Where Cor is parked rewriting Melkor Facts in inscrutable cipher.

He's in the middle of writing notes about Melkor, does Ranary think they should interrupt?

"Yes," she growls.

They let Cor know she's here.

"Oh, I can see her now?"

"Yes."

"Fancy that. I'd like to see her."

Ranary can come in.

He hugs her.

"They wouldn't let me take a bath without supervision," she murmurs.

"Figures."

They are not leaving them unsupervised now either.

They noticed. They don't say much.

Eventually someone says that the visit's over.

"Why?" wonders Cor.

"Orders."

"I feel kind of bad about not having noticed how creepily dictatorial this place was before today."

"I'm not visiting," says Ranary, "I live here now, I don't want to live with a guy who was going to spy on me in the bath for a king -"

"We can find you somewhere else to stay, but not here."

"I want to stay here with Cor," insists Ranary.

"We could do a room elsewhere in the palace."

"I'll settle for next door."

"Those are taken. There's one over a little ways."

"I'll move somewhere there's two adjacent," says Cor.

"King says your choices are here or his rooms."

"Perhaps one of my neighbors will be kind enough to move."

They are not.

Ranary doesn't get up. She sits next to Cor and clings to his hand.