The Ancient One's spirit stood at the end of Kamar-Taj's stone corridor, her form like an ancient mural slowly fading from the edges inward.
There was no pain or regret on her face. She simply watched Strange, her gaze holding the deep, unwavering calm of water stilled by centuries of passing time.
Strange clenched his hands, released them, then clenched them again.
His lips parted several times. Each time, he seemed about to speak, only for some deeper force to drag the words back down his throat.
He looked away from the Ancient One's translucent spirit and toward the runes along the corridor, which were dimming layer by layer.
"Teacher..." Strange forced the word out. The sharpness in his voice was buckling under the weight of a reality he could no longer avoid. "Kaecilius... where is he?"
"He's gone." The Ancient One's ageless calm did not waver, but her answer carried the frank certainty of someone addressing a question she had long expected.
"He won't return to Kamar-Taj, and he won't seek out Dormammu again. Dormammu is no longer Lord of the Dark Dimension.
"He'll find somewhere no one knows him, lick his wounds, gather his strength, and then..."
She paused, watching the shock and resentment play across Strange's face.
"Then he'll wait for you to find him."
Strange's pupils contracted.
"Wait for me?"
"Yes," The Ancient One said, as though stating a fact that had already come to pass.
"Strange, Kaecilius was once my finest student. He was among those I had the highest hopes for, one of the likeliest to succeed me as Sorcerer Supreme.
"Then he chose darkness. He chose to turn his back on Kamar-Taj. Those choices have been made. Even if I had killed him earlier, it would not have undone what he did.
"I