And so is the Sixth House, collecting reference works.

And the Third is more or less on time for once - they get in very shortly after the Ninth, before everyone can get properly settled. 

They can all get caught up, then? 

That's what they're here for.

Start with which labs everyone's done? Sixth has done Lab 6.

"Labs 2 and 3 - seemed to us they're meant to be done in order like that."

"...We started on Lab 7." Though if the Ninth is right, 'they skipped ahead' might be why they got stuck. "And - we know the trick to Lab 8, but we refused to do it - speaking of, I'd like to veto the Seventh necromancer ever participating in these sessions." She says this flatly. 

"Why?"

She recounts the Duchess's 'offer' - plus the details of Lab 8 - in its entirety, then adds: "She didn't care about her own cavalier, and she certainly didn't care about ours. I'm not interested in working with someone like that."

Glance at Angerona. "That doesn't sound much like the duchess."

"Neither she nor her cavalier are as their reputations would suggest."

"...We've spoken to her by letter, before. She didn't follow up with us on arriving here, like we'd planned - I was already thinking of asking her about that."

"She's dangerous," Phae warns. "It is the Third House's judgment that there's something deeply, deeply wrong with that woman's head - and with how her cavalier moves."

"He's being puppeted," Ellyn says.

" - Are you sure?"

"I haven't asked. But all the symptoms are there."

"But why would she - ? She has a cavalier secondary, even if Protesilaus died shortly before departure - even if he somehow died in the specific hour they were on the shuttle - they could've turned around, or she could've just admitted it - she's terminally ill, no one's actually expecting her to complete these trials, and a puppet wouldn't be able to perform all the medical care she needs - "

"Perhaps you don't know her as well as you thought."