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)
Time to discover if love preserved across lifetimes could prove stronger than cosmic authority seeking to reshape it according to their design.
The war for Delphine’s soul was about to begin.
He stepped in close, bracketing the table with his arms, and cupped her temples in his hands. Her skin was warm, but there was something cold beneath it—like a second heartbeat, out of rhythm with her own.
Bastien closed his eyes and whispered the old words, low and deliberate. The syllables curled through the air, heavy with the weight of oaths he’d sworn long before she’d been born. Power slid down his arms and into her, threads of shadow unraveling as he pulled them free.
For a moment she resisted—it resisted—but then the shimmer in her eyes shattered, scattering like dust caught in a sudden wind. The pressure in the room broke, the charged hum fading into stillness.
Delphine swayed, her breath hitching as her gaze found his. He was still close—too close—his thumbs brushing the edges of her cheekbones, her pulse steadying under his fingers.
She blinked up at him, confusion flickering. “What just happened?”
He didn’t move, not yet. “You were . . .not yourself.” His voice was quiet, roughened at the edges. “It’s gone now.”
Delphine glanced down at the scattered documents, as if searching for footing in something familiar. He didn’t miss the way her hands trembled before she tucked them into her lap.
He should have said more. Should have told her exactly what had taken hold of her, what it meant. But the words tangled on his tongue, caught between the sharp taste of fear and the memory of her pulse steadying under his touch.
So instead, he stepped back, forcing space between them.
“Get some rest, ma chérie,” he said, though the command was as much for himself as for her. It slipped out before he could stop it, the syllables tasting far too familiar in his mouth. Her head lifted, eyes catching his like she’d felt the shift, and the slightest hint of a smile formed on her lips.
She nodded her agreement, eyes still searching his face, but didn’t press further.
Bastien left the Archive with the echo of her warmth clinging to his hands and the knowledge that he would not be sleeping tonight.
Ten
The keepsake locket had burned against Bastien's chest since midnight.
Not literal fire—worse. Spiritual heat that seared through fabric and flesh, metal pulsing with violent recognition that left him gasping against the wall in his study. Every breath brought fresh waves of burning as the artifact responded to forces he couldn't identify, couldn't control, and couldn't escape.
Something had changed.
Something fundamental.
At four in the morning, when the pain threatened to drive him to his knees, Bastien made the call he'd been avoiding for twenty-five years.
“Maman? I need to see you. Now.”
Twenty minutes later, he stood outside her shop, watching warm light spill through windows despite the ungodly hour. Her shop on Rampart Street glowed with warm light despite the hour, as if she'd been expecting him. Wind chimes made from bones and bottle glass announced his arrival as he pushed through the door, breathing familiar scents of sage, graveyard dirt, and wisdom that belonged to practitioners whose knowledge ran deeper than most people's faith.
Maman Brigitte waited behind her reading table, coffee already brewed, her dark eyes carrying the patient expression of someone who'd been watching a slow catastrophe build toward inevitable culmination.
“You look like hell warmed over,” she observed, gesturing toward the chair across from her. “That locket finally giving you more trouble than you can handle?”
Bastien collapsed into the familiar seat, pressing his palm against the artifact through his shirt. The metal pulsed with rhythm unrelated to his heartbeat—faster, more urgent, like countdown to something he didn't understand.
“Started yesterday afternoon. Every hour since, it's gotten worse.” He pulled the locket free, wincing as movement made the burn flare fresh. “Look at it.”
The silver surface blazed with inner light that had nothing to do with the electric illumination around them. Charlotte's engravings seemed deeper than before, symbols shifting position when viewed directly. Not random movement—deliberate rearrangement, as if the artifact was rewriting its own programming.
Maman leaned closer, her senses examining details invisible to normal perception. “Lord have mercy. That's not just resonance anymore.”
“What is it?”
“Active tracking. Full engagement.” She rose with fluid grace, moving to shelves lined with items that hummed with barely contained power. “Time to tell you what I've known for twenty years but been waiting for you to discover yourself.”
From beneath the register, she withdrew a journal bound in leather that had absorbed decades of mystical exposure. Water stains and scorch marks covered its surface—evidence of dangerous knowledge contained within pages that crackled like autumn leaves as she opened to a section marked with black ribbon.
“Records from before the Veil grew thick enough to hide our work from mundane eyes. Back when power flowed openly through bloodlines that didn't fear discovery.” Maman found the passage she sought, turning the journal toward him. “This entry specifically mentions your locket.”