"Of course."

Rachel sips her tea.

"I get instructions, in my dreams," she elaborates. "Jeb writes them down while I sleep, while I talk, because I barely remember them. And then, well. You saw."

"Such implausible timing."

"Is anything about this City very plausible?"

"I expect there are still terrible people around. Otherwise no."

"And if the City's a dream, who's to say what's real or not? The answer, of course, is us. No other answer makes sense."

"It doesn't really matter, what's – actually real."

She smiles. "It's opportune, I feel, that she led me to you. I'm old and getting older, Rachel. What's to come... it's going to take the fire of youth. Your fire, perhaps. And do you know what's coming?"

"… In the grand scheme of things or in the local here and now?"

"I'm not sure they're that different," she muses.

"That sounds – like we don't have long left?"

"No, not long. Chaos and madness threaten, and you've seen the tip of the iceberg tonight."

"I was hoping it was just one random psycho and – a tragic coincidence."

She shakes her head. "Nothing's coincidence, here."

"Seems like it might be hard not to read too far into things, then."

She laughs. "Perhaps I should say, nothing you're inclined to think of as 'surely it's just a coincidence, right?' is one."

"It would be more convenient if I hadn't been transported to a weird mysteryland."

"Life's mysterious like that."

"I didn't think it was usually quite this mysterious."

"You were copied into another world, dearie, life's as mysterious as it gets."

Shrug.

"So... with all that... and knowing about all this craziness... you have a choice, here:

"You can leave. Forget any of this happened. Go back to the City, find a new job, try to live as normal a life as you can.

"Or you can stay. Things won't get any saner."

"… I somehow doubt things would get saner back in the City?"

"Well. You'd at least not need to face the insanity daily."