i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[regularsized]

"Nope," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"Do you know how coin powers work?" Bella asks, tilting her head.

[regularsized]

"Not in any great detail. Why?"

[self_composed]

"I've talked to Lazarus - Chris introduced us. Lazarus says wishcoins are made out of pain. If Libby finds wishcoiners interesting, it's because she wants to hurt them and extract some benefit from that. Or talk them into hurting themselves, I suppose. As long as she finds wishcoiners more interesting than comparable nonmagical people, it boils down to that."

[regularsized]

"...Where are you going with this?" says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"Nowhere specific. It just doesn't seem all that benign to me. Gains from trade are a thing - but I'm not sure how much of that to expect to see here. Because I don't know what's on offer or what's being asked, but it sure sounds like Libby expects it to involve me being in a hell of a lot of pain, if I'm interesting because she thinks I'm a wishcoiner."

[regularsized]

"She asks people not to do things as often as she asks them to do things," says Bridget. "She might, hypothetically, if you don't end up deciding you want nothing to do with us, just ask you to let her know what you're up to in a general sense and once in a while change what you're doing so you don't interfere with someone else. And then once in a while you can ask her to change what someone else is doing so it doesn't interfere with you. My impression is that the reason she's so keen to figure out strange wishcoiners is because they have the potential to cause a lot of trouble and she wants to avoid that, not because she has magic she wants them to do."

[self_composed]

"I suppose that makes sense," Bella acknowledges. "Keeping people from running into each other sounds like a worthwhile service. But I'm getting the impression that she's not usually very forthcoming with information, which I think I would find infuriating in any significant dose."

[regularsized]

"Well, you could always ask her to be more forthcoming," says Bridget. "If she decides you're trustworthy, she might."

[self_composed]

"What does 'trustworthy' look like?" Bella asks.

[regularsized]

"Like someone who isn't planning to hurt the organization or anyone in it," says Bridget. "Like someone who will keep secrets once given them."

[self_composed]

"That's what trustworthy is. What does it look like - how does Libby tell the trustworthy apart from the not?"

[regularsized]

"I don't know, because I'm not Libby."

[self_composed]

"Does she think you're trustworthy?" Bella asks. "Or is there a reason you know so little about why you're doing her this favor?"

[regularsized]

"She trusts me not to spill secrets on purpose, but I don't think she trusts me not to spill them by accident," she says with a shrug. "Which is fair."

[self_composed]

"Should I be expecting you to spill the beans that I am a suspected wishcoiner to random third parties?" Bella inquires.

[regularsized]

"I've managed not to do it so far," says Bridget. "I keep secrets that I know I should keep. But if I knew a lot more than I do about Libby and her people, I might be telling you things right now that you're not supposed to know. And I'm not nearly as curious as you are, so I don't want to know those things enough for it to be worth the risk."

[self_composed]

"Okay." Bella decides there's really, at this point, zero point in pretending not to be a mint. "Because I am in the wishcoining closet, so to speak, and it would not be kind of anyone to out me."

[regularsized]

"Sure," says Bridget. "Does that include not confirming to Libby that you are in fact a wishcoiner? Because I'm pretty sure she doubts it even less than she used to, but I don't think she knows for sure."

[self_composed]

"What do you think she will do if you fail to confirm this for her?" Bella asks.

[regularsized]

"I don't think it'll make much of a difference, honestly," she says.

[self_composed]

"What do you think she will do regardless, then?"

[regularsized]

"I think that depends heavily on you," she says, raising her eyebrows. "Do you want to talk to her yourself? Do you want to never hear from either of us again?"

[self_composed]

"I want to know what is going on," Bella say firmly.

[regularsized]

"Then you want to talk to Libby, because Libby knows what is going on, and she might actually tell you," says Bridget. "I don't know much more than I've already said. Nothing relevant I can think of."