They held the mirror together, their fingers overlapping on its frame. The glass cleared. Showed both of them—side by side, their reflections sharp and true.
“The risk,” Bastien said carefully, reading further in Charlotte’s instructions. “Gideon’s manipulated evidence will show simultaneously. Everything he’s compiled—every moment that looks predatory when viewed through his lens. You’ll see our entire partnership distorted into something ugly.”
“And I have to speak truth into the mirror while that’s happening,” Delphine finished. “Choose clearly while confronting the worst possible interpretation of everything we’ve done.”
“Yes.”
She set the mirror down on the altar carefully. “Then we’d better make sure I understand what I’m looking at.”
They practiced with the mirror. Delphine held it alone—her reflection clear and steady. Bastien held it alone—the glass went dark, showing nothing but empty space. Together, both of them visible. The network recognized their combined frequency. Acknowledged the bond that connected them. But required both of them to participate for it to function properly.
Eleven-thirty by Bastien’s watch. Time to leave, to prepare for tomorrow. To rest before they faced whatever Gideon planned to broadcast across every mirror in the city.
But as they gathered the journal, the drawings, the mirror—as they prepared to climb back to the surface—the tunnel mirrors activated simultaneously.
Every reflective surface in the chamber lit up with Gideon’s voice. “You found her little insurance policy. How touching.”
Bastien moved instinctively, positioning himself between Delphine and the nearest mirror. But the attack didn’t come from external threat. It came from the reflected light itself, coalescing into a figure that wore his face.
The doppelgänger smiled with his mouth. Stood with his posture. Spoke with his voice pitched just slightly wrong—the way a recording never quite captured the resonance of live speech.
“You preserve her, not protect her,” the reflection said. “Every choice you’ve made has been about controlling her path. You think because you call it care, because you dress it up in patience and distance, that makes it different. But look at the result. She’s here. In danger. In the dark. Because you brought her here.”
The words landed with harsh criticism. These were Bastien’s deepest fears, his most persistent doubts. The questions that kept him awake at three in the morning wondering if he was doing the right thing or just repeating Charlotte’s mistakes with better justification.
The doppelgänger moved closer to Delphine, circling around Bastien’s protective stance. “Ask him if he ever considered leaving you alone. Actually alone. Not just physically distant while watching your life unfold. Not just careful while still pulling strings. Ask him if he ever thought about truly letting you choose without his presence anywhere in the equation.”
Delphine didn’t flinch. She watched the reflection with the same analytical attention she brought to problematic historicaldocuments. “He left me alone for twenty-five years,” she said calmly. “That’s patience, not control.”
The doppelgänger shifted tactics instantly, turning its attention to Bastien. “She built this to trap you. Think about it. Every safeguard that preserves choice for her simultaneously locks you into the role of protector. Every component that honors her autonomy requires your constant vigilance. The whole system is guilt management disguised as altruism. Charlotte didn’t free you—she created an elegant cage where you’d police yourself.”
The attack felt personal because it was. Made from curated emotional residue. Bastien’s own doubts weaponized, given voice and form through Gideon’s understanding of how to twist genuine concern into paralysis.
But he remembered Charlotte’s words from the journal. He read them again in his mind
Use truth against lies. Use choice against compulsion.
“You’re using my voice to speak Gideon’s philosophy,” Bastien said clearly. “That’s manipulation. Charlotte built choice into every component. I’ve seen the schematics. I’ve read her instructions. She left these tools because she trusted me to recognize truth. Which means I recognize you as a lie.”
He pulled the broken circle mirror from his jacket pocket. Held it up, facing the doppelgänger. “Show yourself honestly or dissolve.”
The mirror’s truth-reflecting property forced the reflection to reveal its actual nature. The doppelgänger fractured—image breaking apart into fragments that showed glimpses of Gideon’s workspace. Walls covered with mirrors that displayed every interaction Bastien had ever had with Delphine. An evidence wall documenting their partnership with bitter annotations. A desk covered with letters addressed to someonenamed “Elena”—name written and rewritten, never sent, never answered.
Bastien understood then. Gideon’s obsession was personal. Someone had rejected him. Someone named Elena had walked away, and instead of processing that loss, he’d built an entire ideology around his wound. Convinced himself that all bonds were prisons. That anyone who chose connection was deluding themselves. That the only honest response to love was to destroy it before it destroyed you.
The doppelgänger shattered completely. Fragments dissolved in the water, leaving only residual light that faded quickly.
The tunnel mirrors went dark. Then they lit up again, this time with Gideon’s actual voice—not channeled through stolen resonance but broadcast directly.
“Tomorrow night. Every mirror in the city. She’ll see everything I’ve compiled—every protective lie, every choice you made for her, every way you shaped her path. And then we’ll see what she chooses when she has the complete picture.”
The light faded. The chamber returned to normal—just stone and water and the pulse of the network’s light through Charlotte’s glass veins.
Bastien looked at Delphine. She met his eyes steadily.
“Then we’d better get ready,” she said.
They climbed back to the surface in silence, carrying Charlotte’s tools and knowing that tomorrow would force everything into the open. Every doubt, every fear, every uncomfortable truth about what the bond meant and what it didn’t. Gideon would show it all. Delphine would have to choose while watching the worst possible interpretation of their relationship play out across every reflective surface in New Orleans.
