"Still studying?" Thomas interjected Ludwig's thoughts.
The voice drifted from just behind his ear, light as a draft. It carried the smile of a young man who pretends not to be amused and fails.
"I though you passed on… seeing how you barely even spoke." Ludwig said.
He did not turn his head. Conversations with the dead taught you economy: you saved the movement for when it mattered.
"Nah, I'm haunting you till the end of time," the spectral form of Thomas appeared right on top of his shoulder.
The weight was nothing, the cold slight. Thomas leaned an elbow on air as if on a friendly rail and peered at the page with exaggerated interest, his outline a little frayed at the edges like a badly remembered dream.
"New guy is still refusing to talk I see," Thomas said as he watched Ludwig scratch his head.
His tone was cheerful with malice, the way rivals speak kindly of one another's failures.
