“And that’s what you’re tracking. What Gideon wants to corrupt.”
“Yes.”
She reached toward the mirror, then stopped herself. Her hand hovered three seconds before she pulled back. “The gold leaf. It’s not just decorative.”
“Gold conducts celestial resonance. Silver conducts mortal resonance. Charlotte embedded both to bridge incompatible realms. The gold carries intention across barriers that block ordinary materials.”
Delphine processed this. He could see her building the framework in her mind, connecting information. “So these mirrors aren’t remembering scenes. They’re holding active connections. Between past and present.”
He met her eyes. “Between what we were and what we became.”
“That’s why Gideon’s targeting them. He wants to sever the connections.”
“Or prove they were never real.” The bitterness in his tone surprised him. “Demonstrate that devotion this deep is self-deception. Obsession dressed as love.”
Delphine heard the wound. Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” He kept his voice level. “Charlotte thought she was creating permanence. Gideon’s reframing it as cage. How do I know which is true?”
“By looking at evidence. At what Charlotte actually said and did.” She opened her folder to a ribbon-marked page. “Thecraftsmen’s records. Three separate accounts of working with her on frames. All three mention she insisted on explaining her intentions while they gilded. She wanted them to understand what they were helping create.”
She extended the folder. He read the topmost document—journal entry from a master gilder, dated June 1772.
Mademoiselle Charlotte speaks while I work, explaining her philosophy. She says devotion that demands possession is false devotion. That connection requires each soul to remain free while choosing to stay bound. She designs these mirrors to remember choice rather than compulsion. To prove love endures without becoming cage.
Charlotte’s philosophy in testimony from someone with no stake in their relationship. Someone recording what he’d heard while applying gold leaf.
“There are two more.” Delphine pointed deeper in the folder. “All consistent. All emphasizing Charlotte designed these to preserve autonomy, not enforce control. Whatever Gideon’s trying to make you believe, the historical record contradicts him.”
Bastien read through the remaining documents. Each reinforced the theme—Charlotte had been deliberate, explicit. She’d wanted witnesses. Documentation that would survive and testify to what she’d actually believed.
“She knew,” he said. “Knew someone would eventually reframe her work as obsession. So she made sure the craftsmen recorded her explanations.”
“I wonder what they thought of it. If they believed her, or if they just nodded along and did what they were paid to do.”
Bastien wondered as well. But what he did know was Charlotte did nothing in half measure. Her intent was never to bind them without choice. There was always a choice. No different than how he stayed away from Delphine as she grewup. He lived a life without her, waiting for the right time to come into her adult life. He hadn’t influenced her.
He thought back over his love with Charlotte. So deep, he’d made the life altering decision to be with her in a new form outside his celestial bindings. That was a choice. He hadn’t been led there.
“I’d have to say it was likely the latter,” Bastien mused, thinking of Charlotte’s utter lack of inhibitions for all things, not the least of which was her practice in the craft of magic. She wouldn’t care what the craftsmen thought so long as they did what she’d asked of them.
“She was protecting her legacy. And protecting you from this kind of manipulation.” Delphine closed the folder. “Gideon can corrupt the mirrors, but he can’t corrupt the written record. That’s why I needed to show you this. Before he erodes your confidence further.”
The room felt lighter. Delphine’s presence stabilized more than mirror resonance—she’d help secure his understanding of what Charlotte had actually created.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t thank me for showing you what’s already there.” She paused. “But you do need to sleep. When’s the last time you actually rested?”
“Yesterday. Maybe.”
“Not sustainable. You’re tracking a network spanning the entire city while running on coffee and spite. That gives Gideon advantages you can’t afford.”
She was right. Exhaustion had made him vulnerable, had let doubt enter. But sleeping meant leaving the investigation unattended. Meant giving Gideon time.
“I’ll sleep when I’ve documented these fragments.”
“No.” Flat contradiction. “You sleep now. I’ll photograph the remaining fragments using your protocols. When you wake up,the work’s complete and you’re functional enough to analyze results.”
