So....about that ending... [MAJOR SPOILERS WITHIN]

I think I'll start this thread off with a quote:

Skirting the trip wires with the flawless mental grace of a cardinal with lethal combat training, he continued toward his target. There were more trip wires, more traps, until he glimpsed the minds of the guards at last. But they didn’t see him. Cloaked in psychic invisibility, his shields impenetrable, he passed right by them. To find himself in front of the doors of a locked psychic vault disguised as dead space. It had been constructed by a telepath of considerable skill, its effect to create a prison around a particular mind, ensuring no trace of that mind leaked out into the Net.

Kaleb had waited too long to make a mistake now. He circled around the vault to check for hidden alarms that would alert the ones who monitored it. He found five. Dismantling them took four hours of unremitting concentration. Only when he was certain no other alarms remained, did he “break” the psychic seal of the vault and step inside. He stayed two seconds, just long enough to take a telepathic imprint of the mind within.

Dropping out of the Net after leaving the guarded and rigged area with the careful stealth he’d used to enter it, he teleported at almost the same instant, using the imprint of that imprisoned mind as a telekinetic lock. This was the rarest possible method of getting a lock, because to get it, you had to rip apart the shields of the mind being used as a lock, effectively laying the brain open—but the mind he’d seen in the vault had already been stripped, its shields destroyed. Completing the teleport, he found himself in a small white cell, the walls padded, the glare from the single ceiling lamp cutting. No windows. No natural light. He ignored the irrelevant factors. Only one thing mattered.

He'd found her.

So...how many people are we talking about?

One.
One female without shields and he takes the picture of her prison from her own mind

My God...this is the mark of a fantastic writer! She really has us pondering and debating and it is oh so fun! Love Nalini!!!!!

I go back and forth between one mind and two... the part that trips me up is "the mind he saw inside the vault"it can literally be taken as him speaking about the mind itself that he is in, or he can be talking about the mind he see's inside the mind he is in.

It is hard for me to settle on two because that just opens up another can of worms...why would the person he had been looking for's mind be known only to this "vault mind"...weird and unnecessary I think....I think he was describing the vault as the trappings that surrounded the mind he wanted to get a lock on, he got the lock on her mind and went to her. That makes more sense to me.

Also, why would 'her' padded cell be hidden in someone else's mind who was also super wired...

TheFLuff wrote:One.
One female without shields and he takes the picture of her prison from her own mind

yes...I think.

I would have to agree. Maybe someone could drop Nalini an email to confirm?

I did, *crosses fingers*

As if she would. She-devil that she is.. ;D

I thought so, too, though. That he found the person in the Net, took her location from her own mind, went back to his body and then teleported to her. He also said it was one of the rarest ways to teleport. To find a person by knowing her or his mind, instead of just how they *look* like. Before it was said that no one could teleport to Henry because of how different he looked.

paranormalmama wrote:
Also, why would 'her' padded cell be hidden in someone else's mind who was also super wired...

I'm pretty sure that the vault and the room are two separate things. The vault protects/imprisons the woman on the psychic plane and the room protects/imprisons her body. Kaleb broke into the vault so that he could get a mental lock on her body and teleport to it.

I agree. Also, due to the fact that she was imprisoned on the psychic plane makes me believe that she must be psy. I have heard some fans speculating that she could be the swan changeling, but there would be no need to imprison her mind if she were changeling or human. This woman is hooked up to the net, so she is still getting the biofeedback she needs, but she is hidden. No one can see her and she cant get out or view the psychic plane.

I think it's one person as well. I am going back to re-read that part today though.

I think it's Sahara NightStar and she's an F-Psy hooked into the Net so that whoever has had her trapped can use her foreseeing abilties for themselves. Anthony is gonna hit the ceiling when he finds out.

That he will. Anthony REALLY does not like having his own hurt or comprised. Does anyone else here get major alpha vibes from Anthony? Just by how fiercely he protects his PsyClan and looks after his people?

Yes, and I am interested to see what is going on between him and Nikita. As Kaleb noted, it was a little late for them to be having a political meeting.
Even among the Silent, there are feelings of propriety, what is mine is mine, what is mine I hold and protect.

If it is Sahara, I wonder if Kaleb will deliver her to Anthony who would likely bring her to Faith and Sascha to help heal her and then maybe secretly visit her? Or if he will try to heal her on his own? How could he still being Silent? So much to speculate about . . . he was obviously obsessed with finding her.

I dont see kaleb just handing her over to Anthony. In attempting to help her himself, he will have to go against his conditioning. And why is he so obsessed with her? Even if he can't feel, he percieves her as "belonging to him." He knows her better than anyone else.

I think if it was Sahara.. (And I actually always believed that and still hope she is), then Kaleb might have dealt differently with Anthony or thought something about it while he was in Anthony's presence. Sahara is related to him, wouldn't he.. Well, maybe he did. Whatevs.

The thing is if it's the swan changeling.. Who knows what Enrique did with her and how that changed her. Maybe he did torture her into the Net, managed it because she was younger than Brenna or submissive or just not a predator Changeling and her mind wasn't as protected or something. Maybe that's why she has no real shields, and that's why she is in that room. Because no one in the Net can ever know. But then, why would she still be imprisoned? How far ahead would Enrique have to pay the Guards and blah.. So..

After rereading the last scene over and over I'm convinced it's one person too.. and I'm leaning towards it being Sahara.. and that he needs her powers/skills ..he cant' have feelings for her because he's very Silent and if he did have feelings for her in the past then would it really matter when he's Silent now..it'd be a bit contradictory for him to want to find her because of past feelings..surely if he's very Silent he no longer has feelings at all so can't care about her because he doesn't feel those feelings he had in the past ..he wouldn't miss having those feelings either because that would mean he still feels and so he wouldn't be Silent. For me the only thing that makes sense is that he needs the psy female's powers.

Yes, Kaleb needs her for some reason but his personal symbol is a silver star and her necklace is a silver star and that just falls over the edge and makes it deeply personal. He may not recognize it, may think he's just after her for some specific skill she has, but there is something else as well going on. At least, that's what I think.

I also hope that it is Sahara. In support of that, this individual's shields have been destroyed and she has been contained somewhere where she cannot harm herself. In the case of most Psy abilities, remaining sane and in control of their abilities is everything. The two go hand in hand. If a Psy goes insane, they no longer have the means to effectively use their abilities and therefore there would not be any reason to hold them or keep them alive. The notable exception is the F Psy. A broken, caged F Psy can still forcast.

Lulu, I hope that's the case becuase that would be very romantic.
I wonder who took the woman in the first place, if it's Sahara then it's a safe bet that whoever took her wanted to use her F psy abilities for themselves.

I'm pretty sure that the vault and the room are two separate things. The vault protects/imprisons the woman on the psychic plane and the room protects/imprisons her body. Kaleb broke into the vault so that he could get a mental lock on her body and teleport to it.

Ok, so it could me one person using this theory ^

But given how Nalini has now hinted that the Ghost is Vasic and not Kaleb which is who she's led us to believe it was all this time.

I think it's too obvious that it's one person and Sahara.

As I've said I think Kaleb has been tracking the hidden psy in the net so that he can use their unshielded mind to find his true target.

I think that his true target is a changeling because of the following:
when he protected Sophia,
the breakdown when the swan changeling went missing when he was 16, the fact that he was Enrique's protege
and we know from what he did to Brenna that he was trying to combine changeling and psy abilities in some way.

Maybe this is something Kaleb wants to make right, that he tortured a changeling?

Maybe Brenna wasn't the first of Enrique's changeling subjects with psy like abilities?

Maybe he made Kaleb father a child to a changeling? (it was noted even silent psy have protective instincts towards their child)

Maybe he will be able to use this hybrid to control the net, create a super race or something?

If it is Sahara who is the broken psy and also who Kaleb has been searching for and it could be as the dates fit, and the whole star charm thing would make perfect sense.

It could be that she's the secret F-psy Shoshanna Scott is hinted to have.

Kaleb (I think and not the Ghost) says no one alive knows that he might be searching for this person, so Enrique probably did.

He also says they couldn't be put on a psychic leash, so this hints that the person isn't psy.

It's hinted that the Black Edge wolves will have some interest in helping Kaleb with what he is doing, but why?

I assume if this person is also the owner of Kaleb's Moscow home that he is caretaker for then Nikita would have discovered who it belonged to if it was a psy and Anthony would surely know if it had been Sahara's house wouldn't he?

A Sahara and Kaleb romance has never really made sense to me either because Kaleb is silent.

We know when the Ghost breaks his silence that the net will fall or something similar?

We know there is one person (in the net?)the Ghost doesn't want to die.
Could be Sahara could be Aden maybe?

The Ghost seems to be as unstable as Vasic seems in ToN.

Both Vasic and the Ghost have a lot of similarities personality wise that don't really fit with what we know about Kaleb.

Vasic worked with Anthony giving him a strong chance of having met Sahara.

I have lots of other thoughts about this/these theories, maybe someone should do a for and against 1 or two people, Sahara or not and also evidence for and against both Kaleb and Vasic being the Ghost.

We do know something bad happened to Bowen's adoptive sister Lily that was related to the psy also so maybe Kaleb is looking for her?

In conclusion.
I think Kaleb is searching for a changeling or hybrid something to do with is past with Enrique.

& needed the unshieled Psy's mind to find them.

The padded cell could be because this person was insane/damaged like Brenna would have been it it wasn't for Judd and that this person is contected to the BlackEdge wolves and through Alexei the SnowDancers also.

I think that Vasic could be the Ghost and he could be looking for Sahara, maybe I just don't know ARGH!

I think I'm going to go away and read all the Kaleb/Vasic/Ghost pieces again and see what I think then.

Tabitha, I'm now rethinking whothe Ghost could be. I though it was most likey Kaleb. But now that I think about it does sound like Vasic but I just don't get why he meets in secret with Judd as the Ghost then in secret with Aden and Judd as Vasic.
I do think that it's the psy in the room he's looking for an dnot a changeling..but I guess you never know with Nalini.
Ooh I think I commented on your ToN review on Goodreads..

Nalini answered the question of facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNaliniSingh

On the comments section to your right select 'see all'. Browse to the comment Sheena Bean-a-Brown posted and read Nalini's response.

Turns out that the mind he locked onto to port was "her" mind.

(Link: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNaliniSingh/posts/454704247891637)

@ Roxsan :-)

Roxsan, thanks for that link. Nice to have it confirmed it was just one mind lock and one transport to the same person.

I was pretty sure it was one person, but its nice to know for sure.
I was rereading a few parts and though I keep reminding myself that Kaleb is Silent, I noticed some things that lead me to believe this woman is important to him.
Page 144 "Their connections and abilities, added to that of the Arrows, brought him another step closer to taking total control of the Net. Of course, there had always been a second option when it came to the Net, one he hadn't yet discarded. It all depended on the outcome of his search."
So, ultimately what Kaleb decides to do about the Net, whatever his other option is, depended on whether he finds this woman.

Also, he considers this woman to be a weakness. So, whether he feels or not, she matters to him. Page 329 "His eye fell on the star. He halted his movements. And knew he had his own weakness, one Nikita would never guess at...."