"I don't know," Beth says, unwilling to give him false hope. "People have got ideas about what happens after we end up here and sometimes other people show up and the timelines don't make sense, so it seems like some other version of us stays back there, too, but no one knows for sure."

They can say it all they want, they can make promises and claim they know the truth, but no one understands this place completely. Certain things are true -- that he can't leave, that his welcome package will be waiting for him -- but nothing else seems to be a hard and fast rule. All Beth cares about is that there aren't any walkers here and until the day they are, Darrow will be far superior to the place she left. That isn't true for everyone, though, and she knows it.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I wish I could give you somethin' more than that, it's just..." She trails off and shakes her head. She doesn't like lying, not even to strangers, especially not to people who've only just come here. "You're takin' it pretty well otherwise, though. I'm gonna guess you've seen some pretty strange things, huh?"

A magical city hadn't seemed so weird to her after zombies.