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 words landed with harsh criticism. These were Bastien’s deepest fears, his most persistent doubts. The questions that kept him awake at three in the morning wondering if he was doing the right thing or just repeating Charlotte’s mistakes with better justification.
The doppelgänger moved closer to Delphine, circling around Bastien’s protective stance. “Ask him if he ever considered leaving you alone. Actually alone. Not just physically distant while watching your life unfold. Not just careful while still pulling strings. Ask him if he ever thought about truly letting you choose without his presence anywhere in the equation.”
Delphine didn’t flinch. She watched the reflection with the same analytical attention she brought to problematic historical documents. “He left me alone for twenty-five years,” she said calmly. “That’s patience, not control.”
The doppelgänger shifted tactics instantly, turning its attention to Bastien. “She built this to trap you. Think about it. Every safeguard that preserves choice for her simultaneously locks you into the role of protector. Every component that honors her autonomy requires your constant vigilance. The whole system is guilt management disguised as altruism. Charlotte didn’t free you—she created an elegant cage where you’d police yourself.”
The attack felt personal because it was. Made from curated emotional residue. Bastien’s own doubts weaponized, given voice and form through Gideon’s understanding of how to twist genuine concern into paralysis.
But he remembered Charlotte’s words from the journal. He read them again in his mind
Use truth against lies. Use choice against compulsion.
“You’re using my voice to speak Gideon’s philosophy,” Bastien said clearly. “That’s manipulation. Charlotte built choice into every component. I’ve seen the schematics. I’ve read her instructions. She left these tools because she trusted me to recognize truth. Which means I recognize you as a lie.”
He pulled the broken circle mirror from his jacket pocket. Held it up, facing the doppelgänger. “Show yourself honestly or dissolve.”
The mirror’s truth-reflecting property forced the reflection to reveal its actual nature. The doppelgänger fractured—image breaking apart into fragments that showed glimpses of Gideon’s workspace. Walls covered with mirrors that displayed every interaction Bastien had ever had with Delphine. An evidence wall documenting their partnership with bitter annotations. A desk covered with letters addressed to someone named “Elena”—name written and rewritten, never sent, never answered.
Bastien understood then. Gideon’s obsession was personal. Someone had rejected him. Someone named Elena had walked away, and instead of processing that loss, he’d built an entire ideology around his wound. Convinced himself that all bonds were prisons. That anyone who chose connection was deluding themselves. That the only honest response to love was to destroy it before it destroyed you.
The doppelgänger shattered completely. Fragments dissolved in the water, leaving only residual light that faded quickly.
The tunnel mirrors went dark. Then they lit up again, this time with Gideon’s actual voice—not channeled through stolen resonance but broadcast directly.
“Tomorrow night. Every mirror in the city. She’ll see everything I’ve compiled—every protective lie, every choice you made for her, every way you shaped her path. And then we’ll see what she chooses when she has the complete picture.”
The light faded. The chamber returned to normal—just stone and water and the pulse of the network’s light through Charlotte’s glass veins.
Bastien looked at Delphine. She met his eyes steadily.
“Then we’d better get ready,” she said.
They climbed back to the surface in silence, carrying Charlotte’s tools and knowing that tomorrow would force everything into the open. Every doubt, every fear, every uncomfortable truth about what the bond meant and what it didn’t. Gideon would show it all. Delphine would have to choose while watching the worst possible interpretation of their relationship play out across every reflective surface in New Orleans.
And Bastien would have to trust that truth was stronger than manipulation. That freely given choice could withstand even the most compelling lies.
Charlotte had believed it. Had built her entire network on that belief.
Tomorrow they would find out if she’d been right.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Thursday dawned gray and humid, the kind of October morning that promised rain without delivering it. Bastien spent the day preparing. Not with frantic energy but with the deliberate care of someone who understood that rushing led to mistakes, and mistakes tomorrow night could be catastrophic.
He laid out Charlotte’s journal on his dining table and read through it completely. Every page, every note, every careful annotation. She’d documented not just the how of her network but the why. The philosophical foundation that made the whole system function.
Connection without compulsion.
She’d written it on the third page.
That’s the entire project. If the network forces anything—feeling, choice, proximity—then it’s no better than the old binding rituals. Worse, actually, because at least those were honest about what they did. This has to be different. Has to preserve the bond while honoring that both people still have agency. Still have the right to walk away.
Bastien traced the words with one finger. Charlotte had understood something fundamental that Gideon either couldn’t see or refused to acknowledge—that love and freedom weren’t contradictory. That you could be bound to someone across lifetimes and still make meaningful choices about how to honor that connection.