Ishmerai blinks, and closes her extra mouths. "Oh, um, sorry. I forgot my shadow again, didn't I? Eye?" She smiles lopsidedly, and winks from somewhere near her feet.

"So, yes. Welcome to the family. I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

"Thank you," says Yvette, blinking. "It's okay. I had a shadow thing on my lap for at least two hours, it's really hard to freak me out now. Um. How common are - we? Did we even get the same options?"

"Not common, but not vanishingly rare, either. I've personally met about a dozen outworlders like us. You ending up in the same family as me... Well, that was lucky, but not amazingly so. There are only a few hundred demonic families in existence. As for the options... There's no way to know for sure. You'll have forgotten the other four options that weren't the ones you picked."

... She opens her mouth to protest that she definitely remembers them, they were -

And then she notes that she does not remember them. And she closes her mouth.

In a somewhat small voice, she says, "... I remember my brother picked something different than I did. And he got a - mystery box... thing, once he was done."

"I'm sorry about your brother: we'll have to look for him. As for a 'Mystery Box'... That's intriguing. I've heard of them as a rumour, but I wasn't sure if they really existed."

"It's okay. I can't imagine he would have accepted me getting dragged here without wanting to come with me, and I... remember he made the shadow list things and was very sure about whatever his choice was. ... And he said to match my eye color, that might help. He'll be running around with lilac eyes."

"A non-Lilim with lilac eyes? That should definitely stand out. It shouldn't be too hard to find him once we have the search underway."

Little smile. "Okay, good. Oh - the Augments I picked were the Tome of Gateway, the Tome of Life, the - ethereal one? The one that lets me pick cards, and the consensual body-changing one. I don't know how that fits into what you and assumingly other people have, but ethereal combines well with Gateway."

"I picked the Tome of the Gateway, which is what gave me all these lovely mouths and eyes. The shadows didn't tell me that I could have multiple things, so the rest was picked for me - I got the eyes of forgetting, the summoned armor and shields, the cards, and the aura-reading."

Nod. "I nearly got dinged for stalling when I lost my temper and started yelling at them for being so terrible at explaining anything."

Ishmerai nods back, a strange sort of resolution on her face. "The Shadows are not exactly the best of hosts."

"That," says Yvette, "is quite the understatement."

"Well yes, but I refuse to list their crimes since they delight so in their fear."

She taps her chin. "And on that point, I will state that I have personally killed over seven thousand of them."

Blink.

"... I'm totally okay with that! Can I help and steal their lifespans? I can steal their lifespans!"

"That would be wonderful! It would be poetic to put their lives to better use."

"It was a major reason as to why I took the Augment," says Yvette, pleased. "Since they seemed universally evil."

"To be frank, they only get worse as they become more powerful. I'll be glad of the extra help against them."

Nod. "Are they just - endlessly created somewhere, or...?"

"The greatest of their number are able to create more - they take bones from the people they kill, and turn them into the hearts of new shadows. But where the masters come from - I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the supposed 'dark tower' at the center of the city."

"Dark tower? ... I assume it is a tower that is dark and uncreatively named, but I mean. I barely know anything about this place yet."

"Supposedly there's a skyscraper in the city center that shows up only at midnight. I've never seen it, but others I've met have sworn that it's real and filled with Shadows. My current theory is that you need to have some ability - some kind of supernatural sight. If it was just random, I'd probably have gotten lucky by now."

Yvette nods, looking thoughtful.

Ishmerai lets the silence be for a moment.

"... Is there anything I need to know about my - er, our? - new parents?"

"They're decent enough people, and fortunately rather preoccupied with their own problems. Your bodyguard is likely to be a bigger issue."