The door creaked open just far enough for Vellia to get a look inside the room that the voices were coming from. There, arguing between each other, were the theif, some woman Vellia didn't recognize, and . . . a practically bald, very beat up Talbot. Vellia's jaw dropped. He [i]was[/i] alive after all! Not in the best of shape, but he was alive.

Suddenly, Vellia felt torn between what she should do. She could run in and scold him for running off, or just tell him she was thankful he hadn't been killed. Or she could go tell the others. She stumbled away from the door and scrambled toward Ambra's room, but when she arrived there, she found that Ambra had left, so she instead began thinking of one of the first places she would go. Zaino was beat up pretty bad, wasn't he? Maybe she would be in his room.

Vellia found Trin standing in the doorway of Zaino's room, and inside, just as she had guessed, was Ambra. [b]"Hey, Ambra!"[/b] she shouted. [b]"You're not going to believe this, um, that is, if you haven't stumbled across him already, but, um, Talbot is . . . he's not dead! He's here. And I'm sure it's him!"[/b] Vellia felt like a young child; she could hardly contain her excitement. Despite that, though, she still stuttered. Why did she have to be so socially inept?