"I was," Salazar repeated, finding himself uncharacteristically patient.
"Returning from this place isn't possible, child, or we would both be home. Lady Skeeter takes and returns her captives by strange whims," he said, knowing it was not the answer she wanted to hear, but the difficult truth that she must be told. "If you become attached to this place, perhaps then she will return you. The more you dislike it, the longer she keeps you, or so it seems to me." A trace of bitterness belied his voice.