The Hall of Attainment had been Aubrey’s home now for almost a year. It was where she was found, and, she supposed, where she would leave—if there was anything left for her to return to. She leaned into the wind as she ascended to the rooftop, summoning circle laid out before her and dotted with melted stubs of candles, wax pooling across grey and black slate slabs which were always just warm enough never to freeze over. Everything felt raw from the bite of the weather off the Sea of Ghosts, from the salt, and from the gravity of what she was about to do. But she’d long since run out of tears. Or so she thought.

“Durant, wait!”

A familiar voice, and one that ached to hear. She’d told him she had to go. The entire goal of all this research and all this time was to find a way back home. He knew this. News of her and her research was why he traveled all the way from Solstheim to this snowbank of a town to begin with, and…well. She knew why he stayed.

Aubrey tilted her head back as if the motion would prevent her tears from falling. Her braid, unbound and held by strength of will and third-day grime alone came unraveled in the wind, dark curls flying every which way. She tried to ignore his voice and the sound of his footsteps echoing as he ran up cold stone steps. Ignoring him as best as she could, she stood in the center of the circle and wiped away the stray tears that had managed to escape despite her best efforts.

Professor Gestor had found her here, right in this spot, curled in on herself, protecting her head, freezing to death in the scrap of white cotton dress that had survived her crossing. Their original theory was that she’d been imprisoned in Oblivion, narrowly escaping some horrible death by the hand of some Daedric nightmare or another. How very close to the truth that had been. That was the story the College proliferated on her behalf while feelers were put out for any and all resources that might help get her home. That was the story that attracted the attention of Neloth. And…that was why Talvas was still here, calling her name and weakening her resolve. Gods, but he wouldn’t leave, would he? He’d never known how to let go, and truth be told, neither did she. With a shuddering sigh, she kept her back turned to him. It hurt too much to face whatever he was meaning to say. Already, going home felt like a betrayal when it shouldn’t ever have. It had been her goal all along. He knew. He knew. And so did she.

She pushed her sleeve back and ran her hand down the black rose-and-bramble tattoos on her left arm, fingers pausing at each raised, scarified starburst interspersed within illustrated flora. She had sixteen now—had earned the last one on her wrist bone before the summoning. Maybe she hadn’t earned it at all, considering the result.

The memory was like a slash from a razor, still too raw, still open to infection. The time before, the ritual she was to lead. And she was ready, or so she thought. To bring back Helene from her sleep beyond the veil and soul-share with her would exponentially increase the Circle’s power. Aubrey was supposed to be a host. It wasn’t meant to be a sacrifice. And yet…

Images flashed behind her eyes. A fair hand, dripping with silver and moonstone jewelry, drawing chalk runes. Candles set in etched glass holders burned, each with runes twisting into incantations she had known by heart. At the center of it all, incense burned around chalices filled with offerings of red wine seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg and just a drop or two of blood. The summer storm gusted through long, deep red curtains. Gunshots echoed in the distance, sirens blared, far enough away. Lightning cracked and thunder rumbled, rain beating a frenetic staccato song on the roof of their ramshackle apartment. The fire flickered. She’d locked arms with her Sisters, intertwined fingers, their voices raising in choir, low and haunting. This time, the summoning would be successful. Aubrey could feel it in every fiber of her being.

She believed right up until the piercing screams, the crunch of bones, the iron stench of blood overwhelmed everything, and the shouted words from something other seared into her mind before hands she couldn’t see tore her from herself.

“Listen! Hear me and obey.”

Aubrey flinched when Talvas laid a hand on her arm. Her skin had gone cold as she’d absently kept tracing her tattoos, lost in her horror. The dawn was breaking, the sliver of sunlight creeping up over the horizon, an illusion of warmth. Her breath went shallow and she swayed on her feet. Her vision blurred, sky turning to billowing clouds of stardust, like pigment in water, mauve asteroids floating through an endless ocean—the galaxy she’d been pulled through. Would she have to travel back through that? What would be left for her but a room full of corpses?

Talvas caught her as she listed sideways, all while she kept her eyes locked on the stars and navy sky fading into the gold and pink wash of morning.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, words gentle despite the tightness in his throat. She could hear it. He was terrified. So was she. They both sank to the stone of the rooftop, heedless of the gathering clouds, of the chill. It was cold enough to end them, both of them, right here, if they stayed too still. Aubrey buried her face in her hands. Had she not already made her choice?

But no. He was right. She could stay, and be the odd Breton scholar, obsessed with conjuration and the myriad pockets of Oblivion—with the Colored Rooms, and the unlikely ability to escape from them. That was the story this world knew of her. She didn’t have to be Aubrey Durant, failed hedge witch from a polluted city with nothing to show for her efforts, trailing the corpses of her Sisters behind her. But…what if there was a chance they’d made it? What if they were trying to get to her? She’d spent all this time, all this energy twisting the Magicka of this realm to her will. And finally, finally, the way home could be right there. Right there.

“I have to. You know I have to try,” she whispered. The words fell from her mouth before she had the chance to think about the weight of them. Talvas took one of her hands in his, gently took her chin in the other and turned her face toward him. He looked forlorn, somehow, as if her words had stung ages ago, and he was used to this kind of pain.

“I could go with you, if you insist you must.”

She sighed and closed her eyes against a wave of grief. The first Dunmer she’d seen, Arch-Mage Aren, had terrified her, red eyes glowing in the half-light of his quarters. Her scream pierced the silence, drowning out his quiet, otherwise calm voice. She’d tried to flee, heart beating out of her chest, though there’d been nowhere else to go. That was when they knew she was other. She didn’t doubt they would kill Talvas on sight in New York; if they could not cover it up, they’d blame the witches as had been done since time out of mind. There would be nonsense of opening a gate to Hell, as if that, albeit in kinder words, was not a regular occurrence—a regular commission. This all without talks of disease, which he would be unable to fight off—he would need only breathe the air there. Healing didn’t work like it did here. It…never did. Aubrey touched one of the starbursts just above her wrist, as if to quiet another memory before it cropped up on its own, like weeds in the cracks of sidewalks in deep disrepair.

“You can’t,” Aubrey whispered. She placed her hand over Talvas’s as he wiped away another tear with his thumb. She didn’t have the heart to explain all the ways her world would try to destroy him, or how losing him at all felt like parting with a piece of her she’d only just recovered.

He let go of her hand and tried to smooth back her wild curls sticking up in every direction as they grew in again on the shaved side, fingers tracing the rose tattoo all but hidden now in the new hair. He’d taken to doing that instead of speaking, whenever the words stuck.

“Aubrey, I—” Talvas started. He cleared his throat and looked skyward, then caught her eye again. His hands were almost too warm as he scrambled to take both of hers in both of his. “Please, I just—” He paused again, a small frustrated sound escaping him as he ground his teeth against his own fears, or else against a phrase he didn’t mean to throw so much truth behind. “I don’t want you to go.”

She didn’t want to be separated from him either, but she did not belong in this place. She felt it from the first day, when the simplest spell she could pull crashed through her, draining every drop of Magicka, made real in a way her world could never experience. She knew it when Neloth had stared down his nose at her and called her a necromancer, corners of his mouth twitching up in a victorious sneer. She understood it when she found out he was right—her spirit work would give other mages pause here, despite being common enough a practice for witches back home.

Aubrey held Talvas’s gaze and squeezed his hands. Maybe the definition of home could change. In her world, though it had been all she knew, all she’d ever felt was the entropy and the slow drain of power as her planet’s ley lines fizzled out. Her witchcraft was a constant pull of tapestry strings, frayed almost beyond repair. It was a subversion of expectations, the rewinding of time, the pulling of energy from beyond the veil to rediscover that which had been lost. Yet here, she could close her eyes and feel the pulse of Magicka in all things, each fiber whole and woven tightly. It was beautiful, even when it felt like she stole from this place to cast new spells—even if it meant never going back to repair a broken world, ignoring the purpose for which she had been born. An entire planet’s failures did not have to fall on her shoulders. There were other witches, weren’t there?

There was longing in Talvas’s eyes, shining like faceted garnets, tears gathering that he would not let fall. It wasn’t an unfamiliar expression. If she was being honest with herself—truly honest—this was not the first time she felt torn between these two impossible choices. On one side, there was the selfishness of staying for a second chance, living a completely different life, leaving behind the nightmares of her mistakes. Nightmares that, in truth, would never leave her. On the other, it was the heavy, unshakeable pain of heartbreak she’d carry until her end, all while inflicting the same upon someone who only ever saw her light and potential. And which was worse?

And if she did stay, what would be her purpose? 

Further—did it really matter?

Had she not already made her choice?

“I don’t want to leave you here,” she whispered, the truth uncoiling like a heavy knot of rope finally pulling straight. Maybe the choice didn’t feel honorable, and that was why she had railed against it all this time. There had been so much in her life she’d not been honorable about, though. This was the way of witches, and had always been, no matter how much she wished to change it. And what, truly, would be left for her in the husk of New York? Happiness, or a semblance of it, was sitting right in front of her.

Talvas blinked and scrubbed his sleeve over his eyes. His breath fogged in the silence as he formulated his next response. Gods, but wasn’t he adorable when he couldn’t remember how to speak. She wiped the tears from her cheek with her wrist, still clinging tightly to him and allowed herself a small smile.

“So you’ll—that means you’ll stay?” His breath hitched. “W-with me?”

The hope in his voice was enough to set the tears flowing again. She let them, though she was beaming now. It was as if the weight of everything she’d been worried about had melted like the snow in late spring. For a moment, it was like she hadn’t been in anguish over her leaving. Part of it, she knew, was that he’d already stopped her long ago. Her heart was in her throat with this admission, making space for the butterflies that fluttered between her ribs. She nodded.

His lips crashed against hers before she could respond, insistent and somehow victorious. He laughed, the sound warm like summer, forehead pressed against hers. She knew he had been serious when he’d said he’d go with her, had she chosen to leave. He would probably follow her across all of Tamriel, if that was her wish. How many times had he shown her this truth? She kissed him back, looping her hands behind his neck.

Dawn had fully broken, the morning sun chasing away the gloom from before. Another thing to love—despite the weather, she could breathe here. She let the stress melt from her shoulders as Talvas wrapped her in his warm embrace, speaking gentle, comforting Dunmeris. She could feel his heartbeat this way. How easy it would be to stay like this for the foreseeable future.

She had, after all, called for light all those months ago, and though it hadn’t gone exactly as she’d asked, this was just as bright.