Page 7 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

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 asthe 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."

CHAPTER 3

DREYA

Iwas in the middle of my second cup of coffee when my phone lit up with yet another notification. Several more ‘ghost’ sightings had come in overnight. When mundies didn’t understand something, they always claimed it was caused by spirits. With respect to these, each one was progressively weirder than the last.

Steve had been up half the night dealing with calls from the hotline. He’d begun helping screen calls so my sisters and I weren’t worked to death. The supernaturals who worked at NOPD had begun calling him directly at one point. It was easier than going through the hotline. I’d felt him slide into bed around four in the morning. He was muttering something about tap-dancing specters on Bourbon Street.

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