"Makes sense to me."

"I like you, you're sensible. The first time I wheedled mummies out of the University the ostensible purpose was to do research on what the afterlife was like and what the world was like when they were alive and I was happy about people not being dead and the professor who was helping me was all 'oh yes I guess it's true that some people will no longer be dead' like people stop mattering when they've been dead a few thousand years and you're not like that at all and it's good." 

"How'd they take integration after that long? "

"Surprisingly well, really...I mean, it helps that most of them were from the Second City and the queen who sold the Second City in the first place was still around. Albeit incognito, but, you know, when you kick over the status quo all kinds of secrets float out of the dust." 

"...still not from your planet."

"Right, uh, most people from my planet wouldn't know what I was talking about either, sorry. So, to give the full context--I said my grandmother was a Messenger and that's true, but maybe a little lacking in detail. So, Messengers are giant space crabs, basically, who ferry messages between Judgments. My grandmother worked for my grandfather, and also they were involved, but they were not Space Monogamous and my grandfather sent my grandmother with a marriage proposal to another Judgment, which they turned down, and my grandmother was worried that my grandfather would be heartbroken and decided to be extremely dramatic about it. They made a deal with a space Constable to put off delivering the letter for the span of seven Cities, during which time they would collect as many love stories as possible to present to my grandfather to soften the blow. Each city was a capital purchased from the reigning monarch in exchange for magic, usually to save the life of someone the monarch loved, and then brought down to the Neath. London is the fifth such city. The second was called Akhetaten, and was sold by Ankhesenpaaten ostensibly to save the life of her husband Tutankhaten, who had been bitten by a snake, only it was a decoy capital and this was, for reasons I have yet to grasp, important and obnoxious to the Bazaar's purposes, and they managed to hold off the purchase of the Third City for like a thousand years and even then Akhesenpaaten stuck around and has to this day, she's currently going around in whiteface calling herself the Duchess and she helped the ex-mummies adjust." 

"That's... pretty... wacky."

"I mean it gets less wacky when you find out that actually instead of using the magic the Bazaar gave her to cure her husband she, uh, turned him into a giant supernaturally-poisonous snake and I had to rescue him and smuggle him out of the city so she wouldn't find out what had happened to him. The Neath has any excellent qualities such as not having a mortality rate of 'literally everyone ever' but there is a disheartening dearth of people who aren't me who are even trying." 

"What exactly is 'the Neath' - I'm gathering it's underground -"

"Giant cavern underlying most of Eurasia and a decent chunk of the Atlantic Ocean, sufficiently insulated from sunlight that the people there are safe from the effects of Judgment-light."

"It sounds weird as fuck."

Giggle. "It is pretty damn weird. And I haven't even told you about, oh, the Devils or Parabola or Seeking or any of a dozen other things yet." 

"Did you bring them with you? 'Cause this is getting to be lots to track."

"Just me. And a dress covered in Correspondence sigils--the written form of star-language--I suppose." 

Isabella peers at her. "Is there a particular reason to go legible clothing there or is it just a fashion statement?"

"Magic. It's sort of difficult to handle safely if you don't have an innate grasp of it but the one kind of magic Judgment-consensus doesn't prevent is using their own language to reshape reality. Mostly this dress just doesn't get dirty and hangs like this despite having a ridiculous number of pockets. The sigils that aren't going to one of those are just a fashion statement." 

"It's pretty."

"Thanks! I made it myself. I pretty much had to, what with the bit where it's difficult for humans to handle this many sigils at once safely. It's made of space-spider silk."

"You keep calling stuff 'space' stuff."

"Stuff keeps being from space! I mean, I could say 'amalgamy' instead of 'space miscegenation,' but I think the latter gets across what I mean better!"

"But you live underground! Why is all the stuff from space going underground?"

"Because underground is where the Judgment-light doesn't reach. Also there are no space cops there. I mean, besides the one my grandmother bribed, but they're not going to tell their bosses on anyone. And, like, Judgments and space cops are such that 'space miscegenation' is a thing that exists. Lotsa people want not that. And, like, they don't all know it exists, if everyone knew about the Neath we'd be fucked, but--I don't know all of which was who, but between Father and Grandmother they both brought some space stuff with them when they moved in."

"But like, how does stuff that wants to avoid Judgments get to the Neath from space? There being some intervening starlight. Do they, like, come at night, smuggled inside of a meteorite."

"Oh. Well, a lot of it just exists, like, humans who have been dead can't safely go to the Surface, but if a Devil--uh, they're called that but, uh, despite what the Church thinks they aren't actually minions of an actual Satan, they're space bees, long story--or a Rubbery Man wanted to go to the Surface they might find their abilities curtailed but they wouldn't just die. And they'd be in trouble if a space constable found them but if the nearest Judgment is cool with you and the nearest space constable is on the take then you can probably get from point A to point B, there is any risk but it's not the worst."

"Space bees. Gosh. What is a Rubbery Man?"