Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
She was already deep in work when he found her. Hair twisted up off her neck with a pencil stuck through it, reading glasses perched on her nose—the ones she only wore when she’d been squinting at documents for hours. Her shoulders showed freckles from summer sun, and she had an ink stain on her thumb from where she’d been marking pages.
He settled into the chair across from her without speaking. She glanced up, and her smile reached her eyes before she saw the coffee.
“You’re a saint.” She reached for it without looking, fingers brushing his as he steadied the cup before she could knock it over. Both of them pretended not to notice the contact.
She took a long drink, sighed, and set it down carefully away from the open ledgers. “The Lacroix family was either very organized or very paranoid. These records go back to 1750 and they documented everything. Property taxes, business licenses, even receipts for mirror repair.”
“Mirror repair?”
“Three separate invoices between 1760 and 1762. All for the same glazier.” She tapped the page. “That’s what I wanted to show you. Pattern recognition.”
Bastien pulled out the ward lattice map and spread it across the remaining table space. Five intersections glowed faintly where he’d traced copper and silver wire markings—his containment network, if he could figure out what connected them. The fountain test had bought him maybe three days before Gideon’s Mirror Bleed spread past containment.
“Five addresses,” he said. “All showing mirror corruption. I need to know why these specific locations.”
“Charlotte’s property records.” She set down her coffee and pulled three stacks of ledgers closer. “If she built something, she documented it. Woman was meticulous to the point of compulsion.”
“Sounds familiar.”
She gave him a look over her reading glasses. “You know, for someone who keeps showing up with supernatural emergencies, you’ve got a heck of a way of vanishing between them.”
She kept her attention on the ledgers as she said it, organizing them by date, making it easier to be honest by not looking directly at him. Bastien leaned back in his chair, affecting casualness while very aware of her proximity, the way her neck curved where her hair was pinned up.
“Investigative work requires following leads when they appear.”
“Mm-hmm.” She flipped a page. “And these leads just happen to appear at two in the morning? On Tuesdays?”
He couldn’t help the wry smile. “The city doesn’t keep regular business hours.”
She returned the smile, but concern lived underneath it. “Just want to make sure you’re okay. You look tired lately.”
Tired from protecting you. From mapping Gideon’s network. From loving you while pretending I don’t. He picked up his own coffee, let the cold against his palm ground him. “Says the woman who keeps Archive hours that would horrify the labor board.”
Her light laugh defused the moment, and she let the subject drop. But she’d filed it away—he could tell by the way she tapped her pen against her teeth once before returning to the ledgers. She knew he was hiding something. He knew she knew. They’d both agreed not to push.
For now.
“All right,” she said, pulling out the chair beside him instead of staying across the table. “Let’s find your five addresses.”
They worked through the first ledger in comfortable silence, the only sounds the fan’s oscillation and pages turning. Delphine had organized her research into three stacks—confirmed residences, business properties, uncertain locations. She’d already eliminated two addresses that had seemed promising but led nowhere: one had been sold before Charlotte’s death, another turned out to be a shipping warehouse with no residential history.
“Here.” Twenty minutes in, she tapped a page. “1761. Property acquired, Rue Chartres.” She flipped forward. “And here—another one. Royal Street, 1762.” Her eyes narrowed behind her reading glasses. “These weren’t developed. Just purchased and left alone.”
Bastien checked his map. Both matched his marked intersections. “Keep looking.”
She pulled out an 1863 fire insurance claim, cross-referenced it with an 1871 city directory, made a note on her pad. Found the third address—Bourbon Street—buried in an 1889 probate inventory. The fourth appeared in a property tax record from 1847, Dauphine Street, listed as “vacant lot, family use.”
“That’s four,” she said. “If there’s a fifth—”
“There is.” He was already reaching for his phone to photograph the pages. His own notes from Charlotte’s journals had mentioned five anchor points, though she’d never specified locations. Now Delphine was proving what he’d only suspected.
She flipped through a 1902 sale notice, stopped. “Here. Decatur Street, purchased 1762, never developed.” She sat back, pulled off her reading glasses. “Five properties. All bought within two years. All designated for family use but never built on.”
“Charlotte was planning something.”
“Question is what.” Delphine stood, walked to the windowsill, and grabbed the 1880s city map she’d been using for reference. “Hand me that pencil.”
He passed it to her. She spread the map across the table, pushing ledgers aside, and marked the first address—Chartres. Looked at him expectantly. “Where’s the second?”