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)
“Because I wasn’t sure what I was dealing with,” he said instead. “And I didn’t want to alarm you until I had something concrete to report.”
“Well, mission accomplished on the concrete evidence.” She pushed through the Archive’s front door. Rain soaked them immediately, October storm warm and heavy. “What do you need from me?”
“Stay away from mirrors as much as possible. No unnecessary conversations near reflective surfaces. And if you see your reflection doing something you’re not actually doing—”
“Don’t engage with it. Got it.” She pulled her jacket tighter. “Anything else?”
Bastien looked back at the Archive. Every window showed their departure reflected in glass, images perfectly synchronized with their actual positions on the steps. But in one second-floor window—a pane he couldn’t remember being visible from this angle—both their reflections stood facing each other instead of walking away. They were close enough to touch. And in the reflection, they were touching.
His mirror self had one hand against her face. Her reflection leaned into the contact. The image held for three seconds before both reflections turned to look directly at where he stood on the steps.
Then the window went dark. Interior light extinguished, leaving only rain-slicked glass reflecting streetlamps.
“Bastien?” Delphine’s voice pulled him back. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He descended the rest of the steps. “Where are you parked?”
“Two blocks over. You?”
“Same direction. I’ll walk you there.”
They moved through the Quarter’s empty streets, rain turning everything reflective. Puddles caught lamplight and held it, surfaces that should have shown sky and buildings showing other things instead—fragments of conversation, echoes of footsteps from hours earlier, shadows that moved independent of the people casting them.
Delphine walked close enough that their shoulders occasionally brushed. Each contact registered—warmth where fabric met fabric, the particular awareness that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with proximity to someone who’d somehow become essential to his equilibrium.
“That thing you said earlier,” she said. “About love making you stupid for centuries.”
“Mmm.”
“Did you mean Charlotte? Or someone else?”
He could lie. Could deflect again, maintain the distance that kept her questions from landing too close to truths he wasn’t ready to expose. But the mirrors had already recorded tonight’s conversation. They knew what he’d admitted. And lying to Delphine while glass surfaces listened felt more dangerous than honesty.
“Charlotte was first,” he said. “There were others. Patterns repeat when you live long enough to make the same mistakes multiple times.”
“Do you think you are making that mistake now?”
They’d reached her car—sensible sedan parked under a streetlight that flickered in rhythm with the network’s pulse.
“I’m trying not to,” he said.
“Trying not to make mistakes? Or trying not to fall in love with someone you’re investigating mirrors with?”
“Both. Neither.” He shook his head. “I’m trying to keep you safe from consequences I created by not stopping Charlotte when I should have. That’s all.”
“That’s not all. But I’ll let you pretend it is.” She unlocked her car. “For now.”
“Delphine—”
“Tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow when I’m not exhausted and you’re not looking at me like you’re waiting for me to disappear into a mirror.” She slid into the driver’s seat. “Get some sleep, Bastien. You look like you haven’t done that in a week.”
“Closer to two.” But he smiled. “Drive safe.”
“You too.”
He watched her pull away, taillights reflecting in rain-slicked asphalt. Her car turned the corner and disappeared, leaving him alone on the street with rain and streetlights and the certain knowledge that every window he’d passed tonight had recorded their conversation, stored their proximity, preserved the moment her reflection had leaned into his touch while their actual bodies maintained careful distance.
Bastien walked to his own car. The rearview mirror showed his face exactly as it should—tired, wet from rain, expression neutral except for the tension around his eyes.
Then his reflection smiled. Slow curve of lips that held satisfaction instead of humor, expression that suggested the network had gotten exactly what it wanted from tonight’s performance.
He looked away. Started the engine. Drove home through streets where every puddle reflected possible futures instead of present reality, where every window showed conversations that hadn’t happened yet, where mirrors remembered everything and forgave nothing.
His phone buzzed.
Delphine: I meant what I said. We’re working together now. All of it, not just the parts you think are safe.
Bastien: Understood.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Finally a reply.
Delphine: Good. Also—that line about nothing being normal about me? Smooth.
Despite everything, he laughed.
Bastien: I have my moments.
Rare ones.
Very rare.
Delphine: Get some sleep. Tomorrow we figure out how to stop mirrors from eavesdropping on our research.
Bastien: Tomorrow.
He set the phone down and drove the rest of the way home through rain that turned the Quarter into one vast reflecting surface, every drop holding images the network would preserve until it decided what to do with them.
In his rearview mirror, his reflection watched him drive. It looked tired. Concerned. Maybe even a little hopeful.