"I've heard people call it technology," Porthos answered. For him, that term covered showers and cocktails alike: every advance he could see, from their time to this. "Scientific progress, I suppose."

But everyone seemed nonplussed about the doors, which led him to believe that they were magic. Their ambivalence only lent credence to that belief; magic was never an entirely good thing.

Showers, as far as he was concerned, were.