'I know there was a wizard here named Shiroe, but I haven't seen him lately,' she says with a frown. 'I'd say the texts might be a problem, but my astrophysics textbooks showed up here when I needed them, so anything's possible.'

She's really having a reasonable, sensible conversation about a wizard making portals. This should seem strange to Ari, but at this point, it doesn't. If someone can get them out of here, she doesn't care how they want to label their methods.

'I suppose,' she adds, thoughtfully, 'We don't need a portal directly home. Not initially. A portal to any safe region outside our captor's grasp would do, that way we could get everyone who wants to leave out at once, and then work on portals to where we as individuals need to go, from a position of strength and safety.'