"What? How can that be?" Noble could not process her words.
"Are you sure?" Aether furrowed his brow. "She looked very much alive back there."
"I was dropped into this Nightmare just after her funeral. From what I understand, to obtain information about Mirage's relics, the eldest sister was trapped on a distant island guarded by a fearsome monster. Through cunning and heroism, they smuggled out a messenger with a map and a way to decipher it."
"That matches what Syrce told me when we first met. But she had been traveling for at least a year to gather all the pieces. You said the funeral was a couple of weeks ago?" Noble worked through the timeline in her head.
"Due to my position, I was afraid to ask too many questions," Helie wrung her hands. "But it seems that a ghostly ship pulled into the harbor before disappearing back into the sweet mist of the sea. Maelys and her crew's bodies were abandoned on the shore along with a tentacle of a monstrous beast. No one was sure if this was a kindness or a warning. Since then, no one has gone near the beach. That may also be why no one will speak her name."
"Why didn't you mention this before?" Roan held his head.
Helie pointed at the other woman.
"Bel knew…or at least she told me she did."
"I most certainly did not!" Noble frowned. Why would Helie blame her?!
The brunette nodded. "It was in the letter that Lyra sent to Syrce. You said Syrce told you what was inside."
"Oh…oh!" Noble felt some missing pieces fall into place. "Syrce told me that Lyra was deceived and that she would prove her wrong once Maelys arrived. I assumed that Maelys had some evidence to convince Lyra. I had no idea that Maelys was the evidence. Ah, I wish I had known sooner!"
Child of Promise shook her head.
"We all do," Roan sighed. "But what's done is done."
Aether took a deep breath. "So…the mirror brings people back from the dead?"
"Is that even possible?!" Helie's wide eyes reflected the fear welling up in her heart. "How does one fight someone already dead?"
They couldn't. That was a losing game no matter which way they looked at it. This Nightmare had to have a solution where they survived–unless they had passed the point of no return by completing the mirror. However, Noble did not think this was so.
As she reviewed all the information in a blink, one thing stood out to her.
"Drusus…"
"What about him?" Roan could practically see the woman's wheels turning in her head.
Noble rubbed her forehead. "Drusus wasn't dead when we sent him to the seaside. He was injured."
"He could have died after Helie last saw him. It would explain why Syrce couldn't bring through Orrin. It only revives people who have passed on?" Roan pulled at his beard as he thought.
"That is an interesting thought. But it doesn't make sense. This version of Drusus—the one here—is not only fully healed of his injury, but he seems to have no memory of the past. He didn't even recognize me..."
"If the mirror isn't bringing back the dead, then what are you suggesting…" Roan frowned.
"That isn't Drusus at all. Just like the Flint with Syrce isn't Flint. It isn't an Awakened pretending to be Flint at all." Noble felt the threads begin to weave together.
"He's a copy? But how?" Helie blinked in disbelief.
"Not a copy, at least not an exact one."
Noble thought back to the Flint she had seen. His emotions had matched close enough to fool her, but something else had seemed off. His face had seemed inherently wrong.
That's when it hit her like a train. The answer had been staring back at her all along.
"The scar!"
Hadn't Flint pointed out in the maze that he was handsome because of the scar over his left eye? Yet the man who left to go with Syrce clearly had the same mark over his right eye.
"Not a copy…" she repeated more confidently. "A reflection! Think about it. Syrce made us think the reflections in the mirror were just flights of fancy to entertain Mirage, but what if they weren't? What if they were beings of another Realm?"
"A mirror Realm?" Aether's polite expression faltered.
"It makes sense, doesn't it? They couldn't reflect faces they hadn't seen. That is why our loved ones could not be perfectly mirrored in our happy thoughts. If I had to guess, they must be only able to collect faces of those in or near Bastion. That would explain why only some of Maelys's men returned. Roan's idea about only reflecting the dead is interesting, but I think it is unfounded. Looking back, I think we interacted with this second Flint this afternoon."
"I knew it!" Aether exclaimed before catching himself. He coughed. "I mean, of course that level of politeness could never come from the Flint we knew."
Noble nodded. "That logic would also explain why Syrce could call out Drusus but not Orrin. Drusus was in Bastion as a soldier, but the Shieldbearer avoided the capital like the plague!"
Roan chewed on the idea for a moment. He shut his eyes.
"So when people are coming through the mirror, they are actually the reflections of people exiting from the mirror realm."
"Maelys is acting differently from the person Syrce knew because she is different. Just like this copy of Basrion, she is a fake!" Noble felt like the blinds had been taken from her eyes.
This was the place where Mirage had lived. What else was a mirage but a delusion and a fantasy?
"Why?" Helie furrowed her brow.
Child of Promise sighed. "From what I have seen, the Daemon of Imagination was lonely. Perhaps she made the copies to feel less isolated."
"That's nice, but I don't mean why were they made, I mean why were they let out? Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure Syrce collected the pieces of the mirror."
The real Maelys may have sent the original clues and map, but there was someone else who had been pulling the strings since then.
The four Masters looked at each other as the answer came to them all at once.
"The advisor!"
Was the man aware of the chaos he had unleashed? If he was, he didn't care. He wanted control, and the best way to do that was to have Syrce's undivided attention.
"He used Maelys's jealousy to force me to leave. When I wouldn't, he helped her devise a way to kill me. I thought it was a rash move, because Syrce would surely blame Mae for my death, but now I know better. They didn't just want me gone. They wanted to replace me."
Noble knew as soon as she said it that it was true. If Mae had managed to chase her off, then a reflection would have easily been able to reappear in order to worm her way into Syrce's affections. Noble staying and influencing the commander was a problem that needed to be solved, and now they had succeeded.
If only Flint hadn't died for them to make the discovery!
"It seems Syrce saying that she missed Cook was enough to bring her copy through the mirror. I wonder how many more have come through without her knowledge?" Noble had heard Syrce mention it, but so had Mae and the rest of the table of her men. It was not a coincidence that "Cook" showed up a short while later near where the Commander was staying.
"Do you think that they want to replace everyone? That's a truly terrifying thought." Aether shook his head slowly.
"I just thought of a little worse one," Helie took a step back, her hand coming to rest on the string of her bow. "What if Flint wasn't the first one replaced?"
The other Masters looked at each other.
If that was true, they had a big problem.