Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children, #8)

by Seanan McGuire

“So not all children need Doors?” Sometimes she asked questions that Hudson and Vineta treated as absolutely obvious, things that didn’t really need asking, but it was the only way to get them to explain anything. Left to their own devices, they would say things that overturned everything she thought she knew about the way the world—any of the worlds—worked and then just walk away like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. It was everything. Hudson gave her what she had come to recognize as the avian equivalent of a pitying look and said, “No. Only the ones who aren’t made right for the worlds where they started out need Doors. All children may want them—who doesn’t want a grand adventure? But needing and wanting aren’t the same, and the Doors can see the difference. Some children need to escape from places that will only hurt them, or grind them away until they’re nothing. And some children need to go somewhere else if they’re ever going to grow into the people they were meant to be. The Doors choose carefully.”