Basira shakes her head. "She was still alive at the start of the year." She doesn't quite look like she's disagreeing, though.

"Took her a month to figure out how to eat consistently, but - she did. It's..."

Zeph's quiet for a moment, but shakes off the melancholy before asking:

"So, is someone bodyguarding her 24/7 and really good at it? I guess you weren't joking about people being willing to sacrifice a lot for their children."

"That's - normal, pretty much, for a 13-year-old, you need an adult wizard with you or close enough the wards don't break before... but we grow out of that if we grow up at all, it's not - decades of never being alone outside.

Mals didn't - try to break into her room, though, they'd just lunge at her if they got close enough to notice she existed. So she was - halfway to being like a mundie, just."

Zeph wishes she hadn't left the bar. She doesn't think this is really coming across as affecting her, but also she's not really up for emotional expression beyond, like, staring off into the distance while taking a sip of whiskey.

"I'm sorry about your friend," she manages at last. It's just words. It's not the right words – Birdsong would know them, any other Earthwater would know them, but Zeph doesn't – but they're presumably preferable to silence.

Basira finds this a normal level of affect and wishes she hadn't given up on finishing her sentences.

" - the other half of what keeps mundies safe is... is not believing in magic, all the way through." She swallows. "And she was never going to grow out of it so - she's doing that instead."

Another moment of quiet.

"Was it voluntary?"

Zeph can't imagine why someone would refuse under these circumstances (she thinks?), but if the girl was anything like Basira, she may have had a different opinion.

Would it even matter? It's not like she can miss it, but—

"Yeah. Mostly it's something she has to do herself; lot of, um, practising looking at stuff mundies make up and figuring out how to prove they got it wrong or who lied about it."

Sigh.

"And then there's spells on top of that to make the - habit stick deeper."

"Well, I'm glad it's—working out for her. Sorry you probably can't really be friends anymore."

The thing is, she really is glad. It seems like the girl had an option, and it worked out for her, and maybe her survival chances are even higher than those of the kids who go on being wizards.

"Yeah."

She reaches towards the napkins for something to fiddle with then pulls back. Picks a nail.

"We could talk, if I made it back she'd remember me, she just... thinks she grew up in a cult." Pick. "Not a cult that kills kids."

"That's pretty clever, I guess." It really is. It makes a lot of sense.

Basira can't tell if she's glad Zeph doesn't think they are an evil cult or... what, disappointed?

"Thanks." no.

She forces a flat smile.

Zeph's not sure what social thing she's failing at right now and she can't quite bring herself to care.

...she can't quite bring herself not to care, either, but that's easier to fake. She leans back in her chair and eyes the bar, ignoring the awkward silence.

In the face of social awkwardness, Basira reflexively grabs for the nearest reading material. 

She has several things to read! There's the napkin about refraining from further use of weapons, her general introduction, answering Zephyr's question about healing potions, answering Basira's question about full meal replacements, the menu of festive alcoholic drinks...

Oh, and one more.

Rooms can be rented for short-term stays; the meaning of 'short-term' is subject to some discretion. Milliways staff may reside on the premises indefinitely. However, patrons almost universally find that no time at all has passed in their own worlds on their return; exceptions generally involve the case of leaving through another patron's door and then returning to Milliways on another occasion.

Wait what

Her eyes skate over the words at first. There's an extra one? Do napkins appear on all the surfaces here or did she miss this earlier? Or did the bar hide it?

And... what? She... hasn't missed class, she hasn't missed breakfast, but she can't skip her exams. If all this is true. She could stay here, unless that costs... anything? She could have gone to Zef's world if they'd come in through different doors or something?

People work here? Where??

"Hey, here," she says when her brain gets to that point of processing. "There's one we haven't read."

Zeph reads. Her expression stays very, very still, not in a forced or shocked way, just—as if she forgot to change it.

"I could—if I stay here, they'll just. Stop existing. All of Panem, the games, everything, they won't be—they won't be, not really."

She slouches and stares blankly off into the distance.

Basira takes a strong stab at figuring out what Zeph means by that.

...

"Huh?"

"If time is stopped there, no one's, like, doing, or even experiencing anything, right? My world's gone, kind of, not permanently, but as long as I'm here."