Page 35 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
I nk residue from the graffiti nearby led Bastien through the Quarter’s twisted veins to an abandoned apothecary on Dauphine Street.
Behind weathered plywood and the human graffiti tags, the building sagged between its neighbors like a drunk propped up by friends.
Something had drawn magical energy here.
Behind the building, a service entrance hid beneath jasmine vines that had grown wild and thick.
The brass lock showed green patina but turned smoothly under his magic, as if someone had maintained the mechanism despite the building's apparent abandonment.
The door opened into musty air, thick with dust and the lingering scent of herbs that had been packaged here decades ago.
Bastien moved through the empty shop, his flashlight beam revealing shelves stripped bare and display cases coated with grime.
The residue trail pulled him deeper, toward a narrow staircase at the building's rear.
Each wooden step groaned under his weight, releasing the accumulated scents of old wood and something else—something metallic that made his skin prickle.
In the cramped storage room below, a section of brick wall gave way to pressure, revealing a hidden chamber carved from earth and lined with fitted stones.
At its center, etched into black granite, a sigil spread its silver-filled grooves like frozen lightning.
Bastien knelt beside the symbol, recognition hitting him like cold water. A mirror rune—but more complex than any he’d encountered. This wasn’t designed for simple reflection. This was meant to bridge impossible gaps, to call across boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.
The chamber held another presence, faint but unmistakable. Delphine’s aura lingered, established and familiar, as if she’d visited this place multiple times without conscious memory. The silver inlay responded to her residual energy, creating patterns of luminescence dancing in his flashlight beam.
She’d been drawn here. Guided.
Bastien photographed the sigil from multiple angles, then carefully traced its outline onto parchment.
Whatever Charlotte had created here was still active, still drawing Delphine to places she shouldn't know existed.
He gathered ink samples from the chamber's corners, where traces of the same substance from the graffiti had pooled in stone crevices.
The magical signature was consistent—someone was using Charlotte's original formulation to activate anchor points throughout the Quarter.
The pieces clicked together with terrible clarity and Bastien left.
Later, Maman Brigitte studied his sketch of the sigil with the intensity of a scholar reading forbidden texts. Her weathered fingers traced the symbol’s curves without touching paper.
“Mon dieu,” she whispered. “ Where you find this?”
“Hidden chamber beneath the old Tremé apothecary. Delphine’s been there—her presence is all over that place.”
Maman’s dark eyes flicked up. “She tell you about it?”
“She doesn’t know she’s been there.”
The older woman reached beneath her counter, and withdrew Charlotte’s journal, which had some loose papers falling out. Pages crackled as she opened it, revealing hand-drawn symbols and notes in multiple languages.
“Same design,” she said, pointing to an entry. “Charlotte drew this for me twenty years after she started her experiments.”
Bastien examined the journal page. The symbol matched his discovery, though smaller and less elaborate. Beneath it, Charlotte’s distinctive handwriting filled the margins.
“What did she call it?”
“Soul imprint beacon. Designed to call a soul back to familiar ground, help navigation when the spirit gets confused about where it belongs.” Maman closed the journal. “Reincarnation magic.”
“The complexity of what I found suggests more than guidance. This is active calling.”
“That’s not Charlotte’s original work. That’s her design evolved, made stronger.” Maman’s stare carried weight. “Someone took her theoretical framework and turned it into something that could function across lifetimes.”
The words sent ice through his veins. “You’re saying that sigil actively draws a reincarnated soul to specific locations.”
“If Delphine’s been visiting it unconsciously, it’s working as intended.” Maman tapped his sketch. “Question you need to be asking is what other locations that girl’s been drawn to without understanding why or maybe even not knowing at all.”
Bastien felt understanding dawn. Delphine’s wandering through the Quarter, her inexplicable routes, her ability to find herself in significant places—none of it random.
“She’s following a network.”
“Charlotte was too smart to trust everything to one magical anchor. If she was serious about guiding a soul back to her, she'd create multiple connection points.” Maman rose and moved to her shelves, selecting a small vial filled with silver dust. “Safety through redundancy.”
Maman selected a vial of silver dust from her shelves. “Take this. Sprinkle it over your sketch, then any other sigils you find. If they’re connected, you’ll see the network light up.”
Bastien pocketed the vial. “What was Charlotte trying to accomplish?”
“Cheating death. Not for herself—for the chance to love again. She believed the right framework could guide the right soul back to the right circumstances.” Maman’s expression grew distant. “Give her another chance at happiness that was taken.”
“And Delphine?”
“Is proof that sometimes impossible just means 'hasn’t happened yet.'”
The secret chamber beneath the Lacroix estate in 1762, where Charlotte led Bastien through a passage hidden behind the library's false wall.
Stone steps carved directly from earth descended into darkness lit only by her candle's flame.
The air smelled of age and something else—anticipation made manifest.
“I wanted you to see this before I show you what I've discovered,” she said, candlelight flickering across features that seemed carved from shadow and starlight.
The chamber was small, circular, lined with the same fitted stones he'd found today.
But this version was new, the granite still gleaming from recent installation.
Charlotte had commissioned masons to build this space according to her precise specifications, though she'd told them it was for wine storage.
“The mirror rune,” she said, pointing to a symbol freshly carved into the center stone. Silver wire lay nearby, ready to be melted and poured into the grooves. “It will serve as the foundation for everything else.”
Bastien knelt beside the etching, recognizing the complex geometry even in its incomplete state. “Charlotte, this is beyond theoretical magic. You're attempting to restructure the fundamental laws that govern soul transition.”
“I'm creating a way for love to survive death.” Her voice carried absolute conviction. “This chamber will be the heart of a network. When I'm gone, when I'm reborn without memory of what we shared, this sigil will call to me. It will draw me back to places where recognition can take root.”
“What if it works too well? If you become trapped between lives, unable to move forward or back?”
Charlotte smiled with the fearless confidence of someone who believed love could overcome any obstacle.
“Then we'll face that together, across however many lifetimes it takes.
This mirror rune will show me pieces of my next life, glimpses of where I'll be and who I'll become.
When I see those glimpses clearly enough, I'll know where to place the other anchor points.”
She gestured to sketches covering the chamber walls—plans for a network that would span the Quarter. “Each location will feel familiar when it shouldn't. Each will pull my reincarnated soul toward recognition.”
The absolute certainty in her voice, the love that would reshape reality according to its own desperate logic—determination that would either preserve them across eternity or destroy them both in the attempt.
Bastien positioned himself on a wrought iron balcony overlooking Royal Street, watching Delphine's apartment through the spectral filters of his surveillance equipment.
He'd learned her patterns over the weeks—the way she emerged around eight-thirty for her wandering walks, moving through the Quarter with no apparent destination.
This was no different. She appeared on the sidewalk below, pausing at darkened antique shop windows with the same inexplicable attraction he'd observed before.
Through his enhanced vision, he could see her reach toward certain objects—mirror frames, jewelry boxes, paintings—as if drawn by recognition she couldn't name.
When she turned into the narrow alley between Dauphine and Bourbon, Bastien's surveillance equipment registered an immediate spike in magical activity.
He watched her freeze mid-step, her body language shifting from casual wandering to something that looked like shock.
Her movements became different—purposeful in a way that suggested muscle memory rather than conscious decision.
She avoided the broken pavement, her hand finding the exact spot on the brick wall where mortar had crumbled away.
Through his spectral filters, Bastien could see the magical resonance building around her like heat shimmer. The sigil beneath the building was responding to her presence, calling to whatever part of her soul still remembered Charlotte's preparations .
In the small courtyard, Delphine approached the vine-covered wall with movements that looked rehearsed despite her obvious confusion. She found the door outline behind the jasmine—the same door Bastien had used to access the hidden chamber.
The brass handle turned under her touch, and through his equipment, he watched her magical signature flare bright enough to overload his filters. But instead of entering, she stepped back as if the recognition had startled her into rationality.