Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Then he pulled a glass vial from his other pocket and crouched at the water’s edge. The Mississippi moved past, brown and thick with sediment. He uncapped the vial and dipped it below the surface. Water flowed in, carrying river smell and something else underneath it. Something that tasted metallic when he breathed through his mouth.
He capped the vial and held it up to morning light. The water inside swirled with particles too small to identify. But when he focused, using his celestial sight—that secondary way of seeing that revealed resonance and power—the water glowed faint blue. Same color as the silver powder. Same signature.
The contamination had seeped into the river itself.
He pocketed the vial and walked south along the levee. Morning traffic picked up behind him on the bridge. The city was waking up. People heading to work, starting their days, living normal lives in a city whose mirrors were learning to lie.
He stopped every twenty paces to check his reflection in the water. Most times it matched him perfectly. But twice—just twice—it lagged half a second behind his movements. And once, when he raised his hand to check his watch, his reflection raised the wrong hand.
Left instead of right. Mirror image becoming something other than reflection.
Bastien cataloged the locations in his mental map. Three points of severe contamination within a hundred yards of bank. The pattern suggested concentration—something below the surface anchoring the effect, drawing power and amplifying it through proximity to water.
He needed more information. The auction house shard. Gideon’s notes. Charlotte’s network diagrams. Everything connected, but he couldn’t see the shape yet. Couldn’t identify the mechanism that would let him sever the links before the next full moon rose and three werewolves tried to transform while their reflections lived independently.
His phone buzzed. Text message. He pulled it out.
Delphine: Found something in the Lacroix family inventory. Cross-referenced with city records. Can we talk?
He looked at the message for longer than necessary. She’d been digging into Charlotte’s family since he visited the Archive. Whatever she’d found was probably relevant. Possibly critical.
But bringing her deeper into this meant exposing her to more danger. The mirrors already knew her face. Letting them know she was actively investigating might draw attention he couldn’t deflect.
Bastien: Working a case. Can it wait until tonight?
Delphine: You’re avoiding me. I don’t need protection.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard. She wasn’t wrong. He’d been avoiding her—keeping distance, scheduling work around her Archive hours, making excuses when she suggested coffee or lunch or any of the dozen small interactions they’d fallen into over the past months. Not because he wanted to. Because every hour spent near her while this was going on unresolved felt like gambling with her safety.
Delphine: Whatever you’re protecting me from, I can help. I know you know that.
He stared at the words. She was right about that too. Delphine was capable, intelligent, resourceful. She’d proven that multiple times. But capability didn’t insulate her against mirror contamination. Neither did intelligence.
He didn’t answer. Just pocketed the phone and turned back toward his car. She’d forgive him later. Or she wouldn’t. Either way, she’d be alive to make that choice and her safety was the most important thing to him of all.
At the base of the Crescent City Connection, he stopped.
His reflection stared up at him from the water—coat, dark hair, pale face. Nothing unusual.
Then it blinked.
Bastien didn’t move. His reflection smiled.
The image split down the middle like a curtain parting. For a second, he saw something behind it—another version of himself standing in a room full of broken mirrors. The other Bastien raised one hand, palm out, pressing against glass that wasn’t there.
The reflection reformed. Normal. Whole.
Bastien stepped back from the edge. The fog thickened behind him as he turned toward the city.
Behind him, in the water, his reflection stayed at the river’s edge. He knew without looking back—could feel it the way he felt eyes on him in a crowd. The image held its position, staring after him while he walked twenty paces, then thirty.
It didn’t follow.
Chapter
Five
Bastien had been tracking resonance signatures through the Quarter for three hours when he heard the violin.
Not street music. Not amplified sound bleeding from open doorways. This came from somewhere above street level, melody drifting through upper windows on Rue Chartres. A waltz in three-quarter time, played with precision that suggested formal training and familiarity born from repetition.
His feet stopped moving before his conscious mind registered recognition.
He knew that tune. Had heard it played on a parlor piano over a century ago, notes rendered through touch rather than bow against string. The melody Delia had hummed while working, while walking, while existing in the world with unconscious grace. Her waltz. The one she’d claimed came to her in dreams, rising from some well deeper than memory.
The violin continued through the opening phrases. No mistakes. No hesitation. Every note precisely where it belonged.