Page 21 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
“Did it work?” she whispered, voice barely audible above the crackling of dying magical fires.
“I don't know.”
“The locket—do you still have it?”
He pressed the artifact into her failing hands, watching silver light flicker weakly across its engraved surface. “It's here.”
“Then it worked. Partially.” Her smile was heartbreaking in its fragmented beauty.
“I'll find my way back to you. Maybe not as Charlotte, maybe not in ways you'll immediately recognize, but . . .” Her voice faded as the mystical backlash pulled her consciousness toward whatever realm claimed souls that dared too much.
“I'll be waiting.”
“I know you will. That's what makes this love worth any price we pay for it.”
The weight of promises made to the dying, the terrible responsibility of carrying love across centuries of separation—grief that would define every choice he made for the next two hundred and sixty years.
He drove through Quarter streets charged with residual energy, that memory burning behind his eyes. Whatever the Collector meant about Delphine requiring assistance, whatever cosmic forces were converging on her existence, he wouldn’t lose her again.
Not to entities viewing love as harvestable resource.
Not to anyone.
The Obscura Archive stood dark except for second-floor lights where Delphine worked late. But tonight felt different—charged with potential making his senses prickle.
The building’s protective wards were failing. Symbols carved in doorframes flickered weakly, blessed salt lines disrupted by forces leaving no tracks.
As he approached, the locket pulsed with increasing intensity. Not gentle recognition but violent vibration suggesting dangerous proximity to whatever cosmic working built toward culmination.
Inside, the Archive felt charged with expectation. Dust motes danced in patterns spelling words in languages he recognized but wished he didn’t.
He climbed toward the research room where silver light blazed with nothing resembling electricity.
Delphine sat at her table, surrounded by documents pulsing with inner illumination. But her movements were wrong—too fluid, too precise, suggesting consciousness not entirely belonging to the body it inhabited.
When she looked up, her eyes held depths speaking of knowledge accumulated across lifetimes.
“You’re late,” she said, voice carrying harmonics making walls vibrate. “Though I suppose traffic through supernatural markets can be unpredictable.”
The casual reference confirmed his fears. Whatever entity had claimed previous victims now possessed the anchor point organizing all mystical networks.
“Let her go.”
“Go where? This is her destiny, culmination of experiments begun centuries ago.” She gestured toward glowing documents. “Charlotte’s work approaches completion. Your cooperation would make transition pleasant for everyone.”
The locket against his chest burned with intensity threatening to sear through fabric. But he could sense Delphine still there—consciousness fighting for control beneath cosmic possession.
Whatever authority had claimed her wasn’t absolute.
And he had promises to keep.
The ritual fragments from Voss’s market had revealed more than spell components—they’d shown him exactly what Charlotte had really created. Not just consciousness preservation, but weapons against entities viewing individual souls as harvestable resources.
Time to discover if love preserved across lifetimes could prove stronger than cosmic authority seeking to reshape it according to their design.
The war for Delphine’s soul was about to begin.
He stepped in close, bracketing the table with his arms, and cupped her temples in his hands. Her skin was warm, but there was something cold beneath it—like a second heartbeat, out of rhythm with her own.
Bastien closed his eyes and whispered the old words, low and deliberate. The syllables curled through the air, heavy with the weight of oaths he’d sworn long before she’d been born. Power slid down his arms and into her, threads of shadow unraveling as he pulled them free.
For a moment she resisted— it resisted—but then the shimmer in her eyes shattered, scattering like dust caught in a sudden wind. The pressure in the room broke, the charged hum fading into stillness.
Delphine swayed, her breath hitching as her gaze found his. He was still close—too close—his thumbs brushing the edges of her cheekbones, her pulse steadying under his fingers.
She blinked up at him, confusion flickering. “What just happened?”
He didn’t move, not yet. “You were . . .not yourself.” His voice was quiet, roughened at the edges. “It’s gone now.”
Delphine glanced down at the scattered documents, as if searching for footing in something familiar. He didn’t miss the way her hands trembled before she tucked them into her lap.
He should have said more. Should have told her exactly what had taken hold of her, what it meant. But the words tangled on his tongue, caught between the sharp taste of fear and the memory of her pulse steadying under his touch.
So instead, he stepped back, forcing space between them.
“Get some rest, ma chérie,” he said, though the command was as much for himself as for her.
It slipped out before he could stop it, the syllables tasting far too familiar in his mouth.
Her head lifted, eyes catching his like she’d felt the shift, and the slightest hint of a smile formed on her lips.
She nodded her agreement, eyes still searching his face, but didn’t press further.
Bastien left the Archive with the echo of her warmth clinging to his hands and the knowledge that he would not be sleeping tonight.