Annie is sitting with Ice and Phix in the Belfry. (Phix has determined that neither she nor Max knows near enough about runecasting to hope to approach Aya's little problem in the next, like, year at least, but she's taking notes to deliver to Iobel, who has not yet abandoned so much hope yet cannot be at this meeting for queen reasons.)

"If you could just say more about the subjectivity of it, it might give me an idea of something new to ask the alethiometer," says Ice. "Obviously having it look directly at Aya is an option, if it just can't get enough information off the necklace, but ideally we'd exhaust the possibilities first."

"Or Prime would just give her what she wants," mutters Phix.

"Let's not be weird and pressure-y about that," says Ice. "Annie?"

"...Sorry," says Annie. "I just had a mental image of Aya holding a soul bird and the soul bird looking at Prime and wanting to be petted and him refusing to do it. I think I would sooner let the alethiometer look at me than give her another - thing to pine about. I should work just as well, shouldn't I?"

"You might," says Ice, "unless reciprocated necklace arrangements look different or are different forms of breakable than one-sided ones, in which case you might not."

"Poor hypothetical soul-bird," murmurs Phix, scribbling.