Page 61 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
The final ward clicked into place with a sound like crystal settling into perfect harmony.
Bastien pressed his palm against the cypress bark, feeling the ancient tree's approval as the sigil he'd just carved began to glow with soft silver light.
Around him, the bayou held its breath as the ward network activated for the first time in three centuries, connections sparking to life across New Orleans like neurons firing in a vast neural web.
The protective grid Charlotte had designed was finally complete.
He could feel each individual ward pulsing with contained power—sigils hidden in cemetery gates, runes carved beneath church foundations, protective circles anchored in parks and gardens throughout the city.
Every point of spiritual vulnerability she'd identified was now shielded, every weak spot in the Veil reinforced by magical workings that would endure for generations.
The network hummed with contained energy, a living system that would adapt and strengthen over time.
Bastien helped Delphine to her feet, noting how she swayed slightly and looked around the ritual site with genuine bewilderment rather than the profound understanding she'd displayed mere moments earlier.
Whatever she'd experienced during the recognition bleed was already being processed as a dream or hallucination, filed away with all the other fragments of memory that Charlotte's design kept safely below the threshold of conscious awareness.
“What happened?” she asked, accepting his steadying hand without the wariness she'd shown in recent weeks. “I was walking home from work, and then I felt like I needed to come here, but I can't remember why. Did someone get hurt?”
The truth could have been told then and there.
He could have explained about soul tethers and reincarnation, about the breach that had called to her sleeping memories and the moment of recognition that had blazed between them when those memories briefly surfaced.
She was already confused enough that additional strangeness might have seemed like a natural extension of whatever supernatural forces had drawn her to this place.
Instead, he said, “There was an accident. Someone got hurt trying to perform a ritual they didn't understand. You must have heard the disturbance and come to help.”
The lie came easily after decades of practice protecting mortals from truths they weren't ready to accept.
Watching her nod gratefully at having a simple explanation for her presence in a place she couldn't remember choosing to visit, he knew he'd made the right choice.
She needed time to process what had happened on a subconscious level before her conscious mind could safely handle the full implications.
But something fundamental had changed between them.
The tether connecting their souls was stronger now, stabilized by the ritual but also more active than it had been since he approached her in New Orleans after watching from afar so long.
He could feel her presence at the edge of his consciousness like warmth from a fire in the next room, constant and comforting in a way it hadn't been before.
The recognition bleed had created new pathways between their souls, channels that would make future memories easier to access when the time was finally right for full revelation.
As they walked away from the river together, leaving the ritual site to be cleaned up by more conventional authorities, Bastien allowed himself to hope that perhaps Charlotte's elaborate design was working exactly as she'd intended.
That love could indeed transcend death, that meaningful connections could survive the dissolution of individual identities, that some bonds were strong enough to endure across multiple lifetimes of separation and reunion.
The recognition bleed had shown him tantalizing glimpses of what was possible between them—moments when the barriers between past and present dissolved completely, revealing the eternal nature of their connection.
Now he would have to trust in Charlotte's wisdom and wait for Delphine's memories to surface naturally, in their own time, without the kind of intense magical pressure that had triggered tonight's crisis.
The weight he'd carried since 1728 lifted from his shoulders like a physical burden being removed.
For the first time in centuries, he had no outstanding magical obligations, no incomplete mystical duties demanding his attention.
Charlotte's work was done. Her vision for New Orleans' protection was reality.
Which meant, for the first time since Delphine had drawn her first breath twenty-five years ago, he was free to focus entirely on what he truly wanted: making her fall in love with him all over again.
1728. The garden behind Charlotte's family estate, moonlight filtering through Spanish moss.
"Promise me something," Charlotte whispered, her fingers intertwined with his as they sat beside the fountain her grandfather had built.
The water's gentle splash masked their conversation from anyone who might be listening.
"When I find you again—and I will find you, Bastien, no matter how many lifetimes it takes—promise me you won't try to force recognition. "
He studied her face in the moonlight, noting the determined set of her jaw, the fierce intelligence in her dark eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I mean love that's demanded isn't really love at all.
When my soul returns in a new form, with new experiences and a new personality shaped by different circumstances, I want you to court that woman honestly.
Let her choose you for who you are in that moment, not because magic tells her she should. "
"Charlotte—"
"Trust becomes choice, mon ange. That's the most beautiful thing about human love—it's freely given, not compelled by mystical bonds or soul memories. I want to fall for you again, naturally, the way any woman might fall for a man she finds fascinating and attractive and worthy of her affection."
She brought his hand to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. "The magic will guide us back together, but the love? That has to be earned fresh each time. Promise me you'll remember that."
"I promise," he said, and meant it with every fiber of his being.
The memory faded, leaving him with renewed understanding of Charlotte's wisdom.
She'd known he would be tempted to rely on mystical connection instead of genuine courtship, tempted to use their tether as a shortcut to intimacy.
But love that was truly chosen, freely given without supernatural compulsion, was worth any amount of patient work.
Another memory surfaced, this one from 1906.
Delia laughing as she led him through the French Market, her arm linked through his as she pointed out vegetables she'd never seen before.
He'd been trying so hard to be mysterious, to maintain the careful distance he thought was necessary for an angel courting a mortal, but she'd simply ignored his attempts at aloofness .
"You know," she said, stopping beside a vendor selling pralines, "you're much more charming when you're not trying so hard to be mysterious."
"I'm not ? —"
"Oh, please. All that brooding and meaningful stares and careful word choices? It's exhausting to watch." She bought two pralines and handed him one. "I like you better when you're just talking to me like I'm a person instead of some delicate flower who might wilt if exposed to too much reality."
He bit into the praline, surprised by its sweetness. "You want me to be less careful with you?"
"I want you to be yourself with me. Whatever that means.
" She bumped his shoulder with hers, a gesture so naturally affectionate it made his chest tight with unexpected emotion.
"I already know you're not entirely human, Bastien.
The way you move, the way you know things you shouldn't know, the way street lamps flicker when you're upset? I'm not stupid."
"That doesn't concern you?"
"Should it?" She licked praline from her fingers, completely unconscious of how the gesture affected him.
"You've never hurt anyone in my presence, you're unfailingly polite to shopkeepers and street vendors, and you tip well at restaurants.
Those seem like decent character indicators regardless of what species you might be. "
Her matter-of-fact acceptance of his nature had been more effective at winning his heart than any amount of mystical recognition could have been.
She'd chosen him—chosen to trust him, to enjoy his company, to gradually fall in love with him—without needing soul memories or magical compulsion to guide her decision.
Standing beside the cypress tree with Charlotte's completed ward network humming around him, Bastien felt his motivation crystallize with perfect clarity.
If Delphine's soul didn't remember him fully—and Charlotte's careful design suggested it wouldn't until she was ready—then he was committed to making her fall in love with him all over again.
Honestly, naturally, as the man he was now rather than the angel he'd been in previous lifetimes.
He had advantages this time that he'd lacked in 1906.
Twenty-five years of observing her from a distance had taught him her preferences, her personality, her values.
He knew she was brilliant and independent, valued honesty over flattery, preferred substantive conversation to empty charm.
She was drawn to authenticity, repelled by artifice, attracted to competence and quiet confidence.
Most importantly, she already knew he wasn't entirely human.
Behind them, the last traces of temporal distortion faded from the air above the Mississippi, leaving only moonlight reflecting off the water's surface and the gentle sound of current moving steadily toward the sea.
The breach was sealed, the amateur practitioner would recover with nothing worse than confusion and a healthy respect for forces beyond their understanding, and the Veil itself had proven once again that it could withstand considerable strain when supported by those who truly understood its nature.
Emergency vehicles were beginning to arrive at the scene—ambulances for the unconscious tourist, fire trucks responding to reports of explosions, police officers trying to make sense of witness accounts that described everything from gas line ruptures to terrorist attacks.
None of them would find evidence of what had actually happened here tonight.
The magical community was skilled at cleaning up after incidents like this, leaving only mundane explanations for mundane authorities to discover.
Hidden well under his coat, the Votum Aeternum continued to pulse with warm recognition, its ancient metal retaining traces of the soul magic it had channeled during the stabilization ritual.
The weapon knew, as he did, that tonight's events had been only the beginning of something far larger and more significant than simple crisis resolution.
The tethered flame was burning brighter now, strengthened by their shared experience of the recognition bleed but not yet ready to illuminate everything it touched.
Delphine would remember fragments—glimpses and half-formed impressions that would surface in dreams and quiet moments.
But the full awakening Charlotte had designed would still take time to unfold naturally.