"Yeah," Helen says. "It's us and one other guy that we know of for sure, but I'd be surprised if it was literally just the three of us--the two of us and also him--under the circumstances."

"The circumstances being?"

"The three of us...were in what we're fairly certain were all of our first lives, members of two groups that interacted with each other fairly often. And frequently encountered things that have strange effects. If literally none of the rest of those groups or other similar ones were similarly affected that would be surprising. And evidence that the universe enjoys laughing at our pain," Marie explains.

"...Okay. I reincarnate too. This is life three. I had no inkling of having previously existed until I started dreaming rounds one and two a couple months ago, which I might have dismissed as weird dreams if I hadn't gone to the city my past lives lived in and found their house. I don't know if... if anyone else reincarnates, and I don't think it would have bothered me in the long run if I had - or possibly did - die a few times as a baby until I got lucky and a stork found me."

"We're fully conscious of our past lives from infancy. It is so, so awkward," Helen says. "Marie and I, anyway. The only thing I know about Gregory is that he exists. Well. The only thing I know about his reincarnating tendencies, anyway." She shudders, and a dark look passes over her face. "This is life two for Marie and Gregory, but it's life three for me. The first time I died it was an accident, but Gregory decided to blame Marie. And when he finally hunted her down for revenge, she had died too. Of old age. So he decided to take his decades of grudge out on her significantly-younger widow." She puts a hand to her neck protectively.

"My first time I died of a disease, age twenty-four. Second time I fell down the stairs. I don't remember this, you understand, I only get so many dreams a night, but second life I made a really good golem that can talk and it can fill in what I don't know from reading my old notes - I've always been a really obsessive notetaker."

"That sounds convenient. If my memory suffered more between lives than just the intervening time accounted for I'd probably try to pick up a similar habit," Helen says.

"Well, I even have notes from the first time when I had no idea to expect to wake up again. First life was named Aly, second life Kib. These are all nicknames - for some reason we have all received and then shortened names with the syllable 'bel', I have no idea how that happened three times in a row. Alymbel, Akibel, Beluna."

"Those're pretty," Helen observes. "Our names have no such repetition--I was Helen first, actually, and then Beatrice, and now I'm technically Annabelle. Marie's technically Ava."

"...And," Lu says, "Kib was a man."

"...That has never happened to us. I suppose it could, five instances isn't necessarily statistically conclusive," Helen admits.

"It's less weird and awkward than it could be, honestly, when I'm having Kib dreams he's accustomed to it and the rest of the time I'm fine with being a girl. Kib felt about the same way about Aly dreams."

"Inconveniences of babyhood aside, I think I like our way of reincarnating better," Marie says.

"It does sound more convenient than having to read reams of paper and occasionally re-live having the pox or something."

Helen flinches. "I really do not want to relive someone cutting my throat open with a pair of scissors, no."

"Yeah." Lu looks preoccupied.

"...Are you okay? Sorry, I...that was unnecessarily graphic," Helen says.

"No, that's not it, exactly, just - I haven't dreamed any of my deaths yet, just one of Aly's close calls. But I did dream, um, my husband's. If I can call him that. He was Aly's age, he married her, she died, and then he found Kib and - they got married too, and - there's only been one of him, but if he were going to reincarnate, he ought to be thirty. He ought to have had a lot of dreams by now but he hasn't been to the house."

"I'm actually in the middle of looking for him. He could look dramatically different, I have every time, but servants seem to recognize us the same, the golem called me 'milady' right away - and we had some parrots, and parrots live a long time. Just in case. So I've brought a couple of parrots with me and I've told them that if they see him they should go land on him. I have an idea of who he might be, because he was always the projects type. I have a few people I've heard of who could be him who I'm going to parrot-check."

"That's a good idea. I hope you find him," Helen says sincerely. "Losing someone like that would be awful."

"Yeah. I just - he should have been having dreams for thirteen, fourteen years. But that's not enough time to guarantee that any of them would be about me. It could be all childhood and teens or the interim as a widower. The dreams seem to be totally random. But I've gotten a lot of really romancey ones..."

"That, I can't help you with," Helen admits.