The joke eluded Ariadne, but that was nothing new. She was constantly in the position of listening to someone laugh, without being clear on what was funny. And under better circumstances, she could have schooled her face into something a little more neutral and unbothered. But the circumstances weren't exactly normal. So she could hardly scold herself for letting her confusion come through.

But the stranger didn't seem in a hurry to explain the joke.

Best to let it go.

"It..." She didn't want to appear vulnerable, but she was already flailing enough as it was. "It might help if I knew the name of the town. Or the kingdom." Clearly, not one she'd visited before, which left more questions than answers.

There was a perfect possible future where this all made sense, but the odds felt a bit staggering. Three million seventeen thousand one hundred and four to one. More or less.