Right on schedule! I'm stupidly pleased with myself...This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but since this story isn't as long as my others I'm not gonna stress. Enjoy and don't forget to leave a review if you have a sec!

Chapter 1
(Rose)

"Isi? Are you there?" Rose raises her knuckles to her aunt's door and knocks for a third time. Isi has been sick lately, but she'd promised to take her to the forest today. Surely she has to be getting better by now.

"Isi?" With a fifth knock, Rose decides Isi might be in the woods already, waiting for her. So she leaves, hoping to find her aunt with a story of old Narnia ready on her lips. Isi's never missed a story day, not even when she was sick.

Rose's steps feel heavy as she enters the woods, winding through the familiar trees aimlessly. Surely Isi would tell her if something was wrong, surely there must be some reason she wouldn't answer yesterday or today…

Rose spends hours among the trees, and she finds no sign of Isi. Nothing, not even a twig out of place or well-placed flower to say Isi was near. Isi isn't here, not today and not yesterday. Something's wrong, it must be.

It's with swift feet and weak knees that Rose runs back to Isi's house. She's horribly late for school, she knows, and her mother will likely have one or two things to say about her absence today. But maybe she'll understand, something's wrong with Isi and Isi's much more important than a dull classroom filled with children Rose doesn't much like. Most of them delight in causing misery, and those that don't are always the butt of the miserable jokes, including Rose herself. She hates watching it happen to the others and she hates experiencing it herself. She's always felt safe with Isi.

Now Rose's knocks on Isi's door are frantic, all banging palms and frightened shouts, no more rapping knuckles and gentle calls. "Isi!" she shouts. "Isi! Please come out, Isi! I'm worried, you haven't come out in days!"

All Rose receives for her efforts are the disturbed looks of passersby. Perhaps in another town her neighbors would stop and ask what's the matter, but in Beruna something is nearly always the matter and no one wants to know what it is this time because then it'll be one more thing to take care of and try to forget by morning.

"Isi!" Rose tries one last time, and then she's had enough. With only a small twinge of guilt, she tries the handle. Locked. So Rose upturns the pots of flowers under the windows until she finds the spare key, and then she flies into the house with a chest that feels too tight.

"Isi?"

Something's wrong, oh so wrong. She can feel it.

Rose looks to the right, in the kitchen and dining area with the packed dirt floor and wooden furniture that creaks just a little whenever it's sat upon. She runs her fingers across the cupboards, over the fireplace filled with ashes and soot. It's as cold as death – Isi hasn't had a fire in a while. Odd, for winter's been approaching with all haste for a week now. Rose hasn't been able to sleep without extra layers; just last night, she chose to sleep by the dying embers of the hearth instead of her own bed because it was just warmer that way.

"Isi?" she whispers, her throat horribly tight. Where is Isi? Why are there no dishes in her washing basin, no logs in the fireplace, nothing out of place anywhere as if no one's been living here? Why would Isi let this much dust gather on her chairs when Rose knows dust annoys her to no end and Isi would rather chase rats from her bed than have even a few specks of dust on the chairs? Isi cares little for mess in her home – she prefers it – but she can't stand dust. And now there is dust and no mess, the exact opposite of how Isi likes it. She'd never let it get like this, Rose knows she wouldn't. Not if she had a choice.

All at once, Rose wants to leave. She doesn't want to look in the bedroom, doesn't want to search for Isi any more. An awful, sticky weight is settling in her gut, something that tells her she won't find Isi no matter how hard she looks. It's almost as if…no, Isi wouldn't leave. She wouldn't.

Rose's feet take her to the bedroom anyway, and the familiar creak of the bedroom door makes her stomach twist. Somehow, she already knows what she'll find.

It's exactly what she dreaded. A perfectly-made bed, with that same thin layer of dust already settling in, no stray clothes or brushes strewn across the floor, the rocking chair in the corner tucked against the wall exactly so. Isi always has the chair by the bed or at some strangle angle where the headrest hits the wall. But now all is tidy, picked up, and far too neat. Rose runs a trembling hand over the top of the rocking chair, rubbing the dust between her fingers. It's too soft, it shouldn't be there at all.

Her knees give out and now she's sinking to the floor, staring down at the dust on her fingers and swallowing hard against the wetness in her eyes and the lump in her throat. Isi's never missed a story day before.

Eventually, Rose realizes she's been sitting in the middle of Isi's bedroom for hours, only because it's getting dark out and her mother's probably wondering where in Tash she's gone off to. Rose would rather not have a lecture tonight, but it's best to get it out of the way now. So how to make herself move, move and get up and walk out of this house like she's accepting defeat? Isi can't just leave. She'd always said they'd leave together.

Rose's legs are stiff and cramped when she finally convinces herself to get to her feet. She wants to stretch, but why bother? She may well find herself back here tomorrow, knocking on the door and forgetting about this whole mess and remembering it again with that dust on the rocking chair.

The walk home is long, slow, and yet somehow over far too quickly. Rose wants to stay outside, but her brother catches sight of her through the window before she can duck away.

"Rose!" he hollers, "where have you been? You've almost missed dinner, silly bird."

Any other night, the endearment would make her smile. Tonight she tries, but the smile just won't come. She slips inside, and of course Medias notices.

"What's wrong, little bird? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

Rose shakes her head, unsure what to say. She should just blurt it out, make it easier on herself and just get it out of the way so she can eat dinner with her family and go to bed early to avoid the questions. But what comes out is another thing entirely.

"Do you know where Isi is?" Rose hears herself saying with a forced smile twisted across her mouth. "I couldn't find her today."

Medias's frown deepens, and he stares at her for a moment too long. "No. She wasn't at home?"

Medias knew. Rose doesn't know how, exactly, she realizes this, but once she has an icy spear shoots down her back. "You knew," she whispers, her forced smile falling away in favor of a new, dawning rage. "You knew she was leaving, didn't you?"

"Rosamar! Where on earth have you been? You're always to be home by dusk, I thought we'd established – " Mother stops mid-sentence when she sees Rose staring at Medias like he's just betrayed her. To Rose, he has.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Rose says, quiet anger burning through her choppy words. "Why didn't she?"

Rose's mother interrupts before Medias can say anything. "She was in a rush, Rose. She asked us not to say anything. Now come on, it's dinnertime and the soup is getting cold."

Rose recoils, her head ringing as if she'd just been slapped. "Didn't want you to say anything?" Rose whispers. "And you want me to care about soup?"

Medias's hand settles on her shoulder, a warm and familiar weight that should have been comforting. "Just come and eat with us, little bird. It'll be easier after you've eaten."

"I don't want to eat," Rose says, pulling away from the warmth of her brother's hand. "I want to know why she left."

"After dinner, Rose," comes Mother's voice, gentle and sorry as it floats to Rose's ears from the kitchen.

"Come on." Medias wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her toward the table. Rose lets him, but all through dinner she keeps thinking that the soup tastes bitter.

Medias comes and stays with her that night, in a rocking chair just like Isi's. Rose almost tells him to get rid of it, to smash the cruel reminder of Isi's abandonment, but she settles on resolving to do it in the morning herself.

"I'm so sorry we didn't tell you, little bird. We thought you'd take it worse if you knew."

"I didn't get to say goodbye," Rose whispers back. "Don't ever do that to me again."

Medias is silent, but she takes it as a promise. She also understands, just then, that he didn't want to keep her in the dark. She wonders how many times these past few days he'd almost told her, and the thought is a strange but welcome comfort. It's easier, somehow, knowing not everyone wanted to pull the floor from under her feet so suddenly.

But they still did. Tonight, Medias's silent and unspoken regret is a comfort, but tomorrow Rose will be angry. Angry that even though he didn't want to keep secrets from her, he still did. Angry that he didn't come out and tell her like he wanted to, when he had so many opportunities. Angry that he let Isi go and start her new life far away from stifling Beruna without letting Rose tell her goodbye. Rose feels all of those things now, but tonight she doesn't want to listen to them just yet. There will be more than enough time for anger tomorrow. Tonight she wants to sleep and pretend none of this happened for just a few hours.

So sleep she does, with Medias's silent company chasing away the loneliness. Just before she nods off, Rose makes herself a promise. She will never give people the opportunity to abandon her. She doesn't want to feel like this ever again.