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)
“Can you prioritize anything dated between 1760 and 1763? Those were her active years. When she was building the network.”
“I can have everything pulled by tomorrow morning.” She glanced at him. “You look better.”
“Than what?”
“Than you did yesterday. Less exhausted. More sure.” She smiled slightly. “The vault helped?”
“It reminded me that Charlotte knew what she was doing. That this network was built with intention, not obsession.” He navigated around a delivery truck blocking the sidewalk. “Gideon’s trying to prove soul bonds are manipulation. But he’s using manipulated evidence to do it. The vault still knows the difference.”
They walked in silence for half a block. Then Delphine said, “I want to see it.”
“The vault?”
“Eventually. But first I want to see the documents. Everything Charlotte left behind. I want to understand what she actually built before someone else tells me what to think about it.”
Bastien looked at her. “It’s not safe. The documents carry resonance. You touch them and the network notices.”
“I know.” She met his eyes. “I’m asking anyway.”
He recognized that expression. The same determination that had carried her through weeks of unexplained phenomena. The same refusal to accept protection through ignorance.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “At the Archive. I’ll walk you through what to look for.”
“Thank you.”
They reached the main street. Afternoon crowds moved around them—delivery drivers making rounds, shop owners checking inventory, street musicians setting up for evening. Normal Quarter activity while beneath their feet, a two-century-old mirror network pulsed with energy that had survived corruption.
Delphine adjusted her bag strap. “I should get back to work. Actual work. The kind they pay me for.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m walking you.”
She smiled. “Overprotective.”
“Appropriately cautious. Besides I enjoy your company, Delphine.”
“Same thing.” She grinned.
“Not remotely.”
But she didn’t argue. He held out his elbow for her to take it and they began walking.
About halfway there, Delphine leaned into Bastien’s shoulder and whispered, “I enjoy your company too.” For a brief moment Bastien smiled, and squeezed her closer to him, inhaling her scent and being grateful for the time they had together. Even if it was in a filthy tunnel or doing research.
They walked together toward the Archive, and Bastien tracked every reflective surface they passed. Shop windows. Puddles. Car mirrors. Glass doors.
The city remembered her. Cataloged her presence. Paid attention beyond simple reflection.
And he was woven too deeply into the network to appear clearly. But he appeared. Distorted, fractured, geometric—but present. Not erased. Changed.
By the time they reached the Archive’s gate, he’d checked forty-seven reflective surfaces. Each one showed his form as kaleidoscope patterns, fragments that his brain wanted to resolve into a whole but couldn’t quite manage.
But visible. Real. There.
Delphine paused at the entrance. “Tomorrow morning? Nine o’clock?”
“I’ll be here.”
She headed inside. He watched her climb the exterior stairs, tracking her progress through windows that showed her clearly while showing him as scattered light.
The vault had recognized him. Had tried to show him Gideon’s distortions and failed. Charlotte’s foundation remained intact beneath corruption that couldn’t touch the emotional truth of her work.
But walking away from the Archive with Delphine’s image appearing sharp and clear in every window while his remained fractured and strange, Bastien understood the cost of integration.
He would never see himself beside her the way others did. Never verify through normal reflection that they occupied the same physical space in the same uncomplicated way. Never catch their images in passing mirrors and see the simple truth of two people walking together.
The network would show her. And translate him into something new—something that belonged to mirrors now as much as it belonged to the mortal world.
He turned away from the Archive and headed home through streets that saw him differently.
Tomorrow they would examine Charlotte’s documents. Map the original design. Prepare to face whatever Gideon had planned.
Tonight, he would rest. And accept that some changes, once made, couldn’t be unmade.
His phone buzzed.
Delphine: Thank you for today. For trusting me enough to let me help.
He smiled despite the exhaustion pressing against his thoughts.
Bastien: Thank you for refusing to let me do this alone.
The Quarter settled into evening around him. Streetlights came on. Music drifted from open doorways. Reflections appeared in shop windows and puddles and glass doors.
All of them showed him as fractured geometry. Scattered light that held his shape but refused to resolve into clarity.
But there. Present. Real.
He pocketed his phone and kept walking, determined and grounded, toward whatever came next.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Bastien arrived at the Archive at eight forty-five. Early, but not by much. The morning air still carried the coolness that would burn off by noon, turning the Quarter into the humid pressure cooker that defined October in New Orleans. He’d stopped for coffee—two this time, both iced, because Delphine had mentioned yesterday that the Archive’s air conditioning had been struggling.
The building’s iron gate stood propped open. Tuesday maintenance schedule, if he remembered correctly. Someone had watered the courtyard plants; puddles still sat in the uneven flagstone, reflecting clouds that moved too fast for the stillness of the morning.