“Shouldn’t you be in schooling?”

“Schooling? No, I’m seventeen.”

The woman sighed. “So, you’re from the country then? Don’t know the first thing about how to get to the academy?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh Lords, help me,” she said, crossing her arms. “What backward town are you from that you don’t even know about the academy?”

“What? I’m from the city.”

The woman walked a pace around her. “Don’t seem like a city girl to me.”

“Why are you on my spiritual plane?” Kerrigan demanded.

“My ravens brought you onto mine, girl,” the woman grunted. “You’ve been irritating me for nearly a year in this place. I finally got sick of it when you used enough crux to level a mountain.”

“Crux?” Kerrigan asked in confusion.

“You’re a spiritcaster, right?”

“I… yes?”

“Well, who has been teaching you?”

“No one,” Kerrigan said. “I’ve been kind of doing it on my own.”

“Emperor on high,” the woman said, looking skyward. “No wonder you’ve been so loud. We need to get you to Rhithymna as soon as we can. If you have no parental standing, it’ll be hard to get you into Himera, but I’ll do my best.”

Kerrigan blinked. “Can we back up? What in the gods’ names are you talking about? Who are you? What is Rhythm-uh-whatever?”

The woman stilled completely. It wasn’t until that moment that Kerrigan noticed how much she had been fidgeting, shifting her hips, tapping her foot, adjusting her clothing and the like. “Where are you? What city?”

“Kinkadia.”

She furrowed her brow. “Huh. Well, I guess that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you weren’t found earlier.”

“Found?”

“I’ll begin at the beginning. I’m Professor Cleora. I teach theoretical casting at Emperor’s Academy in Himera College. I specialize in spiritcasting. Though there are so few of us anymore that much of my job is giving a more theoretical basis to the spiritual.”

Kerrigan’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

“Obviously,” Cleora said. Her brown eyes lit up, and she began to pace back and forth. “The answer is clear. If all possibilities exist on a plane, then it only makes sense that they could bisect without direction.”

Kerrigan tilted her head. “What?”

She turned to Kerrigan, as if just remembering she was there. “It was all purely theoretical, but all good theories are rooted in fact. Yes. Yes. You and I are from different worlds.” Cleora said it so simply, as if the fact wasn’t life-shattering.

“Different… worlds,” Kerrigan said slowly. “Like you’re from Eleysia over the ocean?”

Cyrene had crossed from Eleysia to Alandria.

“No, child. There are no oceans to cross, but dimensions.”

Kerrigan shook her head. “I don’t understand. You mean, you’re on a different planet? Like in the stars?”