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 fae courts can provide distraction and misdirection,” Evangeline added. “We excel at making enemies see what is not there while hiding what is.”
Bastien watched the tactical discussion unfold with growing unease. Each faction brought unique abilities to the alliance, creating a combined force capable of overwhelming almost any stronghold run by someone who collected souls. The planning was professional, methodical, and completely dependent on intelligence that Delphine had provided with unnatural accuracy.
She was proving herself invaluable to beings who had existed for centuries before she was born. They treated her as an equal, consulting her expertise without condescension or doubt. It should have filled him with pride. Instead, it terrified him.
“We move at dawn,” Maman Brigitte declared, her voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed. “First light gives us maximum advantage while the Maestro's nocturnal servants are weakest.”
“Agreed,” Marcus said. “My people will be positioned here by moonset.” He marked locations on a detailed street map. “Shadow approaches, no detection until we strike.”
Father Miguel nodded slowly. “The Church's resources will be in place. Blessed weapons, consecrated barriers, everything needed to contain supernatural entities.”
“And the fae?” Bastien asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.
Evangeline's smile was sharp as broken glass. “We will be everywhere and nowhere, as always. The Maestro will find his reality . . . flexible when the time comes.”
The alliance was forming with military precision, each faction understanding their role in the coordinated assault. Delphine continued to provide strategic insights that improved their chances of success exponentially. But watching her work with such natural authority over supernatural warfare made Bastien's stomach clench with familiar dread.
August 1762
The same kind of alliance had gathered in Charlotte's drawing room, though the faces around the table had been different. Representatives of the old families, practitioners whose bloodlines stretched back to the settlement's founding, united against a threat that required combined action.
Charlotte stood at the head of the mahogany table, her green silk gown rustling as she gestured toward a map of the city. Red marks indicated locations where reality had grown thin, where something hungry was trying to break through from spaces between worlds.
“The incursion points follow ley line intersections,” she explained, her voice carrying the same intuitive certainty that Bastien now heard in Delphine. “We disrupt the pattern here, here, and here, and the entire manifestation collapses.”
Valentin Rousseau, the vampire representative, studied the marked locations with predatory interest. “These positions require someone who can work with dimensional barriers. Not all of us possess such abilities.”
“I do,” Charlotte said simply. “My family's magic specializes in boundary work. I can seal the tears, but I'll need cover while I work the binding rituals.”
The fae delegate—an ancestor of Evangeline's, if Bastien's research was accurate—laughed with the same crystalline notes. “Mortals wielding power they barely understand. How entertaining.”
“I'm not mortal in the way you mean,” Charlotte had replied, and the certainty in her voice had made Bastien's chest ache with recognition.
She had stood there in candlelight and silk, planning warfare with beings who had existed for centuries, proving herself invaluable through knowledge that seemed to come from sources deeper than study. The parallel to Delphine's current situation was so exact it felt like prophecy repeating itself.
Charlotte's magical contributions to that battle had been devastating and precise. She had sealed dimensional tears with binding work that held for decades. Her ritual preparations had involved inscribing protective circles that could withstand direct assault from entities that existed outside normal reality.
But the cost of that power had been written in the exhaustion that followed, the way she had collapsed after the final binding was complete. Magic that potent extracted a price that even vampires couldn't heal.
The memory faded, leaving Bastien back in the present with cold certainty settling in his chest. History was repeating itself with surgical precision. Delphine was walking the same path Charlotte had taken, proving herself to vampires and fae through abilities that should have been impossible for someone with no conscious memory of their magical heritage.
“Bastien?” Delphine's voice pulled him back to the planning session. “You haven't said much about positioning. Where do you think you'll be most effective?”
The question hung in the air like a challenge. He looked around the table at faces that reflected centuries of conflict, then at Delphine, who was studying him with growing concern.
“I'll be wherever you are,” he said finally. “Someone needs to watch your back while you're providing tactical support.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. That's not the point.”
Their gazes held across the table, and for a moment everyone else in the room seemed to fade into background noise. Something flickered behind Delphine's eyes—not quite recognition, but awareness of depths she couldn't name.
Then the moment passed, and she was back to studying maps and defensive configurations.
“The ritual preparations will require specific materials,” Father Miguel said, consulting his Latin notes. “Blessed salt, silver blessed under three different moons, vervain harvested during—”