Then he found Marisol.
"She prefers this angle," he said. "What is this angle."
Marisol looked at his arms. "That's the Moonhaven carry," she said. "The arm position. It's how Emory held her mother. It's passed down."
He looked at her.
"The bloodline carries physical preferences through generations?" he said.
"The bloodline carries a great many things," Marisol said, in the tone she used when the answer was yes but the full version was longer than the conversation required. "The physical ones are just the most visible." She looked at his arms, at Isolde settled and entirely satisfied. "You found it by trial and error."
"Four attempts," he said.
"Yes," she said. "Emory needed seven. You're ahead of the curve."
He held this information.
Then, quietly, with the flat directness that w
