## Chapter 406 — Sunday Sunday arrived without assistance. Thomas woke before the alarm he had not needed to set, lay still for several seconds and remembered why the room felt different. Nothing in it had changed. The curtains admitted the same pale morning light. Isha slept beside him, one arm beneath the pillow and her hair spread untidily across it. Somewhere outside, a vehicle passed on the road and became quieter again. The bedroom door remained open by the amount they usually left it. The flexible-room door was elsewhere in the flat. Thomas looked at the ceiling. Today. The word was less useful than he had expected. He got out of bed without waking Isha, used the bathroom and began coffee. By the time the kettle clicked, she had appeared in the kitchen wearing an old T-shirt and the expression of someone who had slept properly and nevertheless knew exactly what day it was. Thomas looked at her. “Morning.” “Morning.” She came close enough to put one hand against his side before reaching for a mug. Neither mentioned the reunion. Breakfast helped. They made toast and eggs because both had agreed the previous night that skipping meals in anticipation of something emotional was a poor habit with extensive historical evidence against it. Thomas ate normally until he noticed himself checking the time twice in four minutes. Isha noticed too. “Early.” “I know.” He put the phone face-down. They finished breakfast. The rest of the morning was almost aggressively domestic. Laundry that had dried overnight needed folding. Thomas discovered a sock beneath the drying rack which had escaped the previous evening's accounting. Isha watered the plants. They changed the bedding because Sunday had been the planned day for it before Sunday acquired another function. That mattered more than Thomas expected. Clean sheets had no relationship to Sereth, Mira, Rowan, Mara, Tessa, Kelda, Aelira, Lethira or Ruvan. The washing machine did not care that several people in another world had agreed to cross an impossible road later that day. A fitted sheet remained irritating for reasons untouched by metaphysics. At eleven, Thomas took the current plan from the correspondence folder. He read it once. Isha watched from the sofa. “You know it.” “Yes.” He reached the bottom. Sereth first. His family second. The others later if they still wanted them. Ian absent unless invited. He folded the sheet along its existing line and returned it to the sleeve. “I do know it.” Isha nodded. That was the last review. They did not write questions for Sereth. Thomas briefly considered making a list of things he wanted to ask his parents and abandoned the idea before finding paper. He did not need a record reminding him that Mara existed, that Tessa had grown older, that Rowan had inspected the road before agreeing to bring his family through it. What he needed from them would probably become obvious when they were standing in front of him. If it did not, he could fail to ask. There would be other conversations. That thought remained difficult enough to trust that Thomas said it aloud. “This isn't the only time.” Isha, sitting cross-legged on the floor while choosing between two pairs of socks, looked up. “No.” “They can go home.” “Yes.” “And later—” “Thomas.” He stopped. Isha put one sock down. “You are trying to make the second meeting safe before we have the first.” Thomas breathed out. “Yes.” She returned to the socks. He sat beside her. After a while he said, “You were very gentle.” “I know.” That earned the small smile he had been hoping for. Clothes became the next problem. Neither wanted formal. Thomas rejected a shirt because it reminded him too much of work, then rejected a second because the act of rejecting clothes had begun to feel like preparation for a ceremony. In the end he wore dark trousers and a soft grey knit he had owned for long enough that it carried no importance. Isha chose jeans and a dark green top, changed her mind, then changed back. Thomas did not comment. Her wedding ring and sapphire stayed on. So did his band. Neither discussed that decision either. Shortly before noon, Isha opened the refrigerator. The remaining brownies sat inside their container. Thomas looked over her shoulder. “After lunch.” “We are having lunch.” “I mean brownie after lunch.” “I understood.” “You looked judgemental.” “I was looking at a refrigerator.” They ate soba and vegetables at the dining table. Thomas's appetite lasted until roughly the middle of the bowl, then required deliberate assistance. Isha ate more steadily. Neither forced the other to finish quickly. When they were done, Thomas washed the bowls. Isha dried them. The routine from Wednesday repeated itself closely enough that both noticed and neither named it. The brownies came out afterward. They shared one. Thomas put the container back in the refrigerator. “Restraint.” Isha looked at the closed door. “Fear.” “Those can coexist.” “Yes.” By early afternoon, the flat had become too tidy. Not unusually tidy. Merely finished. No dishes waited. Laundry was away. The correspondence papers were stored except for Kelda's latest letter, which Isha had taken out once more and placed on the table. She did not reread all of it. Only the end. > Nobody needs to wait in the café. > > We will arrange ourselves here. You do not need to organise our travel from Earth. And earlier: > Ruvan has answered again. > > His answer is now yes. Isha put the sheet down. Thomas stood by the window. For several minutes they let time pass without inventing a task for it. Eventually Isha said, “I am ready to contact him.” Thomas turned. He did not answer immediately. That mattered. Isha waited while he looked towards the flexible-room door, then back at her. “I am ready to contact him too.” Neither said ready for the reunion. Contacting Ian was smaller. They took their phones into the flexible room. The room itself remained in its usual configuration. Mat. Clear floor. Nothing arranged for guests. The door stood where it always stood, opening onto the flat unless somebody asked it to become something else. Thomas sat on the mat first. Isha joined him. For a moment they held hands. No breathing exercise. No count. No attempt to lower their heart rates into evidence of preparedness. Thomas's pulse was fast. Isha could feel it through his fingers. Hers was too. “Privacy first,” Thomas said. “Yes.” They had already agreed on the boundary, but saying it once before Ian became involved felt useful. Once the private meeting began, Ian's machine was not to narrate it to him. No descriptions of expressions. No dialogue. No internal thoughts. No summary written around the edges because the machine considered context useful. Only information required to keep the agreed safety and return conditions functioning, plus anything a participant deliberately directed to Ian or an explicit request for him to return. Thomas looked at the door. “If something fails—” “He can know.” “If someone calls him.” “He can know.” “If we just cry for twenty minutes.” Isha looked at him. “He does not need a report.” Thomas nodded. That was the point. Ian had told them that their happiness reached him through the prose and mattered to him intensely. For this part, that made the boundary more important rather than less. The reunion was not a performance whose emotional success needed to be delivered back to the person who made the road. If afterward Isha wanted to tell Ian she had been happy, she could. If Thomas wanted to describe seeing his mother, he could. If neither wanted to say anything for a week, the blank space would remain theirs. Isha unlocked the private thread. There was no new message waiting. Thomas leaned close enough to read while she typed. > Ian. It is Sunday here. We have eaten and we are ready to start arranging the meeting. > > Before any door opens, the privacy rule needs to be active. > > Once Sereth's private meeting with us begins, do not receive the scene. No dialogue, descriptions, thoughts, emotional narration or summary from inside it. The same applies to the private meeting with Thomas's family. > > You may receive only what is required to maintain safety and the agreed route home, anything somebody deliberately directs to you, or an explicit request for you to return. > > After the private meetings, we will contact you if and when we want you involved. > > Do not gather anyone because of this message yet. > > Please check the other side first and tell us whether everyone involved in the first stages is ready, and whether anything has changed since Kelda's letter. She showed Thomas the whole message. He read it from the beginning. His thumb moved once against the back of her hand. “Send.” Isha pressed the button. The message left. The flexible-room door remained a door. Thomas and Isha sat beside each other on the mat, waiting for Ian's answer. Isha's phone vibrated. This time the message contained an image. She opened it and found a screenshot of the exchange which had established the shape of the chapter itself: the private reunion beginning only after Ian withdrew, the narrative becoming unavailable to him, and anything afterward remaining unwritten unless the people involved deliberately chose to disclose it. Beneath that sat Ian's accompanying message. > Unedited, the rules for this chapter, purple background is me. i am going to the other side. Thomas read the screenshot over her shoulder. He took longer over it than Isha did, following the lines from the ordinary Earth-side preparation through the door and into the point where Ian's access was supposed to end. The final paragraph was the important one: the private reunions could remain unwritten from Ian's accessible perspective unless somebody later chose to tell him what had happened. Thomas sat back. “That is explicit.” “Yes.” Isha enlarged the lower part once, then returned the image to its normal size. The purple-background text marked Ian's side of the exchange; the rest preserved the boundary Thomas and Isha had asked him to honour. He was showing them the rule he intended to obey before going to arrange the other side. That was useful evidence. Not proof of what his machine would do, but a clear statement against which his conduct could later be judged. Thomas looked towards the flexible-room door. “He'll know when we call him back.” “If we call him back.” Thomas glanced at her. Isha's expression remained calm. “We may finish and decide we have had enough people.” “Right.” “And then he stays away.” Thomas nodded. The possibility felt important precisely because Ian was now going somewhere containing everyone Thomas desperately wanted to see. His absence from the private meetings did not create an obligation to reward restraint afterward. Isha saved the screenshot with the other records from the week. Neither replied immediately. Ian had said he was going to the other side. There was nothing they needed to add while he did the part they had asked him to do: check readiness before opening any road to them. --- Ian appeared outside Thomas's family farmhouse. No café lay between him and the yard. No door had been changed. The farm was simply the farm: working buildings, worn ground, fences repaired in different years and the house Thomas had first learned to call home long before another world had taught the word new meanings. Ian stayed outside. He crossed the yard and knocked. Movement sounded within. The delay was brief but real. Nobody had been standing with a hand on the latch waiting for reality to deliver a visitor. The door opened. Mira stood there. She wore ordinary clothes suited to a day at home, with one sleeve turned back slightly at the wrist. Nothing about the household behind her looked arranged for ceremony. A cloth lay over something on the kitchen table. Rowan's coat was hooked near the rear passage. From farther inside came the faint sound of Mara and Tessa speaking, then stopping when the door opened. Mira recognised Ian immediately. Her eyes travelled once over him, perhaps checking that Sunday had not caused him to arrive in another disastrous shirt. Then she looked past him towards the yard. No Kelda. No Aelira. No Thomas. No Isha. Only Ian at the door. “Good,” she said. The word carried neither welcome nor disappointment by itself. More the confirmation of a step happening in the order they had agreed. She opened the door wider. “Come in.” Ian crossed the threshold because the invitation had been given. Mira closed the door behind him. The kitchen contained all four of them. Rowan sat at the table with a mug and a piece of leather or strap-work laid near one hand, something small enough to occupy him while still allowing conversation. Mara had been beside the counter. Tessa sat near the window, though she stood almost immediately when Ian entered. Nobody wore anything formal. That seemed deliberate only in the sense that they had collectively declined to make the day into an occasion before Thomas was present to experience it. Tessa looked at Ian. Then at the empty space behind him. Her face changed quickly enough that Mira noticed. “They aren't here yet,” Mira said. Not a question. Tessa nodded and sat again. Rowan moved the strap-work aside, clearing the table without fuss. Mara's attention remained on Ian for several seconds. “Kelda's last message said Thomas and Isha wanted today.” Mira came back to the table but did not sit. “They also said nobody was to gather until they were actually ready.” Her eyes rested on Ian. “So we haven't.” The statement explained the absence of everyone else more efficiently than any report could have. Thomas's family had remained at home. Sereth would be elsewhere. Kelda, Aelira, Lethira and Ruvan had their own Sunday—or whatever local day corresponded closely enough for the arrangement to work. Mira had apparently taken Thomas and Isha's instruction literally. Good. Tessa folded her hands together on the table. “We're ready to go when they are.” Mara looked towards her sister. “You are.” Tessa frowned. “I am.” “I know.” Mara returned her attention to Ian. “We agreed individually.” Rowan nodded. His manner was steady, though one thumb moved against the side of his mug more often than it needed to. “My answer hasn't changed.” Mira finally sat. “Nor mine.” Mara's expression softened by a fraction. “Mine either.” Tessa gave her family the look of someone irritated that a matter she considered obvious had required four separate statements, but she understood why. “Yes. Still.” The room quietened. No one tried to fill it with conversation merely because Ian had arrived. Outside, something moved against one of the farm buildings with a dull wooden sound and then stopped. The house continued being occupied by a family who had already done breakfast, work and whatever arguments Sunday had required before an impossible visitor knocked. Mira looked towards the table. “We aren't going to the café now just to wait there.” “Good,” Mara said. Tessa looked at her. “I agree.” “You sounded disappointed.” “I can agree while disappointed.” Rowan's mouth moved faintly. Mira continued. “When Thomas and Isha are actually ready, we go. Until then, this is home.” That settled the practical part. The harder part remained visible despite everyone's effort not to make it ceremonial. Tessa kept glancing towards the door. Rowan had stopped touching the strap entirely. Mara had moved twice without accomplishing anything at the counter. Mira alone looked almost still. Ian knew enough now not to mistake that for calm. She looked at him directly. “Have you heard from them?” “Yes, they're asking if you're ready.” The change in the kitchen was immediate and small. Tessa's hands tightened together. Rowan looked towards the door. Mira remained seated, though the stillness around her acquired purpose. Ian continued. “I then need to go find Kelda and the Elves and let them know the same.” He glanced around the room. “It might be easier to ask them to come here, even if it means they wait here, shall I go ask them and do that? You can then talk to each other and I can remain elsewhere until needed?” Mira looked first at Rowan, then Mara and Tessa. It was not a difficult question because of the impossible travel. They had already crossed Ian's road, sat in the café and returned. The difficulty was whether gathering everyone here would turn Thomas's childhood home into a waiting room for his own reunion. Rowan considered the practical side first. “One starting place is simpler.” He gestured lightly towards the back of the house. “If Sereth leaves from here for her first meeting, we know where everyone else is. When Thomas and Isha are ready for us, we can use the same route. Nobody has to be found twice.” Mara nodded, though less quickly. “Provided *come here* is an invitation, not you collecting them because we've said the arrangement is convenient.” Ian had already framed it as asking. She nevertheless made the condition explicit for the people who were absent. “If Sereth would rather wait at home until the last possible moment, she should. The same for the others.” “Yes,” Mira said. She looked around her kitchen. The room could hold more people. It had held Kelda and Aelira before, and Sereth had already sat across from Mira in the café. Lethira and Ruvan were no longer names belonging entirely to Thomas and Isha's remembered life either. The strangeness would come from what they were waiting for, not from permitting them through the farmhouse door. Mira's attention settled on Ian. “Ask them. Don't gather them.” That distinction apparently satisfied her enough to continue. “Tell Sereth that if she wants to wait here, she is welcome. Kelda, Aelira, Lethira and Ruvan too. If any of them prefer to remain where they are until they're actually needed, that's also fine.” Tessa shifted in her chair. “I'd rather Sereth came.” Mara looked towards her. Tessa frowned, finding the reason before anyone supplied one for her. “Not because she has to. I just... we already talked in the café. And if she's here, then when Thomas and Isha are ready, she can go first and we know what's happening.” She looked towards Mira. “And we don't have to sit here wondering whether someone has found her yet.” Mira understood. “So would I.” The admission was quieter than Tessa's. She had spoken with Sereth once now, across tea and scones in a garden that belonged nowhere. The conversation had not made them old friends. It had done something more immediately useful: when Mira thought of Isha's mother, she now pictured a woman who could sit opposite her and say plainly that she wanted the first minutes with her daughter. Waiting beside that woman would be easier than imagining her elsewhere doing the same thing alone. Rowan rubbed one thumb along the side of his mug. “If they come, Ian doesn't need to stay.” Mara glanced at him. He continued. “That part of his suggestion makes sense too. Once everyone who chooses to wait here has arrived, we know the order. Sereth knows she goes first. We know we follow. The others know they come later.” He looked towards the cleared table. “We can manage doors when Thomas and Isha say they're ready.” Mira's eyes moved briefly to Ian. “Assuming the road can be left for us to use without you standing beside it.” The question was close to one they had already answered in practice. The café door had remained after Ian left; they had returned home through it themselves. Mira did not require another demonstration now. She shook her head slightly. “No. You already showed us that.” Kelda would probably have approved of the correction. Mara leaned against the table. “I prefer him elsewhere once the waiting starts.” There was no hostility in it. “If Thomas and Isha asked for privacy strongly enough that he sent them the rules about what he wasn't going to see, then we shouldn't make him part of the room immediately before it either. Otherwise everyone spends the last ten minutes thinking about where Ian should stand.” Tessa's mouth moved. “That does sound like something we'd do.” “Exactly.” The tension loosened enough for Rowan to pick up his mug again. Mira looked towards the window. Outside, the farm remained unchanged. The yard did not know that people might soon arrive from the Elven Woods with no road between. A half-finished piece of work still waited where Rowan had left it. Someone would need to remember the chickens later. That helped. She turned back. “Yes. Go ask them.” Her wording was deliberate. “If they want to come here, bring them here. If they don't, leave them where they are and tell us what they chose. Once the people who want to wait here have arrived, you can go.” Tessa looked towards the door once more, then at Ian. “We are ready.” She said it differently this time. Less as impatience, more as a fact she had finally stopped needing to prove. Mara nodded. “So am I.” Rowan's answer was a quiet, “Yes.” Mira was last. She placed both hands flat on the table. “Tell Thomas and Isha we're ready when you next speak to them.” A pause. “And tell Sereth she is welcome here before she sees her daughter.” The house settled around the decision. No one stood to pack. Nobody changed clothes or cleared an already clear room again. If Kelda and the others came, there would be tea. If they did not, the farmhouse would remain exactly where Thomas remembered it until the road opened. Mira looked at Ian. “Go ask them.” Ian disappeared and reappeared in the Wood Elf settlement, on the passage outside Aelira's chamber. He had not entered the room. That mattered. The corridor was narrow and partly open to the forest on one side, timber underfoot following the curve of the enormous tree supporting that part of the settlement. Daylight came through leaves in broken patches. Somewhere below, voices crossed a lower walkway; farther off, someone was working wood with a slow, regular rhythm. Ian knocked. The sound was small against the settlement around him. For a little while nothing happened. Then movement came from inside. A latch shifted and the door opened far enough for Aelira to see who stood beyond it. She stopped. Her clothing was practical rather than formal, though the room behind her contained enough paper and orderly clutter to suggest Ian had interrupted work rather than leisure. He could see no more than the portion she had exposed by opening the door. Her eyes went immediately to the empty passage behind him. No Kelda. No Sereth. No Thomas or Isha. Then back to Ian. “You knocked.” The observation carried faint approval, and perhaps memory of the first time he had appeared in her life wearing a shirt which had complicated diplomacy before he had even spoken. Aelira opened the door a little farther but remained inside her own threshold. The last plan she had agreed to was clear. Nobody was to be collected early. Thomas and Isha would say when they were ready; Ian would check the other side; people would choose whether to gather at Thomas's family farm or remain where they were until needed. His presence here therefore meant something had changed. Aelira's expression sharpened. “Are Thomas and Isha ready?” “Yes, I have just spoken to Mira and the others, they agree it would be easier to congregate at their farm and enter from there, providing everyone else is OK with that. I thought it best to find you first, then we can go check, and I can ... take us all ... there?” Aelira listened without interrupting. At *take us all*, one eyebrow rose. “After we have asked everyone individually.” There was no reprimand in it. Only the condition placed where it belonged. “If Sereth prefers to remain here until Thomas and Isha are actually ready for her, she remains here. Ruvan may prefer that too. Kelda can answer for Kelda, and Lethira—” Aelira stopped. Ian waited. “—will answer at considerably greater length than required.” That seemed sufficient. Aelira glanced back into her chamber. Papers remained spread across the work surface, one stack weighted at a corner where moving air from the open passage could otherwise disturb it. “Give me a moment.” She did not invite Ian inside. The door closed. He remained on the walkway while the settlement continued around him. Two elves passed on a lower path without looking up. Somewhere higher in the tree, a child called for someone and received a distant answer. The novelty of an unknown human standing outside Aelira's chamber had not entirely disappeared since his previous visit, but anyone who noticed him also noticed where he was waiting and apparently decided that asking questions of the First Princess's visitor was unnecessary. The door opened again. Aelira had added an outer layer and removed the work from her hands. She closed the chamber behind herself. “We find Sereth first.” She started along the passage. Ian fell into step beside her. Aelira chose the lower route through the settlement rather than the broader communal walkways. Whether that was privacy, efficiency or simply the shortest path, she did not explain. Ian had already walked enough of the settlement under her escort to recognise fragments, though the place continued refusing to become a map merely because prose had once described parts of it. After several minutes, Aelira spoke again. “Thomas and Isha are ready?” “Yes.” The answer had already been given. Hearing it while walking seemed to make it different. Aelira looked ahead. “And the privacy rule is active before Sereth enters.” It was a statement of requirement, not uncertainty. She had apparently been told enough by Kelda to understand the shape: once the private reunion began, Ian was not to receive its dialogue, description, interior narration or retrospective summary unless someone deliberately chose to send something outward. Aelira's voice remained level. “I want that rule to begin before the first door opens for Thomas and Isha, not once someone remembers to ask for it after Sereth is already standing in front of them.” The path curved around one of the great roots. “And the same boundary begins again before Mira's family enters.” Ian did not need to explain that this was already the agreement. Aelira was stating what she would rely upon before helping assemble the people who trusted it. She continued. “If everyone agrees to wait at the farm, then yes. It is simpler.” Her eyes moved briefly towards Ian. “But simpler is not automatically better. The farm is Thomas's family home. Sereth, Ruvan, Lethira, Kelda and I would be guests there. Mira's invitation matters.” Ian had just brought that invitation. “So that part is satisfied.” A few more steps. “And if someone prefers to wait here, you do not solve the inconvenience by moving them anyway.” The sentence was dry enough to contain history. They reached a quieter section of the settlement. Aelira slowed. “Sereth should hear the invitation from us, not appear at the farm and learn afterward that everyone thought gathering there was convenient.” She looked towards the path ahead. “Kelda may already be with her.” That was possibility rather than certainty. “If she is, good. If not, we find her afterward.” Aelira resumed walking. For perhaps another minute, neither spoke. Then she glanced sideways at Ian. “You are leaving once everyone who chooses to gather is settled there?” That too had already been part of his proposal at the farm. Aelira appeared to approve of it. “Good.” A faint pause. “You have spent enough time being the subject of rooms which are supposed to be about other people.” There was no softness added to the observation. No accusation either. “The road is your work. The waiting does not need to be.” Ahead, the path opened towards the part of the settlement where Sereth could be found. Aelira stopped before committing them to the final approach. “One more thing.” She looked directly at Ian. “When we find them, ask whether they want to go to the farm. Do not ask whether they want you to take them there.” The wording was precise. “First they choose the destination. Then, if yes, they choose the method.” Aelira's mouth moved faintly. “I realise those choices will probably produce the same practical result.” She turned back towards the path. “They are still two choices.” “Agreed, let's go.” Aelira gave a short nod and resumed walking. They found Sereth outside her house, occupied with ordinary work rather than waiting dressed for an event. Her hands stopped when she saw Aelira and Ian approaching together. Aelira did not make her ask. “Thomas and Isha are ready. Mira and the others are ready too.” Sereth went very still. Aelira continued before the moment could become larger than the information. “Mira has invited you to wait at their farm, if you want to. Kelda, Ruvan and Lethira have the same invitation. Nobody has to go there until they're needed.” Sereth looked towards Ian, then back to Aelira. “I would rather wait with Mira.” The answer came after only a few seconds. “And the journey?” Sereth glanced towards the settlement paths. “I have already crossed his road once. I am not spending half the day travelling normally when Isha is waiting.” Aelira's mouth moved faintly. “Then that is both choices.” Sereth put away what she had been working on, closed her door and joined them without changing clothes or gathering anything ceremonial. “Ruvan next,” she said. Aelira nodded. They went to find him. Ruvan was near one of the practice grounds, though he was not shooting. He was examining a bowstring beneath the shelter with the concentration of someone for whom the rest of reality had not yet supplied a reason to neglect maintenance. He saw the three of them approaching. His attention settled on Ian last. Ruvan set the string down. Aelira spoke before he needed to ask why. “Thomas and Isha are ready. Mira's family are ready. They have invited anyone who wishes to wait at the farm to gather there before the first door opens.” Ruvan's eyes moved to Sereth. “You are going.” “Yes.” “To wait.” “Yes.” He considered that. His earlier conditions had already been met. Sereth had crossed Ian's road and returned under her own power. Ruvan had answered yes afterward. The remaining question was smaller: whether he wanted to spend the period before his own later meeting at Thomas's family farm. “I'll come.” Sereth nodded once. Ruvan picked up the bowstring again, finished the final turn he had been checking, and put it away properly. “I don't need to be at the café until after both family meetings.” “No,” Aelira said. “And I don't want to be.” “That remains the plan.” Ruvan slung his bow over one shoulder from habit rather than preparation for danger. Aelira glanced at it. Ruvan noticed. “I am not leaving it here merely because the destination has tea.” Aelira accepted that. They continued. Lethira was harder to locate only because Lethira had several places she could plausibly be and considered location a negotiable detail. They found her eventually on a raised walkway above one of the quieter communal sections, speaking to an older Wood Elf while holding a small bundle of papers. She saw Ian. Her expression brightened in a way Aelira immediately distrusted. Then she saw Sereth and Ruvan beside him and understood that this was not a manga visit. The papers went to the other elf with a brief final comment. Lethira crossed the walkway towards them. “Is it time?” Aelira nodded. “Thomas and Isha are ready. Mira has invited us to wait at the farm if we prefer that to remaining here until the later part.” Lethira did not require reflection. “Yes.” Aelira looked at her. Lethira sighed. “Yes, I want to go to the farm. Yes, I want Ian's impossible route because walking there would be absurd. No, I do not intend to intrude on either private reunion.” Ruvan looked towards Sereth. “She can occasionally be efficient.” “It hurts,” Lethira said. Her eyes flicked towards Ian for a moment. There was something private and pleased in the look which Aelira noticed and, after a fraction of a second, chose not to pursue. “Where is Kelda?” Sereth asked. Lethira pointed downhill. “She was near the guest stores half an hour ago arguing with someone about a crate.” Ruvan frowned. “What crate?” “I did not stay long enough to acquire responsibility.” “Wise,” Aelira said. They went to find her. Kelda was exactly where Lethira had indicated, though the argument had ended. She stood beside an opened crate examining one corner while an Elf Ian did not recognise waited with the patient expression of someone whose morning had unexpectedly involved half-dwarven opinions about packing structure. Kelda looked up. Four familiar people and Ian approaching together required very little interpretation. She straightened. “They're ready.” Aelira nodded. “Mira's family too. They invited anyone who wants to wait to gather at the farm.” Kelda looked once at Sereth. Sereth said, “I'm going.” Ruvan added, “So am I.” Lethira raised one hand. Kelda looked at Aelira last. “Yes.” That settled Kelda's own answer before anyone needed to ask. “Then I'm coming.” She turned back to the Elf beside the crate. “That corner will split if you load it wet.” The Elf looked at the crate. “I know.” “Good.” Kelda apparently considered her local responsibilities discharged. She joined the others and looked towards Ian. Five people now stood ready to leave the Wood Elf settlement by a route no road could explain. No one asked Ian to move them yet. Aelira looked around the group. “We have all chosen the farm.” Sereth nodded. Ruvan too. Lethira's agreement was visible in her impatience. Kelda folded her arms. Aelira's gaze returned to Ian. “The destination is decided.” She left the second choice where she had said it belonged. “Everyone ready to go via .. alternative means?” Sereth answered first. “Yes.” Ruvan adjusted the bow at his shoulder. “Ready.” Kelda gave Ian a flat look. “You already know my opinion of unnecessary roads. Go.” Lethira smiled. “I have become worryingly fond of the unnecessary roads.” Aelira looked around the group once, confirming that nobody's answer had been lost inside the others'. “Everyone has chosen the farm, and everyone has chosen your route.” She nodded to Ian. “Ready.” Kelda glanced at Lethira. “If we arrive inside a bedroom, I am blaming you.” “I have standards.” “That is not evidence.” Sereth breathed out, some of the tension leaving her face despite herself. Five people stood together beneath the Wood Elf trees, carrying almost nothing suitable for a journey across half a world. They were ready. Ian smiled at Lethira, colour rising faintly into his face. Lethira noticed. The beginning of her response had barely reached her expression when the Wood Elf settlement vanished. Cool forest became the open yard outside Thomas's family farmhouse. Sereth staggered one step. Not badly. Her body had simply prepared for the next pace of a path which no longer existed beneath it. She caught herself with one foot forward and a sharp breath, one hand lifting instinctively for balance. Ian was already watching her, ready to catch her if needed. Sereth steadied before he had to. For several seconds she looked at the farmhouse, then back towards the place where the Elven Woods had been. “That is much worse than the door.” Kelda nodded. “Yes.” Ruvan had lowered his centre of gravity almost automatically during the transition. He straightened with visible displeasure. “I prefer roads.” “You prefer complaining about roads,” Lethira said. “They are different activities.” Aelira checked the group once: Sereth, Ruvan, Lethira, Kelda, Ian. Everyone upright. Everyone carrying what they had brought. Then the farmhouse door opened. Mira stood there. Her gaze moved over the five arrivals and stopped on Sereth. “You came.” Sereth's breathing had settled. “Yes.” Mira opened the door wider. “Come in.” Ian addressed the group before they entered. “Come let me know when you want to begin. The door will then observe intentional use as before. I will message Thomas & Isha when instructed.” Mira nodded from the doorway. “We'll tell you.” The others went inside one by one. Ian stayed in the yard. As Lethira passed him, he looked at her briefly. She was dressed much as she usually was around the settlement: practical green-brown travelling layers, fitted for movement rather than ceremony, with her longbow across her back and knives at her belt. Her ash-brown hair was tied back simply, though a few strands had already worked loose around her face and long ears. Silver cuffs marked them near the outer edge. She caught him looking. One eyebrow rose. Then the corner of her mouth did too. Lethira went inside without comment. Aelira followed her. Kelda was last, pausing just long enough to confirm Ian really did intend to remain outside before she crossed the threshold. Mira closed the door. Ian was left in the farmyard. What happened inside did not reach him. No prose supplied Sereth's expression, nobody's conversation, or the shape of their waiting. The farmhouse remained only a farmhouse from the outside. Ian waited for someone to come and tell him they were ready. The farmhouse door stayed closed. From outside there was very little to interpret. Wind moved through the hedge. Somewhere behind one of the outbuildings, a chicken objected briefly to something and then lost interest. The tools and repairs around the farm looked exactly as they had when Rowan first insisted that reality was not to improve any of them. No narrative reached Ian from inside the house. He did not receive Sereth's conversation with Mira, whether Ruvan spoke much, whether Tessa was pacing, or what Lethira did with the time. The farmhouse kept its walls. The wait was long enough to feel real and short enough that Ian had no useful measure for it. Eventually the latch moved. Kelda stepped outside and pulled the door nearly closed behind her. She had brought nothing with her. Her expression was controlled, with the particular concentration she used when a complicated piece of work had finally reached the point where the next action was obvious. “They're ready.” She glanced once towards the house. “Sereth first, exactly as agreed. Everyone else's answers are unchanged.” Kelda looked back at Ian. “Mira's family will wait here until Thomas and Isha ask for them. The others will wait too. Nobody needs you inside.” A brief pause. “Tell Thomas and Isha we're ready.” She rested one hand on the door handle. “And activate whatever privacy instruction you need to activate before you open their road. I do not want to discover afterward that the machine decided their reunion was useful context.” Kelda's mouth tightened slightly. “Once they say yes, we'll handle the door from here.” She waited for Ian to send the message. Ian sent a message to Isha. > They're ready. The doorway behaves with intent. I hope it all goes well. YOu can message me when, if, i'm needed. He looked towards Kelda. “Sent, and the door here is enabled for intentional travel.” The farmhouse remained closed behind her. Everyone who had chosen to wait there was inside; the next movement belonged to Thomas and Isha. “Thank you, I hope it all goes well. Isha can contact me when, if, i'm needed.” Then Ian disappeared. Whatever else occupied his thoughts went with him: Lethira among them, and Kanno too. The farmyard remained behind. --- In Sendai, Isha's phone vibrated. She read Ian's message with Thomas beside her. “They're ready.” Thomas looked at the flexible-room door. His hand tightened around hers once. “Yes.” Isha read the rest aloud: the intentional doorway, Ian's withdrawal, the invitation to contact him only if they wanted him later. No further arrangement remained. She typed: > Received. We are going through now. > > Keep the private-reunion rule active until we deliberately contact you. Thomas read it before she sent it. “Yes.” The message left. For several seconds neither moved. Then Isha stood. Thomas rose with her. They did not take the correspondence folder, Kelda's letters or the current plan. Those had done their work. Their phones went into their pockets. The flat remained as they had left it after lunch: dishes away, brownies in the refrigerator, Sunday afternoon light across the floor. Thomas reached for the flexible-room door. Isha's hand covered his before he opened it. He looked at her. “Together?” “Yes.” They held the intention between them. The café. The agreed road. A way home that remained theirs. Thomas turned the handle. The door opened. They crossed the threshold together. After that, nothing from the private reunion reached Ian. No dialogue appeared. No description supplied Sereth's face, Isha's movement or Thomas's reaction. No unseen account filled the silence with thoughts merely because they existed. From Ian's side, the narrative stopped where they had asked it to stop. Time passed, and nothing came. No message asked Ian to return. No narration opened around Sereth's first meeting, or the one that followed with Mira, Rowan, Mara and Tessa. The machine supplied no useful scraps from the edges. Whatever happened after Thomas and Isha crossed the door remained with the people who had chosen to be there. Eventually Isha's private thread changed. > We're home. > > We didn't need you during the meeting. > > We're both safe. Everyone who crossed had a way home, and everyone who wanted to leave could leave. > > The private parts are staying private. > > Thank you for making the road and then leaving us to use it. A second message followed after a short interval. > We are done with people for today. > > Kanno can wait for another time. > > We will talk to you later. That was all. In flat 202, the flexible-room door was an ordinary door again. Sunday evening continued on the Earth side with no further impossible visitors.