Not Safe. Safer.

Chime turned toward the lane through which the young elf had disappeared.

Maeril stepped into their view. She kept her hands at her sides.

“Chime. Where is Elisa?”

“Elisa is not being held.”

“Where?”

The light inside the skull trembled. A note began and broke against another before either became a word.

Rishi put his staff against the wall. He lowered himself onto the edge of an empty basket so his face rested below Chime’s, leaving them room to move.

“Is she hurt?”

“Yes. No. Not in the way Rishi is preparing his hands for.”

His fingers opened against his knees.

Chime dipped a little closer. “The chasing is making it worse.”

Grim planted himself at the entrance to the lane, where he could see the market. “Excellent. I bring you the person who knows things, and knowing them is apparently another problem.”

Maeril ignored him. She had imagined this meeting so often that the real Chime’s objections kept colliding with words she had already prepared: We found you. We can go. You are not alone.

She made herself listen.

“The young woman,” she said. “She struck Rishi and turned my spell.”

“Chime saw.”

“Then you understand why we followed.”

“Chime understands the following. Chime objects to what happens when everyone arrives already certain.”

Rishi watched the skull’s unsteady light. “Who is she?”

“Naeris.”

Maeril repeated the name quietly. It fitted none of the faces she knew.

“She belongs here?”

“No. Naeris was lost too.”

Grim glanced back. “Learned quickly.”

“Naeris learned where to put her feet. That is not the same as knowing where she is.”

Chime turned toward the market again. Maeril moved aside this time, giving them a clear view. She would not make this another encounter in which someone decided where Chime was allowed to go.

“How did Elisa meet her?” Rishi asked.

The skull’s light steadied around the question.

“Elisa helped Naeris first.”

“First?” Maeril said.

“Before the hiding. Chime and Elisa came through the broken door. Naeris came later, by another way. She was very new to the city. She looked as though every sound hurt. Elisa stopped.”

Rishi looked down at his hands.

Of course Elisa had stopped. Exhaustion, grief, an unknown city beyond the world she understood—none of it would have made her pass someone who could not manage the next step alone.

“Naeris did not take her,” he said.

“No.”

Maeril crouched beside the basket. Her healed shin protested, a small familiar ache in the midst of everything else.

“And you stayed with both of them.”

“They needed to learn prices. And which questions to leave unanswered. Elisa wished to thank every guide who offered help.”

Grim snorted from the lane’s entrance.

“Chime taught them some doors. Not all doors. There are always more doors than Chime remembers.”

For a moment the pride in the little musical voice was unmistakable. Chime had kept two lost women alive here. Maeril let that truth settle before asking the question she feared.

“Why did Elisa hide from us?”

The pink light dimmed.

“She wanted home.”

“Then why—”

Rishi touched the paving beside Maeril’s hand. A small request to wait.

Chime lowered until they hovered just above his knees. “At first she said when. When we go home. When we find Rishi. When Firemind—”

They stopped.

No one supplied the rest.

“Then she spoke with Naeris. Many times. Chime was there, but Chime did not understand all of it.”

Maeril kept her voice quiet. “Tell us what you did understand.”

“Firemind’s name made the room very still. They said not yet. Again and again. Then Elisa said if.”

Rishi’s hand closed slowly over one knee.

Chime turned toward him. “Chime dislikes that word in her voice.”

Maeril swallowed. The image was too clear: Elisa in a rented room, changing one word because something she had heard made the life waiting beyond the next door uncertain.

“What did Naeris tell her?”

“That the rescue was too straight.”

“Too straight.”

“Chime knows this is not useful enough.”

The admission stopped Maeril’s next question. Chime’s voice had lost its chiming certainty. They were trying, with all their stored knowledge, to describe a thing they had only watched hurt other people.

“You are helping,” Rishi said.

“Naeris saw you today.”

He nodded.

“Both of you. Chime thinks she cannot keep her heart-song together now.”

Maeril looked toward the closed door at the lane’s far end. The young woman had looked at Rishi as though his recognition of her staff had done more damage than a blow. Maeril had given her no time to speak before casting.

That did not make the redirection less dangerous. It made the space around it harder to understand.

“Can you take us to them?”

Chime rose. They considered the question long enough that Grim shifted at the entrance and checked both directions again.

“There is a room.”

“Where?” Maeril asked.

“The Spare Room. They chose it for when running became too loud.”

“Safe?” Rishi asked.

“Not safe. Safer.”

Chime moved toward the market, then turned back to make certain they were listening.

“It has too many doors.”

Grim closed his eyes briefly. “Naturally.”

“Naeris said that was why it could be used for not-running. Chime thinks she needs the room now. Chime thinks all of you must reach it without another mistake shaped like rescue.”

Maeril stood carefully. Rishi rose with her and took his staff from the wall.

“I understand very little of that,” she said.

“We can listen there,” he answered.

She settled her pack. The mirror inside it pressed against her back.

Grim stepped out into the market first to make space. Chime followed under their own power, turning at the crossing with sudden, practical certainty.

Maeril went after them. This time, she let the witness choose the way.