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)
The shadows coalesced into something vaguely humanoid, though features remained impossible to focus on directly. Ancient presence, patient as stone, as if it had watched Charlotte’s work develop across centuries.
“Collector,” Bastien said.
“Among other designations. We prefer to think of ourselves as cosmic maintenance, ensuring universal stability through consciousness management.” The entity’s attention felt like ice against his senses. “Your participation in Charlotte’s experiments created obligations transcending individual lifetimes.”
Understanding tightened like a vice around his lungs. His presence during Charlotte’s original ritual hadn’t been observational—it had been participatory. His fallen nature had provided power making her consciousness preservation possible.
“The modern incarnation carries accumulated debts,” the Collector continued, voice now inside his skull. “When she awakens fully, payment will be extracted from all connected consciousness. You cannot protect what was designated for harvest.”
“Watch me.”
“Resistance provides entertainment value. Continue struggling against inevitability—it enhances eventual collection satisfaction.”
Voss had retreated to her stall’s far edge, clutching amulets glowing with insufficient power. Other merchants closed booths with haste suggesting experience with entities whose presence endangered everyone nearby.
But the Collector was already dispersing, form dissolving like smoke. “She requires assistance with certain research tonight. We suggest prompt response to her communications.”
The shadows vanished, leaving ozone scent and burned starlight. Behind him, Voss muttered about contamination while counting currency with trembling fingers.
Bastien’s phone buzzed. Three missed calls from Delphine in the past hour. The most recent message was simple.
Delphine:
Something’s wrong. Please come.
His jaw clenched, teeth grinding against the sharp edge of the silence that followed.
The same plea Charlotte never had chance to make, the same desperation he’d failed to answer in time. His mind spiraled back across centuries, dragged by guilt and the terrible weight of promises broken.
The aftermath of Charlotte's failed ritual in 1763, where Bastien knelt in the ruined chapel holding what remained of the woman who had dared to challenge cosmic law; the same cosmic law that brought them together physically. Stained glass lay shattered around them, and the scent of burned roses filled air thick with mystical residue.
Charlotte's eyes opened one final time, though he could see her consciousness already fragmenting across dimensions the interrupted working had torn open.
“Did it work?” she whispered, voice barely audible above the crackling of dying magical fires.
“I don't know.”
“The locket—do you still have it?”
He pressed the artifact into her failing hands, watching silver light flicker weakly across its engraved surface. “It's here.”
“Then it worked. Partially.” Her smile was heartbreaking in its fragmented beauty. “I'll find my way back to you. Maybe not as Charlotte, maybe not in ways you'll immediately recognize, but . . .” Her voice faded as the mystical backlash pulled her consciousness toward whatever realm claimed souls that dared too much.
“I'll be waiting.”
“I know you will. That's what makes this love worth any price we pay for it.”
The weight of promises made to the dying, the terrible responsibility of carrying love across centuries of separation—grief that would define every choice he made for the next two hundred and sixty years.
He drove through Quarter streets charged with residual energy, that memory burning behind his eyes. Whatever the Collector meant about Delphine requiring assistance, whatever cosmic forces were converging on her existence, he wouldn’t lose her again.
Not to entities viewing love as harvestable resource.
Not to anyone.
The Obscura Archive stood dark except for second-floor lights where Delphine worked late. But tonight felt different—charged with potential making his senses prickle.
The building’s protective wards were failing. Symbols carved in doorframes flickered weakly, blessed salt lines disrupted by forces leaving no tracks.
As he approached, the locket pulsed with increasing intensity. Not gentle recognition but violent vibration suggesting dangerous proximity to whatever cosmic working built toward culmination.
Inside, the Archive felt charged with expectation. Dust motes danced in patterns spelling words in languages he recognized but wished he didn’t.
He climbed toward the research room where silver light blazed with nothing resembling electricity.
Delphine sat at her table, surrounded by documents pulsing with inner illumination. But her movements were wrong—too fluid, too precise, suggesting consciousness not entirely belonging to the body it inhabited.
When she looked up, her eyes held depths speaking of knowledge accumulated across lifetimes.
“You’re late,” she said, voice carrying harmonics making walls vibrate. “Though I suppose traffic through supernatural markets can be unpredictable.”
The casual reference confirmed his fears. Whatever entity had claimed previous victims now possessed the anchor point organizing all mystical networks.
“Let her go.”
“Go where? This is her destiny, culmination of experiments begun centuries ago.” She gestured toward glowing documents. “Charlotte’s work approaches completion. Your cooperation would make transition pleasant for everyone.”
The locket against his chest burned with intensity threatening to sear through fabric. But he could sense Delphine still there—consciousness fighting for control beneath cosmic possession.
Whatever authority had claimed her wasn’t absolute.
And he had promises to keep.
The ritual fragments from Voss’s market had revealed more than spell components—they’d shown him exactly what Charlotte had really created. Not just consciousness preservation, but weapons against entities viewing individual souls as harvestable resources.