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)
Someone knocked.
Bastien looked up. Past midnight. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
“It’s me,” Delphine called through the door. “I know you’re awake.”
He crossed the room and opened it. She stood in the hallway holding a paper bag that smelled like the Vietnamese place on Decatur, still open at this hour because the owner’s son worked nights.
“You haven’t eaten,” she said. Not a question.
“I’ve been working.”
“I know.” She walked past him into the apartment, set the bag on the counter beside his sink full of dishes, and pulled out a wrapped sandwich. “Bánh mì. The good kind with the pâté.”
“Delphine.”
“I was hungry. I bought two.” She unwrapped hers and took a bite, then looked at the worktable. The map spread across its surface, pins glowing faintly in the dim room. Wire connecting each marked site in a web of copper and silver. “That looks either very complicated or very dangerous.”
“Both.”
She nodded and sat in the chair by his bookshelf, the one that didn’t match anything else in the room because he’d found it on the street three years ago. She ate her sandwich and didn’t ask more questions.
Bastien went back to the lattice.
He worked for another twenty minutes, adding the final connections, checking each node’s alignment. The vibration in the room grew stronger as the pattern completed itself. When he tied off the last strand of silver wire, the tone shifted, settled into something that felt stable.
Delphine had finished eating. She’d pulled one of his books off the shelf—the Durand family grimoire, the one written in Old French and Creole that documented three centuries of mirror work. She turned pages carefully, her fingers light on the aged paper.
“This will work?” she asked without looking up.
“It should.”
She glanced at him. “Should is not my favorite word from you.”
He almost smiled. “It’s the most honest one I have.”
“I know.” She set the book aside and stood, then came closer to look at the map. Her shoulder brushed his. “You’ve been at this for days.”
“Three.”
“You look tired and you were supposed to rest.”
“I’m not. And I did.” He smirked at her. Their banter warmed him.
“Bastien.” She said his name the way she did when she knew he was lying. Soft, patient, with enough weight behind it that he couldn’t deflect.
He looked at her. She’d tucked her hair behind her ear, a habit she had when she was thinking. The lamplight caught the edges of her face, the curve of her jaw.
“I need this to work,” he said.
“I know.” She didn’t move away. “What happens if it does?”
“I can predict where the next breach will happen. Stabilize it before it spreads.”
He hadn’t told her the reason for his urgency, outside of stopping the mirror bleed altogether. Every site he’d marked corresponded to a place she’d been in the last week. The current pattern centered on her movements through the Quarter.
She read it in his face. “Bastien.”
“I’m working on it.”
“How bad is it?”
He could lie. Tell her it was manageable, that he had it under control. But she’d know. She always knew. One thing that Charlotte, Delia, and Delphine all had in common. Their ability to read him.
Bastien admitted what he was doing and waited to see how Delphine would react. “Bad enough that I’m using blood magic to anchor the lattice.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something shifted in her eyes. “Yours?”
“Yes.”
“That’s doesn’t seem like something you do lightly.”
“No. It’s not.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she picked up the wrapped sandwich from the counter and held it out to him. “Eat. You can’t work if you’re running on nothing.”
He took it. Their fingers brushed. Neither of them pulled away immediately.
“Thank you,” he said.
She smiled, small and real. “You’re welcome.”
She stayed while he ate, sitting cross-legged in the mismatched chair, reading the grimoire with the kind of focus she brought to everything. Comfortable silence. The lattice hummed quietly behind them, a steady tone that filled the room without overwhelming it.
When he finished eating, she closed the book. “I should go. Let you work.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” She stood, set the grimoire back on the shelf. “But you’ll finish faster without me distracting you.”
“You’re not—”
“Bastien.” That tone again. The one that said she saw through him. She raised a hand and pressed it to his cheek, her cool skin against his warm flesh. “I distract you. It’s fine. It’s mutual.”
He didn’t have an answer for that.
She crossed to the door, then paused with her hand on the frame. “When you test this thing, wherever you’re planning to do it—be careful.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
He met her eyes. “I promise.”
She nodded and left, the door clicking shut behind her.
Bastien stood in his apartment, listening to her footsteps fade down the hallway. She’d been right. She did distract him. But not in the way she thought.
When she was here, he worked with more precision. Her presence made him remember why the work mattered—not as abstract protection, but as something concrete. A person with a laugh and habits and trust that deserved safeguarding.