Joscelin nods back, silently elegiac. He has always liked Alcuin, but Alcuin here unnerves him. Meeting him again was wrenching. Dealing with him, alive, watchful, sometimes peaking in his head... in its way, it's like being haunted, and he does poorly at hiding that, although he would like to, drowning the feeling in formality.

He finishes his prayers.

"I wonder sometimes if they can hear us," he says, terse, oblique.