Delphine stood opposite him, her hands resting lightly on the mortal glyphs. Silver light answering gold. The two frequencies meeting in the broken circle mirror between them.
The water around the altar began to rise. Not from external source but from the pressure of magic accumulating. The network becoming a conduit for power that had been building for days.
Six-thirty. The moment hit.
Every mirror in the chamber blazed with light. Gideon’s face appeared in the glass—kind, professorial, the expression of someone who cared deeply about helping people see the truth.
“Tonight,” he said, his voice carrying through every reflective surface in New Orleans, “I offer clarity. The truth about soul bonds and why they’re the most beautiful lies we tell ourselves.”
The sermon had begun.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Six-thirty. The mirrors blazed. Bastien squinted against light so bright it left afterimages when he blinked. Every reflective surface in the chamber—in the city—flooded with Gideon’s face. Not threatening. Not cruel. Kind. The expression of a professor who genuinely believed he was helping students understand a difficult truth.
The broadcast would reach every mirror in New Orleans, but only those with magical awareness would perceive it. Charlotte had built that safeguard into the original design—protection for the magical community, ensuring that mundane eyes would see only ordinary reflections. Regular humans would walk past windows showing Gideon’s sermon and notice nothing unusual. The veil between worlds remained intact.
Bastien’s palms pressed against the celestial glyphs, metal warming under his skin. He felt the surge through the network—power flowing through Charlotte’s channels but wrong, the frequency corrupted. Gideon had spent weeks weaving his sermon lattice into the infrastructure. Purple light threaded through the glass veins in the walls, fighting the gold of Bastien’s resonance.
“Tonight,” Gideon said, his voice clear through every bathroom mirror, every storefront window, every car’s rearview mirror, every phone screen that could catch reflection, “I offer you clarity. Not judgment. Not condemnation. Just the truth about soul bonds and why they are the most beautiful lies we tell ourselves.”
The water around the altar rose. Bastien felt it climb past his ankles, warm as bathwater, carrying electrical charge that made the hair on his arms stand up. Not from rain. Not from the river. From magical pressure that the network was never designed to handle. Charlotte had built this for preservation, not for citywide broadcasts.
“Watch,” Gideon said.
The mirrors shifted. Every reflective surface showed edited footage—real moments from Bastien and Delphine’s interactions but framed. Selected. Arranged to tell a story that wasn’t quite a lie but wasn’t quite truth either.
Bastien appearing at the Archive when Delphine needed translation help. The editing stripped away her greeting, her invitation to sit. Left only him approaching, lingering, the timing made to look calculated instead of coincidental.
Their coffee meetings shown in rapid montage. Conversations about New Orleans history and archival techniques reduced to a sequence that suggested grooming. A predator establishing trust before closing distance.
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 therescuer, 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 hisskin 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 magicalwork, and he was still one person trying to hold back power that likely needed a dozen practitioners working together.
