"Everything looks normal."

"That's one thing at least. We don't know if it followed us out of the library at all, though."

"Yeah, I can't see out of you effectively."

"And we won't really have much time to react in creative ways if it comes for us here, I don't think."

"My image would have dropped when we got far enough away even if my concentration didn't falter at any point before then."

"It might not've still been paying attention to you, but if it was it might come looking."

She starts packing. "We should maybe get out of town."

"Yeah, definitely." She packs as well. "We'll either have to leave in the morning, leave officially, or sneak out - I don't think our guards will really put up with us just leaving suddenly, even though we've been talking about it."

"We could also call Hughes. Or stop by his house, if you're worried about lines being secure. He'll have a better idea what to do."

"I don't know that I want to drag him into this..."

"Who's he?"

"A friend of ours. He's in the Intelligence division. His loyalty's more to our superior officer, but he also looks out for us a lot. He's nosy."

"But you don't think he's in on the shadow spy."

She really, really doubts it.

"Okay, your call. This Tongues casting's not long for the world, let's get a phrase down real quick for, like, 'I see it' or a coded phrase for that or something."

They can do a coded phrase pretty easily.

And she's back to Comprehend Languages only.

"If we're not going anywhere tonight, Bellona and I should work on learning your language more, too."

"Okay." She can teach them Taldane for everything in the phrasebook.

Bellona seems to pick up on it faster than Emma, but both of them are still notably fast. Neither needs things repeated.

Impressive. If they want Taldane for anything else they can ask.

They have a pretty good idea of the things they tend to need to communicate among themselves, which they ask for - Emma taps out of the lesson sooner than Bellona, who apparently wants to know random general cultural stuff, too. ("I like people and talking to them," she says with a shrug. "And hooking information to thoughts of people makes it easier to remember.")

"My people are kind of awful. I'm teaching you a common human language."

"Okay. Do you know about the humans?"

"Some, yes."