Leo reached for the lamp beside the bed, but instead he found a candlestick. He was alone in the room.
The tarasque had gone.
Leo was sad to see it go, but clearly something had happened. He checked the objects: both the ring and locket were missing.
Then he checked the journal.
I have some news: we think we know what’s happening to you, at least some of it. It’s the same thing that happened to Idris and his friends last night. We don’t know what each object does, but we do know that the doll is tied to a child that will cause choking. It’s the most dangerous after the ring, but Idris thinks we can help you decurse it. He’s trying to find a way to do it without magic, unless you know how to use magic and just never told us?
There was also a fire (the lighter, we’re guessing), and the dagger must have caused a trail of blood. Neither of those things had an actual impact on our world, but we have no idea what they will do in yours. It’s less clear what the locket and the horn do, but we’re still trying to figure it out.
It’s getting late here. I hope the nightmare works and I see you tomorrow. If not, we’ll find a way.
All of that is deeply alarming.
I’m still here, but the tarasque, ring, and locket are gone. Check the lab. Hopefully the tarasque has not come, but if it has and it’s no longer tame, I used water to tame it.
The room is different. The beds have changed, and it seems like the ‘lectrics are gone. I don’t see any lamps or outlets of any kind.
I think I may have gone even further back.
The lighter is reading higher than the other objects now. Thoughts on whether that’s related to the time shift?
I’m going to explore today. If the ring was causing the danger, and it’s gone now, I’m hoping I’ll be in a better position to do something about my predicament.
P.S. It was hard not to dream about you last night.
Leo closed the journal. He hadn’t made it back, but he had proved at least one thing: he had some power to affect this world.
There were strings here to be pulled on.
All he had to do was find the right one.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE MAN IN THE MIRROR
Ceri
Ceri was exhausted. She’d gone from hauling people back and forth across the river to frantically pouring over books in the library with the others, trying to find something to make sense of the world Leo described, and all of it on only a few hours of sleep.
The best they could come up with for a locket that caused a woman to whisper for people to come closer was some sort of scorned lover situation. Because Rinka had turned from it when she encountered the same thing, they couldn’t know what she would do if she got ahold of Leo.
Ceri guessed it was nothing good.
She wrote to him what she knew and took a nice, hot bath. The ‘lectrics had finally come back.
She crawled into bed and was fast asleep before she even thought to check the mirror.
When she woke, she checked the journal and was disappointed to see his message.
Not that she didn’t want to hear from him. She’d just been hoping he would be back here instead.
She dressed in the bathroom, pulling on another jumper and tidying her hair in the mirror.
Leo was there.
Ceri froze. She was terrified if she turned around, he would vanish.
