"Lots," she says. "Or did you mean individually, not statistically? Not that many."

"I did mean individually. You've probably done a reasonable job of filtering them for being interesting."

"Yes I have," she says. "Tell me, if I decided to hand you all of my secrets on a silver platter, would you take that as a good reason not to use them against me?"

"That depends to a certain extent on what your secrets are and what you mean by 'against you'. If you have - I don't know, a minty little sweatshop where you coerce miserable third-world teenagers into making coins? That would be shitty, I would object. If you're asking whether being cagey is buying you some kind of insurance, like I'm going to be more inclined to not harm you if I think this might get me secrets, of course it isn't. By default I am not inclined to attack people. By default I am more positively disposed to people who tell me things worth knowing, and give me stuff I want." She shrugs. "And, if you decided to hand me your secrets on a silver platter, considering who we're talking about here, that would mean you were at least loosely sympathetic to my goals. Why would I want to antagonize sympathizers if I didn't have to?"

"Loosely sympathetic to whatever goals I imagine you have, because you haven't actually told me any big ones. Unless you really would like a planet for Christmas."

"Yes, well. I don't know what you'd do if I handed you all my secrets on a silver platter, but I'm happy to rule out hypotheses like 'Bella wants to blow up the world'."

"Bella does not want to blow up the world. That much is clear," says Libby.

"Anything else on the same list as 'blowing up the world' you'd like me to convince you I'm not interested in?"

"No, I think you're in the clear on that general score."

"Then clearly I am a safe repository for all your secrets," teases Bella.

"If only it worked that way."

"Yes, yes. What do you think would happen if you told me what you know about the population of natively magical folks you've encountered? Besides that I wouldn't have to decide whether to spend coins and time and effort on finding them myself."

"It's not inconceivable that you might decide to go pester some of them," she says. "Many of them do not appreciate being pestered. Some of the rest don't appreciate being talked about in general. Bridget is not the only person I know who has needed to be rescued from intensely curious people. The reasons I might not let you near my personnel lists are not strictly strategic."

"I won't pester anyone who doesn't want to be pestered. In fact, I'll take your word for it about who those people are," Bella says. "And naturally you may decline to spread information you've been asked to keep mum by its owner. What about the others?"

"Chris did a pretty good job of covering those. In fact, she even mentioned some of the please-don't-pester-me kind."

"Is there a word for people with native powers? ...Ingots?" Bella suggests.

"Ingots?"

"Natural magic as opposed to the artificial, minted kind," Bella says. "You've probably already got a word for it, though, right?"

"No. And I didn't come up with 'mints', either."

[Should I?]

"'Mints' is cute. And shorter."

"That would be one of those strategic secrets I don't plan on telling you until I'm sure you won't try to screw me over with it."

[Ingot is adorable. I'm sold,] says Lazarus.