Page 11 of Curse in the Quarter
The afternoon sun was blinding after the Archive’s dim interior. Bastien stood on the sidewalk, his vision adjusting while his mind—and his heart—reeled from the encounter.
She was everything he’d expected and nothing like he’d prepared for. The soul was the same—he’d felt that connectionthe moment she’d looked up from her research desk. But the woman who carried that soul was someone new, someone who’d grown up in a different world with opportunities Charlotte and Delia could never have imagined.
Strong. Independent. Intellectually formidable.
And she had no memory of him whatsoever.
The locket had gone silent against his chest, but it retained heat like a coal. Whatever had awakened it was growing stronger, responding not just to Delphine’s presence but to her proximity to the archival materials about her own bloodline.
She was the key. The focal point around which the arcane recursion was building. Charlotte’s descendant, Delia’s reincarnation, the living embodiment of connections that had been severed but never truly broken.
And she was in terrible danger.
Bastien pulled out his phone and dialed Maman Brigitte’s number as he walked away from the Archive. The conversation was brief, coded in language that would mean nothing to casual listeners.
“The pattern is accelerating,” he said when she answered.
“Made contact?”
“Just did.”
“And?”
He glanced back at the Archive’s second-floor windows, where he could see Delphine’s silhouette moving between the shelves. She had returned to her work as if their meeting had been routine, professional, forgettable. She had no idea that their encounter had just shifted the trajectory of forces that had been building for over a century.
“She doesn’t remember,” he said quietly. “But the magic does.”
“Then you know what you have to do.”
“I have to protect her.”
“You have to let her choose,” Maman corrected. “Some stories don’t end just because people die. But some people get to decide how their stories continue.”
The line went dead, leaving Bastien alone on Ursulines Street with the weight of impossible decisions. He could try to shield Delphine from what was coming, could attempt to solve the crisis without involving her directly. But the locket’s response to her presence, the way the archival materials had resonated with mystical energy when she touched them, suggested that she was already involved whether she knew it or not.
The arcane recursion was building toward something that required her participation. The question was whether that participation would be knowing and willing, or whether she would be swept up in forces beyond her understanding just as Delia had been in 1906.
As he walked back toward the Quarter, Bastien made a decision that would haunt him regardless of its consequences. He would tell her the truth. Not all of it, not yet, but enough that she could make informed choices about her own fate.
She deserved that much. Charlotte had died without knowing what her experiments would cost. Delia had died confused and alone, unable to recognize the man who loved her. Delphine would face whatever was coming with her eyes open and her mind clear.
Even if the truth destroyed any chance they might have at happiness.
Even if it killed them both.
Behind him, the Obscura Archive’s windows reflected the setting sun like eyes watchinghis retreat. Inside, Delphine Leclair continued her work of preserving the past, unaware that she was about to become its living embodiment.
The locket pulsed once against his chest—not warning . . . but promise. Whatever was coming, they would face it together. Whether she remembered their connection or not, whether she chose to rebuild what they’d lost or forge something entirely new, they would not be separated again.
This time, he would reach her in time.
This time, he would not let the flames win.
Three
The invitation slipped beneath Bastien’s office door like a whisper made tangible. No footsteps preceded it; no shadow passed the frosted glass window separating his space from the narrow hallway. One moment his threshold stood empty, worn hardwood gleaming under the overhead light, the next a cream envelope rested against weathered boards as if materialized from darkness itself.
Bastien set down his coffee cup with deliberate care, noting how the liquid’s surface trembled despite his steady hand. Several hours had passed since his encounter with Delphine at the Obscura Archive, hours of reviewing genealogical charts and trying to process the implications of her unconscious humming. The melody still echoed in his mind—identical to Delia’s tune, perfect in every note and inflection.
