"How... exactly will people mistake me for sweela?" he asks.

"By and large Welchin people can tell by looking. Imperfectly - you I'd guess sweela, Sarelle I'd guess hunti, people mistake our father for torz and he's hunti. But we can tell, and if people make mistakes they tend to be the same mistakes for a given person. You carry yourself in what comes off as a sweela sort of way."

"Why? What is it about me that comes off that way? Or is this more magic, and therefore not subject to rational analysis?"

"It's hard to pin down details. The fact that we can't do it nearly as readily with foreigners suggests that it's either more and subtler magic or that there's just a tendency to obey general stereotypes in either an informative or a consistently misleading way. Which you've either managed to inherit or have coincidentally acquired; it's not like we never produce guesses about non-Welchin people."

"I find it hard to imagine that I naturally conform to a stereotype of which I had never seen an example before this week. Magic seems the simpler explanation."

"Possible. It's not that magic completely defies rational analysis, you know, it's just that the samples are so small. The only magic you can keep trying all day long in arbitrary quantities if you like without taking risks with live subjects or a landscape are the random blessings."

"I see. Tell me again about the random blessings," he says. "What is their function? What is their purpose?"

"You have a bin of coins - although it also works if you write them all down and cut them up, it doesn't have to be coins - with the symbols printed on them. You draw them and whatever you get is informative over the next unspecified time period, with birth blessings 'lasting' the longest. I find birth blessings' accuracy convincing, myself, but they're the sort of thing that people could wind up conforming to half on purpose, or concocting stories for even if they didn't fit. More striking is that if I sit in front of a full bin of blessings and pull out every single coin one by one, I will not touch a 'grace' until those are the only three left."

"Also works if she makes me sit there for fifteen minutes doing it for her. Half the time you don't draw for yourself, and you get three strangers to do your kids' blessings."

"And where did they come from? Why that specific list of forty-three blessings in six categories?"

"I'm not sure. I tried inventing other blessings, and obviously if I put slips of paper with them written down in a bowl, I could pick from them at random, but I didn't get any dramatic results - I couldn't think of anything that obviously ought to languish at the bottom of the bowl the way 'grace' does, for instance. Haven't picked up that experiment in awhile."

"What other blessings did you invent?"

"I'd have to look them up. I have a list in a notebook, but didn't bring that one on this trip."

"Ah," he says. "Hmm. I'd try to invent some on the spot, but I don't think I fully understand the categories. And I don't have any convenient flaws to test against."

"I think one of 'em was 'vitality'," says Aleko vaguely. "She didn't put them in any categories, I don't know if that would've mattered. The extraordinary blessings work fine."

"I would be inclined to balance the numbers, if it were my experiment. Eight to eight to eight to eight to eight to three. In case that ratio is somehow significant."

"Yeah, numbers are kind of a thing but Kiri doesn't think they do anything in general. Threes and eights and fives too."

"I don't know if they interact with the functionality of blessings. I'm pretty sure they have nothing to do with how many children it is reasonable to have or anything."

"Have you tried drawing from a deliberately incomplete set of blessings? Does it seem to function normally? I suppose your particular test involves going through them all regardless, but do you know if it matters how many there are to start?"

"I haven't tried an incomplete set. However, while the usual minimum to have a chapel is three of each kind, the big temples have huge bins, people sometimes walk off with their draws and leave tithes to mint more, there are 'ghost coins' that are so worn that you can't read what they used to be, and overall I'd be surprised if they were consistently evenly distributed, though they might always have at least one of everything."

"I foresee a lot of experimentation in my future," says Ekador, smiling.

"I'm not sure if there's a chapel on the Serlast property, but your Chialto house is a block from a temple," she says. "And one of the Ardelay holdings is a blessings mint, if you just want to order a quantity of them to mess with at home I can give you a discount if you'll write up your findings and let me put them in my libraries."

"Absolutely," he promises.

"Oh, you shut up, Ko."

"I didn't say anything."

"Shut up anyway."

"Oh no, mental censorship!"

"My twin here and I occasionally have conversations that are not remotely designed to be transparent to third parties. Sorry."

"Not a problem," he murmurs.

"The mindreading is part of why I tend to bring him with me everywhere - it's easier to stay five feet away from strangers who don't know what's going on if someone who doesn't feel the need to keep that much distance is helping to run interference. Especially since if I have to do too much complicated or rapid footwork I topple over."

"That does seem helpful, then, yes."

"It took some getting used to though."

"I can see how it might."

"Kiri was a predictable Ardelay prime because the last one was our great-aunt, Kiri's got two sweela blessings and power, she's a totally sweela person - so everybody knew it'd be her. Except then Great-Aunt Elytte keeled over before anybody expected her to. We were eight."

"And you set the bed on fire. That must have been disconcerting."

"Yes. I wasn't hurt - under ordinary circumstances, I haven't experimented with extremes, I'm not burnable or for that matter freezable. But it was alarming."

"And it took a while before anybody was okay with giving her a hug." (Aleko gives her a hug.)

"I can only hope the rest of us tend not to be so rudely awakened," he says.

"Nothing nearly like it, no. It didn't take me long to get the fire handled to the point where it's completely under conscious control, but you shouldn't have that problem at all."

"I certainly hope not."

"Valdin used to talk about trees speaking to him, which I am reasonably confident was a metaphor. He didn't go in for ostentatious public magic at all; I saw him weaving paper as the equivalent of a seal, once or twice for important correspondence. And when he had that mutually fatal duel, Nerine Lalindar was found to have every bone in her body crushed to powder. That's about the extent of what I know he could do."

"I don't plan on crushing any bones, but I'm very curious about what he did with paper."

"There might be examples around the house when we get there. He could disconnect strips of it from itself and then join it up later, so there would be sections of woven paper that one couldn't do without magic or obviously-not-present glue on his envelopes. They used to get very intricate. The Frothens don't have a sealing method for their letters and the Dochenzas don't either, but Lalindars have used watermarks, and I have some sealing wax that melts at such a high temperature that if anyone but me used it, it'd char or at least curl the paper."

"Interesting. How do you prevent it from doing that?"

"I don't let the heat transfer to the paper. It's a little delicate, I need to concentrate, but if you get a letter sealed in that wax you know it's from me."

"I think paper-weaving sounds more fun."

"It probably is. I can do fun things, but you have me beat in letter-sealing."

He looks smug.

"When we're on the boat I'll show you I can do stuff with ice too - I remove heat from things about as easily as I add it."

"I look forward to seeing that."

"She's very handy to have around in the middle of Quinnahunti when the sun is trying to bake us."

"That does sound convenient."

"Oh, yeah, the magic handholding thing. Do you have to do that? I thought it was recreational."

"I think it'll also be a step in ratifying Isten. Otherwise we could skip it."

"The magic... handholding... thing?"

"If all five primes hold hands in a circle, there's a - thing. It's very hard to describe. Nerine thought doing it regularly was important to the health of the Welchin 'elemental ecology' or you probably couldn't have gotten her to stand in the same circle as Valdin for love or money; as far as I know this was just a superstition she had, though."

"Does it have effects of some kind?"

"...All the primes are sort of high for an hour or two afterwards? No obvious practical effects."

He snorts.

"Kiri wanders back to the suite after magic handholding muttering about how everything is so sharp and clear and my thoughts are easier to understand," says Aleko. "One time I guess they stood like that an extra long time and she started talking in half-poetry about how all the elements are really the same thing at their most basic. It was weird."

"I... see. I am not entirely tempted by this description."

"It's pleasant, and except for the weird poetry incident it's not usually impairing - things really are sharp for a while, and things I write down still make sense later - except, again, weird poetry incident. But I can understand why it wouldn't sound appealing. I wasn't told what was going to happen the first time or I probably would've refused."

"We will see."

"I've never ratified a monarch before, but I think it does require magic handholding. Otherwise it can be omitted."

"...Do you know how to ratify a monarch?"

"I haven't received an instructional tutorial on the subject, but I coexisted with two primes who did it so I have a general idea. Magic in general is very intuitive once you get the hang of it, so I don't anticipate it to be an intractable problem."

"If you say so."

"Well, if I'm wrong, we're in trouble. Alser's the only more experienced prime than me and he's dying and he wasn't prime yet when King Hector took the throne."

"And the method is not recorded anywhere...?"

"I have the things I know about it written down just because I write everything down, but I didn't receive a complete set of instructions. People haven't tended to write books about their magic. It seems to behave differently from person to person, which doesn't help encourage recordkeeping. If Great-Aunt Elytte could read minds she didn't choose to tell anyone that she could do more than detect lies, for instance."

"I suggest that we keep better records," he says, "in case some future set of primes ever faces a similar situation."

"I couldn't agree more. Although this level of discontinuity is unusual I doubt it can be relied on to never recur."

"And it could be much worse. If, oh, a building were to collapse on top of a - 'magic handholding thing'."

"The magic handholding thing tends to take place in the palace, which is made predominantly of stone. I don't think either Alser or Patience Frothen would ignore it if it were liable to collapse."

"That was one example. I'm sure it's not the only possible disaster."

"It would be difficult to catch the entire batch of primes off guard and kill us all, but I'll grant it's not strictly impossible. So, yes, I approve of the policy of writing things down, Sarelle seems practical enough to agree, I imagine I can convince Loel and Alser-and-or-Patience."

"Good."

"Did I explain Patience? She's Alser's predictable heir but it's not impossible the primacy will surprise us instead. If it sends me out of Welce again I'm going to be very annoyed."

"You've mentioned her a few times but this is the first time you've explained."

"She has power as a birth blessing and she's torz, although she's not quite as torz as I am sweela - to be fair, it's sort of hard to scream torz."

"TORZ," says Aleko loudly.

...Ekador bursts out laughing.

Kiri does too.

"I am, actually, torz," Aleko adds. "Not just shouting for fun."

"Consider me informed," says Ekador dryly.

"I wonder if you'll be able to develop the ability to tell by looking or if you have to grow up around it. I mean, some people make it obvious - the reason I have so much red and orange in my wardrobe is to make it obvious. But sometimes you've got a person dressed in gray, not wearing their blessings, and we can still tell, 'she's all coru', 'he's completely elay', whatever."

"Except, apparently, in some cases...?"

"Right, some people have what are called 'crowns'. You could describe yourself as hunti with a crown of sweela; Sarelle is elay with a crown of hunti; our father is hunti with a crown of torz."

"And some people have subtler secondary elements. Our little brother Jayce is elay but kinda has a heart of coru."

"I... see," he says. "What are the characteristics of people associated with the various elements? Are there any?"

"Oh, yeah, plenty. Good and bad. Torz people are solid, reliable, content, prosperous, you want us for next door neighbors. We're also painfully boring!"

"Sweela people are brilliant, cerebral, passionate, extroverted - hotheaded and rash. Nobody fits all the stereotypes. I'm intensely sweela but not really an extrovert."

"Elay people are ethereal creatures of happiness and elegance and insight, and they can't keep their feet on the ground. Literally, Sarelle's predecessor died while failing to fly for the dozenth time."

"Hunti people are brave and firm and self-assured, and impossible to get along with."

"Coru people are tenacious and lively and cosmopolitan and adaptable, but passive and unreliable."

"...I begin to see how I am supposed to be hunti while coming off strongly sweela," says Ekador.

"Do tell."

"Nothing I could articulate."

"Fair enough. I was taking Sarelle's word for it that you're hunti but by and large people self-identify."

"Well, I think she has identified me correctly."

"Score one for the soul-smelling methodology."

Which makes him giggle again.

Kiri elbows her brother.

"Hey!"

"You were asking for it."

"Sorry about that."

"I am untroubled."

"Anyway. How much do you think you might want to involve yourself in politics? Because I can give you more information about the five families and the royalty if you want it."

"I can always use more information," he says. "I seem to be involved in at least a little bit of politics regardless of my intentions."

"Well, a little, yes. Anyway. Alser Frothen could conceivably recover from his illness, so you might interact with him. I tend to describe him as 'somebody's-grandpa torz', which I suppose would be more evocative if you knew more torz people, it's not just referring to the fact that he has nineteen grandchildren. He's kind, not particularly opinionated, blessings are honesty, fertility, and power. His granddaughter Patience has power, loyalty, and flexibility. She cares more about individual people than about policy or ideas, which is sometimes a virtue, sometimes not. She's nineteen now. Very close to Alser, but she visits me occasionally - Alser started bringing her to various places primes might want to be familiar with, after I inherited at age eight and had a hard time getting up to speed."

"Patience has a dog she got a couple years ago. She's the kind of person who ought to have a dog," volunteers Aleko.

"She is the kind of person who ought to have a dog. Anyway. Sarelle will be able to tell you more about herself than I will. She was not an expected inheritance and was only Auney's second cousin. And Auney wasn't prime long and didn't stick with a consistent set of helpers or relatives in orbit. So I can't help you very much as far as Dochenzas are concerned, though in general if you tell someone the last Dochenza died trying to fly, they will... not be shocked."

"From what little I've seen, Sarelle doesn't seem like that type."

"She doesn't. There's a reason we've been saying she comes off as hunti. She claimed to have a sweela streak too, which I buy. But she's apparently elay enough to suit the magic. So then there's my family. I have staff, but you mostly won't see them - well, I guess considering where we found you, you might meet my librarians, but you won't run into anybody I formally employ at the palace. I tend not to rely on my cousins for anything important since I have brothers and have never been close with the cousins. I bring Aleko with me wherever I go, and Jayce helps me with less portable business when I need it and does a sort of survey of what useful things I could be doing when I don't. The king has been ignoring me since I inherited, probably initially because I was a child and since then because neither of us has cared to disturb the status quo so far. I can get most of what I want to do accomplished with non-king-related resources. I am friends with Prince Isten, though, I've known him since he was two."

"And what is Prince Isten like, besides eleven, coru, and quiet?"

"He is... mostly eleven, coru, and quiet. He studies hard, he stays out of trouble. He likes visiting me but is rarely allowed to do it for more than a couple of weeks every quintile or two. Every now and again he'll explain something by stepping into my range, although that'll stop when he's ratified."

"Rarely allowed because... of princely duties?"

"I see. And then... the remaining prime?"

"Loel Lalindar was missing abroad, like you. I collected information about weather patterns until I found a town in Thiyec that was suffering from unprecedented amounts of rain, and from there it wasn't too hard to find him. He was convinced to come back but hasn't evinced an interest in lurking around the palace even for an initial visit; I think he plans to stay at the country estate for the foreseeable future. The other Lalindars will probably be disposed to be very solicitous of you, at least to begin with, since it was Nerine Lalindar who killed your predecessor and no one wants a long and miserable feud between two of the Five Families."

"That's... convenient, in a sense."

"In a sense, yes. Nerine and Valdin despised each other from well before I met either one of them but managed not to involve their relatives before they finally murdered each other in her kierten."

"Was there some cause for their mutual hatred?"

"Not that they ever thought about in coherent detail while I was listening. It was always 'that bastard sniped at me over dinner', 'I hate his stupid face', 'you can't trust her, little Kiribel', that sort of thing, they didn't lay out the history of the dislike for me thoughtfully or verbally."

"I suppose it no longer matters very much."

"No indeed, he bled to death and ruined some of her furniture and she died of bone-powdering and wrecked some nearby plumbing and then there was a hasty exchange of conciliatory gifts and that has thankfully been that."

Ekador nods.

"So those are the movers and shakers of Welce. I hope you like it there."

"Yes, I hope so too."

"It's definitely nicer than Soche-Tas, but I didn't see enough of Malinqua to compare."

"And what is the trouble with Soche-Tas?"

"On two occasions I had to threaten people with fire to convince them that Aleko and I were in fact not prostitutes of any kind."

"...Oh," he says. "That... is a problem, yes."

"Symptomatic thereof, anyway."

"What, then, is the underlying disease...?"

"I didn't spend long enough there to have a dissertation on the subject, but there's a culture of - fetishization of youth. We were not the youngest people around to be solicited for our services while we traveled through Soche-Tas. The country has things to recommend it," she hastens to add. "The food is good, when we managed to make ourselves understood to inkeepers and so on the service economy was impressive - I'm just glad that I had the fire to threaten with."

"You mentioned that Loel understood his power without needing the Marisi River," he says. "Which seemed to imply that most coru primes are not so fortunate. And there is a Serlast forest where I might or might not find help with mine. But you set your bed on fire without any outside assistance whatsoever. Is there some known reason for these differences...? How did Loel get acquainted with his magic?"

"Some magic comes without any help. I was able to track him via weeks of rain, but he wasn't able to do anything conscious until he decided to see if inhaling the pond in his backyard would work just as well as diving into the Marisi. It did, but I can't say that it would have for any Lalindar prime, because these things are idiosyncratic. Ardelays and Dochenzas don't have any specific locations, but the Lalindars have the Marisi River, the Frothens have a particular meadow, and you have your forest. I suspect that if I hadn't been asleep when my great-aunt died, I would have had to enshroud myself in fire on purpose in order to find my magic fully accessible, but I think sleep-igniting my bed did the trick, thankfully. I'm not sure if Dochenzas tend to have awakening moments at all."

"Inhaling... the pond. The entire thing?" he inquires. "Or only part of it?"

"Only part of it. The pond was still there when we left."

"How fortunate for the pond."

"And for the property values of the friend he left the house to on his way out. But if you haven't noticed any magic at all yet, my first guess is that you need the Serlast forest. My second guess, if that doesn't do anything, is that Sarelle was mistaken, though."

"I wouldn't say I haven't noticed any magic," he says. "Just that I'm not yet sure whether the things I've noticed are magic or not."

"What've you noticed?"

"Nothing I know how to explain."

"Yeah, some of it's hard to describe. Another reason not much gets written down. I've invented a couple dozen words expressly to describe magic. I guess if I compile a book on the subject I'll have to open with a glossary."

"And how will you define your terms?"

"Vaguely, of necessity. I mean, the one I made up as a shorthand for 'the warmth that people emanate which manages somehow to serve as a medium of transmission for their thoughts but which can't be interrupted by conventional alterations to temperature, only by sufficiently full-coverage intervening objects or sufficient distance' is pretty straightforward, but I also have a few that I don't even know how I'd begin to define. They're the slightly better differentiated equivalent of 'you know, that one thing' only designed for notes to self and not for evoking anything in other people."

"I see."

"So it would be a bit of a project. With any luck the rash of bad luck that has been afflicting primes in the past quintile will leave me alone."

"Yes, that would, rather by definition, be lucky."

"It would be any luck. If I had large quantities of luck, there would not have been such an issue in the first place, I would not have had to make two trips abroad in close succession, Auney would have merely broken bones again, and Patience wouldn't be preparing to bury and succeed her grandfather."

"Let's stop at the first temple we see and see if we can get you some luck, when we're home," suggests Aleko.

"Sure. And we can show Ekador how drawing blessings works, too, in case the description left anything to be desired."

"I look forward to the demonstration."

"I'm kind of surprised that you had a Welchin mother and speak the language so fluently and have managed to not know the basics of the country's cultural makeup. How'd that happen?"

"She spoke the language at home while I was growing up. When she learned Malinquan well enough, she switched. She never spoke about the country directly."

"You didn't ask, or she wouldn't answer?"

"Or that's a personal question."

"Yes."

"Consider it withdrawn."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Let's see, what else will you need to know... It's customary, though not obligatory, to wear jewelry like Aleko and I are to display your blessings, more or less all the time. To me this seems a priority to be saved for after you've been to the Serlast forest but perhaps before you appear at court."

"Are there options other than necklace and bracelet?"

"Rings, hairclips, pins, you could probably get something custom-made if you had an idea that would accommodate three charms."

He touches the plain string that is currently half-serving the job of tying back his hair. "Hmm."

"I'm sure you can find something to get blessing charms attached to that will hold a ponytail."

"Seems likely."

"And there's a fair amount of customization available in style of the symbol - they're all the same shape, but there's differences from source to source roughly on the level of handwriting - and in the size and material. If you wish to go around advertising your hunti prime status you might want them carved from wood or ivory."

"Wood sounds very suitable."

"It might blend in with your hair unless you got particularly distinctively colored wood. Ebony, maybe, black and brown are the hunti colors."

"The colours are formalized?"

"Semiformalized. People can wear whatever they want, but the colors communicate things. I mentioned why I wear so much red and orange, I think? You might want to make a point of avoiding them to avoid exacerbating the misleading impression of sweela, if you don't relish being asked ten times a day 'wait, you're the hunti prime?'. Torz has greens, elay yellow and white, coru blue and purple."

"Noted. How convenient for me," he says, glancing down at his long black coat.

"The coat will suit very well, yes. Sarelle tends to confuse the issue, possibly deliberately, by wearing black and white at the same time more often than not."

"In case Kiri is misleadingly giving the impression that she knows anything about clothes - not true, I've been picking out her wardrobe for her since we were nine because she has no taste."

"I have some taste!"

"Realizing that you can't wear heels because you are the human incarnation of the concept of tripping doesn't count as taste. Neither does acknowledging that that one dress we saw in the north corner of the Plaza of Women should have been sacrificed as cleaning rags. You need more than self-preservation and a pair of eyes to have taste."

"So yeah, if you think she dolls up nice when you run into each other at court, that is all my doing."

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't."

He raises his eyebrows at Aleko.

Aleko just laughs.

"Alas," calls the voice of Sarelle from where she is driving the carriage, "no such distraction is available."

"What a pity. Aleko gets seasick," Kiri mutters.

"You know you love me," sings Aleko.

"I do know that. The recurring problem is that you also know that."

"You're an only child, I've gathered?" Kiri inquires in Ekador's direction.

"Yes."

"That must be different."

"I assure you I'm used to it."

"I suppose you've had - however long. I think Sarelle said and I wrote it down but I'd have to half-unpack to find it; how old are you?"

"Twenty-one years."

"I do believe I'm going to manage to be simultaneously the youngest and the longest-standing prime as soon as Patience inherits. That'll be interesting."

"Yes, I suppose it will."

"Wait, is Sarelle older than us too? I don't remember her saying. Hey, Sarelle, are you older than us?"

"Yes."

"Yep. You will be the youngest prime for the next fifty years unless lightning strikes somebody, Kiri, get used to it."

"I imagine small differences in age continue to become less relevant over time, so I shouldn't have too much trouble with the acclimation."

"It's good that you aren't going to be harboring secret wishes for somebody to be struck by lightning. I think this is a reasonably good batch. Assuming it's Patience and not some random terrible person."

"It'll probably be Patience and not a random terrible person."

"Struck by lightning? Is this a reference to my predecessor's feud?"

"He wasn't struck by lightning, he - oh. Nerine did occasionally wish horrifying fates on him but lightning was not among them to my recollection. She tended to vividly imagine drowning him, even though that's not what she wound up doing."

"I see."

"So, I advise you not to enter into prolonged feuds with your fellow primes, doesn't end well."

"Consider me emphatically advised."

"Especially not Loel, because it was smoothed over quickly this last time and you should definitely take the opportunity not to turn it into a dynasty of creative magical murder."

"I will do my very best not to. Have you extracted a similar promise from him?"

"It didn't occur to me during the trip back from Thiyec."

"Ah. How suspenseful."

"I really doubt you will inherit any trouble from Loel."

"And what leads you to this conclusion?"

"I told him how he'd inherited the primacy, he didn't seem inclined to dwell on it. Outwardly or inwardly - he let me read him, and not even tentatively and self-consciously the way Patience does."

"Is she that self-conscious? She never looks it."

"Well, compared to you. Eighty percent of the reading I do is of you, you're the natural comparison point. She's only a little more self-conscious about it than, say, Jayce."

"I see. So, at least, any trouble Loel gives me will be completely his own invention," Ekador concludes.

"At least, yes. And if I catch any more quietly simmering feuds I will no longer assume that they will quietly simmer without affecting anything materially important forever."

"Ah, the wisdom of experience."

"Well, I would have done something when I was eight and it was still surprising, but I suspected two adults wouldn't be very receptive to mediation from a little girl, and by the time I no longer matched the description I was accustomed to it. You could call it experience, I suppose."

"I wonder what they would've done if you'd tried anyway."

"Hard to say. I probably should have prodded Alser about it. Or Jerist, though he'd have been less useful."

"We will be arriving at the port very shortly," says Sarelle, quite possibly making herself heard via magic of some kind; her voice shouldn't be that clear from outside the carriage.

"Thanks," calls Kiri. "And then I guess we find the first available boat to Welce with room for four. Does my proposed itinerary after that sound good to you?" she asks Ekador.

"Draw blessings to demonstrate the process to me, visit the Serlast estate and its forest, then to Chialto to visit the Serlast house there and the palace in that order? I have no objections."

"Okay, good. I'm not sure if Sarelle will want to accompany us for any of that, she might have other things to do - she's pretty new to primacy herself. Has technically been a prime for less time than you or Loel; Auney died while I was away looking for the Lalindar."

"But, practically speaking, I think I qualify as the newest."

"Yes. Unless Alser has died in the last couple of days, but Patience still has more familiarity with a lot of the features of the job than you."

He nods.

"So, this is a fairly typical Welchin temple," Kiri tells Ekador as they enter. "Color-coded pews so you can meditate on whatever element in a color-coded environment, for some reason, and the bin of blessings up front. We can all four draw for each other."

"Pity Jayce isn't here, he draws good blessings."

"I have been known to do the same," says Sarelle.

"Yeah, seems to be an elay thing. You wanna go first?"

Ekador peers thoughtfully at his coin and doesn't volunteer to draw next.

Aleko reaches into the bin. He hands Kiri a creativity, Ekador a surprise, and Sarelle a patience.

"I predict I will be spending time with my sister in the near future," says Sarelle. "My patience is considerable, but the blessings don't tend to remind me of that fact unless I am about to need it."

Kiri chuckles and reaches for blessings. She draws Sarelle a grace - "That's how you can tell I'm not drawing for myself!" - and Ekador a change and Aleko a charm.

Kiri lines up all her coins in her hand, nods at them, and then puts them back. "So that's pretty much what it's like. You can draw alone, too, it's just more fun this way."

"You didn't get any of that luck you wanted."

"I did not. Oh well."

"Are we getting our actual horses and our actual carriage from where it's stashed at the palace or renting?" Aleko asks Kiri. "I like our actual horses. I'm never sure rental ones aren't going to kick me."

"You could go get everything and pick us up," says Kiri. "I suppose we could wait here, or it's not that huge a walk to the Ardelay house."

"I will part ways with you here, I think," says Sarelle. "Off to see what Tia has done or is about to do that will require my patience."

"Good luck."

"Right, I'll go get our carriage, back in twenty minutes. Fifteen if the competent stable kid is working today."

"Do you want to wait here or at my house?" Kiri asks Ekador.

"Your house seems likely to be more comfortable."

...Ekador is mildly confused by the kierten.

"Welchin dwellings all have more or less wasted space in the entryway," she says. "It's called a kierten, it's a dumb status symbol, the house was like this when I inherited it."

"I... see," he says.

"Kiertens do see occasional use in emergencies - since one isn't supposed to fill one up except in emergencies, they are by and large still available when one has a sudden need for the extra square footage, rather than being full of accumulated spare sheets and objects that you mean to get around to fixing one day and one's childhood stuffed toys. But it's a pretty weak argument for every house having a totally empty room. If there were a question of inadequate space for my usual purposes in either of my houses I would certainly consider repurposing the kiertens, but there isn't."

"It seems... bizarre and inefficient," he says. "But harmless, I suppose."

"Yes," he says. "It's been a while since breakfast."

"I'll go set something up." She disappears for three minutes, then returns. "Lunch will be served presently, should be ready a little after Aleko gets here."

"Very convenient."

Aleko gets there. "Competent stable kid earned his tip, we're ready to go when oh do I smell lunch?"

It is indeed tasty! Tasty food.

"What is that you're writing?" inquires Ekador.

"Notes-to-self. When I was little I caught Jayce reading my more personal notebooks and invented a cipher."

"...Are you likely to do enough cryptanalysis in your head to decipher my cipher?"

"Not quite," he says. "I have a perfect visual memory. If I ever learn your cipher, by whatever means, I'll know what was written on the page I saw. I assume you wouldn't be writing it in cipher if you wanted that to happen."

"...Lucky. I don't anticipate ever teaching anyone my cipher, but I appreciate it nevertheless."

"It's very convenient," he says. "If I couldn't cart entire libraries around in my head, I'd be tempted to do it in an actual cart, which would make casual travel much more difficult."

"That is the most amazing thing I have ever heard of. I'm terribly skittish about using any form of active mind magic, or that would be the first thing I'd want to do for myself."

"Skittish because... you're afraid to get it wrong?" he guesses.

"Exactly. Even if Great-Aunt Elytte could do it, it might have worked differently, she didn't tell anybody or write it down, and getting it wrong would be a disaster. I've been asked for help a couple of times, and there weren't any disasters, but those were people who are in dire straits because their minds didn't work well enough - mine works fine; I'd like to add things like perfect recall to it, but not if it means taking risks with the rest."

"I see. Yes, that's very sensible."

"I like to think I'm sensible. It's possible I'm being too conservative, really - I don't have accidents with fire when I'm paying attention - but minds are complicated and I only receive surface thoughts, not full information about the underlying structure, whereas I get lots of detail about heat and fire around me."

"And fire is something most people understand. If you set one by accident, someone else could control it - not as easily as you, but they could. If you made a mistake with mind magic, only another sweela prime could fix it, correct? And if the mistake was in your own mind..." He shrugs. "I wouldn't risk it either, in your place."

She sighs and nods. "Exactly. So I'll restrain myself to curing - gambling addicts and people with unpleasant hallucinations who knock on my door and sign waivers."

"Yes."

"Whereas I imagine you could fill your time entirely with touring hospitals fixing broken bones if you so chose, though whether that would appeal to you I cannot predict."

"It does not sound like a pleasant occupation."

"Noted. I don't tour hospitals either even though I can break fevers - I tried to keep Jerist Dochenza alive and just wound up catching his disease and losing my hold on his temperature when I fell asleep and he died anyway."

"That... sounds even less pleasant."

"It might have worked better if he'd been less sick. I don't get fevers at all, so I was uncomfortable but not endangered when I caught it, but at any rate I'm not an efficient doctor."

"Whereas I, apparently, am not good for much else. Paper-weaving aside."

"It does require a bit more creativity to deploy your magic than mine, admittedly. I'd pass on Valdin's ideas if he'd had any more interesting than weaving paper."

"Perhaps I'll think of something."

"I look forward to seeing what you come up with."

"Then I suppose I will go there by myself," he says. "And return when I've... done something magical."

"We'll wait for you."

"It... went," he says. "I made lace out of a tree."

"That sounds pretty. Can you do something for general proving-your-identity-purposes?" She hands him a corner of notebook paper.

"Beautifully. Oh, that's pretty. Let's go inside."

He smiles, pleased, and follows her in.

There follows fairly unremarkable introduction of Ekador to his relatives - one of them determines that Ekador was Valdin's first cousin twice removed. Ekador makes no attempt to evict them, the paper-lace ball suffices to convince everyone that he is who he is. He's conducted around the house from kierten to kitchen, and one of the cousins (not the genealogically inclined one) produces a list of Serlast holdings and who's currently managing them.

Ekador reads the list and asks a few questions. He comes away satisfied that none of the family holdings are in egregiously incompetent hands.

Since there have been people living here, it, unlike the Lalindar house, is currently staffed. It can offer the prime and the visitors dinner without much ado.

"Yes, assuming you'll have us."

"Certainly."

"All right, take your pick. I'm unable to advise you on this one."

He chooses a horse with minimal fuss.

"Aha," says Ekador. "That explains it."

"She's actually gotten better since we were little, mostly because she doesn't forget that she can't run, anymore."

"That... seems like the sort of thing even most people would find it hard to forget," he says.

"Well, if you're six, and your brothers are six and five and they're tearing around the backyard like there are wolves after them and they will tease you if you just go read a book instead of playing with them..."

"Ah, yes. That is somewhat more understandable."

"You'll meet Jayce if you visit the Ardelay estate, he's there about two-thirds of the time these days. Rest of the time he lives with our parents in their little nowhere town. Could not pry Dad out of that town with a spatula even when he had a mansion he could live in on his daughter's behalf."

"Were any spatulas employed in the effort?"

"We did not actually literally try a spatula. We didn't try very hard at all, he just made it kind of obvious we wouldn't get anywhere."

He chuckles.

"Mom traveled around with Kiri a lot at first because Kiri needed to be shown around places and it's Mom's side of the family that's related so she knew a little from her aunt, but Mom never actually liked all that politics high-stakes court-y stuff so I learned what she knew and took over the Helping Kiri Be Prime Because For Some Reason It's Not A One-Person Job after a few years."

"Is it not?"

"Not if you want to be all thorough about looking after all your stuff, and Kiri does. You can just live a life of indolence if you feel like it," Aleko assures him. "Or take on exactly little enough that you don't need an Aleko-equivalent. But it's easier when you have somebody to answer the door for you and pick your clothes and handle routine correspondence. I'd be a terrible prime but I'm a pretty good accessory-to-Kiri."

"I'm not sure where I would find an... accessory."

"Pick your favorite cousin? Put out a job ad?"

"Perhaps, perhaps."

"Wider selection if you do the job ad, more built-in cares-not-zero-about-Serlast-stuff if you pick a cousin."

"Yes. And the cousin is likelier to have more background knowledge to start with."

"Yeah. Yours seem okay. And one of 'em wasn't even hunti so she definitely hasn't been dreaming of having your job."

"Indeed. What of the rest? Is it common to dream of being one's relevant prime?"

"I dunno about common, 'cause, Kiri's my reference here and next best thing is Patience who's pretty low-key about absolutely everything. Kiri always wanted it, but she also always expected it. Two sweela blessings plus power and a personality that threatens to catch fire even if you only spot her out of the corner of your eye from a mile away? She expected it from the day she knew what it was and wanted it really bad. Not that early though."

"Yes. I imagine she also didn't anticipate setting her bed on fire."

"Yeah, that was a surprise. So was involuntary mindreading. She had a haaaard time with that. If anybody did it to her she'd pretty much want to kill them, so she was really careful, but it meant she had to stay far away from everybody all the time. But then Jayce said he didn't care if she saw what he was dreaming so if she just snuggled up after he fell asleep that would be fine, and I said that'd be fine too except it didn't work as well with me because I'm a light sleeper. And then we both got more used to it even when we were awake."

"Hmm," he says.

"Hmm?"

"I'm not yet sure what I think of this mindreading business."

"Well, she won't do it unless you let her. Unless she falls and it happens to be in your direction, I guess."

"Which seems to be more of a danger with her than with most people."

"Yeah, kinda inconvenient. Poor graceless Kiri."

"Indeed. But I don't think I'd be particularly upset if she fell into range and happened to catch a glimpse."

"That's good then. She uses the notebooks for, like, emotional processing, and it's pretty much an entire notebook sacrificed to her emotional stability when she screws up and the person does mind."

"...That is a lot of writing," he says, envisioning this. "Unless you are exaggerating."

"Okay, maybe it was a whole notebook the first time it happened and we were eight and her handwriting was bigger, it's less now."

"Aha. That sounds more reasonable."

"I don't actually have that great a sense of how much writing she does about any given thing since it's all coded now. Frankly I think she's overreacting, like, the fact that Jayce peeked once could have just prompted her to buy a box with a lock, but, no, cryptography."

"People do occasionally see her writing something. I did, earlier."

"Yeah, but do you know what it was about?"

"No. Because it was ciphered."

"Hence my lack of sense of the thing. Unless you mean this is why a box with a lock wouldn't work in which case I'm pretty sure she'd be more careful about letting people see if she were not writing in made-up letters."

"There is that," he acknowledges.

"Sometimes I look over her shoulder. She's really fast with all the code, I think she's got to have rendered a lot of short common words as their own symbols because there's more than there should be appearing with spaces on both sides, and sometimes there's funny little diagrams. Also she kept normal punctuation, it's cute when there's a long string of exclamation marks."

"...I think it might be best if I didn't hear any more about her cipher," he says.

"How come?"

"Did she not tell you about my memory?"

"Oh, now I remember, she had a little jealous rant and then said she had to double-check all her old ruminations about not screwing with nonessential mind magic and see if any of them come up different now she knows that it's within human variation. But how does knowing about punctuation plus your memory equal anything bad?"

"I can't lose information," he says. "And I have a good head for puzzles, especially ones related to language. No single trivial fact about punctuation or anything else is going to make the difference, but if I hear enough of them, I might solve the cipher without meaning to. I'd rather not risk it, as protective of her privacy as she is."

"Huh. Okay. I've basically exhausted what I actually know about it anyway."

"Well, that's helpful."

"Jayce actually tried to break it once. When Kiri noticed she wrote up a page of stuff she didn't care about and handed it over to see if he could, because if he could she had to change it anyway."

"I see. I wonder if she will do the same with me."