Page 84 of Curse in the Quarter
"Don't." She cut him off with surgeon's precision and an annoyed huff. "Don't give me clinical explanations for things we both know aren't clinical, and that I believe you already knew had been happening to me." Wine reflected candlelight as she lifted the glass. "I hear music that doesn't exist. Melodies I've never learned but know note-perfect."
That pre-memory tremor settled in his ribs, recognition fighting its way toward consciousness despite every barrier he'd built. Charlotte had described identical experiences in those final weeks before the ritual. The growing awareness that her soul carried impressions from other lifetimes, other loves, other losses stretching back through centuries of forgetting and remembering.
In 1762, they'd walked the levee path in silver moonlight, her hand inches from his but never quite touching.
Protocol demanded distance between merchant's daughter and mysterious gentleman caller. But Charlotte had stopped suddenly, pressing fingertips to her temple. "This route," she'd whispered. "I've walked it before. Not in this life, but . . . I know where every loose brick waits to trip me. I know the exact spot where jasmine grows wild over thegarden wall." When he'd asked her to explain, she'd shaken her head, copper curls catching moonlight. "Like remembering someone else's dreams. Beautiful and terrible at once."
"Memory creates patterns when we're under stress," Bastien said now, offering truth wrapped in safe language. "Dreams, books, conversations—they blend together until the past feels more real than the present."
"You think I'm having a breakdown."
Bastien sighed quietly. He didn’t want Delphine to think she was going mad but he still wasn’t quite ready to unveil all the truths she’d eventually need to hear. "I think you're experiencing something meaningful. The question is whether you need to understand its origins, or whether the significance lies in how it's changing you now."
Delphine set down her glass with deliberate care. "You do that constantly. Answer without answering. Dance around truth like it might bite you." Her eyes held directness that belonged purely to this lifetime—Charlotte had been subtler, more willing to approach difficult topics sideways, but this was very much like Delia, who he'd been able to love fully, openly. "Is that investigator training or personal habit?"
Both. Decades of handling cases where too much revelation destroyed the people he was trying to protect. But his caution with Delphine ran deeper than professional paranoia. Every word between them carried weight she couldn't comprehend—history she'd forgotten, promises that had shaped his choices for over a century, hopes he'd spent decades strangling because hope meant vulnerability and vulnerability meant failure.
He wanted to tell her everything. About Charlotte's ritual preparations. About the soul-binding glyphs manifesting wherever she walked. About the locket that hadrecognized her essence after twenty-five years of silence. About how her déjà vu episodes were memory fragments bleeding through from lifetimes she'd lived when these streets were mud and cobblestone, when she'd sung those melodies in his arms before fire and betrayal tore them apart.
Instead, he said honestly, "Personal. Some truths are too heavy to carry all at once. Better to let them surface naturally than force them into the light before someone's ready."
"And I'm not ready?"
"You're stronger than you know. But strength and readiness aren't identical." He reached for his wine, noticed his hand trembling slightly. "Sometimes kindness means letting people discover their own answers rather than imposing conclusions from outside."
The Bordeaux loosened her careful composure, softened the professional mask she wore during their daytime interactions. Candlelight caught gold highlights in her hair that was darker than Charlotte's had been but held the same tendency to curl at the temples when humidity rose. The resemblance wasn't identical—rebirth had changed bone structure, eye color, the set of her shoulders—but essence remained constant. The way she tilted her head when thinking. How her thumb traced circles on the glass rim when processing difficult concepts.
"What about you?" She refilled both glasses, movements flowing with unconscious grace. "What truths are you avoiding?"
The question struck deeper than intended, hitting the core of his existence since 1906. Every truth that mattered was bound up in loss too vast for casual conversation. In responsibilities that had defined his choicesacross lifetimes. In love that had proved more destructive than protective despite the best intentions.
"That some losses never heal," he said, words emerging without permission. "That time doesn't fix everything, no matter what people claim. That sometimes survival means accepting part of yourself will always wait for something that can't return."
Recognition flickered in her expression—not memory, but empathy born from experiences that ran deeper than current circumstances should allow. "That's why you take these cases? Help other people solve mysteries because your own can't be solved?"
"Maybe I just understand that reality holds more possibilities than most people can handle. Someone needs to stand between what people know and what they need protection from."
Silence settled between them, comfortable but charged. The wine bar's other conversations faded to background murmur. Their corner felt isolated from the world beyond candle-reach.
"Thank you," Delphine said finally.
"For?"
"Not dismissing what I'm experiencing. Not offering easy explanations that we both know don't fit." She met his eyes across the small table. "I've spent my career around people who need to rationalize everything, who can't accept phenomena outside conventional understanding. It's . . . refreshing to talk with someone who doesn't need to fix everything."
That ache bloomed deep in his chest, the soul connection he had never wanted to break and could never ignore. Charlotte had thanked him with identical words in those final weeks before the ritual—gratitude forhis willingness to explore impossible possibilities. The parallel was too close, too painful, heavy with implications about how little had truly changed despite a century of separation.
"Everyone deserves validation," he managed, reaching for professional distance even as personal connection threatened to overwhelm his boundaries. "Especially when their experiences involve forces outside normal understanding."
She leaned forward. Subtle movement, probably unconscious, but it closed the space between them enough that he caught her scent—not perfume but something essential. Something that resonated with memories of jasmine and moonlight, shared laughter, stolen kisses, love powerful enough to attempt rewriting reality's rules.
Temptation to reach across those final inches overwhelmed restraint. His body remembered hers despite the changes time and rebirth had wrought. He recognized the posture that meant she was opening herself to connection. In another lifetime, another century, he would have accepted without hesitation. He’d have pulled her close, whispered hoarded truths, kissed her until past and present merged into something that made sense.
But consequences of moving too fast had already proven catastrophic once. So he remained still, letting tension stretch between them like a bridge neither quite dared cross, aching with want, weighted with caution.
She sensed his internal struggle, her own expression reflecting similar conflict. Air between them felt charged with possibility and restraint. With recognition that fought rational explanation. Desire that ran deeper than circumstances should allow.
"This is dangerous, isn’t it?" she asked quietly, notpulling back but acknowledging what they both felt building.
