“Yeh, I know.” The hunter sounds cheerful enough, amiable enough, despite the completely unnecessary detours she’s been led on, around and around and around. It helps that she likes the movement and doesn’t mind the physical activity, essentially going on a surreal walk together, banishing some of her restless energy and going up and down the stairs. Everyone’s in a weird mood this week: strained and uncertain what to do about the newcomers. They can’t trust them, but what do they do with them?

If they were infiltrators, wouldn’t it have been easier to just pretend to be new recruits? Several of them have shards. But the whole thing’s above Astrid’s paygrade, anyway —

“S’pose that’s why you’re not actually in the cells. Now that I’m saying you should be in the cells, just,” she backpedals, finishing lamely, “y’know. Ne-cess-ary pre-cau-tions.”

She delivers that phrase with the inflection of someone who heard it emphasised very strongly at a morning division briefing.