Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
But I must confess to unease, Henri. The manner of their destruction—the bodies left intact, the symbols carved into their flesh—troubles me more than I anticipated. We meant to send a message. I fear we have created a ghost.
What we did was necessary. What we did was just. History will record us as protectors of our kind.
But ghosts do not care what history records.
Yours, Marcel Beaumont
Bastien read the letter twice, then looked at Delphine.
“Where did you find this?”
“Buried in correspondence the Archive cataloged as ‘family business matters.’ No one thought to examine it closely—it looks like every other letter from the period.” She turned to another marked page. “But there’s more. References to ‘the arrangement.’ Lists of properties transferred after the purge. Names of vampires who received shares of the Marchande-Levesque estate.”
“You’re giving me evidence of a conspiracy that’s been hidden for over a century.”
“I’m giving you records that belong in proper historical context.” Her voice carried the neutrality of someone accustomed to handling sensitive materials. “What you do with them is your decision.”
She was helping him. She had recognized his distress, had connected it to research she had encountered in her professional capacity, had brought him documentation illuminating exactly what he needed to understand. All without asking questions that would require lies.
The generosity of it—the trust it implied—tightened something in his throat.
“This is dangerous,” he said. “These records implicate families that still hold power. If anyone knew you had taken them from the Archive—”
“I’ve handled dangerous materials before.” She smiled, brief and sharp. “I’m an archivist. Dangerous materials are what we do.”
“Delphine—”
“Bastien.” Her voice cut through his objection with the quiet authority she used when handling materials requiring respect. “I understand you want to protect me. I understand that protection is how you express care. But I’m not asking for your protection. I’m offering my help. Those are different things.”
He thought of Delia—her easy certainty on a November street in 1906, I don’t need to understand everything about you to know that I love you. He thought of the ring he had never given her, the morning that had come and taken her before the evening could. He thought of every version of this moment across what felt like lifetimes, always arriving at the same wall between what he wanted to say and what he could actually guarantee.
Delphine was not Delia. She was standing in his apartment in the twenty-first century, refusing to be sent home with the calm certainty of someone who had decided what she was willing to risk, and she had not asked him to promise anything he couldn’t keep.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said.
“I’m always careful.”
“Promise me anyway.”
She smiled, brief and warm. “I promise to be as careful as my professional standards allow. Which is very careful indeed.”
They worked through the morning, side by side at his desk. Delphine brought her archivist’s precision to the Beaumont correspondence, cross-referencing names and dates while Bastien explained the political landscape of 1847 and the violence of 1891. She asked careful questions—never probing for information he wasn’t willing to share, always focused on what the documents themselves could reveal.
By noon, they had assembled a clearer picture than Bastien had managed alone.
The conspiracy against the Marchande-Levesque family had been deliberate, coordinated, and extensively documented—at least among those who participated. The Beaumont papers contained references to meetings, agreements, the division of spoils following the purge. Names appeared and reappeared: representatives of the houses that had voted against the compact, their human agents, the witnesses who had validated the official history.
“Someone has access to records like these,” Delphine said. She sat back from the desk, rubbing her eyes. “The specificity of the victims, the significance of the locations—this isn’t random vengeance. This is informed vengeance. Documented vengeance.”
“The houses burned their archives after the purge. Or claimed to.”
“Obviously not all of them.” She gestured at the Beaumont volumes. “These survived. Others may have as well. Private collections, estate sales, materials that escaped the intended destruction.”
“And someone found them.”
“Someone with research skills. Someone who understood what they were looking at.” She met his eyes. “Someone who did exactly what you’ve been doing—tracing bloodlines, mapping connections, identifying the descendants of those who participated in violence that was supposed to stay buried.”
His forearm warmed. He pressed his palm against it, feeling the frequency respond to understanding.
“The killer isn’t acting alone,” he said.
“The killer might not even be the one driving this.” Delphine’s voice carried consideration as she assembled a theory from the incomplete evidence. “The research required to identify these victims, the knowledge of historical grievances, the precision of the targeting—that’s not the work of someone motivated by simple revenge. That’s the work of someone with a plan.”
“A plan to destabilize vampire politics.”
“A plan to tear open wounds that were supposed to have healed.” She rose from her chair and moved to the window, looking out at Dauphine Street with the distant expression of someone thinking through implications. “You said the Marchande-Levesque family proposed reform. They wanted to change how vampire society operated. The other houses destroyed them to prevent that change.”