Wen nodded. “Yes.”
“What about your mother?”
“I found a few scattered pages of her notes, too. She wrote in great detail about the sea, and how she felt it was imperative to finda creature called ‘Endain’s Whale,’ also to guard against an unnamed threat.”
That made Talia uneasy.
“I didn’t understand where their information was coming from, what visions Caiden’s mother was referring to, or why they both seemed convinced something terrible was going to happen. I still don’t.”
Talia studied his profile in the firelight. “And then you found a book of Words.”
“It was strange.I could have sworn I had paged through every book in the library. But one day, there it was: a thin, green volume tucked into a corner shelf. It was obviously old, the leather cracked, a white tree stamped into the cover. I’d never seen the language it was written in before. The Words looked more like—more like musical notation than letters. It’s hard to explain.”
“Could you read them?”
“Notat first. I poured through every page, feeling the power caught in paper and ink, desperate to make sense of it. And then I found my mother’s handwriting on the back cover—she’d evidently started translating the book. She’d transcribed three Words, and I said them aloud and the mirror room opened, just as it did today.”
“So you think your mother—and Caiden’s—both went into the mirror room?”
“I do. Caiden’s mother went missing without explanation for thirteen days before turning up in the forgotten temple. My mother disappeared for ten, and then decided to go sailing.” There was a grim edge to his voice. “Where else could they have gone?”
“And you think the visions they saw in the last mirror—”
“Led to their deaths.” He met her eyes, his jaw a hard line.
“How long did you go missing?”
“Five days.” He looked back into the fire.
“What did you tell your father?”
“I told him the truth. Caiden too.”
She understood what he wasn’t saying. “They didn’t believe you.”
Wen jerked up from his chair and paced over to the window, every line in his body taut.
Talia followed.
“I told them everything. What I’d seen in the mirrors. What I suspected had happened to our mothers. I even convincedthem to come up to the library, to look in the mirrors with me. I spoke the Words, the room appeared, I led them inside.”
“Then why—”
“They couldn’t see it,” said Wen roughly. He turned to Talia. “The Ruen-Dahr seems to choose the people it lets in on its secrets. I don’t understand why. It chose me, and evidently my mother and Caiden’s, but not him or my father. They thought I was making itup. Mocking them both. Making light of the dead and my father’s suffering. They were furious. I’d told them before that I’d heard voices from the tower room, whispers of music from the sea, but they never believed me—they thought I was going mad. This just made it worse. Much worse.”
Talia put her hand on Wen’s arm. He shut his eyes, leaning against the wall.
“Is that when you told them youdidn’t want to go to University after all?” Talia asked softly.
He opened his eyes again, staring at her, tracing every line of her face. “Yes.”
“Why, Wen?”
“I stayed to change my fate.”
Understanding dawned on her. “You saw something in the mirror that made you stay.”
He looked back out the window.
