Kaylin discovered that a twenty-minute stroll through the streets of her own city could take much, much longer than twenty minutes as she accompanied Mrs. Erickson. Clearly Mrs. Erickson was surrounded by the type of friendly strangers who knew her on sight. They might not know where she lived, and they might not be close enough to actually check up on her if she somehow failed to make an appearance—but she knew about them.

Or their children. Or their husbands or wives. Or their grandchildren. Or the trouble they were having with foreign merchants. She clearly remembered snatches of earlier conversations, and she clearly remembered small details—like children’s birthdays. Not only did she remember those, but she remembered which birthdays, which meant the age of those children.

Some of those people probably approached Mrs. Erickson because she was walking beside an obvious officer of the Halls of Law and they were concerned. But the conversations that unfolded in spite of Kaylin’s presence, and the very natural way Mrs. Erickson engaged with them, either put them at ease or made them decide that Kaylin’s role here was not a threat to the old woman.

No one, on the other hand, was as friendly with Kaylin as they were with the old woman whose mostly empty basket she was carrying. Mostly became empty; Mrs. Erickson clearly had reserved some of that baking for chance meetings with younger children. Their parents did not seem to be suspicious at all of the contents.

An hour and forty-five minutes later, having run the gauntlet of friendliness, Mrs. Erickson stopped walking without also readying conversation. “It’s here,” she told Kaylin. She frowned. “Sometimes they aren’t here, though, and I didn’t make any arrangements to meet with them.”

“Do you ever make arrangements to meet with them?”

“Not often,” Mrs. Erickson confessed. “It tends to make people uncomfortable if they see me, because they assume I’m talking to myself.”

Since this was a reasonable assumption by any measure, Kaylin nodded.

“Sometimes I do it anyway, though. If I feel the need to visit the Halls of Law to make a report, it does help to have details.”

It didn’t really, but Kaylin kept this to herself.

“And you’re here with me, so it’s less likely to cause people concern if I’m speaking with you. Ah, there he is.”

Kaylin stared at the spot in the street which Mrs. Erickson seemed to be indicating. She’d come to a stop near one of the public wells. Everyone Kaylin could see was carrying a couple of buckets, some on sticks suspended across their shoulders to balance weight, some by hand. Most weren’t concerned with anything but their place in line or the companions who had come to the well to get water of their own.

She saw no people, none of the ghosts to which Mrs. Erickson so often referred.