Mrs. Erickson was waiting, with a much more usual-for-her expression, when Kaylin returned from her mission and the hilarity it caused. She cleaned up before she once again sat, pad in front of her, messy handwriting in the immediate future.

“I shouldn’t actually say they’re friends, as it feels quite presumptuous,” Mrs. Erickson then confessed. “These are not the ghosts trapped in my house.” Mrs. Erickson had tried to let those ghosts out, but nothing she had done had met with any success. But the ghosts hadn’t harmed her, and in one or two cases, they’d actually helped. Although Elantra was not the fiefs and crime wasn’t a way of life, an elderly woman living alone in a house she actually owned had—for some elements of society—marked her as the perfect victim.

It was those elements that Kaylin was paid to discourage.

“These are new ghosts?”

Mrs. Erickson nodded. “Well, not new precisely—they seem to be free to roam the streets at will, but as I’m certain you’re aware, most people can’t see them.” She hesitated, and then asked a variant of the question Kaylin had expected to hear first.

“Are you aware that you appear to have a small ghost sitting on your shoulder?”

Kaylin realized, only belatedly, that Mrs. Erickson was talking about Hope. “Oh, he’s not a ghost—everyone can see him. It takes more skill not to notice, especially when he’s squawking.”

“I see.” She sounded as dubious as Mrs. Erickson ever managed to sound. “I’m sorry, I was just curious. Where was I? Oh, yes. The city ghosts. They seemed to take an interest in your partner.”

“Corporal Handred,” Kaylin said. “My partner is Corporal Handred. What kind of interest?”

“They drifted toward him, and followed him to see what he was doing. But that’s not the point of concern—I mean, they aren’t really bothering anyone, and they can hardly be credible spies if they can’t report information to other people, can they?”

Kaylin agreed that no, they could not. Had the target of this particular report not been Severn, she wouldn’t have given Mrs. Erickson’s words much thought. But...Kaylin didn’t see Severn’s weapon chain as magical. She saw it as a belt, and sometimes as a grossly inconvenient set of weapons. Severn only brought them into play when magic—and magical attacks—were almost certain to be involved.

Mrs. Erickson didn’t come across as a liar. She didn’t come across as sound of mind, either—but Kaylin was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, probably because she seldom worked the front desk and she’d just been fed. If it was true that Mrs. Erickson saw Severn’s weapon as brilliantly glowing, what did it mean?