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)
Twenty-four hours later, that wound was still tender. The distortions had faded, but his instincts said they were only sleeping. He’d spent the day half-listening to reports from the alliance, half-listening for the faintest ripple in reality that might mean the Collectors had returned. He told himself that meeting Delphine later was about assessing her wellbeing after the chaos—confirming she was truly safe—but the tightness in his chest when he saw her waiting by the Archive steps told him otherwise. She was the danger he couldn’t walk away from, and the one risk he wasn’t ready to name.
The next evening, they stood in front of the Archive, where Delphine had asked Bastien to meet her. "Would you like to get drinks?" Delphine's voice cut through the chaos at the Archive steps, tourists streaming past them in bright clusters. "I need something normal after . . . whatever happened in there. Even if normal's an illusion." She had continued to stay at Maman’s when she wasn’t in the Archive, an outing Bastien wasn’t thrilled about, but he was committed to her life being her choice.
Bastien stopped, one hand on the wrought iron railing. The Quarter pulsed around them with residual energy from the frequencies of the Veil tear that set his teeth on edge. Getting drinks with her meant proximity. Conversation. The risk of saying too much or not enough. But he couldn’t say no to her. Would never.
"Yes." The word escaped before wisdom could intervene.
Relief transformed her face. "Royal Street has a wine bar. Quiet but not isolated." Her smile carried Charlotte's mischief, the same expression that had once convinced him to dance at midnight in Jackson Square. "Safe from the weirdness that follows us around."
They moved through cobblestone streets where gas lamps threw amber pools across uneven pavement. Jazz spilled from doorways, mixing with laughter and the distant clip of horse hooves. Normal New Orleans evening sounds, except humans kept avoiding certain corners without realizing why. Their instincts recoiled from spaces where glyphs had burned through reality's fabric.
The wine bar occupied a narrow townhouse, all exposed brick and candle-warmed shadows. They claimed a corner booth, ordered Bordeaux that cost more than most people's grocery budget, and faced each other across polished wood scarred by decades of conversations.
"I'm losing time," Delphine said after the server retreated. Her fingers found patterns on the wine glass stem—unconscious ritual gestures that made Bastien's chest tighten. "Whole afternoons disappear. I'll be walking down Magazine Street and suddenly I'm on Chartres with no memory of how I got there. Like someone else is moving my body while I'm . . . elsewhere."
"Dissociation. Stress response to—"
"Don't." She cut him off with surgeon's precision and an annoyed huff. "Don't give me clinical explanations for things we both know aren't clinical, and that I believe you already knew had been happening to me." Wine reflected candlelight as she lifted the glass. "I hear music that doesn't exist. Melodies I've never learned but know note-perfect."
That pre-memory tremor settled in his ribs, recognition fighting its way toward consciousness despite every barrier he'd built. Charlotte had described identical experiences in those final weeks before the ritual. The growing awareness that her soul carried impressions from other lifetimes, other loves, other losses stretching back through centuries of forgetting and remembering.
In 1762, they'd walked the levee path in silver moonlight, her hand inches from his but never quite touching.
Protocol demanded distance between merchant's daughter and mysterious gentleman caller. But Charlotte had stopped suddenly, pressing fingertips to her temple. "This route," she'd whispered. "I've walked it before. Not in this life, but . . . I know where every loose brick waits to trip me. I know the exact spot where jasmine grows wild over the garden wall." When he'd asked her to explain, she'd shaken her head, copper curls catching moonlight. "Like remembering someone else's dreams. Beautiful and terrible at once."
"Memory creates patterns when we're under stress," Bastien said now, offering truth wrapped in safe language. "Dreams, books, conversations—they blend together until the past feels more real than the present."
"You think I'm having a breakdown."
Bastien sighed quietly. He didn’t want Delphine to think she was going mad but he still wasn’t quite ready to unveil all the truths she’d eventually need to hear. "I think you're experiencing something meaningful. The question is whether you need to understand its origins, or whether the significance lies in how it's changing you now."
Delphine set down her glass with deliberate care. "You do that constantly. Answer without answering. Dance around truth like it might bite you." Her eyes held directness that belonged purely to this lifetime—Charlotte had been subtler, more willing to approach difficult topics sideways, but this was very much like Delia, who he'd been able to love fully, openly. "Is that investigator training or personal habit?"