"That," she says, "is a nice artifact effect."

"Yes, yes it is."

"Any other experiments that don't have to wait on the Dean waking up tomorrow? Should I go home?"

"We're also going to see if I can see through invisibility, but none of the others are really testable with such a defensive artifact."

"Do you want me to wait for the invisible person to show up, or will that take a while?"

"It'll probably take a while, they're less on-hand than the mindreader was. They're actually a bit freaked out about my immunity to the mindreader, too, it's kind of funny."

"I hope they aren't going to do anything unfortunate just because they can't keep mental tabs on you."

"No. I'm putting out an ad for volunteers that want to take care of the knife, they legally have no grounds to confiscate the necklace. And there's not much else they can do with me."

"Okay. I'll just go home then unless there's a reason for me to stick around. I'll leave my phone number by your phone for you in case you wake up in the middle of the night and have to tell me something."

A few hours later, there's a call at her home phone.

"Salutations. Is Annie there? There is a thing I need to tell her."

"You must be Aldaras. She's in the shower - is it important enough that I should barge in? I don't know how this works..."

"I am! We can probably manage you yelling it. Yell that I don't see invisible people, please?"

"All right. Annie! Aldaras says he doesn't see invisible people!" Pause. "I think I heard her say 'okay'."

"Mmm. Tentative pass. I'll try not to think about it too much. Anyway, sorry about that. Artifacts do strange things."

"I'll make sure she heard when she comes out, anyway. Call back if you need to."

"Thank you very much, ma'am."

"Call me Rinty, dear."

"Sure. You're Annie's mom, I take it?"

"That's right!"

"It's nice to - well, this isn't exactly meeting you, but talk to you."

"Likewise, I'm sure. Annie had nice things to say about you."