“Bastien.” She said his name the way she did when she knew he was lying. Soft, patient, with enough weight behind it that he couldn’t deflect.
He looked at her. She’d tucked her hair behind her ear, a habit she had when she was thinking. The lamplight caught the edges of her face, the curve of her jaw.
“I need this to work,” he said.
“I know.” She didn’t move away. “What happens if it does?”
“I can predict where the next breach will happen. Stabilize it before it spreads.”
He hadn’t told her the reason for his urgency, outside of stopping the mirror bleed altogether. Every site he’d marked corresponded to a place she’d been in the last week. The current pattern centered on her movements through the Quarter.
She read it in his face. “Bastien.”
“I’m working on it.”
“How bad is it?”
He could lie. Tell her it was manageable, that he had it under control. But she’d know. She always knew. One thing that Charlotte, Delia, and Delphine all had in common. Their ability to read him.
Bastien admitted what he was doing and waited to see how Delphine would react. “Bad enough that I’m using blood magic to anchor the lattice.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something shifted in her eyes. “Yours?”
“Yes.”
“That’s doesn’t seem like something you do lightly.”
“No. It’s not.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she picked up the wrapped sandwich from the counter and held it out to him. “Eat. You can’t work if you’re running on nothing.”
He took it. Their fingers brushed. Neither of them pulled away immediately.
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled, small and real. “You’re welcome.”
She stayed while he ate, sitting cross-legged in the mismatched chair, reading the grimoire with the kind of focus she brought to everything. Comfortable silence. The lattice hummed quietly behind them, a steady tone that filled the room without overwhelming it.
When he finished eating, she closed the book. “I should go. Let you work.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” She stood, set the grimoire back on the shelf. “But you’ll finish faster without me distracting you.”
“You’re not?—”
“Bastien.”That tone again. The one that said she saw through him. She raised a hand and pressed it to his cheek, her cool skin against his warm flesh. “I distract you. It’s fine. It’s mutual.”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
She crossed to the door, then paused with her hand on the frame. “When you test this thing, wherever you’re planning to do it—be careful.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
He met her eyes. “I promise.”
