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“I am needed at the school soon, but I wanted to give you this before I had to leave,” she said, not waiting for any kind of true greeting.

She pulled a small hand mirror, nearly identical to the one we’d found on the shore in Maine, from the bag. Its handle was thin with a small turquoise gemstone centered just beneath the oval glass that was without any scratch or knick or smudge. The metal frame was a deep black like the circlets, nearly iridescent in the unfiltered sunlight, twisted into swirls and whorls rather than any kind of fauna motif.

A wariness surged through me. The memory of the roaring wind and weightless sensation when we’d touched the last mirror was so visceral, my hands trembled. Phoebe frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice had gained a worried edge.

I shook my head and deflected the question with one of my own. “Is that the mirror for talking to my sister?”

Phoebe looked at me for a long minute, her lips bunching into a small purse, before she nodded once.

“It is.” She held the mirror to me, handle first. “Callum mentioned he explained vaguely how these work, that they are a similar enchantment to the messaging stones more people are familiar with.”

My hand shook as I carefully took the mirror, my fingers wrapping all the way around the handle in a death grip. I couldn’t help but hold my breath. Nothing happened. It felt like any other mirror I’d ever held.

“Messaging stones are more common because they take less magic to create them,” Phoebe explained. “These are much more complex. If your sister is attempting to contact you, the turquoise will turn bright white. You can activate the mirror then with the same motion you would a messaging stone. If you aren’t near the mirror, your sister will have the ability to leave you a short message that will store until you listen to it. Again, you’ll activate the mirror in the same manner.”

“And to c—” I switched the word at the last moment. “To contact her? It’s the same motion?”

Phoebe nodded and then shouldered the small bag, moving it to sit behind her hip.

“To deactivate it, to end your contact or your message, you twist in the opposite direction as when you activate it.” She demonstrated the movement.

“How long does a stored message last?”

She tilted her head. “For this specific set? Probably as long as needed. Decades, really, but I doubt you’d leave it for that long.”

Like a damn vintage voice recorder.

“Messaging stones are the same?”

Her eyes crinkled. “Very few, I think. They are not designed to be archives but functional means of communicating when tone and manner are important to the conversation. The temples have items that can act much more like an archive, though they are guarded heavily.”

“Thank you.”

She tipped her chin and then eased to her feet. Before I could figure out what to say, she left the garden, following one of the twisting paths to the main entrance of the home and slipping through the large door without the heavy wood making any sound at all. I tipped my head back, watching as the largest of the clouds moved just enough for the sun to peek out from behind it, bathing a bit of the garden in warm light, brighter than before. The small bit of snow and frost melted around me as the minutes passed.

With a deep breath, I held up the mirror, twisting it in my hand without activating the magic it contained. If not for the turquoise gemstone, it truly could be the twin to the one we found in Maine. Even knowing it wasn’t the same magic, that nothing so traumatic as that transportation spell was attached to this one, my breathing sped until it was nearly impossible to see straight. Damn, but the number of anxiety attacks I was having was out of control.

“Amethyst? Are you all right?” Callum’s voice was soft enough it seemed to blend in with the garden itself.

I swallowed heavily and tried to steady my breathing, tried to ground myself without dropping the mirror. I shook my head so quickly maybe it wouldn’t be noticed. But of course Callum did see it. He crouched in front of me, his fingers soft as they circled around my wrist in silent check-in. His hair was pulled back in a thick braid today, secured with a thin leather tie and falling over his right shoulder. His clothing was casual: the dark brown sweater of his I’d worn while we were traveling, the laces of the collar undone, revealing the top vines of the sternum tattoo I’d only seen once—that first morning we were here when I’d had the nightmare about the assault.

As asinine as it was, the small touch and the added intensity of his scent, even stronger than just what was inlaid into the sweater I was wearing, settled me after a few long moments. His fingers fell away.

“What’s wrong?”

I held up the mirror, and he frowned.

“Phoebe said she was going to talk to you before she left for the school,” he murmured. “Did she not explain how to use it?”

“She did.” God, my voice was still wavering. This was so embarrassing. I forced a deep breath, holding it until it actively burned before blowing it out. “It just looks really similar to the one that Sloane and I found on the beach.”

Understanding flashed through his eyes, and his shoulders dropped.

“I’m fine now,” I said, trying to regain at least some of my dignity. This man had seen me in my worst form for the last three weeks. It was a miracle he hadn’t decided to drop me at a secondary estate like some duke forced to marry in the 18th century. “It just took me by surprise.”

There was a long pause where he seemed to look straight through me, past those defenses I’d kept honed and high since I was old enough to make them. Then he adjusted until he sat beside me, those careful six inches still between us.