“Not yet. But some of Mrs. Erickson’s ghosts aren’t actual ghosts, in my opinion.”

Mandoran smacked his own forehead. “Can we forget I asked that question?”

“Kaylin probably can, given a decade. You know the rest of us won’t.” Teela slowly relaxed, the tension leaving the line of her jaws and shoulders. “You might as well tell them the rest, kitling. Terrano—at the very least—will make a pest of himself otherwise.”

“That’s unkind, dear,” Helen’s disembodied voice said.

Teela stayed for dinner. The cohort—those in residence—came down to eat. The table elongating made it clear they would. But the table was silent; the cohorts’ shifting facial expressions made clear that arguments were ongoing regardless.

Teela was perhaps the only member of the cohort accustomed to keeping—and maintaining—her own counsel; she could listen and join in, but her thoughts weren’t immediately on the table, as it were. She turned to Kaylin as dinner was winding down, interrupting the sparse sounds of chewing.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?”

“I’ll be on the front desk, I think. Severn’s almost finished whatever it is that’s pulled him out of the Hawks’ roster.”

“And after?”

“I’m heading to the Academia. I have a couple of questions to ask.”

“You’ve received the chancellor’s permission?”

“Do I need it?”

Several eyes turned in her direction. “Terrano says no,” Teela replied, “if that tells you anything.”

It did. “Helen, can you try to reach the Academia by mirror?”

“Serralyn says you can check in at the desk as a visitor,” Mandoran told her before Helen could respond. “What? That’s exactly what she said.”

Kaylin turned back to Teela. “I’m going to the Academia tomorrow. After work.”

Sergeant Keele was still suspicious when Kaylin—without complaint—volunteered for the public desk again. Unlike most of the Hawks, Keele kept any possible sentiment out of the office. Far enough out, in fact, that most of the Hawks assumed she didn’t have any. She did partake of Mrs. Erickson’s offerings, but only when there were obvious leftovers. And she didn’t forbid the Hawks under her jurisdiction from interacting with the old woman, or checking up on her if she failed to show up.

But she considered Kaylin’s interest to be bordering on the seriously unprofessional; Kaylin was certain Marcus would hear about it.

“If Corporal Handred were let out of the stupid bureaucratic meetings he’s tangled up in, I wouldn’t be here,” Kaylin told the sergeant, with a more or less straight face.

Less, Severn offered.