Alice could not speak so much as move her mouth into shapes and hope her breath gave them sound. “But I don’t want to die.” “What do you want, then?” “I just want to go home.” Alice had seen what the sole pursuit of knowledge had done to the Kripkes. And she would not repeat that same mistake; to remain here, whittling away until all that mattered was puzzles and abstractions. She had outshone at puzzles and abstractions her entire life, and still she had not learned a single thing about how to live. She did not want to tilt into their world anymore, she only wanted to touch something solid.
