They stayed that way for a small eternity. The snow's chill was sharp as needles, Uncas's arms just the slightest bit too tight across her shoulders, but Alice cherished every small discomfort. How I feared I would never know these arms again, she thought, how I despaired at never hearing his voice. With her sense of time gone, she could not tell how long his memory had eluded her back in the fort, but even a few hours seemed too long. Even a heartbeat, or a second.

When the band of his arms slackened, Alice took a step back and raised eager hands to his face.

She was a little ashamed of how firmly her mind had committed every one of his features to memory: high cheekbones and strong chin. Gently curving eyebrows, always the slightest crease away from a frown. Straight nose, almost Greek in its strength, and bright black eyes. They stared at her fixedly, tenderly, even as she pawed at his cheeks and forehead like a babe.

"I was looking for you," he said, and Alice basked in the low rumble of that voice.

"As was I."

A minute movement of his eyebrows – he was surprised.

"Of course I was looking for you! How could I – why would I not?" But even as she protested, it dawned on Alice: of course he didn't know. He had no way of knowing, after all!

Throughout their brief, catastrophic acquaintanceship, it had been Uncas putting himself forward, following her with eyes far more tender than a concerned escort should have for his hapless ward. Though Alice had excused his silent invasiveness as a clash of cultures, her stiff English upbringing against his wild freedom, there had been a spark of something in his gaze that had always caused her some doubt. And all had become clear to her on the promontory, when Uncas had rallied for a fight he knew was lost after their eyes met.

And her? Though she had believed herself transparent, almost embarrassingly so, the wisdom of hindsight quickly revealed to Alice how much of her behavior was easily explained by other emotions. Her returned gazes were the curiosity of an English girl for a savage. Her quiet acceptance of Uncas's manhandling were shock, perhaps trauma. Their final shared glance, as she silently begged him to surrender and save his life, could be mere human empathy.

And to think cousin Eugenie always called Cora and myself too forward, Alice thought with chagrin. How proud she'd be of me, to know I've convinced a man who'd sacrifice his own life for my wellbeing that he is but an afterthought to me! A right pair we are, each willing to die for the other and unsure if the other returns our feelings.

With a sigh, Alice slumped into Uncas's chest, hands fisted into his shirt. "I wish I had the words to explain," she began haltingly, "but be assured that you are more valuable to me than anything, anyone, anywhere." She raised her head, speaking into the underside of his chin. "The loss of Cora, of the world…it pains me, so terribly. But I would not return to it, if it meant leaving you behind."

Uncas's arms tightened around her again. Then his muscles jumped and Alice found herself pulled away, dark eyes searching for hers with urgency. "How did you get here?"

How did I die, he means. He was too gentlemanly, in his own peculiar way, to put it any more bluntly, but his meaning was clear to both of them. It occurred to Alice that Uncas had already been tossed over the edge of the cliff when Magua had turned to her, hands scarlet with his blood. He doesn't know. He never knew how unbearable life became once I knew he was gone. But even though such a revelation would surely put his doubts to rest, Alice was overcome, inexplicably, with shame. She looked out at the gently descending snowflakes, pretending she couldn't feel Uncas's gaze probing her face like fingers.

"Did Magua…"

Alice shook her head with vehemence but held her tongue stubbornly. She even closed her eyes, as if they might betray her.

Suddenly, his arms slackened. His breath left him. When Alice finally dared to look, the sadness in his face was heartbreaking. "You jumped," he said, gentle reproach in his tone.

"No," she answered, too shy to meet his eyes in spite of her conviction. "I flew. To you."

As if she'd dealt him a physical blow, Uncas stumbled. For the first time, Alice saw doubt and confusion in his face. In that instant she could believe he had died a boy, one or two scant years her senior, not an ageless, faultless warrior.

"I never meant…" he started, then failed. "Nathaniel and my father would have reached you. Saved you."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"It's difficult to put into words. Perhaps for now, perhaps always. But I could not stand the thought of living when you vanished over the edge of the promontory." She stiffened as his face went slack with awe. "You doubt me still? For shame Uncas!"

He shook his head ruefully. "Never again."

Simply because she could, Alice drew her fingers gently down his cheek. She made to turn around and look – then caught herself and reached for Uncas's hand first. Lest you be spirited away by some invisible being while my back is turned. The strongest grip her hand was capable of felt measly compared the almighty whims of fate, but Uncas seemed to sense her disquiet and closed his larger hand about hers. Alice allowed herself a private smile. Ever since we met, you sense what I leave unsaid.

The forest was still and quiet around them, calm when it had seemed pregnant with expectation before. Snowflakes danced down at them, almost playful in their descent. A thought occurred to her and she patted at her dress with her free hand – dry.

"The snow doesn't rise either," said Uncas behind her. "It covered the ground, but that's all."

"How can you tell?"

Once she had turned, Uncas pointed at the log wall beside them. The door was still there, but – and here Alice only barely managed to restrain a gasp – the hallway ended in a log wall now, four or five strides further in. Whatever else was left for them to do, it was not in Fort William Henry's hellish replica. Even as a wave of nausea threatened to seat her (papa, oh papa, that it weren't as it had to be), Alice tried to focus on Uncas's suggestion.

"The snow doesn't pile on the ground," she realized.

"A snowfall this brisk should be up to here by now," and here Uncas tapped his foot midway up a log closest to the ground. "We don't have to worry about shelter."

"You mean for us to go someplace, then?"

Uncas nodded. "Now, we go find them."

"Who?"

"Friends. Passed on before me. They promised to wait."

"The people from the cabin," she answered, not a question.

Once more, Uncas seemed taken aback at her answer. After a moment, his face lifted, and Alice was graced with the first smile she had ever seen. Her own cheeks could not but lift in response.

"You could tell what I think."

"You, sir, have a more expressive face than most people realize."

He shook his head. "Even before, you understood me, without words." He took a few steps, tugging gently on their enlaced hands.

"You know the way?"

Uncas shook his head again. "I hope this world shows me the way. It did before."

"It happened to me as well." A pause. "I saw my father. And Magua."

Uncas turned towards her roughly, eyebrows raised unusually high. "Magua?"

"It is thanks to him that I found you here. I…I dare say all is well between us. I…could not save my father."

Alice didn't realize she'd lowered her head until a warm hand cupped her chin, tilting her face back up. She met Uncas's gaze – there was no pity in its dark depth. There was curiosity, concern, there was tenderness. There was acceptance.

"I will tell you, someday." His presence fortified her, it was true – but even Uncas could not fight all her battles for her, and all that she had heard and seen still weighed in her chest like a stone. Uncas nodded slowly in blessed, silent understanding before tucking her entire arm into his and setting out towards the trees.

They had been advancing through the forest at a brisk pace for a time before the mist rolled in.

Their uncanny sense of direction did not reappear. When the snow slowed and then stopped, they too had slowed. Uncas had mentioned hopes about the clouds clearing, hopes a glimpse of stars or the moon ("it may not help guide us," he'd warned) but the sky had remained shuttered. They'd spoken little on the way, but theirs was a warm silence, as companionable to them as endless chatter was to other people. Like Cora. And Nathaniel. For the first time since waking into death, Alice's thoughts about them were more fond that bitterly nostalgic.

Cora will stay in the wilderness, of course. She knew her way before I began to even consider mine. She will marry Nathaniel, of course, she thought, feeling almost like giggling. They will have to build a house, before winter sets in. Would they have time to do it? Or perhaps they could go to the camps of Chingachgook's family? Or…perhaps they will return to the cabin of their felled friends. Bring life, to where death came. It would be a fitting tribute to their friends.

Uncas's arm hauled her back, breaking Alice from her reverie. Before she could ask, she glanced ahead, and there she saw the mist.

Thick and gray like smoke from a fire, it crept slowly over the ground. It put Alice in mind of watching a military parade, safe upon the balcony of her house back in England. But safety is such a fragile word here. It seemed so much like a wave of infantrymen nonetheless, stretching from one end of her line of sight to the other, impenetrable and infinite. She wondered if it had appeared suddenly, or if it had been there, lying in wait for their appearance - then remembered she was in the presence of someone who cared for even her idle musings.

"Did it simply appear, you think?"

Uncas shook his head. "I saw it from further back. Couldn't tell what it was. A wall, new plants…"

"Could it have, perhaps, come out to meet us?"

"Maybe," and then, with a cautious step back, "it's still moving."

Alice glanced back, concerned. Though the mist seemed to be rolling resolutely on, she imagined it widening like a river engorged by storms, creeping towards them even as it marched resolutely past them. She was relieved when Uncas turned right, guiding them towards another expanse of bare trees.

"Best not try to cross it, if we aren't sure where we're going."

She opened her mouth to agree – and then an unpleasantly familiar sound, a thunderous crack, quieted her. Entwined as it was to her by the arm, she felt Uncas's entire form tense. It could not be. It should not be. But it was. "Musket fire…?" Uncas nodded firmly, mouth tensed into a thin line. Alice felt fear prickle at her back more acutely than the snow had. "But why would there be musket fire – "

"There are weapons here too." Uncas patted the area around his waist with his free hand, and Alice remembered that the sheath and knife handle that hung there were not simply part of Uncas. "Let us avoid this fight."

But even as Uncas lead her away, a queer feeling came over Alice. She waited, nearly holding her breath, for the tug of guidance to return, but it did not. In its place she was invaded by a curious urgency, as if she'd left something important behind and, even as her mind was straining to remember precisely what it was, she were feeling its loss keenly. Before she had made a conscious decision, she planted her feet firmly into the ground, drawing Uncas to a halt.

"There's something in the mist. Something…I think…I must go."

Alarm stiffened every feature of Uncas's face. "Is something guiding you there?"

"Yes – no. Well, not like before, at least. I'm sure, absolutely sure, that I must go into the mist…but I don't know which way." As she spoke, the urgency grew within her. She unwound her arm from Uncas's and turned, even as another blast – and were they getting closer, louder? – went off, somewhere in the impenetrable mantle of gray. She didn't know what, and now didn't even know which way, but she was deathly (how silly the word seemed!) certain that there was something she had to do, somewhere in it.

She felt the brush of fabric against her bare arm as Uncas sidled close to her, taking her hand. "Then I go with you." Though his tone broached no disagreement, Alice avoided his grip. A terrible, niggling thought had occurred to her, stomach clenching with anxiety.

"I would not have you hurt for the sake of following me again." Had she known when, how, it was what she'd have said to him as Magua had dragged her from his village. They would be perhaps living in a different world – and the thought made Alice's heart ache so sharply, she had to shake her head free of it. There was something ominous about the mist that made her wary of it touching Uncas.

Uncas seized her hand deftly. "Bad things happen only when I lose you. If you stay close, I will come to no harm."

Alice was torn for an instant, relieved and moved, concerned and somewhat annoyed at his vehemence. Then she deflated with a sigh. I remain a fool, it seems. As if you of all people would be content to stay here and wait. As if you would not run into the mist after me, and then we'd both be lost – in this place and from each other. She thought of Cora, following their father from battlefield to battlefield. She thought of herself, of the child she'd been when she'd last departed England. That Alice had expected a tame, beautiful, exotic wilderness, no more dangerous than the parks of her childhood, but she had also been relieved at the thought of being there. At finally knowing whether Papa was wounded or ill with her own eyes, at finally knowing if he and Cora had eaten, had slept. In the end, all we all wanted was to be close to those we loved, for better or for worse. It is not in me to begrudge him this. She tightened her fingers on Uncas's hand.

They both stepped towards the mist at the same time. Alice smiled and edged closer to the warm line of his body, trapping their arms between them uncomfortably. She imagined she could feel an answering gladness radiating from him and basked in the feeling, even as the landscape around them was swallowed by gray.

It was oddly bright inside, as if it were an early, cloud-shuttered morning within the mist rather than the endless night they'd lived in outside of it. Though Alice could see her own hand more clearly than even the candlelight had allowed her to, the rest of the world was invisible, swallowed by the mist. If Alice stretched her arm in front of her, the appendage vanished to the elbow.

Alice retracted her arm, suddenly nervous. "Uncas?"

"I'm here," came a voice close to her head. Even though his grip had not slackened, Alice was relieved to hear his voice as well. She looked up towards his face, further calmed to see only the faintest foggy veil obscuring it, gazing down at her peaceably. Half of Uncas's body was swallowed in curling wisps, but his hand was firm and his eyes were clear.

A distant musket shot, a pause, then another, all to their left. She breathed, drawing in only moisture, but her mind provided her with the unforgettable odour of gunpowder.

"Left?" Uncas's voice carried firm resignation.

"Left," she agreed.

They walked on, steps heavy with trepidation. All but attached to her arm though he was, Uncas maneuvered things so that he was slightly more forward, as if they were walking through the narrow rock paths behind the waterfall – ensuring he'd be the first to come to harm, if such a thing were to come their way. But you will not leave me behind this time, Alice vowed, I will not allow it. We shall go together.

Suddenly there was a deafening blast. With a wet thump, the body of a man landed at Alice's feet. Panic seized her, frantic mind taking in long dark hair and bare, painted back, heart crying Huron enemy run – but the object of her fear lingered only an instant before lumbering to its feet. The man ignored Uncas and Alice completely, flicking his head to one side, then to the other, and then taking off at a run. Or seemed to, at least, for to them it looked as if he had stepped out of reality. Not even the thump of running feet reached Alice's ears once he had vanished.

"What…" whispered Uncas in wonder beside her. Alice had no answer but a belated gasp and a tentative step closer.

Another crack, then another, and then voices rent the charged silence:

"Form company! Form!"

"They're headed for the caravan!"

"Right face! March!"

Feet raced past them, heavy feet in boots rather than light feet in moccasins, carrying the sound of panting with them.

"Are these ghosts?" asked Alice tremulously, half to Uncas, half to the foggy world around her. "What place of punishment is this?"

More musket blasts sounded, then more voices, and then more still. Some spoke English, some used the blunt accent of the colonists, some were in the many and varied guttural languages of the Natives, still unintelligible on their own but changing magically into English once Alice pricked her ears. Roars, cries, dismayed howls and vicious expletives burst from the gloom, and though the terrible sight of it was hidden from her eyes, the terror of finding herself in a battleground once again sent Alice's mind racing.

A tug sent her sideways into Uncas's chest, one of his arms clamping across her shoulders. She was now held in front of him, back pressed to his chest. His heart beat against the back of one of her shoulders. She could feel a heavy strand of black hair come to rest against her front.

Alice closed her eyes. We are dead. We cannot be harmed. We cannot die again – or at least, I beg you, let it be so. I am with Uncas. He is with me.

Mistress of her emotions once more, Alice let herself be guided away from the fight, Uncas nudging her back while she took the first step. But they had not gone very far when a voice rose far above the din:

"COMPANY HALT! HALT!"

All men's voices sounded much the same when raised in such a holler, but something about it seemed familiar to Alice. Uncas too tensed, though if in surprise or in recognition, Alice could not tell. They stopped moving. Slowly, the sounds of battle eased.

"COMPANY HALT! THE BATTLE IS OVER! THE WAR IS OVER!"

Cheers erupted automatically, though they soon devolved into confused chatter. Then came a shout, and the fight threatened to begin again, but the voice cut through the rising clamor once more.

"THE BATTLE IS OVER! THE WAR IS OVER! DISPERSE! TO YOUR FAMILIES! TO YOUR SETTLEMENTS!"

The voice held a firm authority, perfectly pitched to sway men into obedience. The confused chatter soon overtook the noises of battle, swallowing it whole for a moment before eddying into smaller sounds – there was a bark of laughter, an inarticulate yell. A sob, somewhere, though it died away before Alice could even begin to pinpoint its source. It was only when a man raced past them, five steps away, that Alice realized the mist was dispersing.

"It's clearing," echoed Uncas, easing his grip on her only a fraction. Alice responded by raising her hands and clasping at his arm. Two more men raced past, both in the unmistakable red jackets of the British army, and after a beat a third ran past in blue. Britons, Frenchmen and Hurons.

"Is this the fog where lost spirits congregate?" Alice mused aloud.

"A battleground," came a voice at their backs, firm and martial. "Though I do concur with Miss Alice, many of the men are little more than ghosts." A beat. "Pardon me"

They turned too late, it seemed, for there was nothing save racing footsteps and empty space behind them, but Alice had recognized the voice – and so had Uncas apparently, for he sprang towards the racing steps, only barely pausing to hook Alice's arm more firmly around his. The needn't have hurried, however, for only a moment's run had them almost tripping over a figure on the ground. A man in a red jacket was there on his knees – a British officer of some rank.

"You've done well. I thank you. Your family and friends thank you," he was saying, "now, I must insist you rest."

As they approached, Alice saw another man. He lay before the first, splayed on his back and eyes gazing upward. Above them, the mist was slowly dissolving into cloudy night skies, taking the mist's light along with it, but the man's gaze was feverish, affixed on something none of them could see.

"But they're marching on Albany," he choked out at last, chest heaving, "they're marching in on Albany." He spoke the English of the colonies. Alice took in his simple shirt, his flaxen curls and strong nose, dimly remembering a man with the same hair. We were en route to Fort Edward – no, we had abandoned the road already, and Cora and I had lost the horse. A man with a tomahawk hacked at you so many times, too many times, even as it was clear one less blow was all he needed to kill you.

"They are not, I assure you," said the British officer, firmly but calmly. Had she not known any better, the man's serene conviction would have convinced her in a heartbeat.

"But then, then I can go home –"

"If you can," said the officer, a hint of sadness in his tone.

"But I got no family. I thought – I thought I'd stay and help out."

"Then help. But not this way. The battle is over. So is the war. Enough men have lost their lives, I think."

"Enough men…"

"Yes, enough men. Enough dead. You've done well, my good fellow. Now…rest."

The prone man's breathing eased into longer, fuller gulps of air. He closed his mouth and licked his lips. After a while, even his eyes seemed more focused. "Then…then I think I can go. Right, cap'n?"

"Yes, you can go. You are dismissed, soldier."

"Right, right…I think…I think I'm going now. With my family…my family." The man took a long, shuddering breath. "I think…I get it now cap'n. I get it now."

"Then do get out of my sight." And though the officer's voice was jovial, Alice detected a hint of sadness in it. A yearning.

The young colonial militiaman closed his eyes tightly, breathing out with expectation. A swirl of mist, like the ocean's waves, rolled over his still form: when the billow had passed, he was gone.

The British officer sighed, then lumbered to his feet. He dusted his jacket off in that peculiar way Alice remembered, starting from the cuffs, going upward towards the shoulders. As if the dust fell off the fabric in some orderly fashion, Cora often teased, insisting that the grime he fought so fiercely would simply float back down and collect on the cuffs all over again.

By the time Major Duncan Heyward had finished making himself presentable, the mist had cleared completely. Alice mused that it must have been his intent, to delay the sight of them as much as possible. He glanced at both at them, gaze leaping back and forth, before finally settling on Alice.

"Alice. Dear, sweet Alice," he began. There was a hint of pity in his eyes, but it was a paternal sort of pity. She did not let him continue, for she barreled into his chest, half expecting him to admonish her for the unladylike reaction. He clasped one arm about her instead.

"How it pains me to see you here, yet how it fills me with joy to see your face again," Duncan admitted with a sigh. Stepping away from her, Duncan held her arms apart and surveyed her for damage. Content, he sighed and lowered her arms carefully back to her sides. "And what I would have done to spare you…this." As Alice strove to find some words of comfort for the man who'd never known of true comfort in his life, Duncan sighed again. "And…Cora. What of Cora."

"Alive. Well," answered Alice without hesitation. "Safe."

"Thank God." Though Duncan closed his eyes, Alice caught a flash of bitter regret in them before he could. "May her survival fortify me," he added, more to himself than her. He then looked beyond Alice. "And you, sir?"

Though Alice turned towards Uncas without a second thought, a slight confusion tugged at her awareness. She solved it once her eyes found her young Mahican subtly wrong-footed. Of course. In life, Duncan had rarely treated them, save for Nathaniel, like…like people. To his credit, Uncas quickly gathered his wits and offered Duncan a nod.

Duncan glanced between them for a moment. "Ah. I believe it is also thanks to you that Alice is unharmed, yes? Well then sir…I thank you." He was hesitant and profoundly uncomfortable, but his contrition was sincere.

Alice's heart eased. This was the Duncan Heyward she'd known since she barely came up to his waist. This was not the vociferous, violent man who'd emerged in the wilderness. This was not a shadow of the man he'd been, but rather the pure essence of him. Unlike Papa.

"Nothing here to harm her," rumbled Uncas.

Duncan ducked his head. "I…I beg to differ. We may have…payed our debt to Nature, as it were. But there are things here that harm the soul enough that one almost wishes one were still in a body, capable of being put out of one's misery…" and as he said it he looked out, surveying the terrain with a keen soldier's eye. He was looking for something.

"What was the fog we were lost in?"

"I cannot tell you, for I don't know myself, of its climatological particularities," answered Duncan, still scouring the horizon, "only that it is a dense fog that appears in this forest from time to time. I do not know where it comes from. But I can tell you that it always carries lost soldiers."

"The men inside it are real, then?"

"As real as any of us. They appear in the thick of it, unaware that they've died, still locked in combat with anyone and everyone wo approaches. The fog blinds, but they insist…sometimes they fight men wearing their own uniform," and he punctuated the statement with a grim smile.

"But the man we saw you with…"

"If you can but persuade them that to stop fighting, they slowly regain their bearings and vanish. Some require more than that, but fortunately this recent group had no stragglers."

"Where do they vanish to?"

Duncan waved a hand as though it were a bird taking flight. "Onward." Something at last caught his attention, "I believe another batch of them approaches. Not soon, but not here."

Alice's hands flew to his elbow. "Wait Duncan, please." Something about his situation seemed odd to Alice. She looked hard at each of his eyes, at the set of his jaw, and let out an exasperated breath. "Oh Duncan."

Unlike Papa, Magua, and even the men in the mist, Duncan was clearly free to go. But the single-minded determination with which he sought out the appearance of the mist made it clear to Alice that he was perhaps more firmly entrapped in this place than any of them.

Alice felt rather than saw Uncas approach her shoulder. "Come with us," he said.

"I'm afraid I can't."

"You can," Alice added, though her attempt was half-hearted. "You are free."

Duncan smiled at her sadly. "On the contrary: I am perhaps more tightly bound than I ever was."

You blame yourself, Alice thought. You always did believe the weight of the world was yours to bear, on your shoulders alone. Whatever he had experienced while she and Uncas were lost had shaken Duncan to his senses and now, ashamed of his trespasses, he sought to remedy them.

"Do not start blaming yourself, I beg you."

"I fear you're too late, Alice," he said, clasping both hands in front of him, "And how could I not, after displaying the extent of my stupidity for all to see?"

"Duncan!"

"You need not agree with me, but I know better now." He lowered his voice and glanced at Uncas "I…I was a blind man."

Uncas stared at him in open shock. "The war was larger than any of us."

"It was. And instead of regarding it as such, I thought myself a hero, I thought my cause righteous, and all those who did not think, or dress, or look like myself, I thought of as inferior and expendable. Starting with men such as yourself." Duncan drew himself up, managing to look both dignified and contrite. "I have been an imbecile, and I fear many have paid for it. So, I have chosen to remain stationed here."

It nearly made Alice laugh, to hear Duncan speak still like a British officer. A son of the army, even now.

Uncas's eyes flicked over Duncan's face. "Even as you looked down on us, we could tell you were an honorable man."

Something softened in Duncan at the words, though Alice felt sure only she could detect it. "You are…most kind. But as I shamefully cannot say I did likewise…I am still the lesser man here." He let his shoulders drop. "Whatever respite awaits beyond this place will do nothing for me, not as long as there are men killed in pointless conflict, doomed to reenact it after death."

"The war will be long," countered Uncas.

"Then so shall my…watch," answered Duncan, shrugging, "all wars end, long though they might be."

Uncas was looking at Duncan with a wholly different set to his face. After a moment, he took two steps closer and laid his hand on his shoulder. He nodded.

Duncan's lips thinned – he was deftly containing some powerful emotion. "Some of the Indians have spoken with such despair of the way their land and their loved ones are being whittled down in the war. They are among the most…stubborn." It was a handsome apology, by Duncan's standards at least. Thankfully, Uncas seemed to take it as such.

Their brief meeting was over. Uncas had withdrawn his hand and Duncan was already flicking eyes around, watchful of the mist, when a thought occurred to Alice. "A moment ago you said…not all the men vanish here."

"No. Some, I must walk myself to the exit."

Uncas and Alice exchanged looks. "The exit?"

"Yes. There is a more material way out of here, for those who need it." Duncan looked between them. "Shall I escort you to it?"

With Duncan leading the way, the monotonous landscape soon yielded a narrow, winding way through the trees. The earth was perfectly undisturbed by footprints or tear, but the trees on either side seemed to have marked the path, walls in a hidden hallway.

They had been on it for very little when Duncan halted. "Follow the path to the end" he indicated, gesturing forward with one arm, "You will know it when you see it."

Alice left Uncas's side to give Duncan a final, lingering hug. "When you have finished…come find us."

"I shall," he said.

"We will be with the Camerons," added Uncas. Alice didn't know if such a direction would make a difference in a place where time and distance had bent themselves every which way, but it was all they had.

Duncan nodded and then mimed tilting a tricorn hat at them. "We will meet again." Then he turned resolutely back, cantering down the path without looking back.

There was no warning when they finally found it. It seemed to appear after rounding a sharp curve, hidden from sight until the very last minute, then so modest in its appearance that only Duncan's conviction told it what it was: at the end of the tree-lined hallway, a single tree grew. It had grown straight to a height past Uncas's head before arching and plunging back into the ground. It had formed a jagged archway, and while they could see to the expanse of dead trees right through it, Alice's arm vanished when she stuck it through experimentally.

She withdrew it with a gasp and a shudder. No odd sensations were left behind on her hand, but Alice rubbed it all the same. "We've arrived."

Uncas nodded tightly. When he squared her shoulders and made to simply walk through it, Alice grabbed his elbow and dug her feet firmly into the ground. "What's wrong?"

"I'm scared. How do we know your friends are on the other side?"

"It's the only way out. Heyward said so." Uncas's tone was gentle and patient. As if to reassure her that he did not mean to cross until the issue was resolved, he turned away, his back to the doorway.

"It's only…we asked so few questions. He said the men who cross do not come back. What could be on the other side? What if – what if it's something else?"

Uncas quirked his eyebrows at her. Explain.

"Another circle of this…this place perhaps. Or another life." Cold anxiety made its way down Alice's throat as another thought seized her, "what if it separates us? We woke so far from each other here…what if it doesn't care that we walk through it hand in hand, and sends me to one corner of the universe and you to another?"

"No matter how far it might take me," answered Uncas gently, "I will find you."

"What if it makes us into different people, like the Orientals say? If it births us into a new life where I am not myself and neither are you, and we have to live a life all over again…"

"Would you like that?"

"No," she admitted, "Orientalism always seemed frightening to me…I understand it is calming to some people – "

"Some of the tribes believe it too."

"Do you?"

Uncas shrugged. Such a gesture would have frustrated Cora, but to her, his wordless nonchalance was oddly soothing.

"It's simply that I wish to be Alice, daughter of Edmund Munro, always. To always be myself, this self." Alice looked at him and clasped at her own elbows, deflating. "It must make little sense to you."

He shook his head. "If there is a choice, and there are other lives to be lived, then I will stay with you anyway," he declared with simple conviction.

Tears sparked in her eyes. "Will you Uncas? Leave the world behind for me? Will you not be always wretched for it?"

"The world would soon not be my world," Uncas answered, "My father had always said that the time of our people was close to ending. The world is made of cycles, and all of them end." He took her hand. "You are the world. You have no end." Alice nearly missed the smile through her tears, but she saw it, the second smile Uncas had ever given her the honor of witnessing. "We don't even have to go. We can stay here, with Duncan or without him. Meet the lost and aid them. Stay lost, in a way. We will do whatever you want. We will search and search until we find home."

"You are home, Uncas. You. I am home." She dragged him close, laying her head on his chest for comfort. When her fears finally receded, Alice raised her head. "I think I would like to see what is on the other side, before I choose." Perhaps the men who left did not want to return. Perhaps there would be a way back, if she sought for it.

"Then we'll go together." There was a pregnant pause. And then Uncas bent his head, nudging her nose to the side, to deposit a careful, delicate kiss on her lips. It was brief, her lips and his equally cold, and carried all the gravity of a promise.

They stood side by side then. Alice twined her arm about his tightly, then clapped her other hand over his forearm for good measure. Though her entire chest seemed to vibrate with the rapid beating of her heart, she took a deep breath. Together. Keep us together. Wherever this leads us, please. Keep us together. She took courage in the way they walked in lock step, so that they would walk through at precisely the same instant.

As Alice Munro and the man she loved slipped through the last gate together, into another great unknown, her racing mind finally stopped in its frenzy to focus on Uncas's hand, warm and firm. As the threshold swallowed them, Alice was overcome with peace. As surely as she knew that Cora would be alright, that the Earth was round and death was both an end and a beginning, she could finally believe that all would be well, because that hand would never let go of hers, and the heart connected to that hand would never be parted from hers either.

A/N: See you back in the colonies for the epilogue!