"I think so," she says, nuzzling him. "Maybe later we can tell them about it, but not right now. We don't trust them."

"Okay," agrees the mage. "I'm not sure how useful I'll be? But I can always try. Just um - please nothing... Amoral or... I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Believe me, I'm not going to encourage you to hurt anyone," says Isabella dryly. "I rarely require it and when I do I prefer that my agents be slightly more convinced of their competence at it. What do you already know about having daemons, now that you do?"

"That we are their souls, personified and sentient," says the Siamese. "A point of weakness."

"And that we shouldn't ever let other people touch them."

"You also can't get too far away from your daemons. Ours can, but it's an unpleasant procedure, though we have found that teleporting will get it over with fast if you want it. You," she points at the one with the bird, "could pass for a witch, like me, because yours is a flying bird. You," she points at the one with the cat, "can't do that while yours is anywhere in evidence, but could if he was invariably off on errands when you tried to present yourself that way."

"What are the benefits to presenting myself as a witch?"

"I see. It's probably not worth the trouble, but that also depends on the time frame. How long are you expecting to need to get into a position to safely drop the pretenses?"

"Possibly less than another year, probably fewer than three. If something let it slip right now I imagine we could deal, but it would be irritating and we'd prefer controlled press release to accidental leak."

She snorts. "Less than three years? That's simple, I was expecting to wait for a few decades, at least. Even if it took you five I can stay hidden without any issue. Not worth the trouble of pretending to be something I am not for such a short period of time."

"Where are you planning to hide? Loosely speaking in terms of parameters, I don't expect you to have an address picked out."

"Some place reasonably far away from any who would disturb me. I don't speak the language, but it's easy enough to just avoid people for a few years and get by with aid of the ghosts and my own skill."

"And what exactly are the ghosts going to do during this period?"

"Whatever they want to? Most will remain with me, but a few will be curious and explore."

"Nobody but you lot can see them. Are they good about staying out of private residences and not eavesdropping on personal conversations?"

"I doubt doing so will interest any of them," she shrugs. "They gravitated to me because I return conversation. Not many people talk to ghosts, but they can spy on whomever they like. In a way, it has been cleansed from their system."

"...Okay. If they create problems the fact that we're the only people who consider 'ghosts' a possible class of problem-causing means I will consider it my business, but I suppose I have no overwhelming reason to be more suspicious of your ghosts than I am of anybody else."

"Certainly. I will handle it, if problems are caused."

"If you don't," says Adarin, "then we will."

"I would expect nothing less."

"How do you feel about passing for a witch to casual inspection and being generally available to make yourself useful around our projects as first aid or anything better we come up with?" asks Isabella of the one with the bird. "Passing implies a wardrobe change but not necessarily much else if you don't want to talk to people a lot."

"I'm... Not sure where I'll go or what I'll do, now that I'm here. Those work, as well as anything else. I'm fine with passing for a witch, and being available to be - useful to projects."

"Okay. We can put you in a hotel near a portal location for the time being, maybe outfit one of the bits of the hub building as a live-in office for you after that, I don't think I want a houseguest."

She remembers what she and her companion interrupted, and looks suitably embarrassed. "No, I expect you won't. Thank you, that's very kind."