Sakura slept beneath the great tree that night.
For the first time in years, her dreams were peaceful.
No endless roads.
No unanswered questions.
No desperate searching.
Only a simple sketch.
Four familiar words.
Still looking for you.
When morning arrived, she found herself reading the note again.
Abel was already awake.
Of course he was.
The boy sat beside the oasis writing furiously in his notebook.
Sakura was beginning to suspect scholars never actually slept.
They simply entered a low-power mode.
"Morning."
Abel glanced up.
"Morning."
A pause.
"You read it again."
Sakura folded the paper.
"I know."
"I counted 12 times."
She decided not to ask how.
The oasis slowly awakened around them.
Birds moved through the branches overhead.
The water reflected the pale morning sky.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Sakura finally asked:
"Where did he go?"
Abel's pencil stopped.
The question lingered between them.
Eventually he sighed.
"I was wondering when you'd ask that."
Sakura sat straighter.
The boy closed his notebook.
Then pointed north.
Not dramatically.
Not mysteriously.
Simply north.
"The Glass Dunes."
Sakura frowned.
"The what?"
"A region deeper in the Northern Expanse."
Abel stood and walked toward his satchel.
After a moment, he produced a folded map.
Old.
Worn.
Used frequently.
The scholar opened it on the ground.
His finger tapped a section far beyond the oasis.
"There."
The name sat neatly written across a vast stretch of desert.
**Glass Dunes.**
Unlike the Forgotten Gate, this was an actual place.
A real location.
A destination.
Abel continued.
"He mentioned it several times."
"Why?"
The boy shrugged.
"I don't know."
Reasonable.
Disappointing.
But reasonable.
Then his expression changed.
As though he remembered something.
"Actually..."
Sakura immediately noticed.
"What?"
Abel adjusted his glasses.
"He said somebody told him to go there."
Silence.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
The boy shook his head.
"He never said."
A pause.
"But I remember one thing."
Sakura waited.
Abel pointed toward the sketch she carried.
"The day he left."
His voice grew quieter.
"He kept staring at that drawing."
The one of Sakura.
The one he'd left behind.
Abel smiled faintly.
"He looked scared."
That surprised her.
"Scared?"
The boy nodded.
"Not of the desert."
"Not of the journey."
He looked toward the horizon.
"Scared he was finally getting close."
The words hit harder than expected.
Because she understood immediately.
Haruto wasn't searching for a place.
He was searching for her.
And after years of dead ends—
actually finding an answer could be terrifying.
Abel rolled up the map.
Then handed it over.
"This is the last direction he gave anyone."
Sakura accepted it carefully.
The last direction.
Not a rumor.
Not a guess.
The last confirmed trail.
Her trail had finally become simple:
Oasis.
Then Glass Dunes.
Then Haruto.
Maybe not immediately.
Maybe not easily.
But for the first time, the path existed.
Clear.
Straight.
Real.
Sakura looked north.
Beyond the cliffs.
Beyond the desert.
Beyond the horizon.
Somewhere out there, Haruto had walked this same route six months ago.
And for the first time in the entire novel—
they were no longer separated by mystery.