A kiss, then let it be so.

Meanwhile - and a bit earlier - 

Angerona stares at the doors for a few moments after the Ninth's departure from the scene of the exorcism. "Well," she says. "There's a lot to unpack here, so I vote we just throw the whole suitcase out and pretend we didn't see that."

"It would make our lives much simpler," Palamedes agrees. "Was that, uh, usual for one of these?"

"No," Abigail says slowly. "Not usual at all."

Great, apparently they're unpacking it. 

"The - family drama," she says, a bit delicately (and Angerona knows family drama), "Seemed explicable."

When has Angerona known Palamedes to not try to unpack a complicated problem?

"Well, yes. But I meant the way everything just- fizzled, at the end there."

"It was instant," she says, bluntly, because she was hanging back to watch given there's not much she could do against a spirit except get in the way. "It wasn't just a fizzle. Ninth's constructs crumbled in the same moment the candles went out."

"That's not something anyone's ever reported, on any world, done by any necromancer - and Gideon the Ninth was more surprised than we were." Huff. "Teacher has insisted this area is safe, despite the facility being overall haunted - is it possible there's powerful wards here? Which the ghost tripped when she lunged past Abigail's own wards."

"Possible?" Abigail says. "Certainly. This is the First, after all. Likely? Not an interaction I've come across. But this is the First."

"If there're wards, they're big ones. I haven't seen any qualitative changes or boundaries since we landed."

"The Ninth might've seen something we didn't."

"Too bad they ran off so quick. They've a real talent for making an exit."

"...Not too surprised they needed a moment, after - that." Meaning the family drama. 

"Yeah, yeah. I know."

Sigh. "Could something have been odd about the ghost? - Or about accidentally using her daughter's blood?"

"Unaccounted blood connections could create problems. The standard warding is usually resilient enough to compensate, but that was a very angry ghost. It shouldn't have been able to smash through like it did, so maybe a cascading interplay..."

"...It only smashed through all the way after Gideon - rejected her."

Honestly it might've been lunging for the Reverend Daughter, initially.

"Feels like we're missing something."

"Can I take a look at the sword?"

"It's no longer haunted," Abigail says. "Though how the Ninth will feel about anyone touching it, I couldn't say."

"...Might be best not to annoy them." It sure looks like a standard issue Cohort sword, though. 

"Nondestructive only. If she gets mad you tried to stop me."

Palamedes goes over to lay her hand on the sword, delving into it with her psychometric senses. "...Twenty to thirty years old. Cohort steel. One recent wielder, our friend the Ninth, before that... One female, late twenties... Not from the Sixth, beyond that I can't tell. Then-" Palamedes wrinkles her brow in concentration. "A group? Part of a communal armory and loaned around? This makes no sense."

...Sigh.

"It's a Cohort sword. I'd bet the ghost attached to the weapon that killed her - with how she was talking, she's an enemy of the Nine Houses. A soldier kills her, spares her kid - then takes said kid back to the Ninth. She's pissed at us for being part of the empire, she's extra pissed at anyone from the Ninth, and she is beyond pissed that they raised her daughter to be a loyal cavalier to the Reverend Daughter. And she's been stewing and getting more and more pissed for as long as Gideon's been on the Ninth."

"Also this is firmly family drama and so not our business."

Oh, but that story just raises more questions...!

Okay, okay, she'll be good.

It raises family drama questions. 

Dropping it, dropping it, look she's not even touching it anymore!

So they can pretend none of that happened now (except for the weird part at the end which might be First House weirdness) and go back to studying?