The fifth term at the university started bad, though in retro-perspective I think it still was the good part. Denna had left Imre, Awryl got on my bad side because I happened to get ill with an illness he had never heard off. I hadn't either, for that fact. Mola and Wil searched the archives desperately involving even Lorren in their quest. At the time I thought it odd that Master Archivist had agreed to help. But the illness affected my brain in peculiar ways.

I no longer knew whom to trust and whom not. Sometimes I would recognize a face at the Eolian, but the name and the story behind it would simply be gone. Finally I got into a severe fight with Master Healer at the hospital.

"Where are you going, Re'lar?" asked Awryl, encountering me on one of the corridors, just as I tried to climb out of a window.

"Well, I'm seeing one of my friends."

"You are under quarantine until we know whatever you snatched up!" snarled Arwyl.

"I've stayed in bed a whole month," I tried to argued, "Chances are, you'll never find out, what ails me. And you are the most advanced place in the world concerning medicine."

"Your flattery won't make me forget how you maltreated my staff. I would have send you to the crockery except I don't know if that illness of yours is contagious. What have they done to you? You have cost me two of my most talented E'lir."

"I can't trust any of them," I whispered. "They are on Ambrose's pay list. By the way, your count is incorrect. It is two E'lir and one El'the. Mola ran off in tears yesterday."

"Mola will do fine," said Awryl firmly, "I send her licence after her, figuring out that she might most likely head home. She'll heal most likely from whatever you said to her. But be warned, if you can't control yourself better, Namer, then I'll cut out your tongue."

"See, there's a reason I don't trust your kind," I said and climbed out of the window. As a ring of flowing wind had shown on my left hand, I was no longer afraid of a fall. I should have. Figuratively spoken.

Auri wasn't on the roofs.

So I sat down, took out my lute and played a mocking tune at the glaring Awryl below.

"Will you come down," he called angrily. "Else I swear I'll go to the Chancellor and request your expulsion!"

My fingers stumbled. Not because of what he had said, I realised, but because I had forgotten a note. I repeated the sequence, then layed my lute down.

"It matter's not," I said pulling my knees in front of my body suddenly lost like the Tarbean street runner I was so much time ago. "I already know everything there is to know."

Awryl slammed the window shut below and stomped off. There was something off in the rage of the gentle master, something as if he might break out into tears any moment. Lately I seemed to have this affect on a lot of people.

Auri sat down beside me and I politely waited for her to address me.

"What's wrong," she asked tentatively. "Why are you shouting at people?"

"I think I might be dying," I said darkly. "Nobody wants to help me. My friends have deserted me. Master healer has quarantined me." I tugged at my lute strings so hard, the cord cut into my finger. I looked at it. "Blood," I said without thinking, out of the deepness of my mind. There wasn't much left to it anymore except the sleeping mind. Ever since the illness had begun names had come at an alarming rate. I had consulted Elodin of course. He had asked with a counter question:

"Why do you think there are so few namers left to the world?"

Grimly I watched as the cut closed itself.

"What the hell is happening to me?"

Auri was watching me closely.

"Don't mind. It was a rhetorical question after all," I said bitterly. "I'll just journey towards the Tael. They are the only hope Lorren indicated after quitting his research on historical illnesses. Apparently mine is an extinguished one from before Caluptena burned." I rolled my eyes.

"How are travelling to the Tael?," asked Auri.

"How? I'll go by ship, then on horseback, then I'll climb," I said. "And by the time I reach the other side of the Stormwall there'll likely be nothing left to worry about."

I looked into her eyes.

"I wanted to tell you, before I go. This time I won't come back, Auri. Do not wait for me for this time I have come to the top of things to say farewell."

"No," said Auri, getting on her feet, the small and fragile being getting up with a determined look in her eyes like a warrior from times long gone. "I forbid it. I'll show you a faster way into the Tael. Come with me, Kvothe."

Surprised I let her guide me off the roofs and through the streets and over the bridge. I think it was some kind of spell she used on me. For I trusted her even as she led me three times around the greystone at the other side of the bridge and into the fae.