Broken Antler Fen out of the danger and into the flames

"You're alone," Maegi replied with certainty in her tone, although inwardly she did concede that there was no real way of knowing. But bluster was bluster. . . "Why would you be afraid of me if you had friends around to protect you?" Solid reasoning, there. The woman's fearful guesswork made her laugh, the sound cold in the already cool fen.

"Neither? Both? I don't know," she joked, still smiling. "I did wake up this morning in this world, if that makes you feel better. This wasn't the wound that killed me," she added, twitching the ruined half of her lips in illustration. "I don't really feel like dragging anyone into the depths today, anyway."

She peered curiously at the stranger, still slowly blinking, as if in the throes of a poppy stupor. "Who are you? Where do you come from, if not 'hereabouts'?"