"If the cavalry will reliably show up, then in most cases yes? I mean, it depends on the emergency? 'Someone is trying to destroy the world and it's kill them or let them' yes, 'my sister is having an emotional breakdown and needs cuddles both literal and telepathic' no."

"If it's the kind of emergency where use of powers results in an actually satisfactory solution, like 'that kid fell out the window but I can haul him back up by the zippers on his clothes' I'm not likely to bother, but I'm guessing that's not the kind of emergency you meant."

"Jane thinks that under normal circumstances you being immortal is fine but suspects you might have unfortunate fracture points under particularly earthshaking circumstances. The correct response to earthshaking circumstances, now that we have met, is not 'try to make the earth stop shaking with telepathy and magnetism', but 'summon a Bell or someone else with similar wherewithal to fix it by magic'. Jane herself is not totally reliable, or at least hasn't been in the past - we've patched the known failure mode - but that's not a big enough risk to actually insist that you go on being mortal."

"Understood. If a situation gets bad enough that I'm tempted to do anything I'd regret under normal circumstances, call Jane instead."

"If that's understood I can torchable the both of you right now."

"Alright."

"Absolutely understood."

"This, also, will not feel like anything, which I imagine is not the most reassuring feature for an immortality power to have, but," she points at Emily, then Edie, "you're all set. This doesn't make you invulnerable, so if you do something dramatic like fling yourself into the sun you will just keep torching, get Jane to send help."

"Noted. Not that I prefer to get into any situations that are lethal at all..."

"But thank you."

"You're welcome. And with that, this is -"

"Hi, I'm Pattern."

"Oh, that's interesting. I'm not getting a thing about what's actually going on in your minds from any of you, but you're very definitely the same person. Except one of you is a telepath."

"I'm kind of surprised you're getting that much. But yeah, Aegis is me if I was born a mutant in 2155 and grew up in orbital military school, Glass is me if I was from dragons-witches-etcetera world and gay, etcetera. I think Aegis would take exception to being called a telepath."

"I'm...sorry? Her mind feels like my father's when he doesn't want to be read, and what he's shown me of what my mind feels like when I don't want to be read."

"That's all she does; she has no active abilities. Everybody else makes do with wished wards."

"No buggers," says Aegis, reappearing, "anywhere, lucky you."

"What are buggers and why are we lucky not to have them?"

"They're aliens and there was a big war with 'em in Peace. Won it, they surrendered, but it was a big hassle. We need to name this world. Could do theme names for places with mutants, like the Sunshine worldfamily? Calm? Quiet? Tranquility? Man, we need better procedures for unBelled worlds."

The adults exchange a look which is presumably opaque to outsiders.

Erik tenses, his fingers curling into white-knuckled fists.