Lucas hangs up the phone just as Emily grabs the rope. "I'm afraid I'll have to tell them the truth, apart from what happened after I made that call. If they do catch you, I fought you really hard, ya hear? You both had to hold me down to tie me up, and I wouldn't stop struggling."

Emily is privately doubtful that this will do much against people who apparently have mind magic, but it does sort of seem to put tying him up in a more reasonable light. If whoever he's called for aren't going to accept the real story, then it makes sense that they'd be at least a bit villainous.

"It's the least I can do, for saving us," she agrees. "I promise that if it ever comes up, I'll tell it just like that."

And a few moments later, they're ready to go. Concordia nabs the knife and the gun, tying the former to her belt with a spare hair ribbon — in lieu of a proper sheath — and handing the latter to Emily, when she flinches and makes urgent grabbing motions.

Emily figures out how to pop out the spent magazine, checks with her finger that the chamber is empty, and switches on the safety.

"... where now?" she asks, glancing around the darkening streets.

Concordia is no more familiar with the city, but she does have the time to formulate a query properly now.

"Let's find somewhere with a lot of people," she suggests. "Both so that we can blend in, and so that we can find someone trustworthy. Oh — I actually haven't said. I have a spell that lets me ..."

She briefly explains unstructured characteristic divination as the two make their way in the direction that Emily tentatively guesses leads toward the city center. Concordia occasionally has them duck around a building, so that they'll be out of sight of whoever comes for the healer.

The pair get out of the area fairly easily. They pass by police officers, who do not stop them. Nobody, it seems, suspects that a pair of teenage girls have anything to do with the gunshots.

Toronto is a big city. The pair walk towards the spire, which is surrounded by other tall buildings, but after twenty minutes of walking it barely seems closer. The sun has set, now.

They pass into a much more open space, with lots of trees and grass. There's a sports field, some very old brick buildings, and a clock-tower off to one side. There are also some much more modern buildings in the same area. They're on the university campus. Students walk this way and that, going home for the evening or heading to night classes. There's a map nearby, which indicates a nearby subway station as well as the various university buildings.

There's something niggling in the back of Emily's head — too many things, really.

As they walk, she keeps half an ear on Concordia's explanation, occasionally asking clarifying questions or suggesting how they might make use of her spell. The rest of her thoughts are consumed with trying to hold off the growing sense of helplessness she feels. When there was a monster, and an emergency, what she had to do was ... well, it wasn't clear, but it was ...

... it was determined. There were things to do, and she did them.

But now she's walking with a near-stranger through the darkening streets of an unfamiliar city, the cool wind leeching the heat from her, and she doesn't know what to do next. Only a few minutes ago, really, she was at school, at recess.

And — the insight hits her like a flash — Toronto is only one timezone west of Vermont. But now it's dark.

"Concordia," she interrupts. "Your teleport — is it instant?"

Concordia cuts herself off, and looks down at Emily.

It didn't really strike her, because Emily is obviously so much more used to this style of city and the people that fill it, and she was really helpful with the Beast, but Emily is really just her brother's age. She sees her shiver, and regrets that the academy students' uniform doesn't include a jacket.

"Yes, it is," she answers. "Why do you ask?"

"This city — it's only about a thousand miles from my school," she explains. "Which is much too short a distance for it to have become night so quickly. I don't think — I don't think we're where either of us thought we were. Your academy, where is it supposed to be, globally?"

Concordia frowns.

"About 30 leagues east of the coast of the north-western continent," she explains. "But I wouldn't expect people to know where it is, around here. The world is big, and we're clearly in the far orient."

Emily presses her lips together and shakes her head.

"This isn't the orient. We're in the Americas. Near the great lakes."

"— but that's ... No!"

Concordia starts to explain exactly how impossible that is, but then she sees that Emily's eyes are welling with tears, and she pulls her into a hug instead, rubbing hands up and down her arms to warm her.

"Hey, it's okay. Maybe we ... maybe this is the future, or something," she suggests. "We just need to figure out how to get in contact with the local mage's academy, and they'll have records we can check, and people who can go check on your school, and —"

Emily shakes her head.

"No. Not tonight. It's too late for offices to be open, and we don't have any Canadian money, and I dropped my book—"

She's crying properly now, digging her face into Concordia's collar bone.

Concordia takes a deep breath. She feels like she hasn't been handling this well. On the one hand, nobody would blame her, when she had to escape a Beast. On the other hand, once it was dealt with, she should have re-assessed. Emily is clearly in shock, and she should be going through the steps of her basic survival training.

Shelter, water, and food. Only this isn't the wilderness, and there's an easy way to get those. She doesn't have 'Canadian' money either — although they must take Imperial bits; they're real copper — but even in 'Toronto', she doubts that there is nobody who will at least let them out of the cold and get them some water and oats.

"Hey, it's okay," she repeats herself. "We'll figure things out. But first, let me see if there's someone who might have a place for us to stay the night."

She doesn't know who these people are, and she can't search for complex, dependent conditions. But she can find someone kind.

Novice unstructured characteristic divination scaffold: SELECT * FROM people ORDER BY kindness DESC limit 5

The spell lights up Emily and four other people: two are barely visible through a second-floor window, and seem to be talking to each other. One is pushing a cart stacked high with boxes. And one is wearing a backpack, walking towards the subway station.

Hmm. Getting to the two in the window might be tricky — although it's not that far to climb. Better to go to the one with the backpack, probably, who doesn't seem to be in the middle of anything.

"That person, there," she says, pointing them out. "They might be able to help. Let's go and ask."

Emily rubs a hand across her face, clearing away the tears.

"ᵒᵏᵃʸ," she says, her voice small.

She takes one of Concordia's hands, and they proceed across the street, trailing the person with the backpack. When they're close enough, Emily makes an act of will and raises her voice.

"Excuse me?"

Emily and Concordia have to run to catch up with him, but they do catch him. The man turns around. He has short curly hair and a somewhat tired look about him. When he sees the two girls, he stops and pays attention to them. "Yes?"

"I'm terribly sorry," Emily begins, "but do you know somewhere warm we could stay the night, and maybe get a meal or use a phone?" she asks.

It's embarrassing, to need to rely on someone else like this. But she doesn't really have a better option, and Concordia says he can help.

"It's just — we ended up here very unexpectedly, and we can get it sorted out in the morning, but it's already getting late," she elaborates.

The man stops and thinks. "Well, hotels are very expensive on such short notice... they don't have badge readers at the university residence." He points to a large concrete building covered in small windows, very brutalist. "You could probably find a couch in one of the common rooms to sleep on, and there are communal showers. If you have any money at all, there's some fast food around. If not, you can usually find some free snacks in one of the student lounges."

He pauses, seeming somewhat uncomfortable. "Not to pry, but, uh, do you think you should go to the police? If you can't find your parents, or if your parents aren't safe, they can probably help."

That is ... a very good point. And if she didn't suspect that this wasn't her Toronto, or if she thought Concordia had a passport, she might go for it.

She shakes her head.

"My Parent is great — and I'm going to try to call them. But. We're really quite shockingly lost, and I don't think the police will help," she explains. "If we can hang out in one of the common rooms and figure things out in the morning, that would be a big help. Thanks."

Kevin seems pained. "Okay, well, I can't tell you to go to the authorities or anything, but..."

He takes out a notebook, scribbles quickly, and then rips out the page and hands it to Emily. "This is my phone number, okay? If you can't get whatever it is sorted out, call me, and I'll..." He shrugs helplessly. "I'll figure something out."

"Good luck." With that, he turns and resumes his walk to the subway station, glancing over his shoulder several times.

"Thank you," she calls after him.

She turns back to Concordia.

"You were right," she says. "He was kind."

Concordia is rapidly coming to realize why the empire standardized on a single official language.

"What did he have to say?"

"He's ..."

She looks down at the paper in her hands.

"He told me where we could stay the night, locally," she explains. "Come on, I'll show you."