The question was when. And whether Bastien could map the complete pattern before it happened.
He checked his notes from the Archive. Delphine had found records of a mirror sold to the Archdiocese in 1763. The timing aligned with Charlotte’s death. He needed to track where that mirror had gone after the Church acquired it. Ecclesiastical records were sealed, but he had contacts who owed him favors.
His phone sat on the desk, notifications silenced. Six messages he hadn’t checked yet. The supernatural community was restless—Roxy had texted twice asking about protection wards, a vampire contact wanted information about mirror manipulation, Maman had left a voicemail he’d listen to later.
Everyone felt it. The pressure building. Something coming.
Bastien added another note to his timeline.
Gideon acquired Charlotte’s research—when?
How much does he have?
That was the central question. If Gideon had her complete journals on this topic, he wouldn’t just understand the mirror network. He’d know how to rebuild it. Improve it. Use nineteenth-century theory with twenty-first-century precision.
A knock interrupted his thinking. Three precise strikes, too measured to be casual.
He set his pen down and listened. The knock came again. Same rhythm, same pressure. Whoever was outside had been trained or compelled to announce themselves exactly this way.
Bastien stood and crossed to the door. His hand rested on the knob while he extended his senses beyond the material door, checking for threats, traps, hostile intent. He found only mundane human presence and something else underneath—compulsion magic, faint but distinct.
He opened the door.
Standing there was a young man, early twenties, wearing a courier uniform—polo shirt with a delivery company logo Bastien didn’t recognize, cargo shorts despite October cool, and a messenger bag across his chest. He was holding a package wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine that looked hand-twisted rather than commercially produced.
But the affect was wrong. Too calm, too focused. Eyes that didn’t quite track normally when Bastien opened the door. They fixed on a point slightly past Bastien’s left shoulder and stayedthere. His posture was military-straight, weight distributed evenly on both feet. Breathing too measured for someone who’d just climbed a flight of stairs.
Compelled. Definitely. Someone had wound him up and pointed him at this address with specific instructions.
“I didn’t order anything,” Bastien said. Watching for reaction.
“It was ordered for you, Mr. Durand.” The courier’s voice came out flat. Affectless. He held out a clipboard with a delivery form attached. “Sign here, please.”
Bastien took the clipboard. He scanned the delivery form—no return address, no sender information. Just a tracking number that looked random and his name written in elaborate script, not a modern shipping label or even modern handwriting.
Then the handwriting stopped him. He’d seen that style before. In Charlotte’s letters, in documents from her era. Whoever had sent this wanted him to make that connection.
He signed with a name that wasn’t his. A random combination of syllables that would mean nothing to anyone checking later.
“Thank you, Mr. Durand,” the courier said. He didn’t look at the signature. Didn’t check what Bastien had written against any identification. Just extended the package with both hands, formal presentation. “Have a pleasant day.”
He turned and walked away with mechanical steps, too even on the stairs, the rhythm too perfect. Each step exactly the same length as the last. He didn’t pause at the landing. Didn’t adjust his grip on the messenger bag. Just continued down with automated efficiency until Bastien heard the street door open and close.
Bastien watched the empty stairwell for another moment. Glamour, probably. Fae influence—they favored that kind of precise compulsion. Or something darker. Some practitionerscould puppet humans for short periods, turn them into delivery systems for objects or messages that needed to cross thresholds uninvited.
Either way, the courier had been used. Would probably wake up in an hour with no memory of where he’d been or what he’d delivered.
Bastien closed the door and locked it. Both physical bolt and the ward lock that existed in overlapping space. Then he drew the privacy wards active—a gesture across the threshold that made the air shimmer briefly before settling. Anyone trying to scry this room now would see static. Anyone attempting to listen through magical means would hear white noise. The protections he’d spent years building into this space.
The package sat on his desk where he’d set it. Innocuous brown paper over something rectangular. Maybe eight inches by six. Light enough to be glass, not heavy enough to be stone or metal.
He examined it carefully before touching. Bastien focused, using his magic to probe for traps. He found nothing obvious. No curse work, no destructive enchantments, no trigger spells waiting for contact. But definitely enchanted. The paper itself held a faint charge, the kind that came from sustained contact with active workings. Whatever was inside had been wrapped recently by someone who understood how to layer power into mundane materials.
Bastien cut the twine with his letter opener. The blade was silver—old habit from dealing with fae-touched objects. The twine fell away in two clean pieces. He peeled back the paper methodically, checking each layer as it revealed itself. Brown wrapping. Then tissue paper, the kind used for archival preservation. Then cloth, linen by the feel of it, wrapped twice around the object inside.
Inside, a hand mirror.
He didn’t touch it immediately. Just looked.
