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Meredith shrugs. "I don't want to take the chance of being seen, if anyone from town returns to the portal. And I never minded walking. And…I don't know where I'm going, exactly."

She casts another look back over toward the portal, but her gaze strays to the hills and the distant trees. "I always thought this place was beautiful, ever since my teacher first brought me through the portal," she says, in the most conversational tone you've heard from her so far. "The town looks different than it did three centuries ago, of course, but the hills are almost the same. The world doesn't look like this, on the other side. And it certainly doesn't stay the same."

Alvis will be furious if you ask her anything else about Cadafel or the prophecy without him, and you don't think she's inclined to answer those sorts of questions. But you can't shake the feeling that she's been strangely familiar with you since you met at the Academy, as if she somehow knows you beyond the way everyone in Ithos does. There are still secrets she's keeping, you're certain, but perhaps she'd be willing to answer a question about that.

Meredith seems to appreciate the silence. "It only gets harder from here," she says. "But you'll see me again soon." With that, she's gone.

There's something disorienting in watching a person who looks entirely human blink out of existence. You wonder if she figured out where she's going.

You can't help listening for footsteps for a moment, as if you might have blinked and missed Meredith walking away. The night is silent, perhaps for the first time, and you make your way back toward Alvis to figure out where you're camping for the night.

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