Chapter 7

Brindle and Tuppence were in a tree overlooking the lake, and they were arguing — the kind of argument that makes leaves tremble and birds decide to be somewhere else.

“What do you mean you want to go back?” Brindle’s tail lashed so hard the branch rattled. “That human nearly set you on fire!”

“It was the communicator,” Tuppence said, whiskers quivering with the effort of being reasonable. “It sparked.”

“The what-now?” Brindle’s ears flattened.

“It’s this thing!” Tuppence bounced on the branch, words tumbling out in a rush. “It goes on my back and lets me talk to humans — and have them listen! I made him give me an acorn! He had a whole pile of them!”

Brindle blinked, claws scraping bark. “Is that where you’ve been getting all these acorns? You’ve been interacting with humans?”

“One human,” Tuppence said quickly. Her tail curled and uncurlled behind her. “Until today. Then there were more.”

“Tuppence!” Brindle’s fur puffed so wide she looked like a thistle in mid-panic.

“I know! And I was an idiot — I left them all behind. The whole pile!” Tuppence pressed her paws to her cheeks in despair.

Brindle groaned, slapping her tail for emphasis. “Stay away from humans. They’re big and clumsy, and some of them are cruel, and you never know which ones until it’s too late.”

“They’re not cruel — not these ones,” Tuppence protested, leaning forward with bright, reckless eyes. “They wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes,” Brindle said, nose twitching, “so badly that they set you on fire.”

Tuppence petted her singed tail and tried to look philosophical. “Only a little bit. But it was fun — until the end. I like humans. They build things.”

“They also tear down things,” Brindle muttered darkly. “Faster than we can climb out of the way.”

Tuppence sighed. Her whiskers drooped. The breeze from the lake carried a sour, metallic scent that made them both wrinkle their noses. “Something’s down there,” she whispered. “It wants... something.”

Brindle followed her gaze, ears tilted forward, tail gone perfectly still. “I’ve noticed,” she said quietly. “That’s why I keep saying we need to get out of here. Everyone’s planning to leave.”

A single leaf fell between them, spinning slowly to the water below. For once, neither squirrel chased it.

***

Lorien found a comfy chair not far from Mira and Ned. After Professor Caldis had left, Mira had filled Ned in on finding the book, and then she'd filled both Ned and Lorien in on her fear of the strength of the book's hold over her and her trip to the library with Professor Caldis. 

She'd shot guilty glances over to Lorien a few times as she spoke. Lorien wasn't angry at her for holding back the book. He would probably have done the same thing, except he would have told her and let her be annoyed with him. But Mira avoided confrontation like the plague. That's why she was friendly to everyone and was even passingly polite to Kerys.

Aside from expressing interest in reading the book, Ned was fully focused on fixing his squirrel communicator. As he and Mira continued to work on it, they had  growing audience, with kids calling out suggestions. 

The pull to read the book was less intense, probably because Lorien didn't have to fight the urge anymore. But he opened up where he'd left off, at the end of the first canto. It was harder to immerse himself in the words, so he started over from the beginning. "Oh, right," he muttered. "Whispers and weatherlight." He shook his head. It made more sense that "our" professor wasn't the one who'd written the book. He couldn't even imagine a Professor Caldus who would have. 

That made it even more interesting, so he focused on moving past the embarrassing first line, and by the time he'd made it to the fourth Canto, he was fully immersed in the story.

The castle no longer slept.

In the days following the bell’s chime, everything seemed touched by a subtle unrest. Mirrors clouded over without reason; portraits whispered backwards; stairways ended where they had not begun. The students grew uneasy, though few could name why. Those who walked the lake path at dusk returned pale and wordless, their eyes reflecting water where there should have been sky.

Alaric alone understood. He felt it in the stones — the slow stirring of memory beneath the floors, the ancient pact unraveling like silk. The Lady was waking.

At first, her presence came as light: a shimmer across polished floors, a ripple on glass. Then, one night, as he passed through the east corridor — a place long sealed for “structural instability” — the torches dimmed, and he saw her reflection moving beside his own, though she was not there.

“Why show yourself only in mirrors?” he asked the silence.

And the silence answered — through her.

“Because the mirror is the only surface that remembers both sides.”

He pushed open the heavy oak door at the corridor’s end. Inside was a circular chamber lined entirely with mirrors — tall, silvered, ancient. Dust swirled like breath. The air smelled of rain and iron.

This was the Mirror Chamber, once used by the founders to test illusions and self-divisions — a room where the soul could meet its echo.

He stepped inside. The door shut itself behind him.

Dozens of reflections stared back — all Alaric, but not all alike. Some older, some hollow-eyed, some with faces that bore faint resemblances to others he could not name.

“Which of these is me?” he murmured.

“Each,” came her voice, everywhere and nowhere. “And none.”

She appeared within the mirrors — in all of them. In some, her hand brushed his shoulder; in others, she stood behind him, eyes closed as if dreaming him into being.

“You are part of the castle now,” she said. “It listens through you.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the founders shaped me, they built their image into my heart — all that they feared and all that they desired. When you found my name, you spoke their spell anew. You are the mirror they left behind.”

He pressed his palm to the nearest surface. It felt warm, as though blood pulsed beneath the glass.

“What happens to me?”

Her reflection smiled — tenderly, mournfully.

“You remember too much.”

Then she reached through. The mirror gave way like water, her hand cool and soft as moonlit silk. When she touched him, every reflection flickered — and for a moment, the chamber filled with scenes not of glass, but of history:

Four figures beside a newborn lake, binding light into form. The Lady’s creation — her first breath, her wonder, her sorrow. The sealing of her voice beneath the surface. The centuries of silence.

And then Alaric — his own face, his own longing — standing on the edge of that same lake, as though he had always been meant to find her.

When the vision faded, he was alone again. But the mirrors no longer showed him at all. They showed only the Lady, standing where he had stood, her hand still pressed to the glass.

Outside, the castle stirred — windows rattling, staircases shifting in pain or remembrance. Somewhere deep below, the water began to rise.

Lorien was vaguely aware that someone was trying to get his attention, but it could wait. He was Alaric, falling in love with a woman who had been made, not born.

And then he wasn't. It took a moment for him to become aware of his surroundings, to be Lorien again, and when he looked up, he found the figure of Headmistress Enath looming over him, a fierce frown making her even more formidable than usual. 

The sounds of the room resumed, but they were muted by the presence of authority. The kids surrounding Mira and Ned had scattered. Lorien blinked up at the Headmistress. He had never been the focus of her famous glare, and he never wanted to be again. He felt pinned to the chair. His cheeks flushed with panic and embarrassment. He noticed that she was holding the book, and he had to fight not to snatch it back and keep reading.

The Headmistress' face softened toward him, holding up the book. "We," she said, the emphasis indicating Professor was the lone member of the word, "thought that we had disabled the compulsion that the book emanates."

Lorien couldn't help but feel bad for Professor Caldus. He had a feeling the Headmistress planned to strip the man's skin off as soon as they were alone. "It was disabled," he said, glancing between the two. He was still shaken. "Um. The compulsion was gone when I held the book, but it came back as I read."

The headmistress pursed her lips and tilted her head back, clearly holding back the wrath she was feeling toward Professor Caldus. She took a deep breath and looked around, encompassing Mira and Ned who had come over to see what was going on. She held back the full force of her glare, and said calmly, but with her eyes closed, "The mechanism that compels one to open the book and read it was disabled. But the words themselves were infused with aetheric compulsion."

She opened her eyes and looked at Lorien, curiously. That was almost more disconcerting than her anger. "What had you planned to do with the book once you'd finished reading it?"

Lorien thought. He hadn't had a plan while he'd been reading, but now he felt the need to read it again, and then he probably would have given it to Ned, as requested. He said as much, and the Headmistress looked at Professor Caldus again, her expression thoughtful, less angry. She nodded. "Part of the compulsion is to share the story."

She looked back at Lorien, apologetically, this time. "I'm going to have to confiscate this," she said. "Examine it mysel- again, and see if I can disable the compulsion or not. If I can't, I'll determine whether or not it's benign. If it is, I'll return it to you," she said.

Lorien nodded. He was too intimidated by the headmistress to argue, but he was still fighting the compulsion to snatch the book from her. However, recognizing his need to read the story was a compulsion that came from outside of his own mind helped him fight it.