we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[her_imperial_radiance]

[she_sells_seashells]

"How long does it last?"

[lifes_sake]

"Yeah, that's what I wanna know too."

[dark_light]

"It varies how far away you have to get. Usually about a hundred yards."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Do people ever do this with somebody else holding their daemon for them? Someone who'd be generally allowed. I wonder if it would help."

[dark_light]

"People usually never do this at all, except witches, who are in our early teens at the time," says Amariah. "I've never heard of it. It might help. It might even help a lot. I don't know."

[truthwright]

"I know who to ask," says Kas, and he turns the dials on his alethiometer.

"It might help," he concludes. "It says it - won't make the bad part better, but it'll be a good part where there usually isn't one."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I'll go, then, if Sherlock will stand somewhere not in the afterlife and hold my duck thing for me," says Shell Bell. "If you want an extra Bell along."

[lifes_sake]

"...Hey alethiometer, how would my hawk daemon interact with my notebook?" Cam asks.

[truthwright]

The alethiometer says, "There is no precedent."

[lifes_sake]

"I thought this thing was supposed to generate objective truth," complains Cam. "What does it need precedent for?"

[truthwright]

"I can give you no answer where no answer exists," says the alethiometer.

[lifes_sake]

"But if Grace were an ordinary notebook," argues Cam, "it wouldn't interact with a daemon at all, and you'd know that. She's not ordinary notebook. Can I conclude that she would interact with a daemon?"

[truthwright]

"You can conclude that she might interact with a daemon," says the alethiometer.

"...Is this the part where I point out that it's calling your notebook 'Paper Daemon'?" says Kas.

[lifes_sake]

"...Yes. This is the part where you point that out," says Cam. "Paper daemon. Huh."

"I could fly!" exclaims Grace.

"If it works that way! It might not work that way. Also then how would I write in you? Or read you?"

"You could wish for me to be able to turn back into a notebook," she says reasonably.

"...Alethiometer, if Grace turns into a hawk, can I safely wish for her to turn back into a notebook?"

[truthwright]

"There is no precedent," says the alethiometer.

[lifes_sake]

"If Amariah wished for Path to be able to turn into a notebook could she do it?" Cam tries.

[truthwright]

"He could become able to be a notebook," it says.

"I wonder if I could be a notebook," muses Petaal. "Not that there's any reason for me to be."

[lifes_sake]

"I'd consider it proof of concept," Cam remarks mildly. "Right now Grace can be as far away from me as we want - if I set her down somewhere, move a hundred yards and change away, and then she turns into a hawk-daemon, do I get to have the separation over with instantly?"

[truthwright]

"If it happens that way, it will happen that way," says the alethiometer.

"Yes," says Kas. "But it's noncommittal about whether or not Grace is going to turn into a hawk-daemon."

[lifes_sake]

"I wonder if I can make a conditional reversal of my anti-daemon wish. Alethiometer, can I do that?"

[truthwright]

"The wish magic works in that way," says the alethiometer.

[lifes_sake]

"Awesome. So I'll go if Grace gets to be my daemon, and otherwise I think I'm gonna have to pass."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"...I'll hang back in reserve," says Elspeth. "I'll go in if I'm needed."

[truthwright]

Kas shrugs. "Anything else we want to know?"