Page 92 of Curse in the Quarter
He thought of Charlotte's braided hair, her dying words about choosing love over safety. But what if love meant letting go? What if the greatest act of devotion was setting her free from supernatural forces that would only bring suffering?
Bastien rose and walked to his study,where centuries of accumulated knowledge lined the walls in leatherbound silence. He pulled out the wooden box containing Charlotte's moon-thread braid, setting it beside the shadowglass rune on his desk.
Two artifacts. Two kinds of love. One promised connection despite inevitable pain. The other offered freedom through ultimate sacrifice.
His hand trembled as he reached for the shadowglass rune. All it would take was one touch to the tether connecting their souls. One moment of exquisite agony, and Delphine would be free to live without supernatural complications. Free to love someone who wouldn't drag her into dangerous magic and ancient conflicts. Free to age and die naturally, surrounded by children and grandchildren who would never know the weight of otherworldly forces.
The rune grew warm in his palm, responding to his wavering resolve. He could feel the tether thrumming between them—that silver cord binding their souls across impossible distances. So easy to sever. So simple to sacrifice his own happiness for her safety.
Promise you'll choose love over safety, connection over peace, even when it costs everything.
Charlotte's dying words warred with Maestro's logical arguments in his mind. Love or freedom. Connection or peace. The eternal choice that had defined every incarnation of their bond.
Bastien's grip tightened on the rune. Outside, afternoon sun painted his study in gold while across the city, Delphine worked among books, unconsciously humming melodies that bridged centuries. Soon she would remember everything. Soon the full weight of the lifetimes he’d waited—worked for—would crash into her mortal consciousness.
When that happened, when he saw sanity leave hereyes as accumulated memory shattered her mind, would he have the strength to watch? Could he stand by while her awakening tore reality apart?
The shadowglass rune pulsed once more, its surface growing warm as living flesh. Waiting.
Bastien closed his eyes and felt the tether's silver strength connecting them across space and time. In that connection lived every moment they'd shared—Charlotte's fevered determination, Delia's joyous laughter, Delphine's unconscious recognition of love that transcended death itself.
He could sever it. Could free her. Could choose noble sacrifice over selfish love.
His hand rose, the rune's tip poised above his heart where the tether's silver cord emerged from mortal flesh. One quick motion and it would all be over. Delphine would be free to live as a normal woman while he carried the wound of severance for eternity.
Choose love over safety, connection over peace.
Bastien's arm trembled, caught between mercy and devotion. The shadowglass rune whispered promises of peace while Charlotte's moon-thread braid glowed with warm light, two paths stretching toward radically different futures.
Then his hand moved—not down toward his heart, but sideways toward the desk's edge. The shadowglass rune struck wood with the sound of breaking bells, its crystalline structure shattering into fragments that scattered across leatherbound volumes and old correspondence.
The power contained within dissipated with a sigh, taking with it the easy solution to their impossible situation. Bastien knelt and gathered what remained—a few shards that had escaped dissolution, their edges sharp enough tocut reality itself. These he wrapped in silk and placed in his desk drawer, not as temptation but as reminder.
When the final choice came, when Delphine's awakening reached its crescendo and the world hung in the balance, he would face it with love rather than fear, with hope rather than despair. He would trust in their connection's strength rather than choosing the safety of separation.
Outside, New Orleans hummed with evening life while somewhere across the city, Delphine finished her work day and headed home, unconsciously weaving magic into ordinary moments. Her awakening approached whether he was ready or not, bringing with it whatever chaos or transformation waited in their future.
But they would face it together, as they always had—two souls choosing each other across time and possibility. No matter what Maestro's warnings promised, no matter what forces their love might unleash, Bastien had made his choice.
Love over safety. Connection over peace. Even when it cost everything.
The tiny shards that remained of the shadowglass rune glittered on his study floor, and for the first time in centuries, Bastien felt truly free. He'd rejected Maestro's Veil fracture countermeasure, choosing instead to trust in something far more dangerous and infinitely more valuable—the transformative power of love that refused to be contained by fear.
The game was far from over, but he was finally playing to win.
Twenty-Nine
The ritual circle erupted near the riverbank at the stroke of midnight, tearing through the Veil like a blade through silk. What began as a tourist's fumbling attempt at communion with New Orleans' spiritual legacy turned catastrophic when their improvised chalice shattered against stone, spilling blood onto earth already saturated with centuries of magical residue. The confluence of amateur desperation and ancient power created exactly the resonance Bastien had been dreading—a massive beacon that fractured reality itself and sent shockwaves rippling through every ward in the Quarter.
His coffee mug hit the floor before he fully registered what was happening, ceramic exploding across the hardwood as his hands went numb with recognition. This wasn't just another minor breach. This was the crescendo he'd been dreading for months, the moment when the Veil stretched to its absolute thinnest and every soul with unfinished resonance would be pulled toward the epicenter like iron to a lodestone.
The pressure built first inhis skull, then spread through his bones—not the familiar tightness behind his sternum, but something deeper and more violent. The spiritual boundary between worlds was straining past all natural limits, groaning under forces it was never meant to contain. Then came the sound, inaudible to most but clear as cathedral bells to anyone with Veil-trained perception: a deep, thrumming note that rose from the earth itself, calling to every spirit caught between incarnations, every consciousness carrying memories too powerful to release.
Delphine would already be moving toward the source, her feet carrying her through Quarter streets while her mind struggled to understand why.
Books scattered across his desk as he lunged for the Votum Aeternum, the weapon burning against his palm with urgent recognition. The blade knew what was happening—could sense the same chaotic energies that were wreaking havoc with every protective sigil he'd carefully placed throughout the Quarter over decades of patient work. Behind him, his own wards held but strained, their delicate balance disrupted by magical forces too raw and uncontrolled for safe containment.
The streets were a chaos of failing infrastructure as he ran. Ozone and copper hit him two blocks from the river, underscored by something deeper—the acrid scent of reality itself burning at its edges. Street lamps stuttered and died as he passed, their electrical systems overwhelmed by feedback from the breach. Gas lines groaned in their underground housing. Car alarms shrieked in discordant harmony as their electronic systems registered energy signatures they weren't designed to interpret.
