[It takes Myr a long, grinding moment to understand what he's being asked and relate it to his experience. Linden's explanation, well-meant, does not help him instantly parse it.

Because he hadn't gone looking. He didn't know they existed, wasn't even sure now they did exist as more than the first and most horrifying symptom of his mind coming apart entirely. Which (he struggles for a fingerhold, a toehold on an incline become increasingly slippery, the abyss yawning wide at his back, his consciousness of it as acute as it is of his pulse in his ears,) perhaps lent some credence to the idea they did exist, somewhere and somehow, because they were so far beyond his own imagining.

Which meant they could come back. Or he could go looking, if he wanted, if he wished so dearly to lose his mind entirely. Maybe this time he'd cut his own throat and that would be kinder, far kinder...]

I didn't know, [all in a rush,] I didn't know they existed. I didn't know they could, I didn't go looking, Maker, I wasn't like that. [True and not; curiosity had led him to worse places. But he could not be seen to have sought them, not when a Templar with a blade waited for mages with that kind of incaution.]

I didn't want to know--Linden, [his voice pitches up, suddenly, distressed and strained,]

I can't, I c--can't do this. [I want so dearly to tell someone and I trust you to hear it, I do, but I'm drowning, Maker save me; I'm drowning and this is holding my head beneath the waves.]