Bella shrugs. "That one's just a personal curiosity anyway; I still have to operate under the assumption that you can acquire coins either way. So no big deal."
[Libby knows I made up the 'ingot' term, so don't use it in front of her or Chris or anyone who talks to them until I've had a plausible opportunity to share it with you by not-brainphone.]
"So I've met the interesting ingots who might want to meet me, I guess. How hard have you looked? I notice the ones I've met are all, you know, white English-speakers. That seems odd."
"Not so I'd know what crayons to use." Libby's quite equipped to know that Kolya once sent Bella an email using Lazarus's account, though. "Even so, it's an odd demographic."
"You've met two at the crayon level that I know of," she points out. "Hardly enough to draw statistical inferences. For the record, with a larger sample size, the distribution seems pretty even."
"Yeah, Lazarus described himself - well, he relayed Kolya's description. And Chris is your aunt, which gives me somewhat more than fifty percent information about her, now I've seen you," Bella says. "Fair enough. Are ingots scattered around the globe as well as the crayon box?"
"Yes they are. Although I'm somewhat limited in getting to know them by the fact that I speak mainly English."
"Languages aren't your top priority for the use of pentagons, then?"
"I've used more pentagons on languages than on anything else," Bella says. "I like 'em. And I did travel around Europe last summer."
"You seem to use magic a lot more frequently than I do," Libby observes.
This is all technically true.
"Yes, but we've established you don't want to tell me how you get any coins whatever under your circumstances. Me, if I fall down the stairs, I will get beat up."
"It really is! It would be a pity if I were Bridget. She'd be a terrible mint, since bootstrapping doesn't work."
And she's not asking. Quite.
"You're not laughing at him and offering me your hand, so I'm going to assume he was right."