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 parlor of her boarding house on Royal Street. Delia sat at the piano, her fingers picking out a melody that seemed to capture starlight in musical form. She looked up when he entered, her face brightening with the kind of joy that made him forget he'd ever fallen from grace.
“You've been working late again,” she said, though her tone held affection rather than accusation. “Mrs. Thibodaux mentioned you didn't come calling yesterday evening.”
“I'm sorry, Del. The case—”
“Bastien.” She rose from the piano bench, moving toward him with concern shadowing her features. “You look exhausted. And there's . . .” She hesitated, reaching toward his sleeve where silver dust clung to the fabric. “What is this? It shimmers like nothing I've ever seen.”
He caught her hand before she could touch it, perhaps more sharply than he intended. “It's nothing. Just . . . evidence from a crime scene.”
The light in her eyes dimmed slightly. “You never speak of your work anymore. I used to feel as though I knew your thoughts, but lately . . .” She pulled her hand free, wrapping her arms around herself. “Sometimes I wonder if you're the same man I fell in love with, or if he's been replaced by someone who thinks I cannot be trusted with even the smallest confidence.”
The memory crashed over him without warning—Delia’s voice, raw with months of accumulated hurt and suspicion.
“I’m protecting you—”
“From what? From who I am? From who we are together?”
The flashback dissolved, leaving him standing in the alley with Voss watching his every reaction with predatory interest.
“There it is,” she said softly. “That soul’s shadow I can smell on you. The weight of all your failures, pressing down like a collapsed star. Tell me, Detective—how many times have you stood where I’m standing and realized you’ve lost her all over again?”
Bastien's hands clenched into fists, but he kept his voice level. Professional. “Who's buying the fragments, Voss?”
“Ah, changing the subject? How wonderfully predictable.” She turned back to her vials, selecting one filled with what looked like liquid midnight. “But I suppose even tether widows deserve to know the name of their tormentor.”
She held the vial up to the weak streetlight, and shadows danced within the dark liquid like living things.
“The Maestro,” she said simply.
“You’re working for a fae?” he asked.
“Working for? Oh, my dear detective, you misunderstand the nature of our relationship entirely.” She set the vial down with careful precision. “The Maestro doesn’t employ servants. He conducts symphonies.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Her smile returned, sharp and knowing. “It means you’ve been dancing to his music far longer than you realize. Every choice you’ve made, every path you’ve walked, every time you’ve chosen duty over love—all of it orchestrated by a mind that thinks in centuries instead of moments.”
The implications hit him hard. If the Maestro was real, if he truly possessed the kind of power Voss was suggesting, then everything Bastien thought he knew about his cases, about the magical crimes plaguing the city, might be nothing more than elaborate stagecraft.
“He’s not just buying fragments,” he said, the pieces clicking together with horrible clarity. “He’s collecting them for a specific purpose.”
“Now you’re beginning to understand.” Voss picked up another vial, this one containing what looked like crystallized screams. “Soul fragments aren’t just magical components, Bastien. They’re instruments. And the Maestro has been building quite the orchestra.”
He thought about the victims he’d found over the past months, each one drained of their essence in increasingly sophisticated ways. He’d assumed they were dealing with a killer who was getting better at their craft, but what if it was something else entirely? What if someone had been fine-tuning a process across multiple incidents, perfecting a technique for harvesting specific types of spiritual energy?
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“Longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your father was alive . . . Yes, I do mean The Father. The Maestro plays a very long game, detective. He’s been weaving threads across bloodlines and time itself, creating patterns within patterns within patterns.”
The words triggered another memory, this one hazier and tinged with the quality of dreams. Bastien was standing in a cemetery at night, rain turning the earth to mud beneath his feet. A woman with auburn hair was walking away from him, her shoulders shaking with sobs he’d caused but couldn’t understand. The details were frustratingly vague, but the emotional weight was crushing—the certainty that he’d failed someone he loved, that his choices had led directly to their destruction.
“You’ve felt it before, haven’t you?” Voss’s voice cut through the fragmentary recollection. “That sense of déjà vu when you make the same mistakes? That feeling that you’ve stood in this exact spot, having this exact conversation, watching the same tragedy unfold?”
He had felt it. More times than he cared to admit. Moments when the present seemed to echo with the weight of repetition, when he’d catch himself making choices that felt both inevitable and wrong.