Lucette nods.

"He was the first one out of the ballroom... Would you like us to depart now? It would be acceptable to do so given the drama of the evening."

"I haven't danced with Lady Haster yet but perhaps it can be dispensed with."

"I suspect the complicated chain she would have been a part of will no longer function as desired, given how distracted everyone will be by gossiping about this."

"In that case heading out sounds good to me."

There's a line of carriages outside as they don't seem to be the only people with this idea, but eventually, they are on their way.

"Do you require much guiding?" asks Lucette, offering Haru a hand.

"Not a lot, it did some kind of psychic attack but it didn't press it for long or very hard. But some." Handhold.

"I expect quite a lot of people will be trying to figure out who exactly let their demon grow so powerful."

"What'll happen when they figure it out?"

"There will be a lot of social pressure for the person to allow more frequent hauntings, and also to find a match quickly."

"And not, say, a murder or even manslaughter trial about whoever was killed."

"-someone was killed?"

"I guess I didn't check if they survived but someone had a chunk taken out of them."

"Was the victim empowered?"

"I don't know, I didn't recognize either the scream or the disembodied parts."

"Oh dear. If they were empowered, it is plausible they survived.... if they didn't survive, then my guess would be the perpetrator will have to pay an extremely large fine, get married, and be exiled from society - or possibly they will be executed. Unless the person who died was a commoner."

"I assume there were commoners in the building but I don't know if they tend to use the same restrooms."

"They don't."

"Separate and not even lip service to equal."

"Is that an idiom from your world?"

"Separate but equal was a bit of a catchphrase for a period of racial segregation in the country south of mine."

"That sounds... nice? Though I suppose if one could manage equality without the separation that would be an improvement."

"I said 'not even lip service' because the phrase 'separate but equal' is now in the study of its history known as very much lip service."

"Ah, that's unfortunate."

"Yeah. The trend is up, if imperfectly."

"I'd really like to figure out a way to improve how society treats commoners here, but it's difficult to imagine making any progress without a rather large amount of leverage."