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 night at Jackson Square when he’d warned her about the network. The editing removed her questions, her curiosity, her choice to investigate. Showed only his intensity, his urgency. Made it look like pressure instead of information freely offered.
The protection during the doppelgänger attack. That should have demonstrated genuine care. Instead, Gideon’s framing suggested manufactured crisis. Create the danger, play the rescuer, establish dependency. A pattern that looked obvious once you saw it arranged this way.
And the moments where Bastien had known things—her coffee order, her usual walking routes, her work schedule. All things she’d mentioned during their conversations. But stripped of that context, it looked like surveillance. Like he’d been studying her life long before they’d formally met.
“Notice the pattern,” Gideon narrated over the images. “Every interaction carefully timed. Every gesture designed to draw her closer. He calls it protection. He calls it patience. But look at the result. She’s in danger because he brought her into it. She’s bound to him because he activated a connection she never asked for. Every choice she thinks she made—where did those choices come from? Who set the stage?”
The network shuddered. Bastien felt it through the altar, through his hands, through the frequency that connected him to Charlotte’s design. Purple light spread through the glass veins like ink bleeding through water. His frequency—gold—fought to maintain stability, but the pressure was immense. Like holding a door closed while someone threw their full weight against it from the other side.
He wanted to argue. To explain that the editing was lies, that Delphine had agency in every single moment, that soul bonds didn’t function the way Gideon claimed. But he couldn’t speak. His entire focus had to stay on maintaining the anchor. Keeping the connection stable enough that when Delphine was ready, her voice could carry through the network.
The water reached his knees. Warm. Charged. His arms trembled from holding position, from channeling power through his body that wanted to short-circuit his nervous system. The celestial glyphs burned hot under his palms—not metaphorically hot but actually hot, the metal conducting heat that made his skin tingle and sting. Charlotte’s design trying to handle magical current it was never meant to carry.
Across the altar, Delphine stood with her hands on the mortal glyphs. Her face had gone pale, all the color draining from her cheeks and lips. Her eyes stayed locked on the mirrors showing Gideon’s curated evidence. Watching every moment of their partnership twisted into something ugly.
Bastien couldn’t read her thoughts. Couldn’t know what she felt seeing herself “manipulated” across every interaction. Could only maintain the anchor and trust that Charlotte had been right. That truth was stronger than manipulation. That freely given choice could survive even the most compelling distortion.
The montage continued. Every coffee date, every conversation, every moment where Bastien had made a decision that served them both but looked, when properly edited, like control dressed as consideration. Gideon had studied their interactions for weeks. Had found every angle that would seed doubt.
“Soul bonds,” Gideon said, his voice gentle, understanding, the tone of someone who’d been hurt and learned wisdom from it, “are beautiful precisely because they feel so real. The connection, the recognition, the sense that you’ve known someone forever—it’s intoxicating. And it’s designed to be. That’s how it survives. By making both parties believe they’re choosing freely when the bond itself is doing the choosing.”
Something cracked. Not physical—no sound, no visible break—but Bastien felt it through the network. One of Charlotte’s safeguards giving way under strain. Purple light surged through the glass veins, overwhelming the gold and silver. His frequency was losing ground.
His vision blurred at the edges, tunnel vision closing in. The celestial resonance that let him interface with the network was burning him out. Two centuries of practice, of careful magical work, and he was still one person trying to hold back power that likely needed a dozen practitioners working together.
“Bastien.”
Delphine’s voice. Quiet but clear, cutting through Gideon’s sermon and the roar of magic building in his ears like tinnitus.
He forced his eyes to focus. She was looking at him across the altar. Not at the mirrors. Not at Gideon’s evidence. At him.
“I need to speak now,” she said. “Can you hold it?”
He nodded, not trusting his voice. He just pressed harder against the glyphs, pulling on reserves he didn’t know he had, muscles in his forearms cramping from the sustained effort. If she was ready to respond, he would maintain the frequency. Even if it burned out his ability to work magic for the next decade.
Delphine picked up the broken circle mirror from the altar. Held it in both hands, fingers wrapped around the frame. Her reflection appeared sharp and clear in the glass. The network recognized the tool, Charlotte’s counter-broadcast mechanism activating in response to her touch.
“I’m watching this,” she said, speaking into the mirror, her voice suddenly amplifying through every reflective surface that Gideon had hijacked. “I’m seeing every moment you’ve edited. Every interaction framed to look like manipulation. And I need to say something.”