The rest of the afternoon Irenya swayed between disbelief and the urge to crawl under her bed and stay there. Balfor pored over the manuscripts with her, none of which revealed anything useful. She managed to summon her manners and thank him for his efforts.
As he locked the door of the manuscript room, Balfor asked, ‘This… Tomas, would he have known our language, as you do?’
‘What? How do you mean?’ On the point of distracting herself with a dissertation on English as spoken by Americans, a single, glaring fact caught up with her. She stared at Balfor. ‘If I’m in another world, how come you speak my language?’
‘No, you are speaking ours.’
Later she asked Leachim the same question. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I had not given the matter any thought.’ He pondered. ‘I suppose, when destiny c
