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)
She smiled then, her expression transforming her face in ways that reminded him why he'd fallen in love with Charlotte Lacroix in the first place, and all over again with Delia. "I'm glad we met, Bastien Durand. Whatever strange circumstances brought you into my life, I'm grateful for them."
The kiss she pressed to his cheek was brief, barely more than lip brush against skin, but it left him burning with want and recognition. Then she was in her car, driving away into the Quarter's maze of narrow streets, leaving him standing under streetlight with possibility's taste on his lips and the weight of centuries-old promises pressing against his chest.
He watched taillights disappear around the corner, then pulled out the locket and opened it in amber glow. Inside, Charlotte's miniature portrait smiled up at him, painted in oils that had somehow retained vibrancy across more than two centuries. The resemblance to the woman who'd just driven away was unmistakable—not identical, but close enough to confirm what he'd been afraid to hope since that morning in his office.
Charlotte Lacroix had kept her promise. She'd found a way to return, to seek him out across barriers of death and time and rebirth. The locket's recognition that morning hadn't been malfunction or wishful thinking, but activation of a device crafted specifically to bridge gaps between lifetimes.
But knowledge brought no peace, only deeper complexity. Because Delphine wasn't Charlotte, exactly, nor was she Delia—she was her own person with her own life and choices, shaped by experiences that had nothing to do with eighteenth-century New Orleans or fallen angels or ritual magic gone catastrophically wrong. Whatever connection existed between them, whatever recognition flowed beneath their growing attraction's surface, she deserved the right to discover it at her own pace rather than having it imposed by someone whose love had already proven dangerous once.
The locket's metal had grown warm against his palm, but as he closed it and returned it to his pocket, he noticed something that made his breath catch. A thin line of blood across his palm where the locket's edges had pressed too deeply, pain so familiar he'd barely registered it consciously.
Physical manifestation of emotional wounds that had never properly healed. Proof that some connections ran deeper than death, stronger than time. The melody she'd hummed still echoed in his memory, carrying harmonics that promised both salvation and destruction in equal measure.
"Mon Coeur se Souvient." My heart remembers.
Whether that remembrance would prove blessing or curse remained to be seen.
Twenty-Six
The Quarter had definitively developed a fever. The following day, Bastien walked Royal Street as glyphs carved into doorframes pulsed like exposed nerves, radiating heat that had nothing to do with August humidity. Every ward Charlotte had woven through New Orleans two centuries ago was overloading, responding to power it recognized but couldn’t contain.
It had been weeks since the cemetery, since Delphine had commanded spirits with abilities that should have taken decades to master even for a high level witch. The protective barriers around her apartment flickered now like dying lightbulbs, overwhelmed by whatever was building inside them. She was changing faster than any gradual revelation could accommodate, and the Quarter itself bore witness to her transformation.
A saxophone player’s melody materialized as ribbons of blue light, hanging in the air before dissolving into sparks. The musician played on, oblivious to reality bending around his music. Bastien pressed against a brick wall as notes twisted through frequencies that existed between worlds, each one tearing small holes in the Veil that separated the living from the dead.
The woman selling pralines on the next corner had tears streaming down her face without apparent cause. Her customers paid with trembling hands, none of them understanding why the simple transaction felt weighted with grief that wasn’t their own. A tour guide’s voice cracked mid-sentence as he described the history of a building that had never burned, describing flames and screams that existed only in collective memory bleeding through the thinning barriers.
Bastien paused at the intersection of Royal and Ursulines, watching a child point at empty air and ask her mother about the pretty lady in the old dress. The mother saw nothing, hurried her daughter along, but Bastien caught a glimpse of what the child had witnessed—a woman in early 1900s clothing, translucent and flickering, drawn to this plane by energies she couldn’t resist.
The weight of everything he hadn’t told Delphine pressed against his ribs like broken glass. Each lie by omission carved deeper grooves into his conscience. Every conversation where she looked to him for answers he couldn’t give was another crack in whatever trust existed between them. The question of protection versus truth haunted his every step through these streets that no longer felt entirely real.
His phone buzzed—a text from Detective Novak reporting another incident. A wedding reception in the Garden District where the bride had collapsed during her vows, speaking in a voice that wasn’t her own about a love that spanned centuries. The groom had tried to wake her, but she’d stared through him as if he were the ghost, calling for someone named Henri who’d died in 1847.