The question hit harder than it should have. Bastien didn’t answer aloud. Didn’t need to.
“Then that’s who this is aimed at,” Maman said. “You. And through you . . .”
“Delphine.”
The name hung in the air between them. They both understood the stakes now.
“Among others.” Maman pulled the vault diagram. closer. “The Lacroix craftsmen knew how to forge glass that would accept confession. People stood in front of these mirrors and spoke their truths—sins, secrets, grief. The glass trapped it. Kept it safe from time.”
Bastien gathered the sketches into order. Vault entrance to altar, progression laid out clear. “Gideon isn’t trying to recreate the rituals.”
Maman waited.
“He’s trying to prove they were never divine.” Bastien had been assembling the pieces since the auction house. “Every letter, every message, every mirror he’s corrupted—it all points to one conclusion. That love isn’t sacred. That connection is control. That what Charlotte and I built was compulsion wearing devotion’s mask.”
“And if he proves it?”
“Then two centuries of choosing her across lifetimes becomes nothing but reflex. Magic playing at free will.” Bastien set down his pen. “A trick of glass.”
Maman’s expression didn’t change. “You believe that?”
“I believe Gideon does. Which means he’ll try to demonstrate it.”
“How?”
“By dismantling the bond. Showing it was illusion from the start.” Charlotte’s work, Charlotte’s blood, Charlotte’s certainty rendered in stone and glass—all of it pointing toward one conclusion. “If he’s right, she never chose me. I never chose her. We’ve been following a script written in mirror-forged ink.”
Maman was quiet for a long moment. Then: “You need to ward the addresses where the network connects. Ground it at the strongest points. Keep it from spreading faster than it already is.”
Bastien nodded. Tactical advice he could use.
“And you need to tell Delphine what’s happening.”
His hand stopped halfway to gathering the next sketch.
“You can’t protect her from everything by keeping her in the dark,” Maman said, her voice gentle but firm. “She’s already involved whether you want her to be or not.”
“If she knows too much?—”
“If she knows too little, she won’t see danger until it’s already got her.” Maman leaned forward. “You think you protecting her by not telling her. But you just making sure she walks blind into whatever Gideon got planned.”
Bastien wanted to argue. Found he couldn’t. She was right, and they both knew it.
“You opened that locket yet?” Maman asked.
His hesitation told her everything.
She sighed. “Love that stays locked up stays safe. It also stays useless.”
The shop’s hand mirror cracked.
Not the one Maman had been holding—that remained safely on the table between them. A different mirror, sitting on a shelf across the room. Small and oval, silver frame tarnished with age.
The crack appeared without sound. Just a fracture line running through the glass, precise as if drawn with a ruler.
Both of them went still.
Maman stood and crossed to the shelf, moving carefully. She lifted the mirror down, held it up to the light. “This belonged to my grandmother. Her mother before that. Three generations in my family, never so much as a chip.”
