They approached the inn as the sun began to set. The door was open, and the smell of fresh bread and roasted meat drifted out into the street. Inside, the common room was warm and bright, filled with travelers and townspeople talking and laughing.
Mara stood behind the bar, pouring ale for a group of farmers. She looked up as Clara and Alessandro entered, and her hand stilled on the pitcher. For a long moment, no one moved. Then Kai emerged from the kitchen, flour still dusting his apron, and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Clara," he said, his voice quiet but clear. The room fell silent.
Mara stepped around the bar, her hand resting on the dagger at her waist. "We thought you were dead," she said.
"We were," Alessandro replied. "Or as close to it as makes no difference. We have things to tell you—things that affect all of us."
Kai looked at them for a long moment, then nodded toward a corner table. "Sit. We'll talk. But if either of you tries anything—"
"You'll stop us," Clara finished. "You have every right to. We're not here to fight. We're here to warn you."
They sat, and Mara brought them mugs of ale—though she didn't take her hand off her dagger. Clara began to speak, telling them everything: about the world beyond the portal, the First People, the fractures spreading through reality. She showed them the small crystal Lyra had given her—a piece of the Heart of Creation that glowed when near a fracture.
As she spoke, the crystal on the table began to pulse with light.
"It's close," Alessandro said, standing up. "There's a fracture nearby."
They followed the crystal's glow through the town to the edge of the forest, where a small clearing stood. In its center, the air seemed to shimmer—like heat rising from pavement, but wrong somehow. Objects flickered in and out of existence there: a chair, a book, a child's toy.
"That's what we're facing," Clara said. "At first it's small things. But soon the fractures will grow larger. Whole buildings. Towns. Eventually, entire worlds will simply cease to be."
Kai knelt beside the shimmering air, watching as a bird flew through it and emerged with one wing twisted in impossible angles. He looked up at Clara, his face grim.
"What do we do?"