"A spirit, maybe."

"Makes sense except for how she's not a necromancer. If a revenant was communicating with her, it would be visible to others."

"If we're already supposing she's First..."

"Lost and unknown to the First, so even if they have a special technique for talking to the unseen, she wouldn't be party to it. Unless it's an innate quality somehow, but we could say that anything about Gideon is an innate quality of the First and not disprove anything thereby."

"What other options are there?"

"A secret Ninth technique. Something from one of the studies. Something from the library we missed cataloging. Something Ellynhark is doing."

"For pulling information from thin air?" Small frown. "Though, how would a spirit know the name of an ancient Lyctor - how would any source reveal that specific information?"

"If it already knew, or was connected to a reference database- I would have killed for something like that during thesis defense, and so would everyone else, so it's probably not reasonably possible."

"Ninth House would've had us over a barrel with trade if they figured out how."

"Another mark against."

Hum. "Lyctoral level psychometry, maybe? Enhanced by a personal connection to the First House - how do we know Gideon Nav isn't a necromancer, actually?"

"I've handled her sword," Palamedes reminds her. "Even if I'm not a Lyctor, I'd like to think I have some small skill in that area."

"But you didn't catch her being weird in a 'rapid healing' way - we can't discount something specific to the First House, especially not when standing on the very planet. And normal people don't rapidly heal - that'd require some manipulation of thalergy, wouldn't it?"

"You'll just have to arrange for me to get my hands on her actual body, then."

Hum. "I do think she's attracted to me - but she might see deceptive information gathering as a betrayal."

"So give her the summary of that 'Living with Psychometrists' they do at the beginning of Internal Ethics every semester."

"One possibility - or, hear me out, we could ask her what's going on, and possibly offer our help."

"If you wanted be mature and diplomatic about it, sure. One of these days I will suggest a threesome as a solution to our clandestine-slash-nefarious problems and you will agree that it's the best course of action."

"I didn't say it isn't the best course of action. We could openly suggest a threesome as a solution to her, after all."

"I can just hold her hand for five minutes if we're being open about it. Easier to concentrate that way."

"Then the threesome can be purely recreational."

"Takes half the fun out of it..." she whines teasingly.

Dramatic sigh. "Have it your way then."

"-What, really?"

"Yes, really. I don't think it's a bad enough idea to veto."