Page 23 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)

“I don’t know yet. Every moment that artifact remains active, it broadcasts recognition signals revealing her location and development level to anyone with the knowledge to interpret them.” Maman gathered the protective items into a cloth bag. “You need to reach her before someone else does.”

“Someone else?”

“Collectors.”

The name made his chest tighten with recognition. He'd encountered such beings during his expulsion from grace—enforcers whose authority operated beyond physical law, whose solutions tended toward permanent elimination of problems.

“What do they want with her?”

“Same thing they wanted with Charlotte two centuries ago. Prevent consciousness evolution that threatens established order.” Maman's expression darkened. “Only this time, they've had centuries to prepare countermeasures.”

The Lacroix estate's rose garden on Charlotte's twentieth birthday in 1762, where she moved between blooms that seemed to lean toward her presence.

She wore pale yellow silk, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking more like a forest spirit than French aristocracy.

In her hands, she carried a leather journal filled with theories that would either preserve their love or destroy them both.

“I've been thinking about time,” she said, settling on a marble bench beside the fountain where water spelled poetry in languages older than Latin. “About how it moves forward for mortals but differently for beings like you.”

“What about it?”

“When you fell from grace, did you lose your connection to eternity? Or did you simply gain a different relationship with temporal existence?” She opened the journal, revealing pages covered in mystical diagrams. “Because if consciousness can exist independent of linear time . . .”

“Charlotte, what are you planning?”

“To love you across every lifetime I'm granted, in every form I'm given, until the universe itself runs out of new configurations for souls to inhabit.” Her dark eyes blazed with vision that could reshape cosmic law.

“And to make sure you recognize me each time, no matter how many centuries pass between us.”

The absolute conviction in her voice, the love that would engineer its own immortality—determination that would either bind them across eternity or scatter their souls beyond any hope of reunion.

“I need you to carry something for me,” she said, withdrawing from her reticule a locket whose silver surface reflected not their surroundings but possibilities existing in parallel dimensions. The engravings hurt to look at directly—symbols encoding concepts beyond mortal comprehension.

“Promise me that when this awakens, when it calls across whatever distances separate us, you'll help me remember what love means.”

“Why wouldn't you remember?”

“Because transformation of this magnitude requires sacrificing aspects of self that make us recognizably human.” Her fingers traced the artifact's surface with reverent care. “I'll be fire or wind or flesh, but I might not be someone capable of love as we understand it.”

“Then I'll teach you again.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

The memory shattered as the locket exploded into movement on Maman's reading table. Not random vibration—purposeful motion, sliding across the wood toward the shop's front door as if pulled by invisible force.

“She's calling it home,” Maman said, watching the artifact trace geometric patterns in the wooden surface. “Direct summoning. That girl has accessed more of Charlotte's knowledge than either of us anticipated.”

“I have to get to her.”

“Yes, but carefully. The network activation is drawing attention from entities that won't hesitate to eliminate anyone who threatens their authority.” She pressed the bag of protective items into his hands.

“These won't stop the threats, but they might provide interference long enough for you to reach her.”

Bastien pocketed the protective materials and reached for the locket, surprised when the metal had cooled slightly—not because the recognition was fading, but because distance was increasing between artifact and source.

Delphine was moving. And she was moving fast.

“Where would she go?”

“Somewhere with power. Somewhere Charlotte would have prepared for exactly this scenario.” Maman moved to her window again, studying the Quarter's awakening streets.

“The old families built their most important magical infrastructure in places that would survive across centuries.

Sacred ground that couldn't be destroyed by changing politics or architectural development.”

“The cathedral?”

“Too public, too protected by forces that wouldn't approve of Charlotte's work.” Her expression shifted to alarm. “But there's another possibility. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Marie Laveau's tomb specifically.”

“Why there?”

“Because Charlotte's family contributed to its construction. Because certain graves there contain more than human remains. And because if you wanted to complete soul-binding work that required connection to spiritual energy . . .” Maman's voice trailed off as understanding struck her.

“Lord preserve us. She's not just activating the network.

She's planning to anchor it to the most powerful mystical site in New Orleans.”

The locket pulled toward the shop's exit with force nearly dragging it from Bastien's grip. Whatever Delphine was attempting, whatever working she was preparing to complete, the artifact recognized proximity to its ultimate purpose.

“Go,” Maman said, though her voice carried reluctance born of experience with forces beyond mortal control.

“But remember—if she completes Charlotte's work, if she succeeds in anchoring supernatural consciousness evolution to that cemetery's power, she won't be the woman you've been protecting for twenty-five years.”

“What will she be?”

“Something new. Something unprecedented. A consciousness that exists independent of physical form, gathers knowledge across infinite lifetimes, manipulates fundamental forces governing life and death themselves.” Maman's ancient eyes met his.

“She might remember loving you. Or she might remember love as limitation that prevented evolution.”

The warning followed him as he left the shop and hurried through Quarter streets that felt charged with approaching culmination.

Dawn light painted familiar buildings in shades of gold and rose, but beneath the beauty, mystical currents were building toward release that could reshape reality itself.

The locket pulled steadily toward the cemetery while its recognition protocols locked onto their signal so strong that separation had become impossible.

After two and a half centuries of faithful service, Charlotte's most sophisticated creation was finally guiding him toward whatever destiny she'd planned.

Whether that destiny included room for love remained to be seen.

But as he walked through winding streets where tourists and locals moved with unconscious purpose—all drawn by forces they couldn't identify toward areas where mystical energy concentrated most intensely—Bastien understood that choice was no longer his to make.

The network was active.

The tracking was complete.

The transformation was beginning.

All that remained was discovering whether the woman he'd loved across lifetimes would emerge from evolution as someone he could still recognize, or whether Charlotte's greatest experiment would preserve their connection by destroying everything that made it human .

The locket pulsed once more against his palm, then settled into steady rhythm matching his footsteps.

After centuries of separation and loss, he was finally going home.

Whether home would still exist when he arrived was the only question that mattered now.