Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
He stood at the water’s edge and looked at his reflection. It stared back. Perfect synchronization. But when he dropped a quarter into the Mississippi, the reflection showed it hitting the surface half a second before the real coin made contact. Ripples began to spread in the mirrored water while the actual quarter still fell through air.
Not good.
Footsteps approached from the west—two sets, measured and purposeful. He didn’t turn.
“You see it too.” Roxy’s voice came from his left. She stopped beside him, boots scuffing the pavement. “Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”
“You’re not.” Bastien straightened and turned to face her.
Roxy Boudreaux moved like what she was—predator and protector both. She covered the distance from parking area to levee edge with the efficient grace of someone who’d spent thirty-seven years learning exactly how much space her body occupied and how to use it. Built solid, just under six feet, with dark brown hair pulled back in a braid that hung between her shoulder blades. She wore canvas work pants and a thermal shirt despite the October heat, both showing wear. Her hands carried scars across the knuckles—old wounds from fights that had required human form and human fists. Pack Beta of the Crescent Moon, with a direct stare that didn’t waste time on bullshit.
She looked tired. More than tired—wrung out in a way that likely came from staying awake all night making sure no one died.
“Thank you for coming.” She stopped three feet away, respecting the space between them. Pack members got closer. Everyone else kept distance. “I wasn’t sure you’d pick up.”
“You don’t call unless it’s serious.”
“It’s serious.” She pulled a small notebook from her back pocket and flipped it open. “Gabriel Crowley transformed at 7:43 p.m. last night. Lunar trigger, clean shift, no complications. He was running perimeter checks near the Warehouse District when he caught his reflection in a loading dock window.” She glanced at her notes. “Reflection showed him still human. Clothes, posture, everything. Lasted five seconds before it caught up and matched his wolf form.”
“Did he feel anything unusual during the shift?”
“No. Said it was standard. The delay only affected what he saw, not what he experienced.” She turned a page. “Marie Thibault shifted at 8:51. Same location, different window. Her reflection lag lasted fifteen seconds. She watched herself transform twice—once in real time, once in the glass running fifteen seconds behind.”
Bastien processed her words. The lag was increasing. Exponential progression. “And the third?”
“Connor Boudreaux. My cousin.” Her voice stayed level, professional, but something in her jaw had gone rigid. “Transformed at midnight by the lake. His reflection moved independently for almost thirty seconds. Different posture, different expression. When Connor sat, his reflection stayed standing. When Connor looked west, his reflection looked east. Then it smiled at him.”
“Connor wasn’t smiling.”
“He was terrified.” She closed the notebook and pocketed it. “He’s twenty-two. This was supposed to be a routine patrol. Now he’s locked in a safe house afraid to look at standing water.”
Bastien walked to the water’s edge and crouched. The river moved slow below, reflecting morning light in fragments that shifted too fast to track individual patterns. He pressed his palm to the concrete. Cool. Solid. Real. The reflection of his hand appeared half a second after contact.
“Have any of them shown any other strange symptoms? Disorientation? Memory gaps?”
“No. Just the reflection problems.” Roxy crouched beside him, staring at the water. “But it’s not just transformations. I tested it this morning. Stood in front of my bathroom mirror and waved. My reflection waved three seconds late. Then it waved again when I’d stopped moving.”
“It repeated the gesture?”
“Twice. Like it was practicing.” She looked at him. “Bastien, what the hell is this?”
He could tell her it was mirror contamination from a broken relic. He could explain temporal echoing and reflective memory. He could describe how the Shadowglass Mirror had fractured and its pieces were teaching every reflective surface in the city to operate outside normal physical law.
But she’d asked a simpler question. What the hell is this?
“Mirror Fever,” he said. “Relic contamination spreading through any surface that can hold an image.”
“Can you stop it?”
“I’m working on it.”
“That’s not a yes.”
“No.” He stood and pulled a small leather pouch from his coat pocket. “It’s not.”
She stood with him, watching as he opened the pouch. Inside was silver powder, ground fine enough to dissolve on contact with water. He pinched a measure between thumb and forefinger and scattered it across the river’s surface.
The powder floated for three seconds. Then it began to glow—pale blue, the color of winter ice. The glow spread where the particles clustered, forming patterns that shifted and reformed too quickly to follow individual shapes. Geometric configurations that looked almost intentional.
“What are you doing?” Roxy asked.
“Testing for resonance. Silver reacts to the boundary between here and the Elsewhere. When that boundary thins, you get this.” He gestured at the glowing patterns. “The stronger the glow, the worse the contamination.”