Talk:The Elementalists, Book 1 Choices/@comment-35316302-20190216013258/@comment-35316302-20190308015409

@Circy On my second play through I am able to confirm a few things for you on a timeline (my assumptions in bullet apparently):

1. Atlas tried to send both of MC and themselves to Penderghast, but MC goes and they get stuck in the mirror dimension.


 * First shadow monster had been behind you at Heartfeld, hence the reason Atlas pulled MC through the mirror in such a risky fashion. It followed MC through and this was the reason Atlas got trapped and MC ended up missing the mark and coming through the reflection in the water. This is also why Shreya has trouble getting through.

2. Swan sees MC and immediately enrolls MC after realizing that there must be a danger (and apparently also speaks to MC's adoptive parents).


 * There's only minutes left before the wards go back up when MC defeats the first shadow monster, but too late, Raife now knows for certain where MC is.

3. MC gets into a fight with Becket.

4. MC and Beckett are not kicked out of school (because the 'compelling case' for MC is Swan trying to protect MC from Raife).

5. Dean discovers 'young girl' is kidnapped.


 * Dean is not only upset about the situation with Becket, she's also upset that she cannot kick MC out plus the fact that MC was not expected to be there as a student. A tuneless child, who then apparently has the highest potential the school has ever had. Completely disrupting her "perfect order". When she lowers the wards as she returns to the school, unbeknownst to her (not that it mattered) the second shadow monster followed her through. Considering how Becket didn't start manipulating the wards until after the second shadow monster, that's the only timing in which a ward may have been lowered.
 * My best guess is that the dean is confronted by Raife as MC is with Aster just before the Theif tryouts (hence her branching). The dean returning during the tryouts would also explain why/how Aster reaches out for MC in the reflection in the water during tryouts.

I also had the idea... What if the image isn't an aunt or something as I suggested before, but the MC's mother? When she and the MC's father went to confront Raife she escaped but severely injured and with no memory, rescued by her mother the dean. She remains attunless and in a wheel chair, and possibly cared for by a caregiver (whom let's be honest, the dean wouldn't be worried about in the moment she found out her daughter is kidnapped). I know, I know, I'm harping on the family idea and the tragic idea that MC's grandmother unknowingly was going to sacrifice her own grandchildren; but it makes sense to me. Expecially if the dean and her daughter were estranged before the confrontation happened so she wouldn't know about the grandchildren. Plus, since MC's parents are just never heard from again but not found dead, there is the realm of possibility.