Keepers of the Flame by Robin D. Owens

guy,
Sevair Masif, all neat and tidy and pressed, watching this tower.”
    “Any
sign of The Three?”
    Snorting
with laughter, Bri withdrew from the window. As kids they’d always had
nicknames for those in their lives, twin shorthand. “Nope.”
    “How
late is it?” Elizabeth was frowning, staring at the window.
    “Hard
to say. No sun, though I think the windows face west. A gray day.”
    “How
long do you think they’ll give us alone this morning?” Elizabeth asked.
    “If
they can sense resting versus waking energy patterns—”
    A
strumming came at the sitting-room door, then the rapping of a knuckle. Bri
finished, “—I’d say not long at all.”
    Hopping
from bed, Elizabeth said, “Gotta pee,” and headed to the bathroom.
    Bri
never drank much on a travel day, but now that Elizabeth mentioned it…
    More
harplike notes.
    She
recalled the polished rosewood door to the suite had something like a Swedish
door harp affixed to the door, without the little wooden balls, and with
vertical strings.
    She
went to the outer door. “Give us a break, folks, we’re sharing a bathroom. And
we don’t want you in our bedroom.”
    There
was some mumbling. There seemed to be a lot of life signatures beyond the door,
and Bri was able to sense them easily. Scary.
    “May
we come in?” a voice asked in English.
    Definitely
at least The Three.
    “Who
all’s there?” Bri asked.
    “Bri?”
came Alexa’s voice.
    Good
ear. This being an aural society, they probably all had good ears, or like Bri
had guessed before, they sensed energy patterns, too. Though Bri’s and
Elizabeth’s energy patterns might be very similar, they wouldn’t be identical.
    “Who
all’s there?” she repeated, heard a flush and thanked God that there appeared
to be modern plumbing. Water ran as Elizabeth washed her hands.
    “Marian,
Alexa, Calli, and our husbands,” Marian said. Bri had a good ear, too, and the
voluptuous redhead’s voice was deeper, throatier than the others.
    Bri
backed up a couple of paces as Elizabeth walked into the room, dressed in her
clothes from yesterday and not seeming too pleased about it. She’d have washed
out their underwear, of course, before they fell into bed. “‘The Three’ have
turned into ‘The Six.’”
    “They
brought their men? Why?”
    Shrugging,
Bri went to the bathroom. “Don’t know. At a guess, to show us a benefit of the
place? Hunky husbands?”
    Elizabeth
snorted. “The last thing I need is a man in my life. Let me go through the
bathroom to the dining room where there’s another door to the hallway.” She
hustled past Bri, closing the door behind her, then faced the outer door. Her
panties were still damp and she resented wearing them. If the women had been
perspicacious enough to have nightgowns made, why couldn’t they have provided
some decent underwear? All Elizabeth had seen were long-underwear type leggings
and tops and she’d had enough of those all the last miserable winter long.
    The
Six. Huh.
    “Elizabeth?
This is your morning briefing. By now you would have realized that you’re here
for a while. And we thought we’d help you get on,” Alexa said.
    Elizabeth
crossed her arms. “Bri is in the bathroom.” She heard sputtering water.
“Showering. Come back later. With breakfast. I’ll take an egg white omelette
and a piece of dry toast. Bri will have eggs scrambled with cheese. If this
benighted land has coffee, bring two cups, hot and black.”
    A
male chuckle came as if in approval. “I don’t think they’re as disturbed as you
expected them to be. You go get the food. We will stay here,” the man said. In English .
One of the men knew English. Elizabeth couldn’t figure out whether that was a
good sign or a bad one.
    Marian
said, “They have each other for support, so of course they are less affected
than we were—being stranded in a strange dimension all alone.”
    That’s
what she thought. Elizabeth allowed herself an irritated sniff.
    “But
a