Aaron knew nobody lived in the basement. The decorations had all been packed up overnight, and he'd even gone down there himself to do a little bit of exploring, but what was left of the masquerade's emotions had quickly chased him out. He was coming back from his meeting with the chemistry tutor, which had gone surprisingly well, considering that Aaron expected to be pretty horrific at chemistry. He stopped short when he saw Esme, and out of habit immediately adjusted his position so that he was out of reach before he even got a good look at her.
She was creepy, creepy in a bone-deep, unnatural calm kind of way, the way Shiloh would get sometimes when he didn't know anybody else was in the room. He gave her a look that was bordering on defensive and inching towards curiosity. "Hey." He looked past her into the basement, saw nothing, and straightened back up to look at her face. He didn't recognize her.