He catches Anya's eyes.

It's very difficult to do that, actually. But he eventually manages - she looks at his eyes -

- looks at them again -

"Wait, Jenna Moran had fundamental insight into the workings of the universe? That's less distressing and honestly less surprising but probably a worse problem."

"Who?"

"Um. ...I can't actually explain Jenna Moran. She does this big LARP thing about Powers and Excrucians and stuff? Except I guess it's not a LARP, it's just. Really, really dangerous field research. Since you actually exist."

Glance at Eadmund.

"I thought this place didn't know about magic? I guess if whoever was telling everyone about magic— well, your kinda magic, anyway— said she was doing it as a lark that would still count…"

On the plus side this conversation is odd enough to be almost funny, which has a positive effect on her overall mood.

"Yeah, as long as it doesn't get spread to a large fraction of the population or generally accepted as fact."

"Jenna Moran's nonsense is in absolutely no danger of either of those things happening. Most people can barely understand what she's talking about. The ones who do think she's some kind of mad genius, but a literary one, not a scientific one."

Giggle.

"Okay, as long as it doesn't set off your temptation thing."

"I'm honestly not that tempted to destabilize the World Prosaic by telling everyone to listen to a mad prophet. ...well when I put it like that I'm a little tempted. But still not enough for it to be a problem, I died something like three days ago and I'm usually good for a few weeks after."

"Well, let's see if we can't set a new record."

She's not totally sure if it would work like that but hey, optimism.

"Anyway, I… don't actually know all that much about how I'm supposed to work, since it's not like I went to school for huskology. I don't even know if that's a thing, really. But I think it progresses, because when it first happened I didn't have horns and now I do, and there's… pictures. They look more like animals than people. I really don't want that to happen since by all accounts you lose your personality and mind when it does, but so far I think that I'm still mostly pretty much me."

She pauses.

"… maybe it's a bad idea but I kinda want to figure out some spells so that I can have something to show for having magic other than horns and eyeglow and possibly a death sentence. That can go on the backburner, though."

"Aren't some of your animals people anyway?" Jadis asks, fading briefly back into selective existence (in snow leopard form, for emphasis). "Should you be assuming just off what someone looks like?"

"Jesus! What?!"

Jadis waves her hand dismissively. "None of his business."

… Giggle. Even though Jadis' joke flies over her head.

"Well, not regular animals. That I know of. Familiars are different, more like part of a person? I'm pretty sure that's how it works, anyway."

"Familiars are animals that are part of a person, and that makes them people, and not animals. Husks become animals, and that means they aren't people, because if they were people they'd never dream of being part animal. What very tidy rules you people have. Or, I've forgotten, are you animals?"

Blink.

"Uh, I think it's…"

She's got a point.

"It's not about the shape, right? But there is a difference between a pet dog and a dog familiar. A mental difference. The thing that's beastly about husks isn't what they look like, it's that they can't be reasoned with."

She still feels like she's missing something, or maybe being racist against animals somehow? Oops.

"Jadis, are you being cryptic towards any actual end or just for its own sake?"

"Who can saaaaaaaay~" she trills, turning upside down.

"Why are you like this."

"Because attempting to communicate meaningful information across the boundary of self when you don't have one is difficult,"  she snaps.

She turns right-side-up again. "And because it's funny."

She's not sure how much the second thing is cover for the first, but:

"What's the funny part? Is it that you can be in whatever body you want, so the distinction between you as a leopard and you as a human doesn't matter?"

"No, it's that I'm the only one in this conversation who isn't literally dying of trying too hard to be a person, and that includes all three of you and the human."

Then she's replaced by a quantity of snow, which flumphs to the ground and begins sublimating, and a set of teeth carved from ice, which hang in the air for a moment longer before clattering down.

"I don't think I'm literally dying of that."

She glances at the teeth, then at Eadmund and Anya.

"Uh. Am I counting the number of people here wrong."

"...she doesn't... say false things. So probably, in some sense, you're miscounting. But not in the literal sense, no."