Atriarch, Elizabeth—Assistant dean of student affairs, made a mock ritual of me dancing with her at school functions. Next to Bonmot, her support was the most helpful in continuing my underground studies. She had once accompanied the famous Daffed on one of his odd specimen exhibitions into the Southern jungles, and she had learned to love the muck and mire of slogging through vegetation. I fed her a steady diet of harmless but exotic stories about the underground, and in return she looked away as my classes grew more and more esoteric. Now, I might as well be a shadow to her. (Everyone was a shadow to that woman. I should not have taken it personally.)

Balfours, Simon—One of the guards I used to evade while making my way to trysts with Mary; he liked to joke with me about the Hoegbottons. The one time I saw him in the street since, he barked out my name like a curse, and followed it with real curses. (Since dead, of a heart attack, falling while on duty. I can’t blame him for his response—I made a fool of him.)

Binder, David—A stuffed shirt fool, head of Morrow Studies, who used to chatter on endlessly while I was trying to get to my next class. Now he’s gone silent as dumb stone, as useless to me now as he was to my research. (I stand by my assessment, especially now that he, too, is dead, run over by a motored vehicle.)

Bittern, Ralstaff—The gardener! Even the gardener won’t talk to me, won’t look at me. Although, in truth, he never liked me much. But I thought he at least enjoyed matching wits with me in his efforts to uncover the scope of my midnight perambulations. It seems I was incorrect. (Now he’s the gardener for the grounds around the Truffidian Cathedral, and his attitude is absolutely the same. He spits at me when he sees me.)

Cinnote, Fiona—Indigenous Tribes Studies. Beautiful in her own way. She used to laugh at my jokes. I used to laugh at hers. There was a world-weariness behind her eyes that made me think she had an interesting history. But she had an affair with Binder, for Truff’s sake. How dare she judge me! (And how dare I judge her, truly. I actually thought about suggesting lunch, but she quit the Academy and mounted an expedition to the Southern jungles, never to be seen again.)

… and on, and on …

When it came to Blythe Academy, all Duncan could think of for several years was how he had been wronged by them. He couldn’t see how he’d hurt the Academy, or his fellow professors. There was nothing in him, then, that was able to accept the guilt of his misdeeds. (Perhaps not on the surface, Janice. But I’ve made up for it since. I think I’ve made up for it thrice over. But I guess no one makes it out, a line Lacond was fond of quoting from Tonsure.)