But not Leo.
The image of the tarasque terrified him then and now.
The poison breath,he realized.
He stripped the sheets from the bed and stuffed them under the doorframe and into the keyhole, his hands shaking.
Could it hear him? Could it hear the locket?
Did it know he was here?
In the hall, the tarasque roared. Leo heard it gallop up and down the corridor, scratching and banging at the doors.
Finally, it reached his.
It crashed into the door.
Once. Twice. Again and again.
Leo backed away as silently as he could, reaching behind him until his collision with a side table nearly gave him a heart attack.
And then, just as quickly as the tarasque had come, it left.
Leo collapsed onto the bare mattress. What the hell was happening here?
When his nerves had calmed enough to allow him to sit up, he emptied the bag onto the bed and raised the magimeter to the locket.
The reading was off the scale.
He pointed to each object in turn. Low readings on everything else except for the ring, which swung the needle tothe high end of the meter so quickly, Leo was afraid it would break it.
He took out the pen to mark it down, but then he realized the problem:
He had left the journal in the dining hall.
It took Leo the better part of the day to work up the nerve to return for the journal.
The tarasque hadn’t been back, although he’d heard the whispering again a couple of times.
Leo didn’t understand it, but it seemed the whispering woman and the tarasque couldn’t sense him in this room. Were they one and the same? He wasn’t sure. The tarasque had come after the whispering began, but the whispering had happened on its own as well.
Leo kicked himself for leaving the journal. Although he supposed he’d need to return to the dining hall at some point to eat, regardless.
He went into the bathroom to have a sip of water from the sink. Leo had never been in Ceri’s version of the room, but he imagined the razor and beard shavings in the sink were unlikely to be hers.
He reached for the towel to dry his hands, and when he turned back, there she was in the looking glass.
“Ceri?” he called, looking around the room in confusion.
She was gone.
But she was just there. He had seen her. He was certain it was her. Perhaps this room was a connection of some kind between his world and hers, just like the journal was.
He tried scratching a message onto the wall with his pen.
It’s Leo. I’m here.
“Ceri, I’m here. Can you hear me?”
