He knelt like he was tying his shoe. Tourists flowed around him. His hand moved along the building’s foundation, white powder settling into the gap between wall and sidewalk.
The air shifted. Not a dramatic change—no thunderclap or surge of light. Just a settling. In the window, the figures stopped mid-gesture and went still in their current positions, not yesterday’s.
One down. Four to go.
The second address was a gallery two blocks over. Courtyard behind iron gates, paintings on brick walls under covered galleries. The gates stood open for evening hours.
The fountain in the courtyard’s center caught his attention. He could hear the pump running—steady mechanical hum—but the water sat perfectly still. Mirror-calm. Clouds reflected overhead with the kind of clarity you only got from absolute stillness.
Bastien walked in, nodding to the gallery attendant. The fountain was maybe five feet across; coins scattered on the bottom where tourists had made wishes. He circled it once, watching.
The water wasn’t entirely still. Tiny ripples spread from the center where the pump pushed liquid up and out. Normal physics. But the reflections were wrong. Clouds overhead moved at their usual speed. Their images in the water lagged behind by thirty seconds. Forty. A full minute.
He pulled a copper penny from his pocket. Pre-1982, back when they’d had actual copper content. Better for certain workings. He held it over the water, watching his reflection appear—coat and hand and suspended coin.
The penny dropped and hit the surface with barely a ripple. The water swallowed it like gel, the coin sinking in slow motion until it settled with the others at the bottom.
His reflection in the fountain reversed. Not all of it—just various details. Coat buttons on the wrong side. The hand holding the penny switched from right to left.
Mirror logic. Glass that had stopped caring about the rules.
He moved to the courtyard’s edge and laid down salt and silver along the brick wall’s base. Not to stop the effect—too late for that—but to contain it. Keep it from spreading intothe gallery where tourists browsed paintings in air-conditioned comfort.
The fountain’s pump kicked back into normal rhythm. Current rippled across the surface. Reflections broke into proper fragments, moving when they should move.
Two down.
The third site was a pharmacy on Royal Street, old dispensary counter still visible behind modern shelving. He grounded it in under ten minutes. The contamination there was lighter—either the building’s history didn’t reach as deep, or the Lacroix connection was weaker. He’d take the win either way.
The fourth address was the church. Small congregation, no tourists. Evening prayer was in session—two dozen voices blending in hymns that asked for protection. The kind of songs people sang when they needed to believe something was listening.
Bastien slipped in through the open doors and kept to the side aisle where shadows were thick. The glass he needed hung on the east wall. Three feet square, brass frame, positioned to catch sunrise during morning services.
He waited through three verses. Moved forward during a pause when the congregation’s attention stayed on the altar. His reflection appeared in the glass—coat, careful expression, the tightness in his jaw he’d worn since the auction house.
Then hands appeared in the glass behind him.
Not his. Not anyone’s who was standing in the sanctuary. Just hands, palms pressed flat against the interior surface like someone testing the barrier from the other side.
Pale hands. Manicured. They rested against the glass without pressure, without hurry.
Words formed in condensation across the surface. The evening wasn’t humid enough for it, but there they were anyway.
You’re very close to proving me right.
The letters dripped down the glass. The hands withdrew. The surface showed only what it should—wall and candlelight and congregation.
Bastien put his palm against the glass. Cold bit into his skin, colder than it had any right to be. Frost spread from his hand in branching patterns.
He pulled back and laid down Maman’s mixture along the wall’s base, working fast, hidden in shadow. The words sealed the node without him having to speak them—the resonance here was strong enough that contact alone triggered the effect.
The glass warmed to room temperature, melting the frost to faint moisture that would dry in minutes. The surface went back to being just a mirror.
Four down. One left.
The fifth address was an apartment building on Burgundy Street. Historic plaque by the entrance, dated 1840s. Charlotte could have walked through these doors. Maybe had, given how deep the Lacroix connections ran.
The lobby doors were unlocked—building security relied on key cards for individual units. Bastien walked in. The lobby was small, fifteen feet square, mailboxes on one wall. The other wall was floor-to-ceiling reflective panel, expanding the space through the designer’s trick of making cramped quarters look bigger.
