Where am I? She was back in the Way again, that much seemed probable; she had been given the impression that whatever had been done to Gaia, the task was not yet finished. By deduction, she would not be kept there; it would perhaps be more convenient to those testing her to have her body nearby.

Her mind might be anywhere.

Is Typhon testing me? She did not know; perhaps it did not matter. Jarts seemed interchangeable.

The tests they put her through were occasionally enlightening, to the extent that she remembered them, and that she could work with those memories in the scattered moments she had left to herself.

She was placed in different social situations with phantoms of people she had known. At first, these phantoms did not include those she had met in Alexandreia. She played the scenes with some hope they were real; part of her played them in earnest, quite deluded; she gave what she thought were honest performances. But part of her, however suspended, was always skeptical.

Many times she met Patrikia. Many times certain scenes were reenacted. In this way, her own memory was brought to the forefront, and Rhita was given an opportunity to review it, at the same time the Jarts did so.

All this changed after an immeasurable time. Her life became rooted; she became a student in Alexandreia. The delusion was not interrupted by her captors.

She stayed in the women’s dormitory, fought her way through social and political ostracisms, and attended classes on mathematics and engineering. She hoped soon to begin her studies in theoretical physics.

Demetrios became her didaskalos. The small part of her still suspended in skepticism wondered if this was the real psyche of Demetrios; there seemed something more convincing about him.

All of her surroundings were real enough that she began to relax. Her skeptical suspended self faded until she regarded such memories as passing delusions themselves. The last perception of this fading, skeptical Rhita was: They have finally gotten through my guard.

Then Alexandreia became real, if somewhat skewed at times.

She remembered nothing of the journey to the steppes.

Rhita won most of her academic battles. Demetrios seemed to take an interest in her beyond the normal relationship between didaskalos and student. They had something in common neither could define.

The days passed, Aigyptian winter coming, dry as usual but cooler; they went boating on Mareotis. He confessed that he had taught her almost as much as he knew, outside of political wisdom; “You seem slow to acquire that,” he told her. She did not deny it; she expressed her belief that honesty seemed a better policy than merely fitting in.

“Not in Alexandreia, it isn’t,” he said. “Not even for the granddaughter of Patrikia. Especially not for her.”