"Are there only three kinds where you're from? No one who can see the past written on a soul?" River gives a full-body shudder before drawing in a breath. "It doesn't matter. You are sorry, behind us and beyond us and we won't discuss it.

Your friends, however, the boy with the scars and the soft smile and the woman who has died and is living again, almost corporeally, they aren't here. Would have noticed, would have heard. But a promise, I'll make a promise to you now: if they do, I will tell you, and I will tell them, and you'll be centered and stable and a whole thing again."

She looks away, running one of her hands over a random flower near her knee. "Nice to meet you, Hal."