LVI
His yellowed eyes blinked open inside the mirror, dim and flickering like two dying lanterns. The scientists had just placed a soft, long‑bodied dachshund in front of the dais. Its dark fur still damp from the rain, its tail wagging nervously, its brown eyes wide and innocent.
The hat man stared at it. He stared at me with a growing fear, he would be small, innocuous, without teeth.
And then, with a slow, incredulous curl of his lip, he spoke.
"Really, my dear?
You want me to be your woof woof?"
The council chamber went still. The dachshund tilted its head, confused by the faint vibration coming from the mirror. The scientists scribbled notes. The representatives leaned forward. Lorian muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like a curse.
But the hat man wasn't finished. His voice was thin, weak, but dripping with offended pride.
"A dog? A dog? You would bury me in a creature that chases its own tail?"
His silhouette flickered, transparent and trembling, but his indignation was unmistakable.
"I am a dancer of souls, a collector of fog, a breaker of worlds,
not a… a woofing thing with stubby legs!"
The dachshund barked once. The hat man recoiled like he'd been slapped.
You felt the mirror pulse in my hands. Every thump echoed his annoyance, fear, humiliation, all tangled together. His power was nearly gone, but his ego was very much alive.
The rounder scientist cleared his throat. "The entity appears to be… responsive. This is promising."
The taller scientist clicked to the next slide. "We must test multiple species. Compatibility varies."
The hat man hissed inside the mirror.
"I will not be a pet." His voice cracked.
"I will not be a woof woof." He whined.
But the council didn't care about his pride. They cared about containment, stability, control. And the dachshund was small, manageable, magically receptive. It was exactly the kind of vessel they wanted.
You felt his desperation claw at your dreams every night, but this was different. This was fear. Real fear. The kind that stripped away his theatrics and left only the raw truth.
He was terrified of being reduced. In such a body he was diminished, he would be small, and owned.
And yet… that was the safest option for everyone.
The dachshund sniffed the mirror.
The hat man whispered, horrified:
"Don't you dare."
The council waited. The scientists watched.
Lorian stepped closer to me, ready to intervene if this went too far.
My gut twisted as I held the mirror. I could feel pity growing inside me. He was a predator, a hunter. It was almost nauseating that he'd be made to be….less.
The held the mirror grew cold in my hand, feeling the monster inside tremble at the sight of the soft, furry body that might become his new cage.
The council chamber didn't explode into shouting. It didn't devolve into chaos.
It went quietly. The dangerous kind of quiet where every person in the room was thinking politically, strategically, and coldly.And Lorian broke that quiet like a blade.
He stood so fast his chair scraped across the stone floor.
"This is unethical," he said, voice sharp enough to cut. "You're talking about binding a sentient being into an innocent creature. A living thing. A pet. And you're talking about disposing of it when convenient."
Several council members stiffened, unused to being challenged so directly.
The rose‑gold‑haired woman lifted her chin. "We are discussing containment. Not cruelty."
Lorian retorted, "there must be accountability. If we are to do this, we must make it with the least amount of suffering, for that creature, and the man in the mirror."
The rose‑gold woman folded her hands, her expression calm but unyielding.
"There are only two options," she said. "Binding him… or destroying him."
A man with copper hair added, "Destroying him would require a ritual equivalent to detonating a nuclear warhead. The magical fallout would be catastrophic."
Another representative nodded. "Too powerful to keep. Too dangerous to destroy."
The ragdoll cat in the corner meowed softly, unaware of the stakes.
The dachshund whined. The ginger hissed at the mirror.
The hat man's eyes flickered with fear.
"Please…Not this…"
The rose‑gold woman continued, voice steady:
"He is a threat. But he is also a resource. A deterrent. A weapon against greater evils. Binding him to a small vessel is the only way to keep him stable, contained, and useful."
Her gaze slid to me.
"And you are the only person he recognizes. The only one he listens to. The only one whose spirit is compatible with his cage. We must make a choice. What do you suggest we do?"
I accept that the hat man's power must be contained. I agree that if they need a body that a human shouldn't be used. I also make the point that there should be no waste if this was to happen. We should use an animal that wouldn't live anyway.
The moment I said it, the room changed.
A low ripple of murmurs, nods, shifting postures. The council, for all their cold pragmatism, understood efficiency. They understood necessity. And they understood the logic of your proposal far better than the ethics of the scientists' earlier suggestions.
"Shelters euthanize hundreds every day. We should choose one that already has no future." The words were heavy. Practical.
Cruel in a way that wasn't cruelty, just reality. The council murmured in acceptance.
A few nodded sharply, others sighed with relief.
Some council members looked at you with new respect.
Even Lorian's father leaned back, thoughtful.
"This," he said, "is a reasonable compromise."
Once they accepted the idea, everything accelerated.
Orders were given. Calls were made.
Shelter directors were contacted.
A list of animals scheduled for euthanasia was compiled.
Within an hour, vans arrived again, this time with creatures who had already been marked for death. Animals whose time was up. Animals who would not live past the week.
The atmosphere shifted. No more pampered ragdolls.
No more adoptable spaniels. Nothing came in that was loved.
These were the forgotten ones. Old, sick, unwanted, and overlooked.
Creatures whose lives had already been decided.
Inside the mirror, his yellow eyes widened. This time not with pride, not with seduction, but with something raw. Fear.
"My darling…
You would bury me in a dying thing?"
His voice trembled.
"You would cage me in a body already marked for death?"
It meant he would be trapped in a body that could barely sustain him, barely feed him, barely hold him together.
The rose‑gold woman stood.
"This is acceptable," she said. "Ethical, even. We are not sacrificing a healthy creature. We are repurposing one already destined for death."
Another representative nodded. "It limits his power. It prevents waste. It satisfies both containment and practicality."
The scientists scribbled notes furiously.
Lorian looked at me, leaf green eyes wilted tired, conflicted, but relieved that you had found a path that didn't involve harming a healthy animal or binding the hat man to something beloved.
His father spoke last.
"We will proceed."
The scientists carried the box in with a kind of reverence, though the creature inside was anything but regal. When they set it gently on the table, the lid lifted to reveal a small tuxedo cat, frail and trembling, its black‑and‑white fur patchy from illness. Its breaths came shallow and uneven. One eye was cloudy. The other, though dim, still held a faint spark of life.
The rounder scientist spoke first, voice soft but clinical.
"This one was scheduled for euthanasia today. Its body is failing. It is suffering from organ decline, respiratory infection, severe malnutrition. But…" He tapped his instrument, which hummed faintly. "It does have a spark left. And our readings show its spirit is compatible."
The taller scientist nodded. "Compatible enough to tether the entity without empowering it. Weak enough to limit him. Strong enough to hold him."
This was the one.
Inside the mirror, he leaned his forehead against the mirror's glass, first in confusion, then in horror.
He stared at the tiny tuxedo cat, its frail body curled in the box like a dying ember.
"My dear…"
"You cannot be serious…"
His voice cracked, thin and trembling.
"This… this scrap of fur? This creature that can barely breathe?"
The cat let out a soft, wheezing meow.
The hat man recoiled. Maybe that dog from earlier had been better, healthier at least.
"You want me to be that?" He didn't have a choice.
The ritual didn't feel dramatic.
It felt clinical, precise, and final. We were an audience watching a surgeon close a wound that could never be reopened.
The scientists worked quickly, their eleven‑blood hands steady and practiced. They placed the silver soul‑mirror on a stone altar etched with containment runes. The hat man's silhouette flickered inside, frantic and trembling. With a little bit of ritual, a small shard from the edge of the mirror was removed, sharp and shining in the surgical lights.
The small tuxedo cat lay on a cushion, breathing shallowly, its frail body barely able to lift its head. The rounder scientist knelt beside it, whispering a soft apology under his breath. He had more kindness than expected.
He pressed the shard gently against the cat's chest.
The shard sank in. Just… merging.
Silver light spread under the cat's fur like veins of moonlight.
The cat let out a soft, broken meow. The hat man's voice cracked inside the mirror.
His silhouette was pulled violently toward the shard, stretching like smoke, unraveling.
And then his silhouette dissipated. He was gone.
The shard pulsed once inside the cat's chest.
The cat's eyes widened, transforming from cloudy and sick to sharp, both a bright waxy yellow.
Its breathing steadied, spine straightened, and tail twitched.
He was not strong, nor healthy.
But alive in a way it hadn't been moments before.
The remaining mirror, the larger piece, was handed back to me. It hummed faintly, warm against my cold palms.
The scientists explained:
"You retain the anchor. The hat man can move between the cat and the mirror. He cannot leave either without your permission. The shard is like a plug, the cat is essentially a battery. You existed as a battery for the spell as long as he was in the mirror, an energy source. Now there is an additional one."
Lorian frowned. "So she's still tied to him."
"Yes," the scientist said. "But now he has a body. A weak one. It will keep him stable, with enough energy to exist, but not enough energy to predate other spirits."
I would have to keep this new being. Because this was the compromise we chose.
In my mind a dejected voice whispered, "my darling, I am a meow meow. I am so small…I hate this."