CHAPTER 7
DAHLIA
" I swear to all that's holy, if one more mirror tries to show me the future, I'm going to start breaking them," I muttered as I glared at my reflection in Dani's vintage vanity. "Seven years of bad luck has to be better than watching myself age forward again." We’d returned home after the council meeting to get some planning done for the party.
The plantation's late afternoon light filtered through the windows of our workspace. We'd been trying to etch custom glasses for the Light Fae party for the past hour. So far, all we'd managed to do was witness increasingly disturbing visions in every reflective surface. Mack, my oldest daughter had finished the design and I loaded it into the laser engraver. All we needed to do now was etch the two hundred glasses. Well, we had finished about fifty-five.
"I've seen that woman in the Victorian dress pass by my mirror six times now," Kota said from her position near the window of the silo. "Each time, she's wearing a different color. I swear, the last time she had wings. The sixth time, she was riding what looked like a steampunk unicorn."
"That's nothing," Dre replied as she hand-painted one of the signs we had cut out. "The mirror in my bathroom showed me with green skin and tentacles. Then it switched to me riding a dinosaur down Bourbon Street. Think the Lost Legends are trying to tell me something about my fashion choices or my future career options?"
"Maybe they're suggesting a career change," I offered as I put another wine glass in the laser. The crystal caught the light oddly and sent rainbow fractals dancing across the inside of the machine. "Prehistoric tour guide could be your calling. 'And on your left, you'll see where the T-Rex tried to eat a street performer’."
"Very funny," Dre grumbled, but I caught her smile. "At least my reflections are interesting. Poor Dea just keeps seeing herself in different historical outfits. Though the flapper dress wasn't bad."
"Speaking of historical fashion disasters," Dani said as she carefully bespelled balloon arches with lights, "the enchantments aren't holding. I swear something's interfering with the magical frequency. Whenever I try to weave in starlight, I get deflated balloons instead."
I moved closer to watch as she attempted another enchantment. The spell should have been simple. We'd done similar things dozens of times before. But instead of the gentle glow we were aiming for, she got nothing. That wasn’t entirely true. Cocking my head, I noticed that images of places decidedly not the plantation played across one of the metallic balloons.
"Hold up," I said, leaning in closer. The energy coming off the arch made my teeth ache. "Is that...?"
The image crystalized like a high-definition video. We could see a group of robed figures standing in a circle around what had to be the Larmes du Bayou. The crystal pulsed with power and sent out waves of energy that distorted the air around it. Each pulse seemed to ripple through the silo, making the workshop's contents shift slightly out of sync.
"Holy shit," Kota breathed, abandoning her own work to crowd around us. Her elbow knocked over a container of spelled glitter, but none of us noticed. "Are we actually watching them perform a ritual? Like, right now?"
"The energy signature is impossible to mistake," I said, studying the way the Lost Legends moved around the crystal. Their movements were precise and practiced. This wasn't their first attempt at whatever they were doing. "That's definitely our stolen crystal."
"Phi!" I called out, not daring to take my eyes off the scene. "We need you in here! Bring whatever scientific magic detection stuff you've got!" She’d left us to do party stuff while she worked on altering some of her scientific equipment. She had an idea of how we might better be able to track subtle hints of magic.
Phi burst in moments later. Her arms were full of stuff that looked like someone had tried to combine a Tesla coil with a smartphone and then let a mad scientist bedazzle it. Her red hair was wild. She had what looked like algebraic equations written on her forearm in Sharpie.
"What's happening? I think it’s working. My readings just went crazy and – oh." She stopped short at the sight of the ritual playing out in the large balloon. "That's... that's not supposed to be possible."
"When has that ever stopped anything in this city?" Dre asked as we watched the Lost Legends do their ritual. The energy built-in visible waves.
"Please tell me someone is recording this," I said, noticing how the patterns they were weaving looked familiar somehow. Like something I'd seen in Marie's library. Only this was twisted and changed as with our wards.
"Already on it," Phi replied, her fingers flying over what looked like a modified tablet. The screen displayed readings that would probably give a physics professor a headache. "And I'm picking up their energy signature. It's a combination of the crystal's temporal resonance and something else. Something older."
"Older like 'pre-colonial New Orleans' old, or older like 'dinosaurs would think it's vintage' old?" Kota asked as she squinted at Phi's readings.
"Older like 'time itself might be a teenager in comparison' old," Phi muttered, adding another equation to her arm.
The laser dinged and I changed out glasses while it was running smoothly. The ritual continued for several minutes while I continued making glasses for the party. The power was built until the balloon cracked. Spiderwebbing covered the circumference. The sound it made resonated on a magical frequency that gave me an instant migraine. The image shattered, leaving us staring at mylar pieces with more questions than answers.
"Holy shit, Phi," I breathed as I stared at the array of detection equipment my sister had jerry-rigged together. "These new toys of yours are brilliant. The way you isolated the magical frequency alone will save us from depleting our magic."
Phi's eyes lit up with that specific brand of crazy she got when someone appreciated her mad scientist tendencies. "This isn't even their final form," she said as she tapped away at her devices. "Give me another hour. I think I can modify them to track both the mirror anomalies and the crystal's signature simultaneously. Maybe even add in some temporal alignment features."
"An hour?" Dani checked her watch, which was currently showing three different times simultaneously. "We've got the final party planning meeting with the Light Fae in two hours. You sure you can work that fast?"
Phi's grin was downright scary. "Watch me."
We spent the next hour working on party stuff while Phi continued her modifications. The space Phi had taken over in the silo looked like a mad scientist's lab had a wild night with Radio Shack and then invited a witch over for breakfast. Complicated equipment covered every surface. Some of it was clearly modified with magical components that made my skin tingle.
"Hand me that stabilizer," Phi called from beneath what looked like a computer having an identity crisis. "No, not that one,” she told Dea. “The one that's glowing blue. The purple one exploded and will be too unstable."
"You have way too many things that explode," I muttered as I continued changing glasses. I paused while Dea carefully passed her the device. I didn’t want glass in my eyeballs. "Remember when the most dangerous thing in here was the coffee maker?"
"That coffee maker is still dangerous," Dani pointed out. "It achieved sentience this morning. Now it only makes espresso when it's in a good mood."
Kota dodged a floating array of crystals and said, "At least it makes good coffee."
"Done!" Phi announced exactly fifty-eight minutes later. She held up something that looked like a cross between a compass and a smartphone. Blue light pulsed along its edges in a rhythm that matched the temporal disruptions we'd been seeing. "It's not pretty, but it'll work. I've calibrated it to track both the temporal disturbances and the crystal's unique energy signature."
"And it won't explode?" I asked warily. This was the first time anyone had created something like this. Normally, mixing tech and magic wouldn’t work, but our magical makeup was unique. Phi had been trying to do something like this for months, so her progress wasn't surprising, but that didn’t mean it was stable.
"Ninety-five percent sure it won't explode," she replied with what was not at all a reassuring smile. "Eighty-five percent sure it won't create a temporal paradox."
"Those odds are better than our usual," Dre said as she grabbed her gear. "Let's move before the Light Fae show up, and we have to explain why we're bailing on their meeting. Send them pics of our progress so they’re mollified."
Dani documented our creations with her camera, and then we piled into my car. The drive into the Quarter was quick, and we found a city mired in magical chaos. The magical disruptions made peak Mardi Gras look orderly by comparison. We passed a streetcar caught in a time-loop eddy. One moment it was a pristine nineteen-twenties vehicle with ladies in elaborate hats fanning themselves. The next it carried bell-bottomed tourists from the seventies. Next came sleek modern commuters with their faces buried in phones. The conductor had apparently embraced the chaos and was calling out stops with period-appropriate flair for whatever decade they happened to be experiencing.
A cluster of tourists was huddled around their phones. They were delightedly photographing what they assumed was an impressively committed historical performer. I recognized Marie Antoinette. She offered both traditional French pastries and modern cupcakes with equal aristocratic grace. On one corner, a jazz ensemble played compositions that didn't exist yet. Their instruments were even an anachronistic mix. A saxophone from the nineteen-twenties harmonized with an electric keyboard that hadn't be invented. The drummer's kit featured pieces from every decade in between.
"Take a left here," Phi directed as she kept her eyes glued to her device. The screen flickered between a modern digital display and what looked suspiciously like an ancient star chart. "The signal's getting stronger. Whatever they did in that ritual, it's affecting a specific area."
"Anyone else notice how the temporal distortions are forming a pattern?" Dani asked.
Phi nodded. "I think it's a spiral, centering on whatever's causing these readings."
I turned down a side street I'd driven past a thousand times but never really noticed. You know the ones that seem to exist in every old city. They'd hide in plain sight until you needed them. This one led to a mansion that definitely wasn't on any tourist maps. The architecture was a fever dream of styles. There were Greek Revival columns and Victorian gables. There were also Art Deco elements that melted into Colonial features. Someone had taken pieces from every era of New Orleans history and smashed them together into one impossible building.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," I muttered as I pulled up to the gates. They were wrought iron, naturally. This was New Orleans, and apparently, there was a law about that somewhere. The metal was twisted into patterns that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. I parked, and we climbed out of my SUV.
"The energy readings are off the charts," Phi reported as we approached the gate. Dre placed her finger on it, and it swung open at her touch. Rusted hinges screamed like something from a horror movie soundtrack. "Whatever they're doing, this is ground zero. The temporal disturbances are all emanating from this location."
My heart started hammering against my ribcage in excitement. I was eager to stop the chaos before it got worse. We moved through the overgrown garden. Our steps were silent on the dead grass. The plants seemed caught between seasons. Roses bloomed and wilted on the same bush while vines grew and withered in endless cycles. Every window in the mansion watched us approach. I didn't mean that metaphorically. Eyes appeared in the glass and focused on us.
"Check it out," Kota whispered as she pointed to a first-floor window. The glass rippled like disturbed water. "That one's showing the Battle of New Orleans. Only in their version, the British are winning. And is that... are those dragons?"
"This one's showing the future," Dani called softly from another window. Her face was illuminated by an eerie blue glow. "Or a future, at least. The Quarter is underwater. And there are merpeople swimming down Canal Street. One of them is holding a Hurricane glass from O’Brien’s."
"Look at this," Dre said, gesturing to a bay window that took up most of one wall. "It's showing the plantation, but it’s overrun by imps."
"Focus," I reminded them, though I couldn't help glancing at a window showing what looked like dinosaurs wandering through Jackson Square. A T-Rex wearing Mardi Gras beads was definitely going to feature in my nightmares. "We need to find where they're performing their ritual."
My heart was in my throat when I touched the front door. It opened at my touch. It swung inward with the kind of dramatic creak that would have made a Hollywood sound engineer proud. The entrance hall was a study in controlled chaos. Every reflective surface – mirrors, windows, even the polished floor – showed a different time period. It was like standing in the world's most confusing art gallery.
"Is that Marie Laveau?" Kota pointed to a gilded mirror near the stairs. "Or one of her ancestors."
"That's not our Marie," Phi said as she studied her device. "The temporal signature suggests this is from at least two centuries ago. We're seeing one of her ancestors."
"The signal's strongest upstairs," she continued. Her device pulsed with an urgent light that cast strange shadows on the walls. "The east wing would be my guess. And whatever's up there is putting out enough temporal energy to rewrite history itself."
We moved up the grand staircase. Our steps echoed despite our best efforts at stealth. The second floor was a maze of corridors that seemed to rearrange themselves when we weren't looking directly at them. It was classic haunted house stuff. Only their twist made it about a thousand times worse.
"Did we pass that door already?" Dani whispered as she pointed to an elaborate portal covered in sigils.
"Hard to tell," I replied. "Time's not exactly moving in a straight line in here. For all we know, we're walking through the same moment over and over."
"Through here," Phi interrupted as she stopped in front of a set of double doors that looked like they belonged in Versailles. Gold filigree-laced patterns filled the wood. It was a true work of art. "Whatever they're doing with the crystal, this is the center of it."
I pushed open the doors and stumbled back like I’d had one too many at a Halloween party. I was not prepared for what we found. The circular room was massive. Its walls were completely covered in mirrors of every size and style imaginable. Each one showed a different part of the Quarter. I opened my senses now that we were there and noted that they were connected to them somehow. I’d bet anything we were looking at the anchor points. I could feel the twisted energy flowing between the mirrors like currents in a river.
"It's a hub," Phi breathed as her device went crazy in her hands. The screen cycled through readings so fast I couldn't follow them. "They're using the mirrors and anchor points. This is how they are connecting different time periods with locations in the city.”
My mind processed what she was saying and took it one step further. “They needed the Larmes du Bayou to stabilize this network. That’s what they’re using it for."
"But why?" Dre asked as she moved carefully into the room. Her reflection in each mirror showed a different version of herself. In some, she was older, and some younger. In others, she was barely recognizable as human. "What's the point of connecting all these different times?"
"Power," I said, watching as energy arced between the mirrors like green lightning. "They're drawing energy from every possible timeline, every potential reality."
"Look at this one," Kota called from across the room. She stood in front of an ornate full-length mirror that seemed older than the city itself. The frame was carved with symbols that predated any language I knew. "It's showing the Lost Legends, but not like the woman we saw. When you look past her stunning veneer, you see how twisted she truly is. In this they look less deformed."
I moved to join her. Damn if she wasn't right. The figures in the mirror were clearly the Legends before they became lost. They looked defeated and desperate. The scene played out like a movie. It showed them being bound and their power being stripped away by a ritual that made my magical senses recoil. I couldn’t see who performed it, but I knew it was an ancestor of Marie Leveau. Nothing made me react like her power.
"That's not how the story goes," Dani said, frowning at the image. "Everything we found suggested they just vanished. The records in Marie's library..."
"History is written by the winners," I reminded her. I watched as Marie Laveau's ancestors performed a ritual in the reflection. The magic they were using looked familiar. "Maybe what we think we know isn't the whole truth."
"Guys?" Phi's voice had that tone that usually meant something was about to go terribly wrong. Her device was vibrating so hard it looked ready to shake apart. "The energy readings are spiking. I think they know we're here."
As if on cue, the mirrors started pulsing with power. The images swirled faster and bled into each other like watercolors in the rain. The energy in the room was built until I could taste it. And it was like someone dropped a watery turd on my tongue. Bile burned the back of my throat.
"We need to go," I said, already backing toward the door. My instincts were screaming warnings at me. "Now. Before they decide to show us something we really don't want to see."
We didn't quite make it. The mirrors exploded inward. Shards of glass flew through the air. I caught glimpses of dinosaurs, flying cars, ancient rituals, and future technologies. They were reflected in the broken pieces swirling around us. "Shield up!" I shouted as I cast every protection spell I could think of around our group. The shards bounced off our combined bubbles. Each impact sent ripples through us. They were trying to destabilize us.
Dre grabbed me, and we ran. It wasn’t our proudest moment. Sometimes, strategic retreat is the better part of valor. Especially when a magical mob was trying to rearrange your insides. We didn't stop until we reached my car. We piled in like the hounds of hell were after us. Which, given what we'd just seen, would have been an improvement.
"Everyone whole?" I asked, performing a quick headcount while peeling away from the gate fast enough to leave rubber in multiple timelines. "All body parts in their original century?"
Kota made a sound like a seasick toddler from the backseat. "Pretty sure my stomach is still back there, possibly hanging out with the dinosaurs."
"Well, get your internal organs sorted before we meet Jasper and Penelope," Dani said. I noticed her checking her watch with the air of someone desperately clinging to normal schedules in the face of supernatural chaos. "We've already got their consultation fees tied up in that UV printer. I refuse to explain why we're requesting a refund because someone's liver decided to take a vacation to the Mesozoic era."