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 surface was slightly fogged. As if someone had breathed on it recently. Minutes ago, maybe. Just before wrapping it for delivery.
No note. No instructions. No sender’s mark anywhere on the packaging or the object itself.
He knew instinctively. Had known from the moment he saw the eighteenth-century script on the delivery form.
Gideon.
Bastien carried the mirror to his work table and set it carefully under the desk lamp. He positioned it so light hit the surface at an angle that would reveal any irregularities. Then he began his examination properly.
The frame first. He studied it with the same care he’d give a potential weapon. No maker’s marks on the back—unusual for quality work from that era. Craftsmen typically signed their pieces, especially items commissioned for wealthy clients. The absence suggested either the maker had been paid for anonymity or the marks had been deliberately removed.
The scrollwork, though. That was familiar. Small details in the floral pattern—the way the petals curved, the specific leaves chosen—matched decorative elements from Charlotte’s era. From her social circle. Mirrors like this would have hung in townhouses throughout the Quarter, in the homes of families who could afford French imports.
He turned his attention to the surface and tilted the mirror under the lamp.
It wasn’t regular glass. Modern mirrors used aluminum or silver behind float glass, creating that flat reflective quality most people knew. This was older technology—silver nitrate on blown glass, the backing applied by hand. But more than that. The reflective quality was off. Sharper than it should be. It was clearer and showed too much detail in the objects it reflected.
Bastien focused on it properly. Checking it carefully, layer by layer. Using his celestial gifts he explored the construction.
Mirror-forged magic hit him immediately. Not the passive kind that came from sustained exposure to ritual work. Active power. Intentional enchantment woven into the glass itself at the molecular level. The surface thrummed with sustained energy, resonance that suggested ongoing connection to something elsewhere. To a network. To other mirrors linked through sympathetic magic.
It was waiting. Not dormant. Not inert. Waiting for specific interaction. For the right kind of attention.
Like a trap with a pressure plate. Or a locked door with the key already in hand.
He breathed on the surface experimentally. Just a soft exhale, the way someone might fog glass to check for imperfections.
Condensation formed where his breath hit. But instead of fading naturally with temperature and air movement, the moisture organized itself. Droplets moving against physics, drawn by intention that existed in the glass. They formed shapes. Letters. Words appearing in the fog with calligraphic precision.
You’re chasing a reflection that never loved you.
Bastien didn’t move. The words lingered for five seconds—he counted—before evaporating according to natural law again.
He breathed on the mirror again. Deliberately this time. Testing whether the message would repeat or change.
Different words formed.
Love is the cage you built yourself.
Philosophical attack. Undermining not just his choices but the foundation they stood on.
Another breath.
She doesn’t remember you. She never will.
This was both true and irrelevant. Memory wasn’t the point. The soul recognized even when the mind didn’t.
Another.
Every choice you’ve made has brought you here.
Determinism. The argument that free will was illusion. That Bastien’s entire existence followed rails someone else had laid.
He breathed on it one more time. Watching the pattern.
The grimoire was merely prologue.
The messages cycled. Four variations had attacked from different angles, all aimed at making him question whether love justified the cost. Whether protecting Delphine’s autonomy meant accepting her ignorance. Whether every choice he’d made to preserve her agency had actually just been controlling her through absence.
Bastien set the mirror down carefully. His jaw muscle ticked once; the only physical tell he allowed himself.
These weren’t random taunts. They were crafted to destabilize. Written by someone who understood psychology, who’d studied Bastien’s history, who knew exactly which wounds would break open under pressure.
Gideon had been watching longer than Bastien had realized.
Then he tried something. He focused his energy through his fingertips where they touched the frame and pushing back through the connection he could feel thrumming in the glass.
The surface shimmered.
His office vanished from the reflection. For three seconds, he was seeing somewhere else entirely.
A study. Walls covered with mirrors—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, every size and shape fitted together like puzzle pieces. Papers scattered across a central desk. Books stacked in precarious towers. Ritual tools arranged with thoughtful precision. And in the center of one wall, a large mirror that showed not a reflection but a map of the Quarter, glowing with silver lines that connected points across the city.
Gideon’s workspace. Had to be.
The view lasted only seconds before cutting out. The mirror showed Bastien’s office again, his own face looking back at him.
But he understood now. This wasn’t just a message. It was an open channel. Gideon could watch him whenever he wanted.