"Oh, why not ink on vellum."

Here they are!!

He takes the three pages. He reads them. He folds them up and puts them in his pocket.

"All right," he says, "you clearly do have the abilities Cordelia described. Now, what have you found out about where Nika came from, and what have you found out about the Emperor of Cetaganda?"

"Uh, lots of people in this world are magic, and there're different kinds, and dragons are one, and they planted Nika and a couple other people in Barrayar so it'd be a dragon planet - if a parent is magic and the other's human all the kids are magic and the same kind of thing, and they thought Barrayar was all human. The Emperor of Cetaganda is a dragon and I shouldn't spy on enemy governments unless Nika thinks I should."

"I would like to know if there is any connection between the Emperor of Cetaganda and Nika's presence on this planet. I can content myself with that if you'd rather not look any farther."

"It didn't look like it, I was born on Earth and one of the other orphan dragons was from Jackson's Whole and the other was from Vervain."

"Cordelia, anything to contribute?"

"The dragons as a whole do seem to be a faction, but Cetaganda doesn't seem to be affiliated with that faction. We'd need to look closer to find out more."

"It's not like I categorically won't spy on governments but if Nika'd been dropped on them I'd be there right now so you should think about what you'd want me to do if I were."

"Understood. I am genuinely more interested in the apparent conspiracy that contributed Nika to the Vorkosigan family than in spying on the Cetagandans. Have we discovered the identities of the other orphan dragons?"

"No, not yet. What would you do with them?"

"I would remember the information in case it became relevant later."

...Nika is not sure if this is a complete answer.

Then he has no comment on the names of the mystery dragons!

"I can imagine lots of situations where it would be useful to know who the other two were," says Cordelia. "For example, if the opposing sphinx faction discovered what the dragons were up to and tried to kidnap you, we would already know who else we needed to protect, so we wouldn't need to take any time to find out."

"I suppose," allows Nika. "I think some people would not like their children to turn out to be dragons suddenly though. So we shouldn't tell whoever has them. Even if they're things too probably because people are dumb."

"Yes, I agree. Unless for some reason we happened to know that those people in particular were the sort of people who would be okay with children who were suddenly dragons."

"I should aim narrower than 'complete written works' for the other dragons, is there something they'd have written that'd definitely have their names -"

"Does it have to be stuff they've written or can it just be about them, like adoption certificates?"

"That'd work!" Adoption certificates of dragons on Barrayar -

Rosette Lili Allard, adopted by Hélène and Richard Allard a few days before Nika's own certificate's date; clean bill of genetic health; address in the largest city in Vorkalloner's District; attested foundling, good faith effort made to find natural parents.

Stefanos Aristede Michel, adopted by two presumably loving illegible scribbles the day after Nika; no gene scan on record; address in a heavily poor, heavily Greek region of the southern continent; attested foundling.

And of course Nika Madeline Vorkosigan's very own adoption certificate with her very own adoptive parents. (The rather heroic effort to find her natural parents and/or conspirators is noted as "good faith", of course.)

"And now we know," says Cordelia. "Should we discuss the question of whether to equip Simon with magical powers?"

"...Yes, let's."