Beveled edges catching lamplight. Frame worked in what looked like pewter but felt wrong when he extended his senses toward it—denser, heavier, possibly containing iron or silver mixed into the alloy. Ornate scrollwork along the sides, vines and flowers rendered in detail that suggested hand-carving. Old—eighteenth or nineteenth century, French manufacture judging by the decorative style. The backing was leather over wood, stitched with thread that had darkened with age.
The surface was slightly fogged. As if someone had breathed on it recently. Minutes ago, maybe. Just before wrapping it for delivery.
No note. No instructions. No sender’s mark anywhere on the packaging or the object itself.
He knew instinctively. Had known from the moment he saw the eighteenth-century script on the delivery form.
Gideon.
Bastien carried the mirror to his work table and set it carefully under the desk lamp. He positioned it so light hit the surface at an angle that would reveal any irregularities. Then he began his examination properly.
The frame first. He studied it with the same care he’d give a potential weapon. No maker’s marks on the back—unusual for quality work from that era. Craftsmen typically signed their pieces, especially items commissioned for wealthy clients. The absence suggested either the maker had been paid for anonymity or the marks had been deliberately removed.
The scrollwork, though. That was familiar. Small details in the floral pattern—the way the petals curved, the specific leaves chosen—matched decorative elements from Charlotte’s era. From her social circle. Mirrors like this would have hung in townhouses throughout the Quarter, in the homes of families who could afford French imports.
He turned his attention to the surface and tilted the mirror under the lamp.
It wasn’t regular glass. Modern mirrors used aluminum or silver behind float glass, creating that flat reflective quality most people knew. This was older technology—silver nitrate on blown glass, the backing applied by hand. But more than that. The reflective quality was off. Sharper than it should be. It was clearer and showed too much detail in the objects it reflected.
Bastien focused on it properly. Checking it carefully, layer by layer. Using his celestial gifts he explored the construction.
Mirror-forged magic hit him immediately. Not the passive kind that came from sustained exposure to ritual work. Active power. Intentional enchantment woven into the glass itself at the molecular level. The surface thrummed with sustained energy, resonance that suggested ongoing connection to something elsewhere. To a network. To other mirrors linked through sympathetic magic.
It was waiting. Not dormant. Not inert. Waiting for specific interaction. For the right kind of attention.
Like a trap with a pressure plate. Or a locked door with the key already in hand.
He breathed on the surface experimentally. Just a soft exhale, the way someone might fog glass to check for imperfections.
Condensation formed where his breath hit. But instead of fading naturally with temperature and air movement, the moisture organized itself. Droplets moving against physics, drawn by intention that existed in the glass. They formed shapes. Letters. Words appearing in the fog with calligraphic precision.
You’re chasing a reflection that never loved you.
Bastien didn’t move. The words lingered for five seconds—he counted—before evaporating according to natural law again.
He breathed on the mirror again. Deliberately this time. Testing whether the message would repeat or change.
Different words formed.
Love is the cage you built yourself.
Philosophical attack. Undermining not just his choices but the foundation they stood on.
Another breath.
She doesn’t remember you. She never will.
This was both true and irrelevant. Memory wasn’t the point. The soul recognized even when the mind didn’t.
Another.
Every choice you’ve made has brought you here.
Determinism. The argument that free will was illusion. That Bastien’s entire existence followed rails someone else had laid.
He breathed on it one more time. Watching the pattern.
The grimoire was merely prologue.
