Should they look for him, they will find Prince Isten in the palace library.

...He blinks at her, surprised into complete speechlessness.

"So he's not going to come visit you here for the foreseeable future," she says. "And you probably shouldn't tell anybody that you know who Loel Lalindar is. Or describe him in lots of detail if you go visit him. But he thought you could be told."

"He's okay. He's building a moat. I think if he'd had the choice he'd have let somebody else be prime and gone on living where he was, but he's okay."

"Good. I'm glad." The smile turns into a grin. "A moat, huh? Is he excited about it?"

"He's so excited about his moat. It's cute."

Isten giggles. "That's my brother, all right."

"Yes. But for the time being, it's just a matter of, 'oh, Ardelay found a distant Lalindar cousin of some kind somewhere abroad, his name is Loel'. I'm going to write Alser a letter, since I know he hasn't been well enough to be here - is Auney around?"

"Auney... ah," says Isten. "Auney tried to fly again, while you were gone. It didn't work. You want Sarelle Dochenza. I think she's still in the city but I haven't seen her in a few days."

"...Who Dochenza? I haven't heard of her."

"Neither had most people. She's, um..." He searches for words, then shakes his head. "You'll see when you meet her."

"...Okay. So, if I'm next in this series of prime-related disasters, I doubt anyone will ask you and I do have it written down, but Aleko can dispose of my personal belongings according to his discretion and you should feel free to write him if you want anything," says Kiri, exasperated. "Is Sarelle the type to try to fly or can we expect to hold on to this Dochenza a little longer?"

"I don't think you're going to have to worry about her," he says, trying not to smile and mostly succeeding. "She's very, um, practical."

"A practical Dochenza. Well, that's new and exciting," snorts Kiri. "Okay. I'll go look for her and then I've got letters to write."

"Okay," says Isten. "It was nice to see you again, Kiri."

Kiri stops. "Hello? Is it important? I'm in a touch of a hurry and most non-urgent inquiries can go through my brother."

"I know where to find the missing Serlast prime," she says. "Or at least I know where to start looking. Is that sufficiently important?"

Kiri opens her mouth, and then closes it again, and then says, "That is quite important, but I'd like to at least start the process of informing everyone that I already found the missing Lalindar, which means finding, apparently, Sarelle Dochenza and then writing a letter to Alser Frothen."

"You have found Sarelle Dochenza," she says dryly. "Congratulations. Where was the Lalindar?"

"Yes," she says. "I am, as my sister often tells me, the least elay elay ever to elay, but I am apparently elay enough."

"Okay then. He was in Thiyec but now he's in the Lalindar country house. His name is Loel. I found him by seeing what locations had been suffering from excess rain. How do you think you've tracked down the missing Serlast? There wouldn't be anything obvious for wood and bone."

"Genealogy," she says. "I looked up every record of every relative of every previous hunti prime I could find, and then narrowed it down to only the ones who had left Welce recently enough that they might still be alive to inherit the primacy but who were not still in contact such that they might have heard the news. And I found one woman who left the country twenty-one years ago with her weeks-old baby. She went to Malinqua. I propose to go to Malinqua and find her, or the child, because one of them is very likely to be the missing prime."

"That definitely sounds worth doing, yes. After this long I'd expect even an unknown illegitimate descendant to have come forward, so a branch that moved to Malinqua is promising. When are you going?"

"I was planning to wait for you, as the most experienced prime who is not currently bedridden. Would you like to go to Malinqua?"

"I... don't speak a word of Malinquan. What do you want me to do?"

"It seems prudent to have someone along who knows the business of primes. I can translate for you if required."

"Okay. Sure, we can go to Malinqua if you can plan the search route and I can bring my twin brother."

"Of course," she says. "I, however, will leave my twin sister at home."

"As you like. I just bring Aleko with me most everywhere. Do you have passage booked, a schedule...?"

"Not yet. When would be convenient for you to leave? I will arrange it."

"I need to write two - no, three letters. One for the king, one for Alser - or his granddaughter Patience who's expected to succeed him, if he's not well enough to read it by the time it arrives - and one for my other brother who's managing my affairs in my absence. After that I can leave at any time, though I'd like at least one night in my nice comfy palace bed before traveling again."

"The soonest available passage no earlier than the day after tomorrow, then?"

"Yes. The sooner we can have a set of stable primes the better."

"Agreed. I'll let you know as soon as I have something booked. It was," she pauses, then smiles very slightly, "interesting to meet you."

"Likewise," remarks Kiri. "Oh - a question - I've historically found other primes more open to the idea of my mindreading than other people. My range is about five feet, a little more on a cold day; how carefully do you want me to mind your personal space?"

She considers this, then says, "I will mind it for you."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that, unless it's just that I should keep away from you but you might choose to approach me."

"You could interpret it that way, yes."

"...Okay. Do you know where to find my palace suite when you have an itinerary for us?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll see you later, then." And off Kiri goes, at the briskest safe walk, towards said palace suite to inform her twin and write some letters.

Aleko answers the door. "Hi. Dochenza?" he guesses.

"Correct. Most people do not guess that on sight," she says.

"Well, Kiri told me to expect somebody nowish of your approximate description who kind of screams ha ha no I cannot possibly be elay prime, so."

"I imagined the explanation might be along those lines."

"Anyway, come in, I hear we're going to yet another country where the extent of my contribution is going to be 'I didn't understand that but I resent it anyway, sir!'?"

"Malinqua is likely to be an improvement on Soche-Tas in that regard," she says, entering on his invitation. "We have passage booked for tomorrow afternoon."

"I think most places would have to be an improvement on Soche-Tas," snorts Aleko. "Okay, tomorrow afternoon, another day to fill up on palace food, good - Kiri, did you hear?"

"Yep, tomorrow afternoon," agrees Kiri from her desk. "What kind of boat are we on? Do we know anything about where we're going within Malinqua?"

"We know where her voyage landed, and I have a promising theory or two about where she would have gone from there," says Sarelle. "We are on a fast boat. I recommend you not overpack. We will be competing for space with a spice merchant's cargo and the cargo is likely to win any disputes."

"Do we need to arrange our own food or is that included in passage? Do I owe you for it?"

"We will be fed. You do not owe me."

"Okay. Clothes and notebooks, then."

"It's really hard to believe you're elay, let alone prime. Do something airy," suggests Aleko.

Aleko outright applauds.

Kiri laughs. "Oh, that's very clever. I never saw Auney or Jerist playing with sound."

"It's also impressive control, you've had it less than a quintile - though it's possible I'm overestimating how long it takes to acquire facility with powers because I was eight and vaguely traumatized and highly nervous about both aspects of mine when I began."

"I am probably picking it up faster than average," she says. "I do that with most things."

"Yeah, and, probably easier if doing it wrong means 'the window broke for air pressure reasons' and not 'your mom is on fire and/or cannot remember how to speak Welchin', Kiri."

"I'm reasonably sure Sarelle could kill somebody with Dochenza powers as well, but point taken."

"It would be somewhat more difficult to do it accidentally," she says. "But yes. People are very dependent on air."

"Anyway. Your credentials have been established and we know what things to pack for when - anything else?"

"No," says Sarelle. "I will meet you here tomorrow to guide you to the ship."

"We'll be here."

The twins are packed.

Although Aleko absconded from lunch with a small cake and is still nibbling on it.

"Hello," she says. (She is carrying a single bag, which looks to have been packed precisely to its limit.) "Shall we go?"

Sarelle thanks the captain as they disembark, and then she takes one look around her and begins confidently leading the Ardelay twins away from the docks.

"So what kind of agenda are we looking at here?" asks Aleko. "And slow down or Kiri'll fall over."

"First I am going to check my maps. Then we will find transportation to the town of Narena, which should be two days' travel by horse or carriage inland from here. When we arrive, I am going to search the town for signs of an elementally blessed person in residence. It will be very easy to find them if they are there, or have been in the past week. After that," she shrugs, "I have only to track by scent. Unless I find no trace of them at all, and then I will move on to the next likely town."

"Oh, by scent, I guess that makes sense. Never heard Auney talking about it. Too busy trying to fly. Don't try to fly, it doesn't end well," he adds helpfully.

"If I ever try to fly," says Sarelle, "I will choose a method that works."

"Unless Auney discussed the ruled-out methods with you before trying them I'm not sure how you're going to do that. It's really very troublesome that our magic only ever belongs to one person at a time."

"I will begin from the premise that any method that relies on supporting myself solely by magic is automatically ruled out. Tia is already working on a few ideas."

"Tia being?"

"My twin sister. Tianetta Stark. She strongly prefers Tia. She is... much more traditionally elay than I am. Although she shares my streak of sweela."

Kiri giggles at the... diplomacy of that description.

"Our mom and our little brother are both elay," volunteers Aleko. "Her more than him, personality and random blessings and all - hey, what are your blessings? You're not wearing them."

"That is four," says Aleko. "Four is the number of things you just said."

"Our father was also elay," she explains. "Much like Tia - ravenously intelligent, but forgetful of mundane details. The story goes, as we were told it, that he went out to get our blessings and lost count of how many strangers he had petitioned. When he arrived home and turned out his pockets, he had no idea which ones had been our respective extra draws, and decided to keep them all for lack of a better solution. We are at least very sure that he correctly identified which pocket was for which twin. Hers are innovation, courage, joy, and charm."

"I guess you don't wear them so people aren't like... 'that is four, four is the number of charms on that necklace' or whatever?"

"Yes," she says. "Tia doesn't mind, but I find it tedious."

"Is it his side of the family that relates you to the Dochenzas?"

"No - our mother's. Jerist Dochenza was her grandfather."

"Is your mom elay too?"

"No. Sweela. As sweela as you could possibly imagine."

"As sweela as Kiri?"

"A little differently, I think, but no less."

"Kiri's the sweela-est person I have ever in my life met."

"Kiri is extremely sweela," Sarelle concurs.

Kiri and Aleko wait outside, leaning on the building within Kiri's range of one another.

"Lead the way. If it's the younger of the possibilities who's prime now - do you suppose they'll have any understanding of what primes even are? Will we even be able to ask them whether they'd call themselves hunti and have the question make sense?"

"I will know if they are hunti," she says. "And I will know if they are prime. As to their level of knowledge, well, you will be there to provide explanations."

"I imagine you'll be able to tell if they're hunti - though it's news that you can also identify primes - I'm just wondering how far back my explanations will have to start if they don't know they're hunti."

"That, I am less sure about. Explanations are... not entirely my specialty."

"Self-awareness. Miniature Pocket Kiri approves," says Aleko quietly.

Sarelle glances back at him inquiringly.

"Aleko has me modeled pretty thoroughly and consults the imaginary 'miniature pocket Kiri' on assorted matters. Occasionally, as you can see, even when I am standing right here."

"I see," she says, smiling. "As to the substance of the comment - understanding things is my specialty. My own mind is both the nearest available target and the lens through which I perceive all the rest."

"Miniature Pocket Kiri approves of self-knowledge because it's something I practice as - how did Jayce put it - 'something between a hobby and breathing'."

"I don't think it is quite the same with me. But the similarity is interesting."

"It's why we have all those blank books in our luggage. I mean, I also draw in them, but mostly they're for Kiri to scribble in about herself."

"I am not much in the habit of writing things down," says Sarelle. "For most purposes, memory serves."

"I have a fine memory, but I don't like to trust it when it is one of the things I'm trying to examine."

"I am well acquainted with the capacity of mine. It does what I require of it."

"Fair enough."

"I think we'll come along," says Kiri, after a brief and silent conference.

"Especially if you narrate while you're looking, that'll be interesting."

"Narrate what, exactly?"

"How you're deciding where to look. Especially if it's with magic, I barely know how anybody works except for Kiri."

"I tell you what I pick up about the others."

"Yeah, but if I have clarifying questions you usually can't answer them about anybody except you, and I can't get demos from anybody except you most of the time. Maybe Patience will, when it's her, if it's her, she knows me."

"Hmm," she says. "I have never had much success explaining what I do in detail, even before magic was involved."

"Does magic make it harder or easier?"

"Easier to do. Harder to explain."

"Well, I follow Kiri okay when she talks about hers as long as I don't go down too far into details."

The twins wait a little ways away.

"I think you've got better range than I do. Although admittedly I've never tried sensing distant heat while completely surrounded with fire, so you have the advantage of me there."

They follow, taking in the scenery as long as they aren't responsible for deriving clues from it.

"So what exactly is the thing you do that you did before you became prime?" inquires Aleko. "Which from context somehow has something to do with finding missing Serlasts?"

"...What kinda things? How?"

"A wide variety, and mainly by finding out other things and then applying that knowledge. Like what I did to find out that there were missing Serlasts in Malinqua. Or how I knew that I was prime almost immediately, without doing anything strictly magical - it changed the way my senses fit together, and I was an elay Dochenza who could suddenly taste the wind and there was nothing else it could have been."

"It has a taste?"

"Huh."

"It's very informative."

"Yeah, sounds it. And without Kiri's little ethics problem."

"Yes."

"It's not that little," murmurs Kiri, sidestepping a pedestrian with practiced resignation.

"Yes, I assumed the qualifier was decorative."

"That thing, yeah."

"I go back and forth on whether I think it worked the same way for Great-Aunt Elytte."

"I... suspect that not all powers are the same from prime to prime," says Sarelle. "But I have very little information about that particular case."

"She didn't advertise it, if it did work the same for her."

"It is possible to imagine why she might not have."

"Yes, but not very flatteringly."

"The primes who coexisted with her suspected she could detect lies. She was apparently obvious enough about that, at least with them."

"Perhaps that is all she could do."

"It's possible. Especially since as far as they could tell she didn't have a range limit on that, so she must have worked somewhat differently."

Okay then. They can walk in silence, Aleko helping Kiri ward off random Malinquans.

"Do the native Malinquans just not turn up as anything at all?" wonders Kiri.

"They turn up as souls," she says, a little distractedly. "Just not, for the most part, elemental ones. I might compare it to the difference between a cup of tea and a cup of warm water that has had some tea leaves dipped in it."

"Huh. When Soechins and Thiyecines stumbled into my range I tended to find them harder to read," she volunteers. "Haven't had any informative accidents with Malinquans yet, but it's convenient in its way, since they won't understand me if I tell them to back off - at least not why; they might get the picture that I'm antisocial."

"Interesting," Sarelle murmurs. "Books... we are pursuing a scholar, I believe, or a librarian. Something of that nature. Only one. The other has not been here in some time. At least a week, but I suspect longer."

"Ooh, a librarian."

—at a young man of about their age or a little older, emerging from a building across the street and some distance ahead, who is quite possibly even more blatantly sweela than Sarelle herself is blatantly hunti.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

"Not in the slightest," she says, smiling. "He is very sweela for a hunti, but he is hunti nevertheless, and prime."

"All right then. I guess next we see if he speaks Welchin."

Sarelle crosses the street and asks him, in Malinquan.

"...Er. Yes?" he says, puzzled, in perfectly fluent Welchin.

"We're sorry to descend on you out of nowhere like this," apologizes Kiri, relieved that she won't have to communicate exclusively through Sarelle. "I'm Kiribel Ardelay, this is Sarelle Dochenza, and this is my brother Aleko, and we're here because we believe you have an inheritance back in Welce."

"An inheritance of... what, exactly?"

"Where to start - how much do you know about Welce? Your accent is very good, but I mean the culture? Five elements, etcetera?"

"Very little. Virtually nothing, in fact."

"Okay, well, there are five elements. Sweela is fire and mind, elay is air and soul, coru is blood and water, torz is earth and flesh, and hunti is wood and bone. Everybody in Welce picks an element that best represents their personality, but there are also five families that each represent or embody an element - respectively, the Ardelays, the Dochenzas, the Lalindars, the Frothens, and the Serlasts. And every one of those families is headed by a 'prime' with certain element-themed powers, who is not chosen in any conventional manner of heir selection but rather by a process of idiosyncratic magic."

"...magic," he repeats.

"...Do you not have any magic here? I have always vaguely imagined that even in countries without primes there would have to be something."

"We do not," he says with extreme dryness, "have magic in Malinqua."

"So you haven't noticed any unusual new senses or abilities as regards - trees, wooden objects, paper, the ability to detect people's bone structure from farther away than you ought to be able to, unusual behavior of nearby ivory?" She glances at Sarelle. "You're sure this is him?"

(The alleged prime frowns thoughtfully.)

"I am extremely sure that this is him," says Sarelle.

"Yours would be among the subtler abilities. I woke up one day to find that I had set my bed on fire, so there was little question," says Kiri. "But the previous Serlast prime has been dead for several weeks now."

"You set your bed on fire," he says, taken aback. "In your sleep. With magic?"

"Yes. I have it under control now - although you should be warned that if you get within five feet of me, a little farther on a cold day, I haven't found a way to turn off the mindreading part." She holds her hand palm-up and calls a discreet little touch of flame into it.

Kiri dismisses the fire and puts her hand down. "Assuming Sarelle is correct, you're the hunti prime, and since your predecessor died in a duel - don't worry, there has been no ill will passed on to the rest of the family, you are not heir to a feud - that means you now own a lot of property and have a lot of non-transferable political power in Welce."

"I see."

"Ideally you'd come back to Welce with us. You could appoint one of your more or less distant cousins to manage the Serlast belongings for you if you don't care to worry about it, but whenever our king dies, all five primes are necessary to ratify his heir and, if it's while said heir is still a child, to choose a regent."

"And I cannot appoint anyone to carry out those duties for me, because... they involve magic?" he guesses.

"Well, the ratification does. I suppose regent selection could be done by proxy."

"You said ideally I would come back with you. What things that aren't ideal will happen if I don't?"

"Miscellaneous political instability. There's been a lot of prime turnover in a very short period of time. I'm seventeen years old and, except for a fellow who's most probably on his deathbed, I have been a prime longer than anyone else alive. The five families are important to an assortment of politics in Welce, and while an appointed agent could probably smooth over much of it, an actual prime being present would help. The king is not on his deathbed, but if something happens to him, failing to orchestrate the turnover with the relevant magical ratification procedure would also not go over well with the population. And - I wish to clarify that this is not a threat, but you asked - because the only way primacy transfers is through the death of a previous prime, if anyone both unethical and in a position to suffer from this miscellaneous political instability were able to locate you, they might consider assassination an obvious solution. It's quite possible no one else will be able to find you. Sarelle was using magic and on top of that you don't look hunti at all."

...He looks at Sarelle.

"As elay prime, I can more or less smell your soul," she explains. "If I could not, it would have been considerably more difficult to find you. Perhaps not impossible, but as well as being elay prime I am also particularly talented at finding."

"I... see."

"I managed to find the also-missing-abroad coru prime without help," mentions Kiri. "But that was because he was affecting the weather. You have no such obvious tells. If you want nothing more than for us to leave you alone, I'd ask that you write a letter authorizing some other Serlast to manage your estate in your absence - I can make recommendations if you like - and do something obviously magical to the paper it's written on so it isn't suspected of being a forgery. And we might come back when the king dies and ask you to at least visit."

"I detect a slight flaw in this plan," he says. "Namely, I don't know how to do anything obviously magical."

"It should be possible to figure it out," Kiri says. "I can probably help a little - Valdin Serlast didn't mind if I read his mind now and then, so I know bits and pieces of how the other magic works - but it's mostly pretty intuitive. You might find your magic in better or more accessible shape if you visit the forest on the estate, though."

He sighs. "No. If the inheritance is mine, the responsibility is also mine."

"Have you got a name apart from Serlast, by the way?"

"...Ekador."

"Ekador Serlast. Rolls off the tongue."

"So if we're bringing you back with us - how long do you need before we leave?"

He frowns. "That may depend on whether or not I plan to come back... you said I 'own a lot of property' in Welce; does that translate to significant material wealth? Enough that I shouldn't worry about finding work, if I stay?"

"Two houses, assorted businesses - the Lalindars gave you a winery to apologize for the duel, most recently; I would need to look up details about other holdings - plenty of cash, anything belonging to Valdin that your various cousins haven't designated personal and found some way to divide up, and you'll find that your credit is good anywhere in Welce unless you develop some sort of irresponsible reputation. Your job is 'be the prime', which can accommodate any amount of involvement in said property but certainly allows you to live comfortably even on negligible amounts of same."

"They're blessing symbols. Welchin children get three apiece - barring miscounts, anyway - within a few hours of being born. Mine are," she points, "power, intelligence, clarity. Primes get 'power' disproportionately often, so I was suspected as my great-aunt's heir right away, although not all primes get it and not everyone who gets it is prime."

"I've got flexibility, imagination, contentment." Point, point, point.

"Resolve, love, loyalty," reads off Aleko. "Are those yours? Do you still have yours?"

(Kiri smiles faintly at the readiness with which he produced the notebook.)

"I... believe these three were my mother's," says Ekador. "And I believe that mine were... intelligence, flexibility, and resolve," with a glance at the presently visible examples of each blessing as he says them. "My mother had a bracelet she sometimes wore, with her three symbols on it, and she kept three coins in a little box near my bed when I was a child. She never mentioned what they were for."

"Intelligence is a sweela blessing, flexibility is coru, and resolve is hunti," says Kiri. "Though it's only a slight tendency for one's random blessings at birth to have anything to do with one's elemental identification later."

"I am going to want a chart," he says, half to himself.

"I can write you a chart right now, if you like," says Kiri, producing her own notebook and a pen.

"Please do."

She draws him a chart, then neatly tears out the page and hands it over.

"They don't have associated elements."

Sarelle provides the name of the inn.

"Your Malinquan is very good," he remarks. "I'll see about making my arrangements. I should at least be able to tell you tomorrow how long it will take."

"Then I suppose we'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for not leaving us in the lurch," says Kiri wryly.

He smiles briefly. "Tomorrow, yes."