"...let's start with no."

"Bird, tree, hourglass."

He tries it.

The alethiometer is still "saying" stuff - it never stops - but it seems to be saying unrelated stuff.

"Okay, now if you know the numbers?"

"Six, forty, eighty..." She looks at her index. "- eighty-one."

"What question even," he says, and tries again.

"I'm not positive I formulated it right, to be fair, I'm not experienced at this and only being allowed three is limiting."

The alethiometer says tree forty.

"Wait, is 'tree forty' a valid answer?"

"Yes! And we can check if it's actually answering the question I meant to ask - well, we can get some evidence, anyway - when we have the rematch."

"—the rematch? I'm dreadfully curious. Get me another question, maybe a simpler one with an obvious answer."

"Hmmmm..." She flips pages and finally says, "Bread twelve sun four bread fifty-five."

Try try try no idea what the question is...

The alethiometer says candle nine.

He relays this. "I wonder if it will pick up on valid questions even if no one around thought about them, or recently."

She looks up candle nine. "Well, it's right about that one but I am right here."

"Yeah. I also suspect one of our daemons wouldn't count as someone not around even if they're actually far away from us. I wonder if there are books with, like, example questions and answers?"

"Haven't run into any."

"I'll see if the librarian knows anything about it."

Off he goes to ask, while Luca hops onto the alethiometer.

The librarian is playing Bejeweled but does not look annoyed at being interrupted. "Hi, how can I help you?"

"Hi! I was wondering if you had any books on alethiometers but not just dictionaries. Something that would have sample questions and answers would be what I'm looking for."

"Hmm, we have a book about their history that might have some examples." She looks it up in the system and writes down a number for him.

"Thanks!"

He looks for the relevant book and brings it back to their table.

"Whaddaya got?"

"Book on the history of alethiometers. Might have some stuff, but I'm not sure how to get to a question without accidentally reading it."