“Do you remember what you said?” Riley asked her.
“Yes. About a mirror, about the truth in it. I’m not sure what it means.”
“We should go in,” Annika decided. “Out of the sun.”
Yes, Sasha thought. She’d get out of her wet bathing suit, take a moment or two to settle. “One good thing.” She rolled her shoulders before wrapping herself in a towel. “I don’t ache anymore.”
Though she brushed off the offers to help her change, she realized they’d gone straight to Bran when he walked in before she’d buttoned up a dry shirt.
“Let me look at you.”
“I’m all right. They didn’t have to interrupt you for this.”
He simply put his hands on her shoulders, took a long study of her face. “No headache?”
“No. I didn’t try to block it. It comes on in a wave—and it leaves me a little shaky, but it didn’t hurt. You were right about that.”
“Describe what happened.”
“Riley and I were in the hot tub—Annika put your potion in the water. Wonderful, by the way. I was relaxed, and we were just talking about . . .” She adjusted here. She certainly wasn’t going to bring up Riley’s suggestion he’d come live with her in North Carolina.
“Talking about what?”
“How I knew myself better since all this started, and knew what it was to be part of something. Then it was that wave again. It’s like being pulled by an undertow. But this time, I tried to go with it instead of fighting to stay up.”
“What did you see?”
“I—” She broke off at the knock on her door.
“Are you okay in there?” Sawyer called out.
“Yes. I’m coming down. I need to organize my thoughts,” she said to Bran.
“All right.” He ran his hand over her damp hair. “We’ll go down.”
They’d already gathered on the terrace, so she sat, took a breath. “I’m sorry because I don’t really understand what I meant, what I saw. It might have been a room, it might have been a cave. Everything was gold and silver and shining. Like a really elegant house of mirrors. It was like I was standing there in it, but I couldn’t see myself. Then I picked up a mirror—but it wasn’t my hand. I think it was hers. Nerezza. She picked up this jeweled mirror, but when she looked in it, what looked back was not just old. Ancient. Gray and withered. Sunken eyes, thin gray hair. Hardly more than a skull. Nothing else reflected. The glass around that image was pure black.
“The glass shattered, and that face was in all the shards, hundreds of shards. And the shards went to smoke, and it all went dark.”
“You said the mirror sees the truth,” Riley reminded her.
“I know.”
“An allegory?” Sawyer suggested. “She’s ancient, being a god—but the mirror sees her soul or heart or whatever you want to call it as withered and dark?”
“We don’t need a seer to know that,” Doyle pointed out. “Maybe she’s got a Dorian Gray thing going.”
Struck, Riley pointed a finger at him. “And the mirror reflects what she really is. It ages, shows her sins and all that while she stays young and beautiful.”
“It’s a theory.”
“A good one. If there actually is a mirror, and we destroyed it—there lies her end.”
“I don’t know. What I saw . . . She destroyed the mirror. She’d hardly end herself.”
“Another mirror, another glass,” Bran suggested.
“I’ll do some digging on it.” Riley picked up her margarita again. “You said only the stars could change it. We can speculate that’s another reason she wants them so bad. There’s a way to end her—not just stop her, but end her. And if she gets the stars, the way’s done.”
“I’ll do some checking on mirror spells,” Bran added. “The stars remain first priority. Have you two chosen where we dive tomorrow?”
Doyle nodded. “We mapped out routes to three caves. We should be able to do all three, but we can hit two for certain. You’ll want to get a meal in before sunset,” he said to Riley, “so—”
“Before we get into that,” Sawyer interrupted. “And whatever else is on today’s agenda, I’ve got something I need to explain. I needed to talk to my family first. My grandfather especially.”
“Regarding the compass,” Bran said.
“Yeah, that. There’s a little more to it.” He took it out of his pocket. “Using it with a map can show you where you should go, for what you need or want. But it can do more than show you. Even without a map.”