She left, footsteps fading down the stairs. Bastien stood in the sudden quiet of his apartment, surrounded by maps and data and Charlotte’s journal lying open to instructions. He should sleep. Should attempt to recover some energy before tonight’s work.
Instead, he moved to the window and watched Delphine emerge onto the street below. She walked with purpose toward the Archive, already pulling out her phone to check messages she’d been ignoring while helping him. Morning light caught her hair and made it shine copper-bright.
He made himself turn away before she disappeared around the corner.
The couch looked more appealing than it had any right to. He collapsed onto it without bothering to remove his shoes, telling himself he’d rest for an hour before continuing work. Just long enough to let his hands stop cramping and his vision clear.
He was asleep within minutes.
Knocking woke him.
Bastien sat up too fast, disorientation making the room tilt before equilibrium reasserted itself. Fallen angel or not, he was not immune to mortal things like having to shake off sleep. Late afternoon light slanted through the windows, long shadows suggesting he’d been out for hours instead of the brief rest he’d intended.
The knocking continued. He crossed to the door and found Delphine on the other side, holding a paper bag that smelled like food.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” she said. “I got worried.”
He glanced at his phone and found it dead; the battery had drained at some point while he’d slept. “Sorry. I meant to rest for an hour.”
“It’s almost six.” She pushed past him into the apartment.
She unpacked the bag she brought onto his table, revealing containers of red beans and rice from the place on Royal near her house that stayed open late. “Eat. Then we’ll work.”
He’d been running on coffee for too long. Burning through reserves that needed replenishment. He sat and ate while Delphine made fresh coffee, moving through his kitchen with the comfort of someone who’d been here often enough to know where he kept things.
“The Archive was quiet today,” she said. “No mirror incidents, no equipment failures. Whatever’s happening with your network, it hasn’t spread to our collection yet.”
“That’s good.”
“Is it? Or does it just mean we haven’t noticed the signs yet?”
Valid question. He swallowed food that suddenly tasted like obligation instead of sustenance. “I don’t know. The contamination spreads through geometric resonance. Ifthe Archive doesn’t have reflective surfaces in the right configuration, it might be naturally insulated.”
“We have dozens of mirrors. Display cases with glass fronts. Windows everywhere.” She handed him coffee. “I spent the day creating a list of them. Wrote down locations, sizes, what they reflected. Figured it might be useful data.”
She’d done that on her own initiative. Had taken his vague explanation of geometric networks and applied archival methodology to document potential risk factors. The gesture made his throat tight.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She sat across from him. “Now finish eating so we can figure out if I’m actually capable of anchoring your network, or if Charlotte’s journal was describing something that only worked two hundred years ago.”
He ate. She talked about her day, casual details about patron interactions and organizational drama that had nothing to do with mirror networks or containment failures. Normal conversation that made the apartment feel less like strategic headquarters and more like space where two people existed comfortably together.
When he finished, she cleared the containers and returned with Charlotte’s journal. “I read through the rest of it during lunch. Like we saw before, Charlotte mentions something called bloodline resonance testing. A way to verify whether someone has the capacity for anchor work before attempting the actual binding.”
“Show me.”
She opened the journal to a page marked with receipt paper. Charlotte’s handwriting described a ritual that required physical contact and shared focus, a temporary connection that would reveal whether bloodline resonance existed at sufficient strength.
“It’s safe,” Delphine said. “According to the text. No permanent effects, no risk of memory loss or consciousness alteration. Just a diagnostic test.”
“You trust Charlotte’s definition of safe?”
“I trust that she wouldn’t deliberately endanger her own descendants.” Delphine met his eyes. “And I trust you to stop it if something goes wrong.”
The confidence in her voice. “All right. We’ll test it.”
They cleared space on the floor, pushing furniture aside until they had room to work. Bastien drew the pattern Charlotte had specified, chalk lines forming interlocking circles that looked simpler than they were. When he finished, Delphine stepped into the left circle. He took position in the right.
