't use them," says Path serenely. "The rings sound useful. Can they be used more precisely than for car-flipping?"

"Very much no. That would be, um, kind of the opposite of my area of expertise. I am primarily a blowing-things-up kind of wizard."

"We don't usually need to blow things up."

"Yeah, I get that impression. Hm. I could probably at least brew you a potion or two in here, if there's anything you'd want."

"The trouble with potions is they're one-use. Unless yours are different in some way. We'd wind up holding on to them forever because we'd never be able to replace them."

"Ah. Well, it was worth a shot, at least."

"The rings are still potentially useful. Our clan's not warlike or anything, but we intend to live forever and a lot can happen in that time. We could at least decide which car or equivalent to flip over, right?"

"Definitely. The aiming is mostly mental, you focus very hard on something in your field of vision and sort of mentally shove it while pointing your hand in that direction. The better your focus, the more precisely you can aim; I can't imagine that'd be a problem for you."

"Doesn't sound like it," agrees Path. "We could see if I could use it by having me try to knock over a tree in the backyard."

Path manages to get the coin around a toe; it's loose but he can clench the foot. "If you'll get the door for me we don't need to interrupt Isabella and Livingstone. ...It's funny that we're crosstalking like this."

"I didn't think investigators blew up a lot of stuff," Path says, whispering through the air past Harry.

"Most don't, no. Generally if I'm working with vanilla humans I rely on scrying, and if it comes to a fight, I hit people with a big wooden staff. But a lot of the time, 'investigate this weird supernatural thing' turns into 'find the horrible monster that's causing this weird supernatural thing and kill it'."

"Do you charge extra for that part?"

"It varies! If it turns out someone was somehow indirectly responsible for the horrible monster, I charge them. If it wasn't their fault, generally not. If it wasn't their fault but they're still an asshole, or they're very rich and my heat's about to get cut off, I'll charge them anyway. Fortunately I'm generally on top of my bills nowadays, so the surcharge is mostly just a moral judgment thing anymore."

Path hoots. "I wonder if it picks up energy from flying, or only if I move my foot." Holding his foot quite still, he flies around in circles a bit, then aims at a twig with any force that may have accumulated.

"What if Isabella wears it and rides around on her cloudpine at two hundred miles an hour?"

"...That would charge it quicker, yes. I would definitely need to calibrate for that, but that'd get you to full in maybe a couple of hours."

"Oh, it has a 'full', that's probably good, I was going to ask what would happen if we forgot about it for ages."

"Yeah, that's the car-flipping, that's full. That ring was on full. Oh, speaking of cars, it wouldn't work that way with cars, only a personally mounted vehicle. Internal reference frames type thing. Not that you probably need a car, if you have a broomstick."

"You sound very hickish when you call it a broomstick," Path remarks. "And no, she can't drive."

"Hey, wizards can't fly, I'm not up on the hip verbiage. I apologize for being witch-racist."

"You don't need to apologize. It's more or less impossible to offend a witch. But it seemed like you might not want to sound like that. Why can't wizards fly?"

"I was taught magic by a man who was both the most powerful wizard living in the United States and the three-year blue ribbon winner of the Missouri Hog-Rearing Bowl. I don't consider 'hick' to be much of an insult. And flying isn't impossible, but it's difficult to lift your own weight for any significant length of time, if you lose concentration you'll probably die, and you can usually get where you're going quicker by taking a shortcut through the Nevernever."

"What's that?"

"It's the spirit world. It's almost-but-not-quite parallel to our own; there's parts where space gets folded in on itself or stretched out, so if you know the Ways you can walk fifty feet from Seattle to Singapore, and if you don't then it might take you through fifty miles of tundra to get from your apartment to the corner store."

"Oh. We just fly everywhere, but it still takes a while to get between Isabella's teacher's house and her parents' across the country."

"Yep. That's what the Ways are for. Less convenient for getting around Chicago, of course, but that's why the good lord gave us cars."

"How do you learn them?"

"A good mentor will teach you the really useful ones, at least a few for each major country. You can find some through trial and error, you can trade with a spirit for some of its favorites, and after a few decades traversing the Nevernever you end up with a sort of sixth sense for shortcuts."

"What do spirits trade?"

"It varies. Usually the lesser entities will want food; pizza usually works well enough for them. Bigger spirits of knowledge will want you to trade them an equal or greater piece of information, the classic trade being either a personal secret or the knowledge of one of your names in your own voice. Obviously the secret shouldn't be something you really don't want getting out, since they'll sell it to someone else just as easily as they sold you what you're asking. But Ways are cheap, so you can usually get a pretty good deal."

"Why do they want your name?"

"If someone pieces together your True Name - every part of your name, said just like you say it yourself - then they've got a little piece of you. They can scry on you more easily, put a curse on you from a distance, or even attack your mind if they're powerful enough. You get a limited degree of that effect even if you've only got pieces of the name, but the whole thing is something you can really do some damage with. So it's pretty dangerous collateral."

"So why was Livingstone so casual about saying four names of yours?"

He shrugs. "You've got to use it to some degree to keep it your name, otherwise I'd be going by John Smith by now. And you're from a different universe, so we're kind of letting our hair down. Plus I doubt you'd sell my third name to Mab or someone, even if you were a local."

"We won't. Why do you want to keep it your name instead of changing names every few years?"

"I mean, if it got out to everyone from here to Arctis Tor, I'd probably have to. But changing your name changes your spirit a little bit, and shifting around too much keeps you from growing right. And I definitely don't want to stunt my magical growth."

"I don't think we know the kind of growing you mean."

"Well, the soul grows in strength with time, as long as you care for it properly. The soul is what produces magic, so as the soul grows strong, your magical power keeps pace. Changing who you are too rapidly gives you spiritual flexibility, but shucks the stability and strength that you'd accumulated. Self-improvement is alright; just changing who you are for the sake of it is the kind of thing that really bites into your power. I would like to keep my power. It is important to me."

"It depends on how much you've screwed yourself up, really. Just switching your name every few years would keep your power from growing past mediocre, but you'd still have it. Some things, like breaking a magical oath, will take away a bit of your magical potential, which will eventually leave you completely nullified if you keep doing it."

"No, I mean, if your soul is the part that's doing the magic..."

"Oh. Yeah, I checked that when I was doing the Seeing. The daemon is, or contains, or whatever, the soul, but there's- it's like a webbing of trillions of tiny magical threads woven together, connecting you to your human. The soul isn't physically there anymore, but it's so strongly attached that it barely matters. Believe me, I would have been much more conflicted about getting a daemon if I thought it might take away my magic."

"But have you actually done any since you got him? I can't do witchcraft, however attached I am."

He nods. "Fuego!" A ball of fire appears above his palm. "I think the witchcraft thing might be, um, weirder. But magic's just an application of the soul."

"Okay, good."

"With the witchcraft... I'd have to see it to be sure, but if daemons can't do it, it sounds more like some kind of physical magic. Like a werewolf's transformation, or a wizard's longevity, something that's still magic but it's all tied to your body. Because there's- magically speaking, there's very little border between daemon and human. I'm pretty sure any ability of the soul would practically have to transfer unless you specifically designed it not to."

"I don't really know," says Path. "It does all involve doing things, but some of it is just 'reciting verse', which I could do if it would work."

"Yeah, that's why I'm saying - the magic's not in the action, it's in the witch. Something about being a witch, moonlight and starlight and all, makes them someone who can do magic, and enough of it is just part of their physical makeup that you can't even get it by being their own soul. Can you feel starlight, as a witch's daemon?"

"Yes."

Path giggles.

"Need to remember that we're talking about an entirely different universe, here. Different rules..." He shakes his head. "Bob is going to be pissed he missed this. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure he'd have tried to monopolize Isabella for at least a subjective week dissecting comparative occult theory, so it's probably for the best."

"She would only be monopolized for as long as he held her interest. Whoever he is," says Path.

"Talking skull," Harry says offhandedly. "Also, thousand-year-old elemental knowledge spirit. Pretty good at holding people's attention when he's in full nerd mode."

"Sounds interesting. Are talking skull spirits common in your world?"

"He's unique, actually. Most elemental knowledge spirits are free-range; this one has enough enemies that he decided to go to ground, so he inhabits a specially made skull that keeps said enemies from finding him in exchange for providing arcane knowledge to its owner. Currently me."

"...So you own a person."

Harry shakes his head vigorously. "Nope! Nope, nope, nope. Gross, gross, absolutely not. If he wanted out, I would give him up in a second. If he really wanted out he could kill me with practically no effort and then find a new place to live, so it's not even like he doesn't think he can ask. He works with me because I pay him trashy romance novels and he likes being useful to somebody."

"Oh. Okay."

He shudders. "Gross. Sorry. I don't tell people about him a lot, because the aforementioned enemies, and I kind of forget what it sounds like."

"It's okay, I believe you."

"I can give the pair of you a set of protective tattoos. Back home they'd make it look like you were dating or the son of a witch, but I suppose nobody will know that where you're from? Oh, and they don't tickle, but it's quick."

"Pain, again, is very, very unlikely to be a problem. Can their location be more easily hidden? Not that I care, but Harry is a bit of a prude."

"I can put them wherever. I could probably turn them invisible if you spring for extra substances. And yours will be pretty hidden under fur, anyway."

"Hm. What if I turn into a human at some later date?"

"That... would be weird? Since you're an adult? How would you do that?"

He blinks. "Oh, I... didn't know that was possible under normal circumstances. An acquaintance of ours is a sapient wolf with the magical ability to turn into a human woman, who taught some friends of ours to turn likewise into wolves. I was going to see if she could teach me her trick, in the interests of integrating more easily into human society." He nods to his general wolfishness. "I'm a bit sharper than they'd usually prefer."

"Oh. Well, be careful you cover up - a lot of human-form daemons go around in hoodies and gloves all the time, and that's with most people being able to tell the difference at a glance. Anyway, the tats go on kids all the time - witches' sons - and when their daemons change the tattoos stay, in some corresponding place."

"I'll take your fashion recommendations under advisement. Somehow I still think it'll be more difficult to keep children from touching me if I continue to look like a big fluffy puppy."

"Yeah... kids are occasionally a problem even at home, not like school age ones but sometimes you get a particularly oblivious toddler who grabs somebody's chinchilla or something."

Livingstone shudders very slightly. "The thought of a child being in contact with Harry's soul is absolutely abhorrent. Mostly for the child."

"...It's really much more unpleasant for the person whose daemon is being touched. In non-toddler-related cases it's usually prosecuted worse than rape."

"It was a bit of black comedy on my part; I apologize. I do understand the principle, otherwise I wouldn't be suggesting I spend a year in the forest meditating to get around the issue."

Nod. "Anyway, if you're sure he's going to want the tattoos enough to pay for the ink materials I can order that up now and get to mixing."

"We have a small fund of... about a thousand dollars, set up for emergencies and unexpected opportunities. Once I'm home, I expect to make a decent amount of money to replace it within a few months. How much will the inks cost?"

"We don't have healing potions, but we don't desperately need them either. I'm fairly sure Harry wants his gun blessed, possibly also his staff, and I might like a stick of my own - would carving certain magical sigils into a blessed weapon ruin it?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't expect it to, as long as they don't happen to overlap with witch runes in some incorrect fashion."

"To turn a staff into a focus, I'd be putting... three parallel spirals of shallow runic inscriptions up and down its length, plus seven deeper-cut runes in their own locations. How likely would that be to cause incorrect overlap?"

"I don't know what your runes are shaped like. My runic alphabet looks like -" Isabella solicits a book from Bar, turns to a rune chart. "Like so."

It depends on how magically important the property of having, in fact, ever been struck by lightning is. None of my items have genuine histories prior to the moment of their creation. But I can easily produce a physically identical such object.

"Mm. Shouldn't risk it, really. I'll just take... oh, I might as well have fun with it. Bloodwood quarterstaff, six and a half feet, on Harry's credit?"

Of course. The staff appears.

"Um. Probably... somewhere I can hide them? I'm generally not thought to be a very, uh, tattoo-y person. My back, maybe."

"I think I'll get mine across my haunches. Seems a good place for tattoos, protective or otherwise."

"Sure, wherever. I can also make them invisible if that would be preferable, it'll run you a little extra for more ingredients."

Harry looks slightly pained.

"We are a frugal people," Livingstone clarifies drily. "He'll make do."

Harry notices the staff. "Bloodwood?"

"I've got to indulge my supervillainous tendencies somewhere," Livingstone replies. "My aesthetic is menacing but benign."

"What's the deal with bloodwood?" asks Path.

"It's red, and it's called 'bloodwood.' He feels like it looks a bit evil. Or at the very least self-indulgent."

"Let's take them as a batch, just get it over with."

"Okay." So she mixes up all the other inks too and then picks up a paintbrush and says, "I can work through fur, but not clothes."

Harry shrugs off his coat and pulls his shirt (bearing a charming D&D joke too clever to be contained in this margin) over his head.

"Keep it to yourself," says Path primly, while Isabella starts painting designs down Harry's spine.

"I'm sorry, that was insensitive toward those among us with beaks, wasn't it."

"Ow," Harry says, deadpan.

Livingstone rolls his eyes.

"Your turn," Isabella says to Livingstone. "Path's going to see how deep your fur goes first in case I need a longer paintbrush." Path flies to Livingstone and investigates the fur with one foot.

It is sleek in most areas. He is not exactly a big fluffball.

So Isabella sticks with her existing paintbrush and paints him too and repeats the verses.

"Interesting to feel this from the outside," he comments. "I see the appeal."

"...Huh?"

"That's just you," Harry says.

"...You're gonna have to work that one out on your own time. Anyway. You sure you don't want any healing potions or anything for all the living hell you get beaten out of you?"

"My problem with the idea is that Harry is constantly being injured, and it doesn't usually decrease his operating effectiveness," Livingstone explains. "Maybe we could take a few for cases where we're literally going to die in a few minutes unless our wounds are treated, but if Harry took a potion every time he was stabbed in the kidney or broke several bones, he'd be out in a month."

"You're not wrong," Harry muses. "Though I would take a few."

"Sounds perfect. When would they expire?"

"If I seal them up, never. They do have to be stored in glass though, so they might get smashed while you're breaking several bones..."

He shakes his head. "I have experience keeping potion bottles secure. It'd help if you could decant it into a specific bottle, though - what kind of volume are we talking about?"

She gestures. "Per dose." It's about a quarter cup.

"Thank you! These will probably be very handy. What kind of injuries do they, um, cover? As a general benchmark?"

"They will not cover even the sort of curses that are native to my world and I wouldn't expect them to touch nasty magic from yours; they are strictly for physical folding, spindling, and mutilation. If Livingstone's hurt he can drink them too. They will not regrow limbs but if you take one instantly on getting hurt it might cover like a toe. Might. If you are well enough to take one you will not be dying any more after doing it; if somebody has to pour it into your mouth it's dicier but you'll have longer to get to the hospital."

"Sweet!"

"The next person who breaks all of your ribs will be in for a marginally more unpleasant surprise than usual," Livingstone agrees.

"I do recommend them for concussions in particular if that's a problem you also have because accumulated brain damage is no one's friend."

"That's actually much less of a problem than it would be for a standard-issue human," Harry says. "Wizards recover perfectly from injuries, according to a friend of mine. We don't necessarily regenerate faster, but our wounds don't get infected as a rule, and scars disappear after a few years of natural healing. The same goes for the brain; if the damage is at all recoverable, I'll eventually recover. Cumulative damage isn't so much a thing."

"Conveniently so," notes Livingstone. "By rights he shouldn't be able to walk."

"Oh. Well, then, save them for the many occasions when you are about to die, by all means."

"I believe we will. Thank you for them; we'll try to die slightly less than we would in normal circumstances."

"Unless we have to eat another ghost," Harry says. "Extenuating circumstances."

"...Eat a ghost?"

"There was a particularly unpleasant ghost, dubbed 'the Nightmare' who was riling up local spirits, psychically mutilating innocents, et cetera," Livingstone explains. "Harry was under some stress and decided that the best way to deal with this ghost would be to kill himself, temporarily become a ghost, and fight it on its own turf. He ended up eating it and taking its power for his own."

"Only for a few hours," Harry protests. "I don't still have evil ghost magic floating around inside me! I am one hundred percent Harry Dresden and the totally normal magic thereof."

"...I don't have anything that might possibly help with future ghost-eating situations, sorry."

"We seem to handle them alright."

"Hm?"

Isabella winces and does not look directly at them, but says, "For most people this never comes up but one hears that daemon-touching is not inherently negative in situations of truly exceptional, ah, trust and intimacy."

"I... see."

"I'll take it under advisement," Livingstone promises.

"Right you're welcome have a nice day try not to die."

Knock knock.

"Door's open," he calls from the desk chair. (He's working on a rubber-band ball.)

"Bella Swan. Which one are you, please?"

"Dresden. David, specifically. The handsome one."

"Rats, I was hoping for Harry - nothing personal, I'm just looking for something he'd have been the last person to see."

"Mm. Generally we don't keep much from each other - what would it be that you're looking for?"

"I have a research project, the skull would be an enormously helpful shortcut, and it's... less likely to be busy with other matters than the Archive."

"Ah, a specific talking skull. What exactly leads you to believe my brother would have seen this artifact?"

"It was last seen in the possession of that unpleasant fellow he killed years back and hasn't been accounted for since."

"Thank you." She takes two of the business cards, one for her number to give to David (there's a local hotel landline and an office number and two home numbers) and one to pocket so as to pester Dresdens later if nothing is forthcoming.

"I'd be happy to. Is now good?"

"Now is excellent."

"It's a city," she shrugs. "I haven't gotten to know much about its individual character." She glances at the novel, raises an eyebrow, takes a seat, and says, "So what's the story?"

"This particular story," he says, indicating the novel, "is godawful, but I was bored. The story regarding the skull may need to wait until I, and by extension my brother, know somewhat better what you intend to do with it. For instance, I'd rather not aid and abet someone looking for the Word of Kemmler."

"I'm not looking for the Word of Kemmler. Does that help?"

"It does take a certain weight off my mind. Not the only potential problem, though. A repository of arcana held for almost half a century by the most vile necromancer in recorded history is the kind of thing you want to keep very, very secure."

"I appreciate that. If you only want me to talk to it while in designated locations or something I can work with that."

"Mm. Only communicating with the skull under supervision by one of us seems like a reasonable precaution, to me."

"I can live with that, if you want, but it seems like it might take up a lot of your time. I'm expecting my project to take a long time even with the skull and my work ethic. If you can't put in eight-plus hours a day of skull interrogation supervision this isn't the goldmine I was hoping for. I mean, I can pay you, but not your PI rate for that much time, not easily."

David sighs. "I was under the impression this would be a minor consultation. What exactly is stopping you from just telling me what you intend to research?"

"It's personal."

"I find myself at a loss for how a project of this magnitude could be personal enough that you won't explain it to someone trying to keep Kemmler's Archives from misuse. I can keep a secret, if that's what you're worried about."