"Thank you for looking after Miles while I was gone. ...Was Mark hiding again?"

"Behind a crate of zorkmids. Wouldn't come out."

"Oh, dear. Did he say why?"

"He likes me too much to make me interact with him, where 'interact with' apparently means 'look at' because he was willing to talk."

"That's why I came looking for you."

"It goes something like this," she says. "He knows that a lot of things about his past and the way he thinks and reacts to situations are likely to upset people, but he has a severely underdeveloped ability to tell which things. And he knows that. So he can rarely be convinced to take the risk of talking to anyone, especially someone he likes. The two exceptions are Miles, because he has excellent intuitions about how Miles will react to things, and me, because I managed with difficulty to convince him that I don't mind. We've been trying to convince him to branch out, but apparently talking from behind a crate of zorkmids is as far as Miles has managed to coax him. And he seems to like hiding in dark corners even if there isn't anyone in the room he's afraid to talk to; I think he just finds it comforting."

"I don't get how he thinks coming out from behind the crate would make anything worse. I told him, I look at Miles all the time. He looks like Miles, right?"

"Exactly like Miles, yes. Maybe the crate makes him feel better protected from the social obligation to make small talk."

"Some crate."

"I'd make a joke about it being a magical crate, but it's a little harder to make that kind of joke now."

"Just a bit. Mark knows about all the things, right, the zorkmids didn't have to be explained as something else?"

"He does know about all the magic-related things, yes. Otherwise I would've found it hard to explain how I got him here from Earth in less than a day."

"Good, that makes it easier."

"Yes."

"Any advice on extracting him from his hidey corner, or is the advice 'don't'?"

"You could try being patient. He might get to be less shy as he settles in. And, um... try not to be too startled if he appears suddenly out of nowhere. It's a habit of his."

"Okay. Does he at least dress differently from Miles or should I distinguish them entirely by the one's habit of spontaneous apparition?"

"He borrows Miles's clothes, I'm afraid. But it's not at all hard to tell them apart most of the time."

"What's the tell?"

"Mark has that Earth-London accent, and he - well, doesn't act anything like Miles. You'll see what I mean if he ever comes out from behind his crate. His intentional Miles impression is quite perfect - he could've fooled me when we'd met, if I hadn't known perfectly well my firstborn was on another planet - but we've asked him not to use it where anyone might get confused, and he's abiding by that so far."

"Okay. The accent does help, but only if he says something while not behind a crate, which I wouldn't put money on."

"He might not," she agrees. "But it really isn't hard to tell them apart. Even their posture is different."

"As to that, I can't say for sure. But giving him some time can't hurt."