"I did realize that eventually, I just have no idea how to gracefully stop the conversation now. I am worried I am giving you a bad impression of paladins. Probably the ones with practice are better at, uh, fighting wars, which sometimes involves keeping secrets."

...The kids are speaking another language now, which, well, does kind of make it seem more likely that they're from the same place, which is definitely not America and also isn't Mexico because Emily knows any Spanish. 

She tries to look absorbed in her phone.

"You have only given me a better impression of paladins."

And then in English, "What is 'a plane ticket'?"

"You get on an airplane! Here, uh, I should - find a video -" Oh good Youtube is not especially slow on this computer. "Planes are metal flying machines, they can go to the other side of the planet in - man, I don't know how fast planes fly, but less than a day? It costs money, and there's all this," air quotes, "'security' since that time that Al-Qaeda stole a plane and crashed it into the twin towers. So you need to have ID - a card with a picture of you on it, from the government - and buy a ticket with the right details from your ID. I think you literally can't get on a plane without ID and it kinda sounds like neither of you, uh, have it." 

"Evelyn said we will get papers some time."

"Oh good! I'm glad to hear that. Though, uh. I - don't think you should assume it'll be easy to get a plane ticket home, even once you're allowed to. I think - something is really weird here, and -" 

She looks down. 

"- I'm not going to say anything to Evelyn, and I think you shouldn't either. Because I feel like - I don't think anyone going to war is at all likely, okay? But I think that either they'll decide you're crazy, and that would suck for you, or they'll decide you're really from a parallel universe with magic and shit, and honestly I think that would suck even more." 

"- yeah. Thank you, not saying anything."

"Thank you." She's not sure she believes it.

In Taldane. "What do you think is actually going on."

"We are on another plane, probably? Or - maybe our homes are on another round world? We can learn later if there are more round worlds than this one. We should not ask now, it would be suspicious."

Alfirin is the expert on keeping secrets. She'll just nod.

"- that means we probably can't go back. Right?"

"Well we got here. Maybe there is a way. When things are less busy we can look in the spellbook. Maybe it will say what the spells in it do."

"- Aroden travelled between worlds. So it can be done with spells....possibly very powerful spells. I haven't heard of anyone else doing it."

"I have not heard of it either. But I also have not heard of people going to another world by accident... maybe I would not know, if they did not make their way back. Or even if they did, and it was far away."

"Probably even if it happens all the time it would be hard to notice, because people also go missing for other reasons all the time.

I am still a paladin. I don't know if that means - Aroden is here - or not."

"I do not know either."

The kids are doing more speaking in their own language. And looking - kind of shifty? Not that Emily is judging them for it, but they have not mastered poker faces yet. 

"If you want advice on how to seem normal and not weird and suspicious, I'm happy to answer questions?" she says. "I have a lot of practice seeming normal to social workers." 

This is a sheepish-looking paladin.

"We like that."

Nod. 

"So, uh, talking a lot about how you're scared to go outside without a knife - or sword, I guess - because someone might rape you, is - going to make social workers think that you had a horrible childhood and need lots of therapy. Which, like, they might not even be wrong, but therapy is dumb and you've got better shit to do with your time. ...I don't actually know if you know that word, therapy is, like, talking to a person about your feelings, where the person you're talking to has been to a lot of school where they learn to talk to kids about their feelings. It's incredibly annoying." 

"It is sensible to try to avoid someone rape you. The problem is not the feeling, the problem is the men who might rape you."

"...Why need talk about feelings? Why the president want that?"

"The President doesn't care, he's got like three hundred million people in the country to please and, trust me, foster kids - and foster parents - are not an important voting bloc."

Sigh. "...I mean, I just agree with you on that? But I think social workers don't, they're - man, I think even Evelyn has some feelings about how they're mostly from a higher social class– uh, grew up with richer parents than her, living in nicer neighborhoods with less crime, and stuff. And I think they - usually kind of live in a world where being raped isn't a normal thing that can happen to normal people, it's like this rare horrifying disaster and means you need a lot of extra help and stuff. Which is, like, compassionate of them and stuff, but the extra help is never helpful, so it's kind of just better not to bring it up or give them any reason to worry." 

"They do already know about Martin but I can truly say that I am not very upset about what Martin try to do and not more worry about rape than I did before."

"Talk about feelings is for help me? Not because social workers want for social workers?"