The paper glowed. Heat built in Bastien’s fingertips where he held it. The ink activated, absorbed the message, and prepared to transmit it through the mirror network to wherever Gideon was monitoring from.
Then the paper burned. Not fire. Pure energy consumption. The physical substrate destroyed as the message transferred to immaterial medium. Ash drifted down onto his desk, pale gray against dark wood.
Message sent through the mirror network.
Bastien set the pen down. His hand was steady. It always was. But the working had cost him—he felt the depletion, energy drawn from reserves he’d need to replenish later. Mirror-forged ink didn’t run on ambient power. It ran on intent. On will. On the practitioner’s life force translated through sympathetic magic into communication across distance.
He waited, counting seconds in his head. If Gideon was monitoring the channel—and he had to be—the response would come immediately. Delays meant thinking. Immediate response meant preparation. It would indicate Gideon had anticipated this move and already composed his reply.
The mirror’s surface rippled.
Words appeared. Not in fog this time. Etched directly into the reflection, glowing faintly:
You still believe in choice?
But the words were backward. Inverted. As if Bastien was reading them from the wrong side.
The implication settled cold in his stomach. Everything he did, Gideon had predicted. Every response, every tactical decision, already accounted for. The illusion of agency in a system that permitted only predetermined outcomes.
His anger rose. He controlled it. Didn’t let it show on his face, didn’t let it affect his breathing. But it was there, sharp and focused.
The mirror needed to be destroyed.
Not emotional destruction. Deliberate choice.
Bastien placed it face down on his desk. He opened the drawer and pulled out a small hammer—jeweler’s tool, precise weight, designed for delicate work. He positioned it over the back of the mirror’s frame.
One controlled strike. The sound of glass shattering was louder than he’d expected.
But even broken, something came through the fragments.
Not sound. Resonance. Laughter that existed in the space where observation met consciousness. Gideon’s amusement vibrating through the shards.
Bastien looked down at the pieces scattered across his desk. Each fragment showed something different. Not his office. Delphine at the Archive, leaning over a ledger. Maman’s shop, candles burning. The Quarter streets from angles suggesting there was surveillance from every reflective surface in the city.
Gideon was everywhere now. The network had become fully active.
Bastien collected the shards carefully. Each piece went into a warded box—lead-lined, inscribed with containment marks that would block resonance. He locked it and set it on the cabinet shelf.
“Charlotte,” he said quietly. Not to the mirror. To himself. To the ghost of her that lived in all the theory she’d left behind. “If you left a way to stop this, I need to find it.”
Not prayer. Tactical thinking. She’d built systems that transcended death. She’d understood how to preserve information across lifetimes. Somewhere in her work, she would have left a failsafe. Something that could dismantle what Gideon had created.
Bastien looked at the maps on his wall. At the notes covering his desk. At the mirror fragments locked safely away.
The hunt had shifted. No longer about understanding what Gideon wanted. Now about finding what Charlotte had hidden.
He picked up his phone. The messages kept coming in. The supernatural community demanding answers he didn’t have yet.
But one name stood out. Delphine, from ten minutes ago.
Delphine:Are you okay? Mirrors here are acting strange.
He needed to see her. Needed to check that she was safe. Needed to tell her—what, exactly? That the city had becomea panopticon? That privacy no longer existed? That the man targeting him could watch her through every reflective surface?
Bastien grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. He could be at the Archive in fifteen minutes.
Outside, the Quarter conducted its morning business. Tourists photographing architecture. Street performers setting up in Jackson Square. Delivery trucks blocking narrow streets while drivers maneuvered hand trucks.
