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)
Her smile was winter moonlight. “I make it my business to know such things. Charlotte Lacroix was . . . a formidable woman. Her preparations extended far beyond what most of our kind ever attempt.” She paused, studying his face. “You’re planning to take it, aren’t you?”
The question hung between them like a blade. Bastien met her gaze steadily, weighing options. Marcelline was old enough and powerful enough to be dangerous if crossed, but she was also pragmatic. Everything in her salon was ultimately for sale, if the price was right.
“What would you want for it?” he asked.
“Nothing so crude as money.” She moved closer, presence suddenly filling the small space. “A favor, to be called at a time of my choosing. Nothing that would compromise your current interests, but something significant enough to balance the scales.”
It was a dangerous bargain, but Bastien had made worse ones in his existence. And the ribbon called to him with urgency that felt like destiny itself. “Agreed.”
Marcelline’s laugh was soft as silk against skin. “I do enjoy dealing with pragmatists.” She gestured toward the tapestry. “Take it, then. Though I suspect it was always meant to find its way to you eventually.”
His fingers worked carefully to extract the ribbon from its moorings, the silk seeming to sing under his touch. As he lifted it free, the sigils embroidered along its length pulsed once with golden light before settling into quiescence. But he could feel its potential, humming just beneath the surface like a tuning fork struck in a distant room.
“She knew, didn’t she?” he said, more to himself than Marcelline. “Charlotte. She knew this moment would come.”
“Charlotte knew many things. The question is whether you’re prepared for what comes next.” Marcelline moved toward the door, then paused. “A word of advice, Bastien. When dealing with magic that spans time, be careful about assumptions regarding cause and effect. Sometimes the spell doesn’t create the future—sometimes the future creates the spell.”
She left him alone with that warning, but Bastien barely heard it. His attention was entirely focused on the ribbon in his hands and the certainty crystallizing in his mind with each passing moment. Charlotte hadn’t just prepared for reunion—she had engineered it, laying groundwork across generations with the patience of someone who knew exactly how the story would end.
Every incarnation of her bloodline had been guided toward this moment, their choices shaped by forces they couldn’t perceive. Delphine’s move to Oxford for school, her decision to keep the locket, even her unconscious selection of the apartment directly across from his own—none of it had been coincidence.
He slipped the ribbon into his jacket pocket, feeling its weight like a promise against his chest. Tomorrow, he would have answers. Tomorrow, the carefully orchestrated reunion that had been lifetimes in the making would finally reach its conclusion.
But tonight, he stood in a room full of shadows and ancient magic, holding silk that had traveled through time itself to reach his hands. Tonight, he could feel destiny’s inexorable pull drawing him toward whatever Charlotte had planned for them all.
The gathering continued around him, vampires moving through their eternal dance of politics and power. But Bastien’s attention was entirely focused on the future, and the woman who waited there without knowing she had been expected all along.
Tomorrow, he thought, and the ribbon seemed to pulse in agreement against his heart. Tomorrow, everything changes.
As he made his way back through the salon, the sigils in the walls seemed to watch him go, their glow fading as he passed. The bloodline resonance mapping Valentin had described was settling into dormancy, its purpose served. The network Charlotte had spent lifetimes creating was finally ready to activate.
And somewhere across the city, Delphine Leclair slept peacefully in her apartment, unaware that the threads of fate were drawing ever tighter around them both.
Nineteen
The knock on Bastien’s study door came at precisely four o’clock, accompanied by the familiar sound of Delphine’s voice calling his name. He’d been expecting her—the text she’d sent that morning had mentioned she’d found something in Charlotte’s journal that might connect to his glyph research.
What he hadn’t expected was the way she entered his study carrying the worn leather volume, cradling it against her chest as if it were something precious rather than a historical artifact she’d discovered in the Archive’s collection. The late afternoon light streaming through his windows caught the golden highlights in her hair, creating a halo effect that reminded him painfully of Charlotte in candlelight.
“I hope you don’t mind me bringing this,” Delphine said, settling into the chair across from his desk. “I’ve been reading through it, and there are things in here . . . things that feel important. Connected to what we’ve been seeing with the glyphs.”
Bastien nodded, not trusting his voice. He couldn’t tell her that the journal she held contained intimate messages written for him across centuries, coded phrases that had once whispered secrets in the dark hours before dawn.