CHAPTER 2
DANIELLE
M y phone buzzed for the third time as Lia navigated her car through the Garden District's tree-lined streets. I admired the ancient oaks as they cast dappled shadows across the windshield for a second while ignoring the inevitable. I finally glanced at the screen, not recognizing the number. Unknown callers were rarely good news these days.
"If you don't answer, they're just going to keep calling," Dre pointed out from the backseat. She wasn’t even trying to hide her amusement. She had her notebook balanced on her knee. It was covered in her signature messy scrawl from our morning research session. We needed certain questions answered and didn’t want to forget.
With a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand frustrated party planners, I answered. "Hello?"
"Is this Danielle Smith?" The voice on the other end practically sparkled through the speaker. "This is Jasper Moore. I’m calling to talk to you about having a party at Willowberry Plantation."
"How did you get my number?" I asked warily.
"Are you kidding? Everyone knows about the Twisted Sisters. Your parties are legendary. I was at the Djinn welcome event. What you did was brilliant. I am hoping you would be willing to host a joint premating celebration with me and my mate to be."
I caught Lia's eye roll in the rearview mirror. "A premating party? Look, Mr. Moore-"
"Jasper, please!"
"Jasper. We're kind of in the middle of something?—"
"But Penelope wants you guys to do it for us. Our parents have already planned the actual ceremony, or we would be asking you to do that. We know a lot of Light Fae nobility. Think of the networking opportunities. And the exposure. Please, you have to do it for us."
"Think of the chaos," Dre muttered. "Remember that mundie bachelorette tea party last month? The one where the bride-to-be's friends tried to get Kai and the others to strip for them?"
"That was not our fault," I hissed, covering the phone.
"I'll triple your usual rate," Jasper said, effectively derailing my defense. "And throw in a favor from the Silvermist family. You must know how connected they are."
I felt my resistance wavering. We were relatively new to the magical world and were getting to know the major players, but that was not a name we’d come across. They sounded important, so a favor from the Silvermists could come in handy. Plus, triple our rate would buy a lot of emergency supplies. And tall-boys. I was going to need a case of Pepsi for this one.
"When's the party?" I asked, ignoring Lia's second dramatic eye roll of the conversation.
"Next week. Which is another reason for paying more. Peni was thinking moonflowers with starlight fountains. I was hoping we could have some floating lanterns. And, of course, the custom glasses that you're famous for."
"Send me the details," I told him. "But I'm not promising anything until I review them. And Jasper? It will help if you can include all of the details you have to have incorporated. There won’t be time for much back and forth to finalize things."
"That won't be a problem,” he agreed.
“You will also want to select a caterer for the event,” Lia called out. “We recently started using NOLA Creole Catering. It’s run by three witches. Harriet, Mabel, and Elise are some of the best kitchen witches around. You will need to have whoever you select verified by the time you send the list. We can get Brezok to tend the bar.”
“We will have it dialed in. Thank you for considering it,” Jasper said as he hung up.
I narrowed my eyes at Lia while Dre burst out laughing. "Oh my gods, Lia, you totally jinxed us! And you made him think we’re going to do it for them."
"What?" Lia asked as she turned onto St. Charles Avenue.
"Last night! You literally said, and I quote, 'At least we don't have to plan any events while dealing with these elusive Lost Legends.' And now look what happened!"
"That's not how jinxes work," Lia protested, but she looked a little guilty.
"In this family? That's exactly how jinxes work," Dre pointed out. "Remember when Phi said at least nothing could make exam week worse, and then we got that infestation of rats?"
"That was nothing. The bug guy got rid of them before they chewed through every pair of shoes she brought to the plantation. This is triple our rate." That was the most appealing thing for me. We had bills and supplies we needed to purchase. "Plus a favor from the Silvermists. It could come in handy. I just don’t know how we can keep things from going sideways."
"Speaking of sideways," Lia said as she pulled up to our first stop of the day, "we're here."
Kaitlyn's Victorian mansion loomed before us. We got out and headed to the front door. The wrought iron gates creaked open before we even reached them. The metal was twisted like living vines. It formed patterns that moved, but only magical beings could see that part.
"Someone's feeling dramatic today," Lia noted as we walked up the path. The garden's plants seemed to lean away from us as we passed. That was new. And slightly disturbing.
"Ten bucks says at least one book tries to bite us," Dre said as she eyed the windows warily. The first time we’d done research with Kaitlyn, we discovered her books were anything but normal.
"Twenty says it's not a tome but one of the artifacts she keeps 'for research purposes’," Lia countered.
"You're both wrong," I said, pulling out my phone to start a new notes file. "It'll be the card catalog. That thing has had it out for me since I set a teacup on it."
Kaitlyn met us at the door. Her black hair was pulled back in an elegant twist that made her look more like a college professor than a high priestess. Today, she wore jeans and a sweater that looked as soft as a chinchilla.
"I was wondering when you'd show up. Hollie told me she called you about what happened. What have you discovered?”
"Not much," Dre said as she gave her a quick hug. "We need your help to find some information."
Kaitlyn led us through the house to her library. It was a room that seemed to exist in a space bigger than the house itself. Books floated between shelves and rearranged themselves in some arcane organizational system only Kaitlyn understood. There were powerful artifacts also scattered throughout.
"I've been feeling strange energies lately," she said as she settled into her favorite armchair. "They’re old ones that are waking up. I can't quite place them. Are they related?"
"Yep. That's why we're here," I said as Dre handed her notebook to Kaitlyn to show her our notes. "We've got multiple incidents across the Quarter. Moving objects, whispers, lighting problems. Dea thinks it might be something called the Lost Legends, but we can't find much information."
"Don't forget the creepy mirror thing at Madam Louise's," Lia added as she carefully sidestepped a stack of books that was definitely following her. "And the street performer's instruments going haywire."
Kaitlyn studied the pages with a thoughtful expression. "The Lost Legends?" She tested the words like they were unfamiliar on her tongue. "I've heard of them. But I couldn’t tell you anything off the top of my head other than they were bad."
Kaitlyn blew out a breath as she sat in front of her ancient computer. The thing wheezed to life like an asthmatic dragon. The fan ground with enough force to rattle her collection of anime figurines. "Well crap on a cracker," she muttered as her fingers flew over keys with the kind of speed only someone under twenty-five could manage. "I've got exactly zero helpful things here. Most of the stuff like this never made it into any system." She spun in her chair to face us then. "But the public library downtown has this killer records section. They file all the supernatural stuff under 'local legends' because mundies are totally clueless. Ask for Margaret at the desk. Tell her I sent you."
"The public library?" Lia's perfectly sculpted eyebrow shot toward her hairline. " What happened to secret magical archives? Hidden catacombs? Ancient temples?"
Kaitlyn's laugh sparkled like glitter. "Hiding in plain sight is, like, Stealth one-on-one. Mundies see exactly what their boring little brains want to see. Nothing more than dusty stories about town founders and spooky houses." She paused as she eyed a particularly nasty grimoire that was doing its best to chew through its iron bindings. Its leather cover was scratched with sigils that definitely hadn't come from Amazon. "Though you might want to take this bad boy along. Those librarians are way scarier than your sisters on a bad hair day."
"Hard pass," all three of us said in unison, remembering the last time we'd handled an object that felt like that.
"Don't worry, it's warded up tighter than a drum," Kaitlyn promised as she shoved the book into Lia's messenger bag while my sister tried not to look like she was ready to turn tail and run. "It won't bite, won't explode, and won't summon any demons. Probably." She flashed a mischievous grin. "But seriously? Be careful digging into these Lost Legends. Things that have been buried this long usually have teeth."
The drive from the Garden District was exactly as fun as you'd expect, with tourists clogging every intersection. They were seriously like moths around a porch light. Lia white-knuckled the steering wheel of her SUV. She muttered curses in French that would've made a sailor blush. A group of drunk tourists wearing plastic beads stumbled off the curb in front of us, and my sister's eye twitched. It wasn’t long before she was parking in the lot of the library.
Holy mother of musty books. The place was a maze of metal shelving units crammed with boxes that looked old enough to remember the Revolutionary War. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps. It also had that special vintage paper smell that made your nose itch. It was mixed with something else. Something that tingled against my magic like static electricity.
Margaret materialized between the shelves like she'd been summoned. I'm not entirely convinced she hadn't been. Her silver hair was twisted up in a bun tight enough to give her a temporary facelift. Her cardigan had seen better days. Probably back when some of these records were first written. But her eyes? They were sharp as tacks and way too knowing. One look at us, and her thin lips curved into a smile that said she'd been expecting trouble to walk through her door.
"Kaitlyn's friends, I presume?" she asked in a voice that managed to be both creaky and commanding. "She called to warn me you were coming. I know exactly what you're after. The section with information about topics such as the Lost Legends is particular about its visitors. Follow me."
We shared one of those 'what fresh hell are we walking into' looks as we hustled to keep up with Margaret. Let me tell you, that woman moved through those stacks like she had jet engines strapped to her orthopedic shoes. It was the kind of speed our nana used to hit at the Saks Fifth Avenue semi-annual sale. Except Margaret was doing it while dodging towers of ancient texts that looked ready to avalanche.
I'm not gonna lie. Watching her move like smoke between those shelves, all graceful and deadly efficient? It made me feel like a baby giraffe learning to walk. In heels. On ice. Uphill. Both ways. Hell, if the demon apocalypse ever came, I wanted Margaret on my team. That woman could probably organize the forces of darkness into alphabetical order with just one disapproving librarian glare. I understood Kaitlyn’s cautionary words.
"Looking into the old disturbances, are you?" Margaret asked.
Dre nodded and offered the woman a smile. “We are. We have no definitive information yet. However, there is reason to suspect the Lost Legends are involved.”
"The Lost Legends," Margaret said, pulling out box after box of documents, "weren't just another supernatural threat. They were systematic. Organized. And very, very careful about covering their tracks."
I started photographing everything that looked relevant while Dre took notes and Lia cross-referenced the past with recent incidents. The silence was broken only by the soft rustle of paper and the occasional muttered curse when we found something particularly concerning. "Look at this," I said, pointing to an old newspaper clipping. "In seventeen ninety-two, a headline read, ' CURIOUS DISTURBANCES AFFLICT MERCHANTS OF THE QUARTER’."
"That could be today's paper," Dre noted, leaning over my shoulder. "Right down to the 'no small measure of consternation among the good people of our quarter’ part. Gods, they really are following the same playbook, aren't they?"
"Here's another one," Lia added, passing over a yellowed journal page. "There were reports of shadow creatures in the French Quarter in seventeen ninety-one. Just like Cami mentioned."
We spent hours combing through the archives. The pattern became clearer with each document we uncovered. The Lost Legends had terrorized New Orleans for years before suddenly vanishing. Their methods matched exactly what we were seeing now. It started with minor disturbances and then escalated to more dangerous phenomena. They were always testing and pushing boundaries.
"There's more," Margaret said, appearing with another box that looked older than the city itself. "This belonged to one of Marie Laveau's apprentices. She documented everything. The signs, the patterns, and the way the Lost Legends operated."
The journal was filled with detailed observations, diagrams, and notes in multiple languages. One page showed a map of New Orleans with locations marked in red ink. There were dates noted beside each one. The ink still looked fresh, as if it had been written yesterday instead of over a century ago. The one thing missing was the location of the Lost Legends themselves.
"They worked in spirals," I realized, comparing the old map to our current incidents. "They started at the outer edges of the city and moved inward. That's what's happening now, too."
"And look here," Dre added, indicating another page. "They had specific targets, including places of power. At crossroads or spots where the veil between worlds was thinner. Lia, isn't that abandoned warehouse we got a call about last week right on top of one of these marked spots?"
Lia checked her phone, then nodded grimly. "Exact same location. That can't be a coincidence. I wonder if these incidents started there. We didn’t see anything, but we could have missed it."
Margaret watched us piece it together, her expression both proud and worried. "I believe Marie Leveau was involved in their disappearance or the sudden cessation of their antics. She would have felt it was her role as the Queen. I doubt the Laveau family ever stopped watching. They’ve ruled this city for centuries."
“Marie might be changed, but I doubt she will share family secrets that involve the use of their power,” Lia pointed out.
Margaret pulled something from her pocket and held it out. It was a card that was yellowed with age. I could just make out an address in the Tremé neighborhood. The paper felt warm against my fingers when I took it. I swear it was magical.
"Start here," she said. "Ask for Céleste. Tell her Margaret says the shadows are moving again. She'll understand."
By the time we got back to the plantation, my phone was bursting with photos and notes, and my head was spinning with possibilities. We gathered everyone in the kitchen, where Phi immediately started organizing our findings while Kota stress-baked. The smell of chocolate chip cookies made my stomach rumble.
"Okay," I began. "Here's what we know. The Lost Legends were powerful and methodical. Then they were known only as the Legends. The Lost part was added after they disappeared. They followed a specific pattern of escalation. First came the minor disturbances, then physical manifestations, then possession and assaults."
"They're following the same pattern now," Dre added, pulling up her map for comparison. "Look at this. The incidents are happening in exactly the same order as before."
"But why?" Phi asked, looking up from her laptop where she was already creating a color-coded spreadsheet of our findings. "What's their endgame?"
"According to information we found, they were trying to change the fundamental nature of reality. Honestly, there wasn’t much to explain their motivation," I replied as I scrolled through the photos from the library. "They believed our world was limited, constrained by rules they wanted to break."
"Break how?" Kota asked as she pulled out a fresh batch of cookies that smelled like heaven and probably tasted better.
"By unmaking it," I said grimly. "The journals talked about 'the great unmaking'—a ritual that would dissolve the boundaries between worlds. They saw our reality as a prison, and they wanted to tear down the walls."
"Which is exactly as bad as it sounds," Dre added, grabbing a cookie. "The apprentices wrote about what happened during the group’s smaller experiments. The worst were places where they managed to thin the veil between worlds. The results were... not pretty."
"Define 'not pretty’," Dea requested with a grimace.
"People turned inside out, not pretty," Lia read from her notes. "Time ran backward. And apparently, local pets started speaking in human voices and prophesying doom."
"That actually sounds kind of cool," Kota mused, already mixing another batch of dough.
"Until you read what they were prophesying," I said. "Trust me, some things should remain physically impossible. Like cats discussing the end times in iambic pentameter."
"What's the plan?" Phi asked, her fingers flying over her keyboard. "We find someone willing to talk about what Marie's family did to stop the Lost Legends?"
"We verify that she stopped them last time and find out how," I said. "Whatever was done before worked. It held for over a century. If we can understand how she did it..."
"We might be able to stop them again," Dre finished. "Preferably without any loss of lives."
"First things first," I said, pulling up the business card Margaret had given us. "We need to find Céleste. According to Margaret, the Laveau family has been keeping track of everything from the power lines in the city to the supernaturals. They have been monitoring the weak points. They might already know where it started."
"And if they don't?" Kota asked, sliding another tray into the oven.
"Then we see if they can help," Lia said simply. "Because if the Lost Legends are really back if they're really trying to finish what they started... we're going to need all the help we can get."
"Right then," I said. "Tomorrow, we find Céleste. Tonight, we prepare. Kota can we switch from cookies to protection potions to enhance our spells? We should go in prepared for anything. Phi, compile everything we found about their patterns and methods. Wait. Kota..."
"More cookies?" Kota said, cutting me off.
"More cookies," I agreed. "And I need to figure out how to work a Light Fae premating party into all this without letting them down. The bride-to-be is super excited to have a ‘Twisted Sisters’ party."
"You said yes to Jasper?" Phi looked up, horrified. "With everything we have going on?"
"Triple our normal rate," I reminded her. "Plus, a favor from the Silvermists, whoever they are. We might need both before this is over."
"Pass the cookies," Dre sighed. "And someone text Cami. She'll want to know we’re certain it’s the Lost Legends. She might remember something useful from back then."