He drew the shard from his pocket. Its light answered the chamber’s pulse, gold brightening until he had to squint. The fragment had been his diagnostic tool for weeks. Now it would serve as anchor. One final node placed at the network’s heart, grounding resonance in artifact rather than living will.
He would collapse what remained of the lattice. Withdraw his frequency from the pattern. Let Charlotte’s design operate as she’d intended—incomplete, unstable, but no longer torn between competing signatures.
The shard pressed against the altar’s crest.
Metal met glass. Silver touched black. The chamber’s light flared white. His arm went hot from palm to shoulder, celestial resonance recognizing its own kind.
The cracks in the crest began to heal. Silver flowed, filling gaps, sealing fractures. The metal reformed around the shard, incorporated it into the design until fragment and setting merged.
The whispers stopped. Not gradually. Just ceased.
Then, from the walls, one final voice.
“Every rescue is a cage.”
Gideon’s philosophy, delivered as judgment.
Bastien ignored it. Kept his hand pressed against the altar. The stone was warm. The light that ran through the vein’s channels pulsed in steady rhythm—his frequency, channeled through the shard, distributed across Charlotte’s network.
Not interference now. Integration.
Light steadied. Pulse slowed from frantic to even. The network held.
Water lapped against the altar’s base, draining through channels that led back to the river. Temperature dropped degree by degree. Steam thinned until air cleared.
Somewhere above, Delphine would be waking in his apartment. Finding him gone. She would check her phone for messages he hadn’t sent. Would study the maps he’d left, trying to piece together where he’d gone and why he’d lied about it.
Safe, though. Breathing regular air. Seeing stable reflections. Untouched by the resonance that had threatened to anchor through her bloodline.
He’d preserved her. Again.
You preserve her. You never protect her.
His doppelgänger’s accusation, delivered through glass. Words he’d dismissed as Gideon’s manipulation.
Standing in Charlotte’s chamber with the network stabilized around a sacrifice he’d made without consulting anyone, he wondered if the reflection had been right.
The water was back to reaching his ankles. He waded toward the nearest passage, following current that would guide him to street level.
Three options.
Destroy the network—risk unknown cascade effects through the Quarter’s infrastructure. Charlotte had integrated her work too deeply. Ripping it out might collapse buildings, fracture foundations, cause sinkholes that would swallow blocks.
Contain the network—would require more resources and power than he possessed. The system was too large, too distributed. He’d need a dozen practitioners working in concert, and even then, success wasn’t guaranteed.
Or subvert the network. Turn Charlotte’s creation against Gideon’s intentions.
Destruction would hurt the city. Containment was impossible.
But subversion—that he could attempt.
New plan forming as he navigated back toward the access ladder. Use Delphine’s stabilizing influence to anchor specific nodes. Create a counter-network of calm within Gideon’s storm. Turn his surveillance system into an early warning system. Make the mirrors watch for threats instead of storing ammunition for philosophical warfare.
But it required making Delphine part of the essential infrastructure. She may have already agreed to the anchoring, but it was the one thing he’d tried to avoid—using her as a magical resource; exactly what Gideon wanted.
The water level was dropping. Storm passing, runoff draining toward the river. His boots found purchase on stone instead of slipping through current.
He reached the ladder and began the climb back to surface level. Thirty feet up through darkness, metal rungs cold againsthis palms, the weight of what he’d discovered pressing down with more force than the storm above ever could.
