"The histories of worlds don't match in that way - well, many do, but ours is off-type," says Isibel. "There are all manner of species, although some worlds have only humans among those who think and speak, and others blur the question of whether their inhabitants are the same species or not. The world that does peculiar things to personal identity has its inhabitants' souls exist outside of them, in the form of animals generally speaking, called daemons. There is one of me and one of my beloved from there - depending on how you count, because their souls have their own bodies and names. And visitors to this world, if they go unprotected by magic, will acquire the same. My beloved and another of that template have visited the world and obtained daemons of their own. As have two of me, not including myself."