Ford's brow wrinkled in confusion. Banishing a spirit was a frequent request they heard from living people, however much they tried to avoid following through on it. It was the division's last resort, but often the first thing on the top of mind for the Spiritually Inconvenienced. Resuming contact with a spirit once they had been banished was a new one... particularly since the types of ghosts who could find themselves summarily banished by the Ministry were the ones for whom all routes of compromise, communication, or collaboration had failed.

"I don't know that anyone has wished to," he admitted. "They'd make an inquiry with us, I suppose, and we'd track them down. What sort of a novel is this?" he asked quizzically, having forgotten the insistence that the book she was writing was an academic text.

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