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)
His image moved in the window glass.
Bastien turned. The pane showed only morning sun and the oak tree whose branches scraped exterior brick when wind aligned properly. No movement. No disturbance. Just glass showing what existed in physical space.
Except his reflection faced the wrong direction.
The captured version of himself looked back toward the desk while his actual body oriented toward the window. Impossible geometry that made him recoil from the logical violation.
The image normalized. Synchronized perfectly, showing nothing unusual. But the temperature drop hadn’t been his imagination, and neither had the impossible geometry.
He approached the window. Glass felt cold against his fingertips despite October warmth that had humidity collecting on every surface. The temperature change suggested energy drain, heat absorbed by process requiring more power than passive reflection.
Words formed on the surface.
Condensation that shouldn’t have existed on the exterior pane arranged itself into precise script. Reversed lettering that read correctly when viewed from inside.
Every reflection tells the truth.
It’s the viewer who lies.
The message held for three seconds before evaporating, moisture dispersing as though wind had scattered it. No trace remained except the cold patch and the certainty that someone had just delivered communication while standing nowhere near the building.
Mirror-Forged Ink. Same technique as the envelope’s hidden message but deployed with surgical precision in his home. Whoever sent the auction house invitation possessed skill to manifest text through any polished surface, distance rendered irrelevant.
Bastien stepped back. The oak’s branches scraped brick with sound that matched normal acoustics. Traffic noise filtered up from the street. A neighbor’s dog barked twice. Ordinary morning routine surrounding an event that violated every principle of isolated space.
He returned to the desk. The shard sat exactly where he’d left it, absorbing light with patient hunger. But the hum had changed. Frequency shifted higher by increments, moving from boundary resonance toward something that made his teeth ache.
The journal lay open to his most recent entry. Beneath his final sentence, new words formed.
The hunter studies the glass.
The glass studies back.
Ink materialized letter by letter, building from nothing. Handwriting matched his own except for subtle variations in pressure and slant. Someone appeared to be copying his documentation style with accuracy that suggested either intimate familiarity with his research methods or access to enough samples to forge convincing reproduction.
Bastien closed the journal. The leather binding felt warm with active magic, not any sort of residual energy. He’d warded his apartment specifically against remote observation of any kind. Three separate containment fields, each using different theoretical frameworks. All of them had failed against glass-based penetration.
His apartment wasn’t secure. His research couldn’t be private. Any polished surface had become a potential window for observation, communication, infiltration. The city was built from materials that could betray him.
He needed Maman’s assessment before paranoia overwhelmed analysis.
The drive to Maman Brigitte’s took fifteen minutes in the rush hour traffic. He could have walked there in the same amount of time but thought he may need his vehicle later on. Bastien navigated residential blocks where renovation existed alongside decay, wealth and abandonment separated by property lines invisible to those who didn’t understand the city’s economic geography.
His rearview showed normal traffic patterns. Side panels displayed passing architecture without temporal lag or impossible geometry. Everything looked exactly as it should. Which meant nothing anymore.
Maman’s shop occupied a building whose facade carried two centuries of character—brick darkened by weather and soot from gas lamps that lined the street, shutters painted green for protection that extended beyond superstition. The entrance sat three steps below street level; the wooden door frame carved with symbols most visitors mistook for decoration. Iron hinges bore marks of countless openings, metal worn smooth at contact points.
She waited behind her reading table when he entered, coffee already poured into cups that predated the Civil War. The interior wrapped around him—ceiling pressed low by exposed beams and walls lined with shelves reaching into shadows the electric lights never quite dispelled. Jars containing substances defied categorization and crowded every horizontal surface. Worktables scattered throughout bore evidence of ongoing projects: half-drawn sigils in chalk and silver, candles that burned without wicks, polished surfaces showing places that didn’t exist in normal geography. Should customers arrive, they’d only see meaningless drawings meant to look like sigils for show.
Sage and protection scented the air. Herbs hung in corners where shadows pooled deeper than physics allowed but next to the activated were a display of ordinary sage and other dried herbs and plants for sale.
“Sit, cher,” she said, gesturing toward the chair opposite. “And show me what’s got you looking like you spent the night wrestling demons.”
Bastien set the shard on the table between them. Three candles’ flames bent toward the artifact with motion that suggested attraction rather than air current.
“Temporal Echo,” he said. “Confirmed visual playback storage. Remote message delivery through condensation. And whoever’s doing this can write in my journal while I’m documenting in real time.”