"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."