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As soon as they reached her room, Lyra bade Oleander and Annali farewell and slipped through her door, shutting it behind her. She had no idea how long it was going to take her to get to the place they wanted to meet at, assuming she could even find it on her own at all, and it was already getting dark out.

She hesitated by the desk where her bag and her traveling supplies were, and wondered what she should bring with her. Kel had their only lantern and, after their argument this morning, she didn't think she should ask him if she could borrow it. Surely the temple had some lanterns? Maybe they would lend her one. She didn't think she would have any choice but to be out after dark, and she couldn’t go out there blind.

She should probably bring some of her supplies along with her, just to be safe. Since almost everything was still packed in her backpack, she decided to take the entire thing — it wasn’t like she wasn’t used to traveling with it on. As one last nod to caution, she took her knife out of he rbag and strapped it around her waist. She wasn't afraid of Erik, Milo, or Luke, but she was afraid of getting caught out in the wilderness at night alone. A lot of the animals here seemed analogous to animals from Earth, but that didn't mean none of them were dangerous.She could think of plenty of animals from home she wouldn’t want to run into alone in the woods at night.

She paused to look at herself in the bathroom mirror once she was ready to go, and was surprised when she barely recognized the person looking back at her. She wasn't Lyra the college dropout who quit whenever things got too hard anymore, because she no longer had the option to be that person. Now she was Lyra the displaced traveler, an unwilling adventurer, and this was the first time she was brave enough to set out on her own.

Maybe it was a good thing Kel wasn't going with her. She couldn't rely on him forever, and the fact that the others had been here for a year had made her realize how naively optimistic she had been to think this entire affair might be over in a matter of weeks. She had no idea how long she was going to be here and she needed to start relying on herself a little more.

On her way out, she found a temple volunteer — not a priest or a priestess, but an average person wearing the pristine white robes that seemed to be the uniform for the people who worked here. When she asked after a lantern, the woman scurried away to get one for her so quickly that Lyra wasn't even certain she had heard the request.

The woman came back a minute later carrying a shiny copper and glass lantern with her. "I filled it with oil, priestess, and I made sure the wick was trimmed. I also brought matches. I know you didn't request them, but I didn't want you to be without." Lyra took the matches and the lantern, not mentioning that she already had some of the former in her bag. She had no idea how hard they were to find around here and figured she’d better not look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Thank you," she said as kindly as possible, but the woman just bowed before scurrying away again. She was sure plenty of people liked being treated like this, but it just made her uncomfortable. She had more important things to worry about right now, though, like getting to the meeting place before the others gave up and decided to forget about her.

The sun was beginning to dip behind the buildings when she left the temple. With a hand-drawn map as her only guide, a lantern tied to her backpack, and a knife strapped to her waist, she felt like a real adventurer, the kind she had read about in books, except the books never mentioned how the heroes stomachs kept twisting with worry with every step they took closer to their destination. She was both eager and anxious, not at all sure that whatever they had to say was something she would want to hear. All of her hopes, everything she had done so far, were pinned on the belief that she would be able to get home one day. What if that was impossible? What if they were here because they had died on Earth, or whatever power brought them here could only make the transition one way? What if she was stuck here forever?

Filled with nervous energy, she clutched the map in her hand, glancing down at it as she walked, even though she already had it memorized. It was almost worryingly simple. She was supposed to follow the road north out of town and take what looked like the first right on a smaller path that led through some rocky fields and into what was either a small forest or a large copse of trees. A stick drawing of a house labeled Ruined Homestead was circled as their meeting point.

Easy enough, except the map gave no idea of scale. By the time she reached the edge of town, following the same northern road the Aketian procession had taken the day before, twilight had begun to darken the sky into pink and purple hues and the moon, only half full, hung low and dark in the sky. She paused on the outskirts of town to light the lantern with one of the oversized, explosive matches. She was glad the temple worker had prepared it for her, because she would have had no clue how to do it herself. There was still so much she had to learn about this world and how everything from religion to technology worked here.

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The lantern lit a circle around her, bright enough to see the road by, but too dim and directionless to see much else. She missed handheld electric torches — and she knew there was another word for them, but it was another word Towr had taken from her. The lantern was too directionless. She was pretty sure Kel’s lantern had shutters on it to direct the light forward instead of all around, but this one didn’t.

Finding the path she was supposed to follow to the east was more difficult than she anticipated. There were a lot of little game trails that cut through the long grass, and she even started following one until it petered out after a hundred meters and she had to backtrack to the road. By the time she finally found something that looked like an actual path made by human tools instead of animals’ feet, the stars had come out, and she could see that pink smudge of a nebula far above.

The half moon didn't give off much light, especially since it was so much darker in color than the moon from home, but she suspected she might be able to see further if she blew out her lantern and let her eyes adjust to the dark. It was the thought of trying to relight it without being able to see what she was doing that gave her pause. For now, she would just have to make do with the small pool of light the lantern provided and do her best not to wonder what was lurking in the pitch blackness beyond.

She had no way of knowing if the path she was on was the right one, but at least it didn't randomly end with no warning like the game path did. She tried not to let her mind wander as she walked, but every so often, a sound—the low screech of a night bird or the faraway howl of a canine—made goosebumps rise on her arms and caused her heart to either leap or still in her chest. She was utterly alone out here. The lights of Ersgath were still visible if she looked over her shoulder, but each step brought her further away from the warm glow and deeper into the wilderness. What if there were more of those giant birds like the ones Russo and his people rode? Those had seemed tamed, but a wild one would be able to gut her before she even had time to go for her knife. Her tunic would probably keep her safe from human threats, but predators of an animal nature wouldn’t care what she was wearing, only that she was soft and slow and made out of meat.

But nothing jumped out at her, and the frightening sounds stayed far away. She had no idea how long she had been walking when the dark canopy of trees blocked out the stars above her, but it was long enough that she had begun to wonder whether she had taken the right path after all. But if there were trees here, then she must have found the forest she was supposed to meet them in.

Now she just had to follow the path until she found the ruined homestead.

With the leaves hiding the stars and moon from her sight, the forest felt more claustrophobic than the path through the long grass and rocky fields had, though functionally, there wasn't much difference since her lantern didn't reveal much of the area around her anyway. As she walked, the flickering light caught on the rough bark and low-hanging branches, occasionally making shadows move in ways that caused her to jump. She was scared and worried and wished they could have met somewhere in the middle of the day instead of at night, but mostly, she just hoped they were still there, waiting for her. She was so close to learning something important she could practically taste it.

When her lantern light revealed fist-sized stones scattered across the ground, half-buried in the leaves of the forest floor, she wondered if she was coming back up on the rocky field and hadn't found the right copse of trees after all, but then she saw the low, dark form of a crumbling stone wall and realized she must have the right place.

She raised her lantern, but didn't see any lights ahead of her. Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden and she swallowed, wondering if she should call out and let them know she was there. Before she could decide if that was a good idea or not, an animal snorted somewhere ahead of her in the dark. She stumbled back so violently that it made the flame in the lantern flicker and sputter. She even went so far as to fumble for her knife before the animal snorted again. She heard the dull impact of a hoof against hard ground and caught the warm, familiar scent of horses in the air.

Of course. They had those two war horses, the ones that had made Kel think they were deserters. Letting out a breathy laugh, she released her grip on the knife and strode forward, raising the lantern over her head as she called out, "Hello? It's me. Is anyone here?"

She heard the creaking sound of a long-disused hinge working and saw a flicker of light appear. As a pool of light flooded out from a doorway she hadn’t seen just moment ago, she realized they were inside the ruins of the homestead and the walls had blocked whatever lights they had from her sight.

Milo stepped outside carrying a lantern, with Luke close behind him. The lantern’s light glinted off of the metal parts of the horses tack, and the shadows made Milo's face look haggard.

"We were beginning to wonder if you changed your mind," he said, Luke translating for him. "Come in. There's a table and some chairs that should hold us well enough while we talk." He raised his lantern higher and looked around. "You came alone, correct?”

"Yeah," she said, jogging over to him. She slowed her pace when one of the horses shifted, not wanting to spook them. They were both much larger than Aeliana, and the rotted wooden fence they were tied to didn’t look like it would hold them if they bolted.

Or kicked her. Kel said they were war horses, after all. Fleeing probably wasn’t their first instinct.

“Kel’s still in Ersgath, and I didn't bring anyone else with me. Will you tell me what's going on now? I just want some answers. Not knowing why this happened to me is driving me crazy.”

"We'll tell you everything we know," Luke said, translating Milo’s rapid German. “Then you'll have to choose whether you want to join us or not. Come in, and shut the door behind you.”