Page 18 of Curse in the Quarter
Bastien studied symbols that made his fallen nature recoil. “The Church would call this heretical.”
“The Church calls many truths heretical when those truths threaten their authority.” Her finger traced mystical geometry with fearless precision. “But what if love really could transcend the boundaries they claim are absolute? What if souls truly could choose their own destiny rather than accepting what cosmic forces impose?”
“Charlotte—”
“I know the risks.” She looked up from the forbiddenknowledge, dark eyes blazing with determination that could reshape reality. “But I also know that some connections are worth any price.”
The memory faded as he reached his office, but its emotional weight remained. Charlotte had known exactly what she was attempting, had understood the cosmic implications of soul-binding magic and chosen to proceed anyway. Her love had been informed, willing, and dangerous as revolution.
Delphine deserved the same opportunity for informed choice.
Even if the truth destroyed any possibility of happiness between them.
As he settled at his desk to prepare for the evening’s revelations, the locket pulsed once against his chest—not warning, but acknowledgment. Tonight, secrets maintained for over two centuries would finally be shared.
Tonight, Delphine would begin to understand what she truly was, and what choices lay before her.
And tomorrow, they would both learn whether love could survive the kind of truth that reshaped fundamental assumptions about life, death, and the bonds that connected souls across the vast spaces between stars.
Five
The glyph sketch lay flat on Maman Brigitte’s reading table like an accusation drawn in charcoal and ink. Bastien watched her dark eyes trace the angular symbols, noting how her expression shifted from curiosity to concern to alarm. Outside her Rampart Street shop, late afternoon rain drummed against windows that had witnessed more supernatural consultations than most buildings in the Quarter.
“This is not good,” Maman said finally, her voice carrying decades of experience interpreting omens others preferred to ignore. “Soul-binding resurgence. Haven’t seen patterns like this since . . .” She paused, calculating years. “Well. Since never. These markings aren’t just echoing old magic. They’re calling it back.”
She rose with fluid grace, moving to shelves that held items most people would dismiss as curiosities—carved bones that hummed with barely audible frequencies, crystals that cast shadows in impossible directions, bottles filled with liquids that moved withoutbeing disturbed.
From beneath the register, she withdrew Charlotte’s leatherbound journal. Its cover bore water stains and scorch marks, evidence of dangerous knowledge contained within its pages.
“My predecessor’s work,” Maman reminded him, opening to a page marked with black ribbon. “She kept records of the old families’ magical experiments. Most of it was for academic interest only, but some patterns have a way of repeating themselves.”
The page described “resonant objects” in language that mixed scholarly precision with practical warning. Items crafted not just to hold magical energy, but to seek out specific targets across time and space. Artifacts designed to vibrate when near their intended matches, growing stronger with proximity until separation became impossible.
“Here,” Maman said, pointing to a particular passage. “Mentions a locket etched with a hidden tethering glyph. ‘Vessel meant to vibrate when near its match, crafted by C. Lacroix to ensure recognition across lifetimes.’” She looked up from the journal. “That wouldn’t happen to sound familiar, would it?”
Bastien’s hand moved to his chest, where the keepsake locket rested against his ribs. The metal had been warm since his encounter with Delphine at the Archive, pulsing with faint energy that seemed to match his heartbeat.
“Charlotte created it as a failsafe,” he said. “She was convinced that love strong enough could survive death, but worried that reincarnated souls might not remember their connections. So she crafted something that would know me, would respond when her essence was near.”
“And it’s been active recently?”
“Since this morning. Since I met . . .”
Maman’s expression softened. “Twenty-five years you’ve been carrying that locket through this city, never more than a few miles from where she works, and it stayed silent. Now, when soul-binding glyphs start appearing, when arcane recursion threatens the Veil itself, it suddenly comes to life.” She closed the journal. “That’s not coincidence, Bastien. That’s recognition.”
For decades, he’d convinced himself that proximity to Delphine’s childhood and adolescence meant nothing. That the locket’s silence proved keeping his distance was the right decision, and that perhaps the locket wasn’t even working as intended.
But the timing couldn’t be ignored. The locket had awakened the same morning supernatural incidents began clustering around families with Lacroix bloodline connections. The same day Delphine had been researching those exact genealogical patterns.
“I need to be certain,” Bastien said.
“Then test it. But watch yourself.” Maman’s voice carried warning born of experience with magical artifacts that exceeded their creators’ intentions. “Resonant imprint vessels like that locket, they’re not passive tools. They’re programmed to seek what they were made to find. Get too close to the right target, and they won’t let you leave.”
Bastien left the shop with her warning echoing in his mind. The walk back to his office took him through streets that seemed charged with anticipation. Evening shadows stretched longer than natural sunset should have allowed, and the air itself seemed to hum with barely contained energy. Even mundane humans appeared affected—conversations quieter than usual, movements more deliberate, as if some instinct warned of approaching change.
His office felt smaller when he returned,walls seeming to close in as he placed the glyph sketch on his desk beside the keepsake locket he’d taken off to stare at2. In the amber light of his desk lamp, both objects seemed ordinary—paper covered in symbolic markings, tarnished silver jewelry that could have come from any antique shop in the Quarter.
But when he moved them within inches of each other, the transformation was immediate.
