The messages cycled. Four variations had attacked from different angles, all aimed at making him question whether love justified the cost. Whether protecting Delphine’s autonomy meant accepting her ignorance. Whether every choice he’d made to preserve her agency had actually just been controlling her through absence.
Bastien set the mirror down carefully. His jaw muscle ticked once; the only physical tell he allowed himself.
These weren’t random taunts. They were crafted to destabilize. Written by someone who understood psychology, who’d studied Bastien’s history, who knew exactly which wounds would break open under pressure.
Gideon had been watching longer than Bastien had realized.
Then he tried something. He focused his energy through his fingertips where they touched the frame and pushing back through the connection he could feel thrumming in the glass.
The surface shimmered.
His office vanished from the reflection. For three seconds, he was seeing somewhere else entirely.
A study. Walls covered with mirrors—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, every size and shape fitted together like puzzle pieces. Papers scattered across a central desk. Books stacked in precarious towers. Ritual tools arranged with thoughtful precision. And in the center of one wall, a large mirror that showed not a reflection but a map of the Quarter, glowing with silver lines that connected points across the city.
Gideon’s workspace. Had to be.
The view lasted only seconds before cutting out. The mirror showed Bastien’s office again, his own face looking back at him.
But he understood now. This wasn’t just a message. It was an open channel. Gideon could watch him whenever he wanted.
His phone buzzed. Once, then twice in quick succession, then continuously. The vibration pattern that meant multiple messages arriving simultaneously.
Bastien picked it up. The screen showed seventeen notifications in the last thirty seconds.
Roxy had texted him, not two minutes ago.
Roxy:Whatever you’re doing, stop. Every mirror in my bar just went haywire.
Another text, from a vampire contact he hadn’t heard from in months. Marcel, who ran a gallery in the Warehouse District and never reached out unless circumstances were dire.
Marcel:Reflections reversing. Clocks running backward in glass. What’s happening?
Then another werewolf from the Crescent Moon Pack.
Unknown:Alpha says the pack house mirrors are showing wrong rooms. Security problem.
More texts flooding in. The supernatural community realizing simultaneously that something fundamental had changed.
Then his phone actually rang. Maman Brigitte.
He answered. “I know?—”
“Get to your window,” she said without preamble. Her voice carried an edge he’d rarely heard. “Now, mon cœur. You need to see this.”
Bastien crossed to the window and looked down at Dauphine Street.
What he saw made his tactical assessment of the situation shift entirely.
Car mirrors showing vehicles driving in reverse. Not reflecting backward—showing actual reversed motion. A taxi backing down the street, its reflection moving forward. They corrected after a few seconds, snapping into synchronization with an almost audible pop.
Shop windows across the street reflecting the wrong interiors. The coffee shop’s window showed the bar two doors down—he could see the liquor bottles on shelves, the pool table in the back. The window next to it showed someone’s apartment, a bedroom with rumpled sheets and morning light through different windows than existed on this street.
A woman walked past below, paused to check her reflection in a parked car’s window. Her image moved independently for three full seconds—turned its head, looked directly at Bastien’s window two floors up, and smiled—before snapping back into normal reflection behavior. The woman shook her head, muttered something, and kept walking, unaware her reflection had just operated with autonomous consciousness.
The clock tower visible past the roofline showed 9:47 a.m. Its reflection in the glass building beyond, the modern office structure that caught light like a mirror itself, read 9:51. Four minutes ahead. As if the reflection existed slightly forward in time.
Bastien watched for another minute. Counted incidents. Three reversed cars. Five windows showing wrong locations. Two pedestrians whose reflections moved independently. The clock discrepancy holding steady at four minutes ahead.
