“I ask only that you escort her home in civvies.”

How long should I remain off the schedule?

Kaylin jumped at the sound of Severn’s interior voice. What do you mean?

You’re pursuing information about Mrs. Erickson now. You’re worried about her. But you won’t be at the front desk if I’m on the active roster.

Wait, you’re finished?

No. But I could be.

Can I answer that after I see if the neighbor is lurking on the lawn? He has to wait for her—he’s too cowardly to try to enter her home.

The sergeant is right—we can’t escort her home every night.

I can, if she waits. I was off duty the last time; I’ll be off duty this time as well.

Severn said nothing.

I’m heading to the Academia after I see her safely home.

Amaldi and Darreno were nowhere in sight in the streets that led to 14 1/2 Orbonne Street. Although Kaylin offered to carry her basket, Mrs. Erickson didn’t stop to shop this time. She had other things on her mind.

“I’m worried about Jamal,” she said.

“What did he do?”

“He was upset this morning. I’m almost afraid to see what he’s broken.”

Kaylin had a word or two to say to Jamal. She could guess what had tipped him over into rage, and if her guess was right, she strongly sympathized. But breaking Mrs. Erickson’s things as a response to that rage? No.

“It’s very frustrating for him. Please understand that.”

“Oh, I assure you, I do.” The house came into view. Hope squawked, quietly this time, in her ear. She nodded, and he sat up, lifting a wing to place it gently across only one of her eyes.

She could see Mrs. Erickson’s house—and the steps that were old but in obviously decent repair—through both eyes. She could see the next-door neighbor’s door open through both eyes. Not even the presence of the neighbor, however, could distract her from the building she could see only through Hope’s wing. It wasn’t Mrs. Erickson’s house. It wasn’t the neighbor’s house, either—both of those were present in the exact same locations they’d been in the day before.

A wider, taller building rose above the two more mundane buildings she could see without Hope’s help. Its height suggested a tower, or towers, had been part of its construction, but it quivered in the vision, like the rare mirages that occurred during horrible heat weaves in the city; it wasn’t solid. Kaylin knew there were vestigial traces of its existence in Records. She’d have to dig. She was almost certain that anyone living close to a building of this size would remember it—it wasn’t anywhere near the usual architecture found in the neighborhood.

If, in fact, the Records information still existed.

It does, Severn said.