“Works like the phones?”
“Yes, very much like those. This is for music.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Crow nodded and motioned Phoenix to follow. They were gone in the next minute and left me standing and staring at Roran and Rilen.
“Where did you go?” I asked. “I couldn’t follow.”
“We needed fresh air,” Rilen said.
“You’re not allowed to follow.” Roran cocked his head. “Orders from the king and queen. We have limited use of the grounds.”
“Also, their orders.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “They pulled us into a war in another world, and now I have to use,” I glanced over to the device in the corner, “something I can’t even describe to get any kind of exercise. Why did they bother?”
Rilen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please, Kimber. We can’t answer these questions. We’re just as much in the dark as you are about the whole thing.”
“Do you think they even know?” My hands fluttered around, distressed and stressed. “I am an able fighter! I don’t like being confined! Why drag us here if—”
“Enough,” Roran growled. “Kimber, enough! We don’t have answers, and we’re not going to pull them magically from our asses!”
“Neither of us like this either, but for the love of S’Kir,stop asking.”
“Questions are how I figure things out.”
Rilen dropped onto the bed. “That’s how we all figure things out, but Kimber, the answers are being withheld. On purpose, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“Why—”
“Please. Stop.” Roran’s voice was snappish.
Rilen grunted from the bed and stared at the ceiling. “We aren’t happy about this, either. We just need to wait to find out what’s going on. I don’t want to, believe me. We’ve never been held prisoner like this, but we also don’t know this world anymore.”
“That’s the second time you’ve saidanymore.” I dropped my fists to my hips and glared at the two of them. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
The two of them looked at each other.
Roran laughed. “Oh, no, brother. You said it. It’s your turn. You can explain that one.”
It was clear that Rilen regretted what he had said, but after a minute, he sat up and let out a sigh.
“Before the Spine rose, the gate to Earth, here, wasn’t locked. There were guards, but...” Rilen shrugged, “over the years, the entrance has changed positions around this world. Roran and I may have come through a few times, on a lark.”
“A lark? Through a gate between worlds?”
“Ilatiis ancient Babylonian,” Rilen said. “That’s a language from this world.”
“And there might be a city that could be named after me by accident.” Roran scratched his head as he spoke.
I stared at him. “What.”
“Yeah, we kind of got into a huge fight once, and there might have been some serious magic being hurled around. And I kind of may have used illusions to make it look like I had a wolf on my side, fighting against him because there was a bunch of people watching.”
“They seemed to think that the wolf was our mother,” Rilen said. “And they messed up our names in their mythology.”
“How did they even know your names?”
