“Not remotely.”
But she didn’t argue. He held out his elbow for her to take it and they began walking.
About halfway there, Delphine leaned into Bastien’s shoulder and whispered, “I enjoy your company too.” For a brief moment Bastien smiled, and squeezed her closer to him, inhaling her scent and being grateful for the time they had together. Even if it was in a filthy tunnel or doing research.
They walked together toward the Archive, and Bastien tracked every reflective surface they passed. Shop windows. Puddles. Car mirrors. Glass doors.
The city remembered her. Cataloged her presence. Paid attention beyond simple reflection.
And he was woven too deeply into the network to appear clearly. But he appeared. Distorted, fractured, geometric—but present. Not erased. Changed.
By the time they reached the Archive’s gate, he’d checked forty-seven reflective surfaces. Each one showed his form as kaleidoscope patterns, fragments that his brain wanted to resolve into a whole but couldn’t quite manage.
But visible. Real. There.
Delphine paused at the entrance. “Tomorrow morning? Nine o’clock?”
“I’ll be here.”
She headed inside. He watched her climb the exterior stairs, tracking her progress through windows that showed her clearly while showing him as scattered light.
The vault had recognized him. Had tried to show him Gideon’s distortions and failed. Charlotte’s foundation remained intact beneath corruption that couldn’t touch the emotional truth of her work.
But walking away from the Archive with Delphine’s image appearing sharp and clear in every window while his remained fractured and strange, Bastien understood the cost of integration.
He would never see himself beside her the way others did. Never verify through normal reflection that they occupied the same physical space in the same uncomplicated way. Never catch their images in passing mirrors and see the simple truth of two people walking together.
The network would show her. And translate him into something new—something that belonged to mirrors now as much as it belonged to the mortal world.
He turned away from the Archive and headed home through streets that saw him differently.
Tomorrow they would examine Charlotte’s documents. Map the original design. Prepare to face whatever Gideon had planned.
Tonight, he would rest. And accept that some changes, once made, couldn’t be unmade.
His phone buzzed.
Delphine: Thank you for today. For trusting me enough to let me help.
He smiled despite the exhaustion pressing against his thoughts.
Bastien: Thank you for refusing to let me do this alone.
The Quarter settled into evening around him. Streetlights came on. Music drifted from open doorways. Reflections appeared in shop windows and puddles and glass doors.
All of them showed him as fractured geometry. Scattered light that held his shape but refused to resolve into clarity.
But there. Present. Real.
He pocketed his phone and kept walking, determined and grounded, toward whatever came next.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Bastien arrived at the Archive at eight forty-five. Early, but not by much. The morning air still carried the coolness that would burn off by noon, turning the Quarter into the humid pressure cooker that defined October in New Orleans. He’d stopped for coffee—two this time, both iced, because Delphine had mentioned yesterday that the Archive’s air conditioning had been struggling.
The building’s iron gate stood propped open. Tuesday maintenance schedule, if he remembered correctly. Someone had watered the courtyard plants; puddles still sat in the uneven flagstone, reflecting clouds that moved too fast for the stillness of the morning.
