“Well then, maybe I should introduce you,” Pal shoots back. He still isn’t sure what to make of the person who is not quite a Lyctor but something like it, who has even more enemies on this ship than he does, and yet managed to talk their way out of being tossed out the airlock. He does know that they seem as instinctively protective of the girl he has begun to call Nona as he is.

“I have. It isn’t—I can’t get a read.” He presses his lips into an irritated line. If only he could get more time alone with the girl, maybe he could figure out who she was. “Her body belongs to a friend of mine. Her soul likely belongs to one of two people, though either one will have been knocked about something awful, which would account for her current state.” For a moment he pauses, seeming to weigh explaining further. “Or it’s a secret third thing, but if it’s that, then I really am going to have to look into posthumous publication because I’ll need to write at least six different papers, all overturning thousands of years of necromantic theory.”

He stops and cocks an eyebrow, faintly amused. “Some advice: don’t say that where Cam can hear.”