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"No," she said, in a voice that was a little too calm. "I didn't see anything in that database about how it affects - them. If it does. I'm sure he's - around. Somewhere. I haven't come here yet without him tagging around after me like a ******** dog-"

She pulled up short, almost not even finishing the word.

"But I've also never brought anyone here. Maybe he's ******** - shy, or something, I don't know." And then, abruptly, she turned to Ekstrom. "You know what one of the first things he told me was? He told me he'd never lie to me." And then, clearly finding these two items to be related: "I have ******** to say to the Code. I don't think he'd have anything to say to it either. It can sit wherever it is and rot." But she smiled when she said it, and if it was a little strained, it wasn't a lie, either.

"I am going to be pretty goddamned upset if this big apocalypse storm thing exorcises his ******** ghost from this place even if he drives me insane," she said bluntly. "Gonna be honest, it didn't occur to me as a possibility. But I guess if he doesn't turn back up we should make a note of it."

There was a very strange intensity to what she was saying - as if Joy, determined to be as honest in her information as Gouvernail, still didn't see any reason to wear her own heart on her sleeve either, and was setting her willpower very firmly against doing so: focusing on the task at hand, even if the task was just passive and useless observation.

"How many of these have you seen? I don't know what we're supposed to be looking for."

She gave her a look that was equal parts fondness and exasperation.

"Girl," she said, "what am I supposed to do about lightning? And the towers all have big metal poles on them where the banners used to be, so they're basically lightning rods if it gets any closer than those big trees over th--"

As she said it, as if to emphasize her words, another snaking bolt struck out, this time quite near, and she flinched, scuttling further away from the window.

"Although," she amended rapidly, "if you suddenly remember that you have learned anything about that having a big metal ice box to attract it, feel free to share. I'm all ears. Absolutely raring for advice." And then, with a grimace: "I have the weirdest feeling that if I tried to leave right now I couldn't. Hope you're OK with camping out for a bit. I've got snacks, if you're hungry. And vodka. Not that I'd leave anyway, til I have some idea of where--" she drew up short, unwilling to finish the sentence.

"I think they're built into the stone," she said. She looked at Ekstrom bravely overcoming the tremor in her voice, and she suddenly laughed a quiet little laugh.

"Look how noble we both are. Trying to make the other one feel better by pretending we're not both scared shitless. I'm proud of both of us." She said this with a wry sort of sarcasm, as if to acknowledge that the pride didn't exactly mean much, when the facade was so easily seen through.

"I don't think there's much we could do about them - Jesus," she added, at a particularly brutal flurry of strikes, although they seemed to be at least shielded from any direct hits, ensconced in the thick stone walls of the keep. "But it might be something for me to -"

Her voice caught, a little; it was not clear exactly when Gouvernail had rejoined them. But he had, glancing at Joy and giving Ekstrom that same professional nod of acknowledgement. The former kept talking as her ancestor moved across the room, apparently to check in on the same spider that captivated her.

"- look into doing, if this bullshit keeps up much longer." She had summoned a tiny airplane bottle of vodka into her hand from her subspace as she spoke, apparently feeling she needed a drink even if Ekstrom didn't, whether it was to cope with the lightning or because she simply needed a drink to deal with Gouvernail being in the same room. She was watching him with a particularly gloomy expression as she continued, interrupted only by taking a shot-sized swig. "Gonna be real, I'm hoping it blows over before it comes to that, because it seems like a hell of a job. Do you--"

And then, there was a little pause. Gouvernail had lifted his spectral hands up towards the spider - a motion as manifestly useless as that of pretending to take Joy's hand in his - and both he and Joy had visibly startled a moment later, although that may well have been from a forking strike of lightning that rattled more plaster from the ceiling. What she had seen - what Ekstrom might have seen, if she was looking, or might not have, had she instead been focused on the window or on Joy - had been the unmistakable moment that the spider, startled by the same peal, had scuttled across Gouvernail's upraised fingers as surely as if they had been her own.

He turned to her, an odd expression on his face, and she was meeting his eyes as he made a single tiny, silent nod of confirmation, even though she kept talking, uninterrupted save for that half a breath. Why exactly they shouldn't observe this little event aloud was not entirely clear, not even to Joy - it felt like there was some awful taboo on it, which she could not entirely place. As if to name it would be to invoke something terrible.

"- Do you think you could get an angle grinder through subspace and come and help? Or maybe it'd let us bring one of those old-timey two-person saws with the back-and-forth." She took another swig to finish the little bottle, tucking it neatly back into subspace and returning her eyes to Ekstrom with a little smile. Gouvernail had joined her, standing just behind her, and so she did not see what Ekstrom could - which was that he was making a motion as if to rest his fingertips on the small of her back: a protective, chivalrous little motion that she clearly could not feel and was unaware of. One possibly - if that moment with the spider had been unobserved by their guest - might seem to be motivated only by that same formal instinct that had made him pretend to kiss her hand. "But there's at least eight of them up there. Wear the good deodorant. I don't sweat," she added, somewhat smugly.

And then, as abruptly as it had come, the storm suddenly died. She cocked her head to the side and listened to the wail of the wind subsiding to a sigh, and then to nothing, and she crept back towards the window, watching the angry clouds crawl away across the sky, the lightning now only a series of distant flashes within their churning shadows.

"Weird," she said. "Just - really, really weird." And then she turned, again, back to Ekstrom. "I think we should leave while we have the opportunity," she said, already moving to repeat that pantomimed kiss of the hand, although her attention was almost entirely on her visitor instead of the ghost. The gesture, half-ignored, was as formal and detached as it had been before, and once again Ekstrom was spared her share of it by receiving instead a soldierly nod and a bow of his head. "And before it gets nasty again. I don't know if you got anything useful out of this," she added, with a strangeness in her voice. "But I think I'll try and write one of those database updates anyway. And I'll give you a yell if we need to do any construction on the roof any time soon. Consider yourself conscripted."

She smiled, then, a tight little smile, and offered her her hand with much more friendliness than she had offered it to Gouvernail. "Ready? Let's bounce."