He needed to see this for himself.
The drive from his apartment to Algiers Point took him straight through the Quarter. Tourists were already clustered on corners with to-go cups from Café Du Monde. A brass band set up on Royal Street, trumpet player running scales while his partner adjusted a drum kit. The city’s rhythm starting up for another day—oblivious to the fact that its mirrors were learning to lie.
Bastien crossed the Crescent City Connection as the sun climbed higher. The Mississippi stretched wide and brown below, its surface catching light in a thousand small fractures. He kept his eyes on the road. Looking at the water too long while driving seemed unwise given what Roxy had described.
Pack politics were delicate. The Crescent Moon maintained strict boundaries—both territorial and social. They handled their own problems, only reaching outside when those problems threatened to spill beyond pack control or had been brought to them. The last time Roxy had called him, two months ago, the pack had been affected by the tear in the Veil.
This felt different. Worse. Roxy only contacted him when things were dire. She didn’t leave the pack often.
He parked near the levee access under a broken streetlight and got out. The river smell hit him immediately—mud and rust and something organic rotting in shallow water. He’d never liked this particular stretch of bank. Too isolated. Too many shadows where the levee curved. But that isolation would serve them now. No witnesses to what he might have to do.
He walked toward the water. Behind him, the city hummed its perpetual note—traffic and music and voices layered over each other. Before him, the Mississippi moved slow and black even in morning light. The water looked thicker than it should, like liquid that had absorbed too much of what it reflected.
Twenty minutes early. He checked his watch—8:40. Roxy had said nine. The moon hung invisible in the daylight sky, buthe could feel its pull anyway. Lunar resonance lived in his bones the way it lived in any creature born to respond to celestial movement. Tonight it would be full. And if what happened to Roxy’s wolves were any prediction, tonight would test whether the mirror contamination could kill.
He stood at the water’s edge and looked at his reflection. It stared back. Perfect synchronization. But when he dropped a quarter into the Mississippi, the reflection showed it hitting the surface half a second before the real coin made contact. Ripples began to spread in the mirrored water while the actual quarter still fell through air.
Not good.
Footsteps approached from the west—two sets, measured and purposeful. He didn’t turn.
“You see it too.” Roxy’s voice came from his left. She stopped beside him, boots scuffing the pavement. “Tell me I’m not losing my mind.”
“You’re not.” Bastien straightened and turned to face her.
Roxy Boudreaux moved like what she was—predator and protector both. She covered the distance from parking area to levee edge with the efficient grace of someone who’d spent thirty-seven years learning exactly how much space her body occupied and how to use it. Built solid, just under six feet, with dark brown hair pulled back in a braid that hung between her shoulder blades. She wore canvas work pants and a thermal shirt despite the October heat, both showing wear. Her hands carried scars across the knuckles—old wounds from fights that had required human form and human fists. Pack Beta of the Crescent Moon, with a direct stare that didn’t waste time on bullshit.
She looked tired. More than tired—wrung out in a way that likely came from staying awake all night making sure no one died.
“Thank you for coming.” She stopped three feet away, respecting the space between them. Pack members got closer. Everyone else kept distance. “I wasn’t sure you’d pick up.”
“You don’t call unless it’s serious.”
“It’s serious.” She pulled a small notebook from her back pocket and flipped it open. “Gabriel Crowley transformed at 7:43 p.m. last night. Lunar trigger, clean shift, no complications. He was running perimeter checks near the Warehouse District when he caught his reflection in a loading dock window.” She glanced at her notes. “Reflection showed him still human. Clothes, posture, everything. Lasted five seconds before it caught up and matched his wolf form.”
“Did he feel anything unusual during the shift?”
“No. Said it was standard. The delay only affected what he saw, not what he experienced.” She turned a page. “Marie Thibault shifted at 8:51. Same location, different window. Her reflection lag lasted fifteen seconds. She watched herself transform twice—once in real time, once in the glass running fifteen seconds behind.”
Bastien processed her words. The lag was increasing. Exponential progression. “And the third?”
“Connor Boudreaux. My cousin.” Her voice stayed level, professional, but something in her jaw had gone rigid. “Transformed at midnight by the lake. His reflection moved independently for almost thirty seconds. Different posture, different expression. When Connor sat, his reflection stayed standing. When Connor looked west, his reflection looked east. Then it smiled at him.”
“Connor wasn’t smiling.”
“He was terrified.” She closed the notebook and pocketed it. “He’s twenty-two. This was supposed to be a routine patrol. Now he’s locked in a safe house afraid to look at standing water.”
Bastien walked to the water’s edge and crouched. The river moved slow below, reflecting morning light in fragments that shifted too fast to track individual patterns. He pressed his palm to the concrete. Cool. Solid. Real. The reflection of his hand appeared half a second after contact.
“Have any of them shown any other strange symptoms? Disorientation? Memory gaps?”
“No. Just the reflection problems.” Roxy crouched beside him, staring at the water. “But it’s not just transformations. I tested it this morning. Stood in front of my bathroom mirror and waved. My reflection waved three seconds late. Then it waved again when I’d stopped moving.”
“It repeated the gesture?”
“Twice. Like it was practicing.” She looked at him. “Bastien, what the hell is this?”
He could tell her it was mirror contamination from a broken relic. He could explain temporal echoing and reflective memory. He could describe how the Shadowglass Mirror had fractured and its pieces were teaching every reflective surface in the city to operate outside normal physical law.
