She dropped her spoon into the bowl and slammed the bowl down on the table. “If you’re looking for the box, it’s still where you saw it last.” She rolled her eyes over to Ramaro, who crawled up onto an arm of my chair. “And the plate of cookies is still there.”
“We haven’t come to steal the piece of the Stara Skrupa, but to make amends,” Torvus assured her.
She scoffed. “You tried to buy something at the wharf and Varga told you no, didn’t he?”
“That is the sum of it.”
“Well, you can forget it. I’m going to carry my anger to my grave.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“Then you can go to another port.”
Things weren’t going well. This would need some major intervention. “Will you help us?” I spoke up.
Baba examined me. “I might, if you tell me what your sort is doing with his sort.”
“She fell into my lap,” Torvus told her.
She snorted. “Your lies are getting worse.”
“He stole me from someone who kidnapped me, a captain named Encina,” I revealed as I clasped my hands tightly together. “I don’t really know how he took me from my city, but do you think your magic could tell me how to get back home?”
Baba leaned back in her chair and sighed. “There’s no way home for you. You’re stuck in the seas forever.”
Chapter 21
Her words struck me like lightning. I found myself sinking into my seat, my mouth agape and my heart dropping into my stomach.
“That was a quick assessment,” Ramaro spoke up as he scowled at Baba. “What makes you think we can’t get her home?”
“Because this woman is not from our world, and that’s a one-way trip.”
I could feel the blood run cold in my veins. My body began to shake, so I grasped my knees tightly in both hands. It didn’t help. “Then this. . .this really isn’t my world?”
“How are you so sure about any of this?” Ramaro questioned our hostess.
Baba scoffed and waved a hand at me. “Does she wear our clothes? Speak our words? Look at her eyes. Those eyes are unfamiliar with our seas. Our skies. She looks at my magic trappings, and I can smell the fear on her. It’s a scent of unfamiliarity. She doesn’t know anything about this world.”
I dropped my eyes to the floor. My whole chest felt like a great pressure was settling on it. I had trouble breathing. But none of it mattered. All I could think about was her final words. I couldn’t get back home. I’d never see Tim again. Tears sprang into my eyes. I was trapped. Trapped and alone.
A hand came into view. I looked up to find Torvus standing above me. “Come with me.”
I blinked at him, and a few loose tears slid down my cheeks. “Why?”
“Because I have something to show you.”
I opened my mouth to plead frailty, but something in his eye stopped me. Maybe it was the sincerity or the touch of kindness in those depths. I swallowed the lump in my throat and set my hand in his. He helped me up and led me to the door.
Ramaro made to follow us, but Baba grabbed his tail. “Stay here, lizard. This isn’t the time for you.”
He glared at her at the violence on his appendage, but plopped himself back down on the chair. We slipped out of the house and into the early afternoon air. Baba’s street was quiet, as were all the others down which he guided me.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
He didn’t look at me as he replied. “You’ll see.”
The silence was filled with questions that bounced around in my head. One came to the forefront. “How did you sneak into Baba’s house, anyway?”
