Helen nodded. The flowers moved, although they remained in the center of the circle; between them, the image of Mrs. Erickson as a child formed. Kaylin couldn’t remember it clearly enough to describe it well, but whatever remained in her memory could be accessed by Helen. Helen really was a miracle.

“No, dear, a construct, although I do take your meaning.” Her smile implied a hint of joy in an otherwise grave situation.

“This is...not good,” Serralyn said. Of the cohort, she was often the one with the greenest of eyes; whatever she had sought in the confines of the Academia, she had found, and it sustained a wellspring of happiness that made her seem very unlike most Barrani. Her eyes now, however, contained no visible trace of green.

“Do you recognize the hairstyle?”

“Maybe. The historical books I’ve read have drawings, not paintings; the drawings are line drawings or woodcuts, where they exist at all.” She hesitated, and then said, “Some of the drawings were meant to be instructional.”

“This is a book in the Academia’s library?”

“No, it’s a book from the Arbiter’s library.”

“The place where Azoria was once a student.”

Serralyn nodded.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s—In theory it’s ceremonial. Severn has correctly pointed out there are no weeds in the green.”

“Is this a flower that grows outside of the green?”

“Not usually, no. And if it did—if this flower was somehow taken from the green and preserved—something was done to it while growing. It’s mutated while retaining form and shape.” She hesitated. “I would be very interested in the composition of that soil and the make of the pot in which the flower was transported—but I doubt we’ll have access to that.”

Kaylin felt she’d stretched her limited ability to be patient to the breaking point. “What’s the significance of the hair?”

“In this case, only that it’s ceremonial. What ceremony, we don’t know.”

“But you have suspicions.”

“I honestly don’t. I remember that it was a ceremony that was sometimes conducted in the green prior to a significant marriage—a ceremony of blessing that was intended to invoke peace and harmony.” She hesitated. “The blossom braided into the child’s hair was entwined there, or would have been, because of her age: too young for marriage except as a ceremonial joining of families of significance.

“Were the groom to be likewise underage, his hair would be similarly bound.”

“And the flower?”

“It’s a symbol of fertility—an important element of marriage for my people. But the blossoms are given by the green; if they grow, they are used. If a single blossom grows, it is given first—and always—to the bride; if more than one, both wear the flower.”

“This wasn’t done as a symbol of marriage.”