She isn't sure if this is a dismissal or an offer; it sounds like both at once. All she's certain of is that, for all she's found uses for the crystals, they're frustrating her beyond belief right now. Every breath, short and shallow and full of things she can't seem to place, is a reminder that she can't smell what any of this means. They're only words, small and useless.

Laura ends up going to the roof, too, albeit in the least sensible way possible. Climbing the stone walls, leaving little gouges where she stabs at them with her claws, kills away some of the manic energy kicking through her, until she heaves herself up over the edge of the roof--the right roof, there are a few choices--and finds Athessa.

"Where were you?" she asks, without thinking to clarify what she means. For her, it is obvious: if she is not Nevarran, and she clearly isn't, she must have been someplace else.