"There might even be a chute convenient to one or the other of the door options in Nexus."

"I think I'd want to at least ask furball before vouching for the harmlessness of interactions between a soul gem and a household disintegrator or a sun that's in use qua sun."

"Well, do we want to ask furball?"

"Somebody doesn't want us to ask furball, apparently."

"It happened to Mark, too, but not for furball-related reasons; it might be something else."

"Something such as what?"

"Unclear, but Mark doesn't have a furball as far as I know, so it it not a phenomenon invariably related to furballs."

"Furball won't talk to boys or anyone who passes age eighteen without making a furball deal for magic powers, so I don't think Mark has a furball."

"I don't contend that the phenomenon is invariably related to furballs, just that it is in this case."

"It does seem suspicious." Bella steps back from the door (it reappears), then approaches it again; the door continues to exist until she gets very close to it. "And now it seems more suspicious."

"I wonder why the door is choosing to fuck with us in this way."

"Couldn't tell you."

"Anyway. Now I have to decide whether to risk throwing Ghys's gem in the sun or whatever, or just fuck off to parts unknown."

"Suns not in use qua suns are available, albeit inconveniently."

"And anyway, if I get somebody throw it in the sun I can't be that sure that she's dead and nothing weird happened to make her instead not be dead."

"You don't know that hitting it with a rock won't work."

"Yeah. But I don't know that it will, either. Hard to verify."

"There exists such a thing as a transworld scry..." says Mial.

"I assume that does what it sounds like it does and doesn't conjure waffles, but how do you propose to apply it?"

"Well, to verify the deadness of this Ghyslaine person to," a vague wave at the nameless not-Solvei, "her satisfaction."

"Ghyslaine is a rock. We do not know what a dead rock looks like. And the door won't let us ask the furball."

"Right, but we can at least rule out the possibility that incinerating or disintegrating the rock somehow caused it to reappear intact next to its body," says Mial. "Which seemed to be the sort of thing she was worrying about. Because if no such thing happens, the rock will remain in a separate universe from the body and consequently unable to operate it, is I think the going theory? For that matter a transworld scry can also verify that that part worked out as predicted."

"Yeah, as far as that goes it should work. Furball was pretty explicit about the range limit."

"He's right, though, I'll believe it a lot more easily if I can actually watch her body being inoperable from another universe."