"Appearing apsels requires circles on the ground with specific properties. You appear to have stumbled on them with your frost. As long as we're in the realm of accidents you're equally likely to get - are the words 'angel' and 'fairy' okay?"

"They don't describe things whose appearance in this room could get me killed. Go on."

"They're equally easy to summon. So if people routinely make circles on the ground that have words in some language around them, you could also find yourself with appearing angels and fairies, but I doubt very much that accidents of this nature are at all common. You could also do it on purpose if I told you how. But since this is a weird alternate universe and I don't even know if I can go home, I don't recommend summoning any more anythings."

"I don't intend to summon any more anythings. One anything is quite enough for me."

"I mean, us anythings are useful."

"Arbitrary matter. So you said. What do the other sorts of anythings do?"

"Angels change things, fairies move things."

"'Change' seems broad, define 'change'."

"Transmute. Shrink or grow. Condense or expand. They're good for healing."

"I see. And fairies move things? By magic? At least that's fairly ordinary."

"People use them to rearrange furniture, power generators, or launch things into space!"

"...I understand what rearranging furniture means..."

"...No electricity? Where are you guys on astronomy? Do you have any moons."

"There is a moon. What do you mean, where are we on astronomy? There is such a thing as astronomy."

"Okay. Unless things work very differently here in this alternate universe, the moon is a large rock, and in my world there is also a moon and some people live on it. Fairies handle the commute."

"No one lives on the moon that I know of."

"No, I wouldn't expect you to, for one thing there probably isn't any air on it, it's not practical without very high tech or daeva, ideally both. That's just why I was talking about fairies launching stuff into space."

"'Space' being the sky?"

"...Yes. Space being the sky. You know how if you go really high up a mountain the air thins out? It keeps getting thinner until there is none. Space is the part where there is none, and there's other planets, and other suns, and other moons, and they're mostly ludicrously far away in planetary terms, but you can get there if you sit in the right kinda vehicle and a fairy helps or you have a lot of fuel to burn. Again, this all only applies here if things are, you know, basically normal except for frost spells and the like."

"Which you don't know because you haven't been able to examine the sky, I suppose. Yes. I want to drag you immediately to a library and get all the differences between our worlds worked out as fast as possible, but I think instead of doing that I should be finding some way to conceal you. People who suddenly appear in the tower without having been let in by the templars are going to cause some alarm regardless of details, and the wings and tail are unlikely to help."

"I can cut off the wings and tail if necessary, but I can't turn invisible. I suppose if you don't need an apsel for anything you could try dismissing me but since this is a weird alternate universe I don't know if it'll even work."

"If it does work, would you be amenable to being retrieved later under less dangerous conditions? And is that possible to safely do?"

"I am amenable, and yes, people do it every day. I don't think you have time to receive an entire eight-credit course on bindings and tasks, though, so I can just leave you instructions on how to get me in particular, loose like I am now, rather than taking your chances with random apsels."

"Yes, that's what I want. The eight-credit course can come later. Hopefully."

"Sure. Do you want it in some language unrelated to your three so that you don't have to go writing that unfortunate word on the floor? I can pick one with fairly distinct glyphs so handwriting won't be a huge issue."