50

The gray pants skim close to your skin, grazing your ankles. Once your shirt and tie are fixed, you pull your gray jacket over the ensemble. The picture of an Archambault Academy student: you could have stepped straight out of the prospectus.

When you emerge, Asher is, of course, up and about. Since she's not a real student here, she is wearing her usual nondescript gear of a well-tailored black suit; she greets you cheerfully.

"I need to be off early," she says. "I'm to have a tour of the estate with Emile, the groundskeeper."