"I have only been here a matter of months." And he had been lonely - a state he should have been used to, but here, now, having met people who needed him, started building his own sort of family, he found himself missing the old. As he spoke, he shifted until he could sit alongside Malik, staying intently within arm's reach. "The people here are from different times and different worlds. Some, like Sayyida Margaery, have similar worlds. Others are from versions of Earth far in our future. The village itself is... hard to explain."

He had to think. As he thought, he let his arm rest around Malik - because he was there. Because his friend, who might as well be a brother, was beside him again. "People come and go constantly. Some are here for days, others for years. Things happen here that seem to be controlled from the outside, but I have yet to find the source of the control. I have been trying to help many of them learn how to manage in a place like this - their society, as it has advanced, has left behind many of the basic skills. They have never had to keep animals before, and the like.

"There is a place a few days' travel from here known as the Bunker. It has devices inside the likes of which I have only seen from the Apple. People arrive there in tubes - it is where you were before you arrived in the Fountain, I have no doubt."