LIII
Lorian's neglected phone chirruped in a tone for one of his many assistants in Europe, waking him up from his library nap.
Lorian argued in clipped German with his assistant, the kind of sharp, efficient exchange that suggested he was juggling three crises at once. He stood near the departure screens, coat draped over one arm, hair slightly disheveled from running his hand through it too many times. Even in the chaos of the airport, he carried himself with that same old‑world elegance that made people glance twice without knowing why.
He ended the call with a terse "Später," and exhaled as though he'd been holding his breath for hours.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning back to me. "My assistant insists the Munich shipment will fall apart without me. Import/export is a demanding mistress."
He said it lightly, but there was a tension beneath the humor — the kind that comes from living two lives at once. I wondered how much of his business was truly mundane, and how much involved goods that never passed through human customs.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a slim, older‑model mobile phone. Not the sleek one he'd used during the argument. This one was matte black, unadorned, almost outdated.
"This," he said, pressing it into my hand, "is my personal number. The one I keep only for friends and family. No business calls. No assistants. No emergencies that involve shipping containers."
I blinked, surprised. "Are you sure?"
He smiled, that same mischievous, aristocratic smile that made him look like he belonged in a ballroom lit by chandeliers rather than under fluorescent airport lights.
"Unless," he added, "you'd prefer not to call me, cousin."
I snorted. "Absolutely not." I needed his help, and his connections.
He laughed, delighted, as though he'd expected exactly that answer.
The boarding announcement echoed overhead, calling his flight to Munich. He glanced toward the gate, then back at me, and something softened in his expression. For a moment, he looked less like a man running a business and more like someone carrying centuries of secrets.
"I won't be gone long," he said. "Munich is only a few hours."
But the way he said it carried a weight that didn't belong to airline schedules. It sounded like a promise made by someone who had lost too many people to distance and time.
"I will be back once this business is straightened out. We will keep in touch. I have called my father. Maybe he will have an idea about this mirror and the hat man."
We walked together to the gate. Travelers streamed past us. A crowd of families, students, businessmen, none of them aware that the man beside me had once stepped through a gate into Fairy, or that his lineage was tied to a pact older than their nations.
When we reached the boarding line, he took my hand. Not in a rushed, distracted way, but gently, deliberately. He lifted it and brushed his lips across my knuckles, a gesture so old‑fashioned it felt like it belonged to another century.
"Until we meet again," he said. It wasn't a farewell. It was a certainty.
He released my hand and stepped into the line, disappearing into the crowd of passengers. But even after he was gone, I could still feel the warmth of his touch. In the quiet, I had an unsettling realization that I had just been given a phone number meant for people who lived on both sides of the veil. Then the horror dawned on me. He had left me alone, with a barely caged monster in my pocket.
I had five days to ponder the situation. I mourned my freedom. I had enough money to travel, to broaden my horizons, but no, I had to keep a monster in a bottle. It was too dangerous to expose to living people. At any time something could shatter the mirror and let him loose. He still talked to me in dreams, pleading to be freed. It was incredibly annoying. I couldn't even plug my ears as this dancing devil tried to seduce me into freeing him to feed from an entire living population. He'd spread like an evil plague should my spirit give out, giving him dominion.
Lorian's business trip seemed like forever. I met Lorian at the airport haggard, dark eyebags, exhausted by the lack of sleep. I had fought sleep nearly every day he was gone.
"I'm sorry. You've clearly suffered." He consoled me.
The drive to the airport felt strangely normal after everything we'd survived. Morning traffic, sunlight on the windshield, the hum of tires on asphalt blurred as we sped by. All of it so mundane it almost made the soul‑mirror in my lap feel unreal. But it wasn't. Its faint pulse reminded me with every heartbeat.
Lorian's phone lit up the moment he turned it on. Notifications exploded across the screen like fireworks. Dozens of missed calls, urgent emails, calendar alerts, messages from his assistant in three different languages. He ignored all of them.
Instead, he hit the voice‑call button for his father.
The line connected almost immediately.
Lorian's father didn't bother with greetings. His voice came through sharp, accented, and tense. "You've been gone from home many days my son. What happened?"
Lorian glanced at me, then at the mirror. "We need to talk about a demon father, a spirit that consumes souls. Great-aunt Olivia's niece calls him the hat-man. We have him contained in a mirror, but he could eventually break free."
Silence. Then a low, controlled inhale.
His father wasn't just a businessman. He was the head of the fairy‑blooded representatives across Europe, a man who dealt with supernatural politics the way other people dealt with trade agreements. He understood danger. He understood power. And he understood exactly what it meant when Lorian said the hat man.
"Is he loose?" his father asked.
"No," Lorian said. "He's contained. For now."
"Lorian," his father asked, "How did you get yourself in this mess just traveling for Great-aunt's will reading?"
"I do not know father, but that is what has happened."
I tightened my grip on the mirror. The hat man's voice inside was barely a flicker now, but still present, and still dangerous.
Lorian continued, "We can't leave him in the mirror. The soul‑energy cage will drain eventually. And when it does, he'll break out."
His father's tone sharpened. "How long."
"We don't know," Lorian said. "Weeks. Months. Years. But it will happen."
I swallowed hard. I tugged on Lorian's shirt sleeve, whispering to him, "Don't forget to tell your father that the mirror is tied to me. My spirit is part of the cage. If he drains it… he drains me."
That got a reaction. A sharp exhale.
A muttered curse in a language I didn't recognize.
Then, "Bring him to me. Europe's wards are older, stronger."
Lorian nodded. "We will be on our way there as soon as we can."
"You'll need a binding circle," his father said. "Not a cage. Not a prison. A true binding. Something that severs him from the world. Take your time. This will not be a short process. I may need to consult the other heads of Europe."
The car fell quiet except for the hum of the road.
Lorian leaned back in his seat, exhaustion settled over him again. He looked like he could fall asleep right there, phone still in hand. A few days away from his business empire, days without his phone, without meetings, without the constant buzz of responsibility had clearly taken a toll.
But he didn't complain. He didn't even sigh.
He just looked at me, eyes steady, voice soft. "We'll finish this. Then you go home. And I'm going back to work."
I smiled faintly. "And the hat man?"
Lorian glanced at the mirror. "He's going somewhere he shouldn't affect you."
The mirror pulsed in my hands.
I was finally going on a trip to Europe. The mirror couldn't go alone.