“They never see the cage.”
“Love is the first lie.”
The handwriting deteriorated as the timeline progressed, becoming more erratic, more frantic. By the final mirrors—showing scenes from just days ago—the annotations were barely legible, words overlapping and scratched out and rewritten.
The opposite wall held what could only be called a shrine.
Letters. Dozens of them, hundreds maybe, all addressed to “Elena.” Some were sealed in envelopes that had yellowed with age, never sent. Others were loose sheets covered in handwriting that ranged from carefully composed to desperately scrawled.
Bastien picked up one of the older letters, dated fifteen years ago.
My dearest Elena,
I understand now why you cannot answer. The bond between us is too strong, too complete. You feel it as I do—the impossibility of separation, the way our souls recognize each other across any distance. Your silence is not rejection but protection. You’re trying to spare me the pain of acknowledged connection.
But I want you to know: I don’t need sparing. I need you. And I will wait as long as necessary for you to understand that our bond justifies any sacrifice, any compromise, any surrender of the illusion of autonomy.
Forever yours,
G.
A more recent letter, dated six months ago, was shorter. Angrier.
Elena,
Twenty-three letters now with no response. I understand. You’re afraid of what we have. Afraid of losing yourself in the bond. But you already lost yourself the moment we met. That’s what soul bonds do—they erase the boundaries between self and other. Fighting it only causes pain.
I’m trying to show you. Trying to demonstrate through theory and practice that love and autonomy cannot coexist. That the kindest thing is to accept the cage, embrace the compulsion, stop pretending freedom was ever real.
Why won’t you see it?
G.
The latest letter was dated two weeks ago. Just one line, repeated over and over until it filled the entire page:
She never loved me. She never loved me. She never loved me. She never loved me.
Bastien set the letters down carefully. This wasn’t just academic interest in soul bonds gone wrong. This was a man who’d built an entire philosophical framework to explain why the woman he loved didn’t love him back. Who’d convinced himself that free will was an illusion because accepting that she’d freely chosen not to be with him was unbearable.
The desk in the corner held more evidence of obsession spiraling into breakdown. Open books on soul-binding theory with passages highlighted and annotated. Empty wine bottles. Coffee cups with mold growing in the bottom. Sleeping pills—prescription bottle half-empty.
And centered on the desk, a framed photograph. A woman, maybe forty, dark hair, kind eyes, standing in front of what looked like a university building. On the back, written in fadedink: “Elena Marchetti, PhD—University of Bologna, Department of Classical Studies.”
She looked happy. Confident. Completely unaware that someone had built a shrine to unrequited love in a rented apartment halfway around the world.
Bastien’s phone buzzed. Text from Maman.
“Just got word from my contacts. Virelli caught a flight to Rome three hours ago. One-way ticket. Witnesses say he could barely walk, kept having to sit down. Whatever backlash he took from the network collapse, it hollowed him out.”
He typed back: “Any idea where he’s going?”
“Bologna, probably. That’s where his obsession lives. Either to confront her finally or to disappear where she’ll never find him. Either way, he’s New not New Orleans’s problem anymore.”
Bastien pocketed his phone and looked around the apartment one more time. This was what happened when someone couldn’t accept that love required choice. When they turned rejection into philosophy, when they weaponized connection to avoid confronting their own inadequacy.
Gideon hadn’t been trying to prove a point about soul bonds. He’d been trying to prove that Elena was wrong to refuse him. That her choice wasn’t really a choice. That if he could just demonstrate the impossibility of free will in the presence of connection, she’d have to acknowledge they belonged together.
And when Delphine had stood in front of the entire magical community and chosen freely, deliberately, with full knowledge of what she was choosing—when she’d proven beyond doubt that choice and connection could coexist—Gideon’s entire worldview had collapsed.
