She told Dev the following morning, before class, in the brief window of the corridor when he came in early and she was able to intercept him before Ananya arrived.
"She's coming back," Naina said quietly. "She's safe. She'll be here by the weekend."
Dev stopped walking. He stood in the corridor and — for the first time since she had known him — he looked entirely his age. He looked thirteen, and relieved, and like someone who had been holding his breath for three weeks and had just been told he could stop. He pressed his lips together and nodded once and looked at the floor for a moment and then looked back at her.
"Does Ananya know?" he said.
"Not yet. I need to tell you something else first." She lowered her voice. "The school's digital system — someone has been logging in as Ms. Rao. Not Ms. Rao herself. Someone who has her password."
Dev processed this. "So the digital activity—"
"Is the school maintaining her digital presence. To make it look like a normal, approved leave. To buy time." She paused. "The grade change on Tuesday used the specific time she had mentioned to you. Which means either it was Ms. Rao herself — which we now know it wasn't — or whoever is doing it had access to her conversations. To something she said privately."
Dev was very still. "Her classroom," he said.
"Yes."
