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)
The powder blazed brighter.
“That’s bad,” Roxy said.
“That’s very bad.” He stood and brushed his hands clean. The silver residue clung to his fingers, still glowing faint blue. “Same signature as the mirror shard from the auction house. The contamination’s spreading,” he muttered to himself.
Roxy crossed her arms. “How far?”
“Your pack’s catching it. That’s far enough.” He gestured toward the river. “Mirror Fever doesn’t travel through air or water. It spreads through any surface that can hold an image. This is one of the biggest in the city.”
“So every shifter who’s looked at the water—”
“Is at risk.” Bastien turned his back to the river and scanned the opposite bank. Lights from the Quarter glittered in the distance, doubled and tripled below. “How many in your pack?”
“Forty-three.”
“Quarantine everyone who’s shown symptoms. No mirrors, no windows, no standing water. Rooms with matte walls if you can manage it.”
Roxy’s arms stayed crossed. “You’re talking about caging them.”
“I’m talking about keeping them alive.” He met her eyes. “Mirror Fever moves in stages. First the reflections go wrong. Then the victim starts seeing themselves in places they’ve never been. Eventually they step through—into the Elsewhere—and they don’t come back.”
“Step through where?”
“The Shadowglass Mirror.”
Roxy said nothing for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had dropped lower. “The pack elders told stories about that thing. I thought it was just a cautionary tale to get us to eat our vegetables and whatnot.”
Bastien tried to grin at the light joke, but the situation was serious. “It was real. The Lacroix family owned it until it cracked during a summoning in 1847. The Archives sealed the fragments.” Bastien looked back at the water. “Someone broke the seals.” Some of this was fact he’d surmised from the things he and Delphine had learned, but some was just now starting to add up as he talked it out and speculated how the things they knew fell into place.
“And you think it’s your fault.”
He didn’t answer, nor did he look at her. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.
Footsteps approached from behind—lighter than Roxy’s, quicker. A third person coming up the levee access at a jog. Bastien turned.
Lark Rousseau emerged from the morning shadows wearing running shoes and a windbreaker. Early twenties, built lean and angular, with black hair that fell past their jaw and dark eyes that registered everything in a single sweep. They ran pack security—perimeter checks, intelligence gathering, the kind of work that required noticing details before details became problems.
They stopped three paces from Roxy and nodded to Bastien. Professional acknowledgment, nothing more. Lark didn’t waste energy on social pleasantries when information needed sharing.
“The wolves aren’t the only ones noticing,” Lark said. No preamble. Just facts. “Vampires in the Marigny are asking questions. Three different covens have contacted brokers about buying mirror wards. Fae markets in Mid-City have tripled their protective charm inventory since Sunday. Everyone’s spooked, but no one’s saying why exactly.”
Information spreading without coordination meant people were noticing independently. Which meant the contamination was visible enough to frighten anyone paying attention. “How long before it becomes public knowledge?”
“Days.” Lark pulled a phone from their pocket and showed him a screenshot—a local message board discussing “weird mirror glitches” in the Quarter. Thirty-seven replies. Posted four hours ago. “Maybe less. People are already comparing notes online.”
“Can you track who’s talking?”
“I can try. But suppressing this is going to be like suppressing sunrise.” Lark pocketed the phone. “Whatever you’re doing to fix it, you need to do it faster.”
“I’m aware.”
Roxy shifted her weight. “Other factions are talking, Bastien. The vampires in the Garden District say you’ve been asking questions about the auction. The witches on Rampart Street say you took something from the scene. People are starting to wonder if you summoned this thing instead of trying to stop it.”
“Let them wonder.”
“That’s not good enough.” Her voice dropped. “If the pack decides you’re a threat, they’ll handle you the way they handle all threats. I’m here because I don’t think you’re the enemy. But you need to give me something to take back to them.”
Bastien knew the threat was empty as much as Roxy did. The wolves—even all of them—couldn’t take on Bastien. His fall may have diminished some of his resonance, but his power was vast and far reaching. The wolves were no strangers to Bastien’s nature. “Tell your Alpha to call if the symptoms get worse. I’ll come.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Seal the breach before the next full moon.”
“That’s four weeks.”
“I know.” He held her gaze. “I’ll handle it.”
Roxy studied him—weighing, measuring. Finally she nodded.
She turned back toward the road. Lark fell into step beside her, phone already out, scrolling through data. Their footsteps faded across the levee. Voices carried back—Roxy giving instructions, Lark responding with coordinates. Pack business. Efficient and contained.
Bastien waited until he couldn’t hear them anymore.