Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 105939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“That’s generous.”
“It’s accurate.” He kept his tone even, certain—the kind of certainty that offered ground to stand on. “Our minds put things together long before we have language for them. It isn’t a failure. It’s a sign something meaningful is trying to reach you through whatever door you’ll open.”
They crossed into a narrow lane where gas lamps haloed moths in warm amber. A trumpeter practiced scales behind a second-story window; a wrong note made them both smile. Down the block, a kid chalked an elaborate hopscotch that stretched into a constellation. Delphine watched him for a moment, thoughtful.
“Sometimes the dreams feel like that,” she said. “Outlines first. Then numbers. If I follow the pattern the right way, I land where I’m supposed to.”
“And if you step out of sequence?”
“The square disappears.” She shrugged, wry. “Which, yes, is dramatic even for my subconscious.”
He almost told her he knew the feeling. That there had been lifetimes when one wrong step had erased an entire future he thought was fixed. Instead: “You’re not losing your mind.”
“Good to know,” she said lightly, though the relief was real. “Because I’ve also been… hearing things. Music that isn’t there. Or is there, but only for me.”
“What kind of music?”
She frowned, searching. “Old. Not like an era, more like an attitude. It sits in my throat like I’ve sung it a thousand times, and if I could get the first bar right, the rest would follow.”
He felt the locket against his sternum, a familiar weight, and did not touch it. “You don’t have to force it.”
“I know.” She slowed, turning them toward a courtyard where a fountain whispered over stone. “It’s just—when I’m awake, I can almost name it. When I’m sleeping, I’m already singing it.”
He let the sound of the fountain fill the space where an explanation might have gone. The blade at his side—quiet tonight, content to be only a presence—rested like a promise, not a tool. He took a breath.
“You told me once,” she said, “that sometimes meaning arrives before understanding. I didn’t realize you meant it literally.”
“I’m occasionally literal.”
“Occasionally,” she echoed, amused. “Do you ever get the sense that you’re… overlapping with yourself? That you can feel more than one version of who you are at the same time?”
The question landed close to bone. “Sometimes,” he said, and left it there. A line between honesty and confession that he could hold without lying.
They resumed walking. A second line drifted along Royal, a small one—just a snare, a tenor sax, and a handful of locals who couldn’t help themselves. Delphine’s step found the beat. He matched it, and for a block they let the music set their cadence.
“I had one dream that felt less like a dream,” she said. “A river. Evening. I could smell mud and magnolia. There was a steamboat, and—” Her mouth tilted. “A man who kept asking me whether I believed in anything beyond the horizon.”
“Did you?”
“In the dream?” She nodded. “Absolutely. Awake, I’m not sure why I was so confident.”
“Confidence often arrives with evidence,” he said. “Even if the evidence is felt rather than cataloged.”
She studied him sidelong. “You’re very gentle with this.”
“With you,” he said before he could stop himself, and kept walking as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “What else?”
If she noticed, she let him keep the dignity of pretending. “It’s not always pleasant. Sometimes I’m… angry when I wake up. Or grieving something I can’t name. Or I catch myself reaching for someone who isn’t there.” She huffed out a breath. “And then I realize I’m doing it in the middle of Rouses and people are staring because I’m singing to the produce.”
“The produce has heard worse,” he said, deadpan. It won her laugh—quick, surprised, grateful. He found he wanted it again.
“I’m serious,” she said, but the sharp edge had rounded. “I don’t want to read too much into it. I don’t want to become the kind of person who sees ghosts in laundry and omens in coffee grounds.”
“You’re not that person.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you don’t want to be,” he said. “And because you’ve spent your life asking better questions than most people dare. You don’t chase shadows. You wait until they stand still long enough to introduce themselves.”
She considered that, then nodded once, slow. “What if the shadows are mine?”
“Then they’ll be patient,” he said. “And if they aren’t, I will be.”
Silence, but not the empty kind. The Quarter opened its hands: a door swung wide to release a swell of saxophone, a couple bickered affectionately over directions, somewhere a cook shouted for more oysters. They passed a bookshop, lights low; Delphine’s gaze paused on a display of vintage maps. He could almost see the paths arranging themselves behind her eyes.
“Do you ever wish for instructions?” she asked. “Some kind of—cosmic user manual?”