There are old things hidden inside her body, tea-dry thoughts rustling beneath fur and cotton. At times it is all she can do to hold them close to her and keep them from falling out - she cannot bear to think of each secret scattered across the floor like her grandmother's mahjong tiles, stirring again. Occasionally, she will confide with Bertha, who has known her best through the years - Bertha, who was more careful than she was, who stayed carefully hidden and allowed events to unfold in their predetermined sequences, tidy and modest like the wool shifts and brown scarves she has always been fond of wearing. Bertha was the sensible one, her grandmother agrees. Bertha knew how to be silent. Bertha might have been the better choice, if fate had seen fit to pick a different girl.

Beneath the temple at the highest peak of Snowpoint City there are catacombs that predate written records, walls that saw the desperate creation of fire as man-shapes huddled together in the dark for warmth. The nuns who guard the oldest passages allow her entry, parting before her in a wave of roughspun woolens, pale and stern-lipped. It is cold in the lower levels. She goes in and goes out as quickly as she can; it is not wise to walk the old paths for too long. They have all seen what happen to the few who do.

Island to island - she travels by motorboat at night, makes her observations, departs. Autumn now, tilting into winter - the lakes and falls in Victory Road will freeze over soon, and there are still items on her list to be checked off, tasks to complete before the changes settle and lock into place. In the afternoon, she speaks quietly with the blue-haired man and he tells her what she has already anticipated. No matter. The splitting of the Egg was unavoidable when it happened, and this too shall pass in its own time - entropy is a callous god. All they must do - all that they can do - is wait.

Challengers have been scarce in recent months. Her team sits in stasis, gathering heat and light while the Elites deliberate and her confidant refuses to answer any further questions. The entire region seems to be holding its breath, watching for a sign of disaster. She cannot blame them. What walks now, approaching silently and darkly over the horizon, will eventually arrive, and everything, from the tallest mountain to the tiniest grain of sand, knows it for a truth. All of them have tried their best to delay it for as long as possible, but she supposes time may only be stretched so much until it snaps.

She has done what was required of her, but in the end, there is no water she can dip her hands in, nothing that will absolve her of the guilt.

Cynthia thinks of Celestic Town, of the cave murals daubed in mud and pigment eons ago, of the smoke-wreathed altar standing sentinel, of old texts she had read and forgotten and which now rise to the forefront of her mind like bubbles in a boiling pot. Grandmother, lying in bed, her eyes staring at her and straight on through, registering nothing but the secret languages of dust motes. The lanterns they lit at the start of the New Year and let drift into the river, vanishing into the mist - prayers folded into flame and ash, now reborn, coming back to the world.

There will be no spring for her this year, or the next.