Page 60 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
“Bastien—” The name came out as barely more than a breath, the single syllable carrying all the love and recognition that had been stolen from her consciousness.
Her final word, spoken with the last air in her lungs, carrying his name like a prayer, like forgiveness, like a promise that somehow this wouldn't be the end of everything between them .
The soul rupture hit him like a physical blow as their connection severed completely, leaving him holding her lifeless body while the theater burned around them and the ritual's chaotic energies finally began to dissipate into harmless smoke.
The memory faded, leaving him kneeling beside Delphine's unconscious form in the present-day ritual circle.
Her breathing was still irregular; her soul still being pulled apart by the same kind of chaotic forces that had killed Delia over a century ago.
But this time, he had the tools to fight back.
He'd failed to save her then. He would not fail again.
Lifting Delphine's unconscious form, Bastien carried her directly into the heart of the ritual circle despite every instinct screaming that bringing her closer to the breach's epicenter would only make things worse.
But the Votum Aeternum was pulsing against his side with increasing urgency, and through their tether he could feel her soul being torn apart by conflicting energies.
The only way to stabilize her condition was to place her at the circle's center, where the magical forces were strongest but also most focused, and use the blade as an anchor point to channel those energies in controlled directions rather than letting them continue pulling her consciousness apart.
The ritual circle itself had been carved into the earth with amateur enthusiasm but surprisingly accurate technique.
Whoever had triggered this disaster had done their research, creating a pattern that would have been elegant and functional if they'd possessed the skill to control what they were summoning.
Instead, their inexperience had transformed a simple communion ritual into something approaching a dimensional breach, opening pathways that should have remained sealed and inviting in forces that belonged to entirely different realms of existence.
Bastien placed Delphine carefully beside the remnants of the shattered chalice, positioning her so that her heart chakra aligned perfectly with the circle's central axis.
The Votum Aeternum grew warm in his hand as he drew it from its sheath, the ancient metal recognizing the spiritual configuration they'd found themselves within.
This was exactly the kind of situation the blade had been forged to address—moments when soul tethers became dangerously unstable and threatened to pull their subjects apart at the most fundamental level.
Words Charlotte had taught him decades ago poured from his lips without conscious thought, syllables older than English, older than French, older than most human languages.
These were sounds that had been used to bind souls together since before recorded history began, passed down through generations of practitioners who understood that some connections transcended the boundaries of individual lives.
As he spoke, the blade's silver glow intensified, casting ethereal light across Delphine's still features and creating intricate patterns in the air above them that seemed to calm the chaotic energies swirling through the breach.
The stabilization ritual required him to trace specific geometric patterns above her chakra points, using the blade's tip to draw connecting lines between energy centers that existed in spiritual rather than physical space.
Each movement had to be precise, each word pronounced exactly as Charlotte had demonstrated during their secret lessons, because any deviation from the proper form could result in permanent damage to either Delphine's soul or his own.
The magic involved was profound enough that failure might sever their connection permanently, leaving her completely cut off from the memories and experiences that defined her truest nature across multiple lifetimes.
As he worked, something unexpected began happening.
The breach energies that had been pulling at Delphine's consciousness started flowing through the ritual pattern instead, following the pathways he'd created with his blade movements and channeling themselves into forms that served the stabilization rather than fighting against it.
The chaotic temporal distortions began settling into more stable configurations, showing glimpses of past and future that were beautiful rather than terrifying.
Through those stabilized visions, he could see echoes of their connection across multiple incarnations stretching back through centuries.
Charlotte at her family's piano, her fingers finding melodies that would outlast her physical form and haunt him across decades.
Delia in her small garden behind the boarding house, humming those same songs while tending flowers that bloomed with unusual vigor whenever she sang to them.
And beneath it all, the steady presence of a soul that had chosen again and again to return, to find him across the vast distances of time and mortality, to maintain a connection that transcended the dissolution of individual identities.
The recognition bleed started slowly, beginning as subtle changes in Delphine's breathing pattern and the way her eyelids fluttered without quite opening.
Then her lips began to part slightly, forming shapes that might have been words in languages she'd never learned in her current lifetime.
Her fingers moved against the earth beneath her, unconsciously tracing patterns that matched the sigils Charlotte had once carved into tree bark during their secret meetings in the forests outside the city.
The air around them grew thick with possibility as the Veil beacon surge reached its peak intensity.
Reality itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see which way the energies would flow—toward catastrophic collapse or controlled resolution.
Bastien could feel the weight of every choice he'd made over the past century pressing down on him, every moment of restraint and careful distance that had led to this critical juncture.
When Delphine's eyes finally opened, they held depths that belonged to someone far older than her current twenty-eight years.
For one perfect, terrifying moment, she looked directly at him with full awareness of everything they'd shared across multiple lifetimes.
The confusion and careful distance she'd maintained since arriving in New Orleans melted away completely, replaced by a recognition so profound it seemed to illuminate the space between them with its own inner light.
“You were there,” she whispered, her voice carrying harmonics that belonged to three different women who'd spoken his name with love across the centuries.
The words came from somewhere deeper than conscious memory, drawn up from the core of her being by the magical pressures surrounding them. “I know you. I've always known you.”
The words struck him breathless, each syllable confirming what he'd simultaneously hoped for and dreaded since the moment he'd first seen her humming Charlotte's melody.
She remembered. Not everything, not the full scope of their shared history, but enough to understand that their connection was deeper and more intricate than anything coincidence could possibly explain.
Every explanation he'd carried for decades crowded his throat—the truth about Charlotte's sacrifice, about Delia's death, about the waiting and watching and careful protection he'd maintained across her current lifetime.
The words were right there, confessions and promises and declarations he'd been carrying like lead weights in his chest for longer than most humans lived entire lives.
But even as her eyes held his with that profound recognition, he could see the awareness beginning to fade.
The breach energies were stabilizing under the influence of his ritual work, which meant the magical pressure that had temporarily awakened her deeper memories was subsiding back to levels her conscious mind could comfortably process.
The recognition bleed was already becoming diffuse, spreading back into the subconscious currents where it belonged according to Charlotte's carefully constructed design, at least for now.
“I—” She started to talk, then stopped abruptly, confusion replacing certainty as the moment passed and present reality reasserted its hold.
Her eyes clouded over with the familiar uncertainty he'd grown accustomed to seeing, the deep awareness fading like dreams at dawn.
“I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. I must have been dreaming.”
The ritual circle's energies were fully contained now, the breach sealed through their combined efforts and the Votum Aeternum's stabilizing influence.
Around them, the night was slowly returning to more normal patterns—street lamps flickering back to steady illumination, the air clearing of temporal distortions, the oppressive weight of conflicting realities beginning to lift.
In the distance, he could hear sirens approaching as human authorities finally responded to reports of the disturbance near the river, though they would find nothing more immediately threatening than an unconscious tourist and evidence of seriously misguided magical experimentation.