"If she...if the table is a doorway to another world?" Alessia asked, looking completely out of her element.

"Do you want me to go back and ask?" Portia asked. "Dareen doesn't like people in her house. But she likes me."

"Whatever it is, I think we need to let someone else know what's happening before anyone else goes gallivanting off alone in there." Morgana didn't look very much like a woman in her element, either. Her face had gone ashen under its rose-brown. "Maybe . . . she found her way in and can't get out again."

"That's silly," Portia replied. "The way out is under the table. If I can get out, she can get out. Unless Dareen kicked her out or won't let her in again."

"E'en if she did, that means she's seen her. She would know." She was starting to breath a little harder. "Will someone please tell my husband I am going under the table?"

Portia giggled. "Can I come too?" she asked.

"Not yet, dear," Alessia said, and snatched the little girl's shoulder. "We are going to wash up." She nodded at Morgana. "I can let him know."

"Good neighbor." She nodded, weakly, to Alessia, and again to Portia. "Good neighbor as well. You make a very good explorer." She shook her head, looking distraught. "I'm . . . I am going to get some things together, just in case. I still don't want to go anywhere before anyone else knows."

"But if I wash up and then go, I'll just get dirty again," Portia replied. "And I'm hungry. Dareen said there would be fried things for dinner."

"We'll get you something to eat here, how's that?" Alessia asked the little girl, and then nodded back at Meg. "Is there anything I can get for you?"

"Stiff drink?" She laughed, high and nervous. "No, no, no, I . . . this is odd, but I really don't . . . don't want to get my hopes up. But if I am going to get my hopes up, I'd rather do it sensibly enough so there won't be two of us missing instead of one."

"Tie the ribbon to the table leg?" Alessia offered. She nodded, and scooped up Portia into her arms.

"Mummy," Portia said irritably.

"Portia," Alessia echoed, in a slightly chastising tone. "I'll go tell your husband. Maybe he can ask a guard to stand by."