The door shut behind Viren with a resounding thud, and he locked it behind him. He took a deep breath before he peeled the sheet off the mirror Callum had just been looking at before casting the fabric onto the floor.

"I hope you're planning on being more cooperative now," Viren said.

In the wardrobe, Callum and Ezran looked at each other, stunned that Viren knew they were there. Despite their terror, they kept their mouths shut, hoping he wouldn't find them.

Viren wasn't speaking with the princes, though. The mage blew out the candle, and the room was engulfed in shadow. For a moment, nothing happened, but before long, the mirror illuminated, revealing something inside.

Callum and Ezran couldn't see what was inside, but Viren could, and his tone implied that the mirror's contents made him incredibly smug.

"Are you ready to talk now?"

Though Callum and Ezran couldn't hear who Viren was talking to, they knew the voice that answered.

It was Rayla.

"It doesn't matter how much you hurt me. I don't know anything," she snarled.

Ezran and Callum looked at each other, confirming that they both heard her. Callum then put a finger to his mouth, indicating that they needed to stay quiet. Ezran nodded to show he understood

"You're trying my patience, elf," Viren snarled.

"And your trying mine!" Rayla snapped back. "I already told you, I don't know anything!"

"And you're standing by the story where you don't know me?"

"Trust me, if I'd ever had the displeasure of meeting ya, I'd remember," Rayla snarled.

Ezran looked back at Callum, who looked equally confused by this. Rayla had met Viren, and as she had said, it was unlikely that the meeting had been one that she would forget. Unless...

Callum didn't have a chance to complete his thought, as Bait unleashed an ungodly massive belch.

Viren turned and fixed the wardrobe with a glare. Callum didn't dare speak, but he had a series of thoughts. Half of them were a series of curse words; the other half was that he was going to die, and Viren was going to be the one to kill him. Ezran was covering Bait's mouth, but it was too late for that. Meanwhile, Callum was looking for anything he could use to fend Viren off. It seemed futile, though, but he grabbed the first thing solid his hands fell on.

Callum pulled Ezran to the back of the wardrobe, but there was no escape. The doors opened, and the glow coming off the mirror outlined Viren's silhouette.

"I should have known," Viren grumbled. "Get out of there."

Callum didn't obey but threw his quarry at Viren, who dodged it, the item zipping past him and striking something on the other side of the room with a resounding crack.

Ezran and Callum shut their eyes right as Bait started to grumble before he emitted a blinding flash that sent Viren reeling back. Callum rushed out of the wardrobe and sent some of the bottles above crashing onto the stone floor.

Before the princes could process what had happened, something rushed out of the bottles, like a gale of wind. Ezran and Callum both understood everything then, and their memories returned in a fell swoop.

"What did you do to me?" Callum asked. He remembered, but it was was still fuzzy. The last thing he recalled was being at Viren's knees and something happening to him, and it felt like all the air had been pulled from his lungs before the world went black. What came next was just a dream. The dream he'd woken up from that morning.

Viren laughed at this. "Don't you remember?"

The dark mage was lifting his staff to do a spell, but before he could do the spell, the glass of the mirror shattered, and the room went dark.

So this is about half of what I was planning on writing for this chapter, but I've had a very long holiday and this felt like an evil place for a cliffhanger.