A group of older students decided to hold a memorial service for Dr. Dillamond. They gathered in the main square and scattered lily petals across the bricks. A few people stepped forward and told stories of their old professor and what he had meant to them.

Elphaba stood stoically near the back of the crowd. Glinda was at her side, clinging to her hand. Boq sat on the edge of the sidewalk, staring blankly into the square. Fiyero and Crope and Tibbett were a few feet away, their hands folded and heads bowed.

Many of the teachers showed up, including—to Elphaba's unsurprised horror—Madame Morrible. The headmistress kept her distance from the center of the crowd. She watched the proceedings with a hint of amusement, and more than once she turned to look at the green girl. Elphaba gripped Glinda's hand and pretended not to notice.

When it was over and the students were starting to disperse, Glinda tugged on her hand and moved forward. The green girl didn't question it, and the boys followed silently. The blonde took a small jar out of her purse—which Elphaba didn't even remember her packing in the first place—and scooped up a few flower petals from one of the leftover baskets. Then she slipped her hand back into Elphaba's and led them away from the square.

Elphaba didn't realize what was happening until they were wandering through some far corner of campus. The boys shuffled around to form a loose semicircle around the tree they had stopped at and waited.

Boq reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a smooth, flat stone. He looked down at it as he spoke. "We figured Morrible would get rid of anything the students did in the square, but we had to do something for him. I doubt she'll ever find it way out here." He ran his hand over the stone, then closed his eyes and passed it to Fiyero.

The Vinkan held it gently for a moment before passing it to Tibbett, who mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a blessing and passed it to Crope, who passed it on to Glinda.

The blonde turned to Elphaba as if to say something, but then shook her head and silently handed her the stone, letting their fingers brush as she passed it off. The green girl stared down at it. It was heavier than she thought, carved and polished from some type of dark rock. Elphaba traced the top, letting her fingers run over the engraved letters. There was no name, no date, just an inscription:

They can silence our words, but never our hearts.

She clutched it to her chest and walked forward to kneel by the tree. She dug her fingers into the cold dirt and scraped away a place just large enough to set the stone in, settled between the roots. For a moment she stayed there on the ground, almost forgetting about her friends standing behind her.

Glinda took out her jar and passed her hand over the top. Flames sprung to life inside the glass, but instead of being a faint pink like usual, they were a soft mix of blue and deep grey. They danced in the jar, hovering above the lily petals, which remained untouched. Slowly, the blonde went to kneel by Elphaba. She placed the jar next to the stone and rested her head on Elphie's shoulder.

Crope wrapped an arm around Tibbett and pulled him close. Fiyero clasped his hands and stared up at the sky. Boq lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head. Glinda's fingers found the spaces between Elphaba's and stayed there.

The group remained by the tree for a long time, standing silently, just breathing. It was all they could do.

Elphaba gently disentangled her arm from Glinda's grasp. "Go on ahead. I have to…"

The blonde looked like she was about to argue—the mere thought of being alone in their room again was terrifying—but she saw Elphaba's gaze flash to Boq, standing a few feet away. "I'll grab something for dinner and meet you in the room."

"I won't be long," Elphaba whispered, bending her head and kissing the corner of Glinda's mouth. She pulled away, looking simultaneously desperate for more and terrified of trying anything else. Glinda squeezed her hand and let it go.

Boq was trying hard to pretend that he hadn't been watching the entire exchange. Elphaba gave him a warning look as they fell into step, but it was too tired to be very threatening.

"Fire away," she sighed. The two made their way to a bench on the edge of the square, and she sat heavily on the cold, twisted metal. "I'm sure you have questions."

"I do," said Boq, sitting next to her. "But I'm not sure you have all the answers."

"I have some."

"What happens now?"

Elphaba glared ahead and swore at him under her breath. Boq gave a half-hearted smile. "See?"

"Yes, you're very clever."

"I'm sorry, Elphie," the Munchkin said softly. "I'm just trying to make sense of it all."

"Yeah, well, so am I."

They fell silent, staring out across the square until Boq found his voice again.

"How long?"

"Sorry?"

"How long were you talking to him?"

Elphaba's brow furrowed. "Who says I was talking to him?"

"Glinda told me where you had gone. I pieced the rest together. It makes sense, really. Some days you would just come to me with answers that had stumped us only a couple nights before. You were meeting with him, weren't you?"

She pressed her lips together. "Letters. We were writing letters back and forth. It started over break." She brought a hand to her forehead and pressed hard, rubbing away the beginnings of a headache. "No one was supposed to know I was gone."

"It's not Glinda's fault," Boq said quickly. "She didn't really have a choice. I was demanding to talk to you, so she pulled me aside and told me." He looked over at the silent green girl. "She was devastated, you know. When you didn't come back that morning, and we were hearing all the rumors. She told us you were just in the room, not feeling well, but she was obviously distraught—panicking, even. I thought it was just the news of Dr. Dillamond, until she told me you were missing."

"Yeah, I kind of got that last night." She had meant to sound amused, but it just came out numb.

"What happened?" Boq asked.

"L-last night?" Elphaba felt herself blush, remembering Glinda leaping into her arms, pressing her against the door and kissing the breath out of her.

"No, when you were in town. With Dillamond."

She shook her head. "I…a lot. A lot happened." Boq waited silently. She rubbed her forehead and sighed. "We talked about the research, and…what could be done with it." Some will listen, but not enough. Not nearly enough. "And he…told me some other things about the issue of Animal rights." The Resistance. Fighting in the Emerald City. "And then…" She gulped and let out a shaky breath.

Boq brought his knees to his chest. "Did you see her? Did she see you?"

"Barely," Elphaba whispered. "And…I'm not sure. If she did, she didn't follow me."

"What happens now?" Boq asked again, not expecting an answer.

Finish your studies, Dillamond had told her. Learn all you possibly can. She thought of Morrible, sitting in her office, washing the blood off a glinting knife, and wondered if learning anything more at Shiz was even possible.

"We go on," Elphaba breathed. She cleared her throat and went on, louder. "We keep going with the research. There's not much more we can do with sentience—not here, at least—but there are different subjects. When the divide between humans and Animals and animals happened, when Animals started losing rights, why people started supporting this oppression."

"Elphaba?"

She stood up and started pacing in front of him, passion pouring into her every word. "If the Wizard is intent on hurting the Animals, then our only chance is to prove him wrong, cut off his power. He has to have a weakness—something that will take away the people's confidence in him. So for now, we learn. We keep our heads down and gather as much information as possible. And when we have the answers, we spread them, like wildfire, until all of Oz knows the Wonderful Wizard for what he truly is."

It was inspiring, truly, but Boq felt the dread trickling into his stomach. "And Morrible?"

Elphaba closed her eyes. "I knew what she was capable of. Dillamond warned me, months ago. And yet…I never imagined that…"

Boq always knew why Elphaba was so adamant about keeping this to herself. But that afternoon, watching her tremble in the middle of the cold, windy square, he finally understood. If he could take away all of this and bring her back to the smirking, witty young green girl he had met last summer, he would.

But he couldn't, so instead he stood and put a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever happens next, Elphie, we'll deal with it together. I haven't left you yet, and I'm not going to. It's like you said: we go on."

They can silence our words, Elphaba thought. But never our hearts.

We go on.