Part 27:

"Mira?" Wynne said again.

Alistair stared at her. She was seeing things. She ignored them all, watching an invisible nothing walk towards him. She then stared at the wall beside him and talked to it like it was real. Or, more precisely, like it was really Mira, and not a wall a'tall.

"Mira," she said to the wall, "we're going to get out of here. We're alive."

An uncomfortable feeling ran through Alistair then. Was she really seeing Mira's spirit? Did that mean Mira was dead? Was she some kind of apparition, who only Wynne could see, since she was a mage?

Mages could see into the Fade, right?

"Mira, hang in there. We're coming for you, I swear it. Alistair, say something! Help her. She's confused."

She wasn't the only one.

"What could I say that she would believe?" he asked her, despair in his heart. If he said he loved her, she'd never believe him. Even though he did. He loved her so much it was tearing him apart to think of her spirit wandering and lost in the Fade while her body lay somewhere in the castle—

"Speak from your heart, Alistair," Wynne said, her voice pleading with him to say something, anything.

Her eyes turned again to the wall. She looked infinitely sad, as if she were losing a dear friend… they were all losing their friend, weren't they? He tried to think of something to say to her. He tried to imagine what she might be thinking as she sat there.

"A demon would know your heart, Mira, but would it know his?"

She thought he was a demon? Why would she think that?

"There's no way to help you know we're real and alive, is there?" Wynne sounded pitiful, despairing. When had she gotten so very old? She looked suddenly tired and worn out, as if she felt she was personally failing Mira by not being able to convince her.

"This isn't the Fade, Mira. You're spirit-walking. I don't know how you're doing it without the support of other mages, but it's real, and it's what you're doing now."

Well, Mira might not be convinced, but Alistair was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Wynne wasn't going senile, after all.

Something Mira said made Wynne cry. He had never seen Wynne cry.

The Wynne-thing shook her head. "Because you couldn't betray the memory of your mother, Mira. It's his fault. He made you choose between us and the memory of your mother. It wasn't fair."

Why couldn't he say something brilliant like that?