Chapter Two: Threads of Ether and Blood
They arrived together, the walk from the Gallier House to Rue Dauphine lined with sidelong glances and the weight of words unspoken.
Chelsea's home stood at the end of Rue Dauphine, a three-story relic tucked between a rusted iron fence and a neglected courtyard overtaken by wisteria. The structure leaned slightly to one side, like it was listening to the ghosts. Candlelight flickered behind warped glass windows, and a protective ward shimmered faintly across the doorframe—only visible if you knew how to look.
When they reached the crooked gate, Chelsea pressed a hand to the sigil carved into the ironwork. It flared once—dim violet—and the door creaked open like it had been waiting for them.
She hadn’t changed since the masquerade. Crimson lace still clung to her like second skin—low-cut, defiant, unapologetically feminine. The dress had lost its sheen in the dim candlelight but not its power. Her hair was pinned up with only a few dark strands falling loose around her cheekbones, and her bare feet whispered across the hardwood—nails painted the same deep blood-red as her fingertips, glinting in the flickering light. Her steps were soundless, sensual, deliberate—like a spell woven into motion. Even without the heels, she moved with the confidence of a woman who knew men watched her leave and dreamt of her return.
The inside smelled of herbs and old paper. The air was clean, intentional. Every book was shelved with care, the towering stacks meticulously arranged by language or ritual school. A small altar burned in the corner, its wax collecting into neat spirals on a tarnished silver tray. Dried flowers hung upside down from the ceiling beams—lavender, belladonna, rosemary, and something darker. No clutter. No chaos. It was the home of someone who understood the danger of loose ends.
She poured him a drink before he could ask. Then, without a word, she walked to the small stone hearth built into the side wall and struck a match. It flared brightly, catching on dry herbs and old pine. Fire bloomed in the grate, throwing flickering light across her crimson lace and casting shadows up the walls like dancing spirits.
Chelsea stood still for a moment, staring into the flames. Her body didn’t move, but something inside her seemed to be unraveling in silence. Gage watched her, the orange firelight gilding the edges of her hair, the curve of her throat. Her eyes shimmered—unblinking, locked on the burning logs—as if she were reading something only she could see.
Only after a long, quiet breath did she return and hand him the glass.
It burned all the way down, unearthing memory.
“You don’t talk much when you’re not flirting,” she said, sitting across from him and tucking one leg beneath her body.
“You didn’t seem like the type who wanted small talk.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the kind thick with unsaid things. Gage leaned back into the velvet armchair, scanning the room. Every corner told a story—a life lived steeped in ritual, in danger, in solitude.
She tilted her head. “Why the Corps?”
He gave a half-smile. “Touché.”
But she answered anyway. “Because when the world burns, magic teaches you how to carry the ashes.”
He nodded, understanding more than he wanted to.
Gage leaned forward slightly, swirling the amber in his glass before setting it down. “Alright, here’s what I know,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Bellamy was in the city for thirteen hours before he vanished. That’s it. No sightings, no flagged transactions. Nothing.”
Chelsea leaned in, her attention sharpening. “No forced entry?”
“None. His rental flat was untouched. Looked like he stepped out to grab coffee and never made it back.”
She frowned. “Any message?”
“One voicemail. Left for the Lodge back in Chicago. Rambling, but clear enough to chill your blood. He mentioned ‘a mouth beneath the city’ and ‘roots that whisper.’”
Chelsea’s brows knit. “Roots that whisper... That sounds like old magic. Deep leyline interference.”
“Exactly,” Gage said. “Then he went silent. No phone activity. No credit cards. No Bellamy.”
Chelsea grew still. "If he's gone, it's not random," she said. "Not with those words. The veil doesn’t just take people without reason. Something old is moving. Feeding."
She moved to her bookshelf and pulled a battered leather-bound journal. "There've been disturbances near the river, and the leyline under Bourbon’s been twitchy. Someone—or something—is trying to thin it. If Bellamy got too close to the wrong kind of power..."
“He didn’t run,” Gage said firmly. “He was deliberate. Smart. Careful. If he’s not answering, it’s because he can’t.”
She looked at him with new weight behind her eyes. “You care about him. More than just a fellow hunter.”
Gage didn’t flinch. “He was like a younger brother. One I didn’t know I needed until he was gone.”
Chelsea nodded slowly, her voice softer. “Loss builds walls in some people. In others, it sharpens their edges. You? You carry both.”
Gage met her gaze. “You see too much.”
“I see what’s right in front of me,” she said simply. “And I admire that you haven’t let it hollow you out.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. She was sharp—not just magically, but intellectually, emotionally. That kind of clarity, that lack of pretense, was rare. And she didn’t use it to manipulate or impress—just to see. He admired that more than he cared to admit. There was something unbearably erotic about intelligence like hers—the way she wielded words like weapons, slicing through his guarded edges with nothing but truth. It wasn’t just her curves or the way her dress clung to her hips—it was her mind that turned him on. That sharp, relentless clarity. He found himself wanting to hear her talk just to watch her thoughts unfold, craving the rhythm of her insights like foreplay. Every time she opened her mouth, he felt the anticipation coil low in his gut—wanting, aching, waiting.
She gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “It’s also inconvenient.”
“Maybe. But I find it sexy as hell.”
That flicker in her eyes returned—this time not veiled by shadows. “Careful, Gage. Flattery makes me reckless.”
He smirked. “Good. I like women who are dangerous with their honesty.”
The moment stretched, soft but charged. A thread of vulnerability anchored the lust now—like something real might be taking root beneath the teasing.
Then she looked back at the fire. “Then you’re not chasing a man. You’re tracking a pattern. And the pattern’s about to get worse.””
Chelsea stared into the fire and told him about a fire that devoured her family—how it started without warning, swallowing her childhood home in the Highlands in a night of shrieking wind and cinders. She remembered her mother chanting as the flames crawled up the wallpaper, her father trying to seal a spell circle with blood and ash. They died before the firemen arrived. Only she survived—along with a satchel of scorched, spell-bound books that refused to burn. She'd carried them with her across an ocean to New Orleans, convinced she could outrun her inheritance. But magic, she said, doesn't forget. It follows like smoke in your lungs, curling through your dreams until you stop pretending you’re normal. That night, Gage saw it in her eyes—not just loss, but reckoning. And rage.
"I came here thinking I’d start over," she said, quieter now. "The spellbooks were all I had left, but I tried to pretend I could be...normal. I even applied to be a librarian once. Thought maybe I could live around stories instead of inside them."
Gage smiled, just a little. "Let me guess—it didn’t take?"
She laughed once, short and bitter. "The magic wouldn't leave me alone. Every time I tried to shelve my past, it knocked something over."
"So instead of organizing the stories, you became one."
Chelsea met his gaze, and something flickered behind her eyes. "Yeah. But some stories don’t want endings. They want blood."
She poured a second drink. He didn’t say no.
At one point, she asked, “What’s under the suit?”
He raised a brow. “Define under.”
She smiled into her glass. “You walk like you’re armored, but it’s not the clothes. It’s something else.”
He let the silence stretch, then slowly rolled up one sleeve. Just enough for the edge of ink to peek out—black lines curling into a shisha dog, fierce and watchful. Then her eyes caught the inner curve of his forearm—the unicursal hexagram.
Her gaze lingered. "You wear the pathless path," she murmured. "A six-pointed star that can be drawn in one continuous motion. It means unity. Interconnection. Flow. You live by that?"
He nodded once. “Nirvana through the back door. Nontraditional. One motion forward. Even when I spiral, I land somewhere new.”
“Order through chaos,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.
“From the collar down,” he continued. “Christian symbols. Sigils. Guardians. Japan. Ethiopia. Cairo. Myths stitched into skin. Everyone earned. Everyone meant to keep something out… or in.”
She stared, something reverent in her gaze. “You wear your faith in fragments.”
“And my failures,” he said, sipping again.
The tension curled in the space between them, thick and slow like candle smoke with nowhere to go. It wasn’t just heat—it was gravity. A magnetic pull made of secrets, scars, and the unspoken dare of skin nearly touching. Their shared silence held a weight more intimate than contact, more telling than confession. Magic buzzed faintly beneath their skin—the kind that vibrated just shy of surrender, teasing nerve endings and tugging breath into shallower territory. Magic buzzed faintly beneath their skin—the kind that wasn’t conjured by spells, but by proximity, by charged glances and breath held too long. A sigil flared softly in the corner of the room, unprovoked, reacting to the shift in energy between them.
Gage couldn’t help the way his eyes traced the curve of her collarbone, the dip of her blouse, the soft slope of her bare thighs as her dress shifted with each movement. Her feet—painted crimson like her fingers—rested against the edge of the chair leg, toes curling just slightly, unconsciously sensual.
She didn’t stop him from looking.
But she didn’t invite him closer, either.
As the sky began to lighten to a soft indigo, Gage stood and adjusted his jacket.
“You don’t strike me as the type to hand out business cards,” he said.
Chelsea smirked. “You’re not wrong. But I’m not that hard to find—especially if the veil wants you to.”
He took the last sip of scotch, setting the glass on a coaster carved with runes. “If I need you?”
“Say my name to the dark,” she said, half-teasing, half serious. “Or knock three times on the deadbolt. Depends on how dramatic you’re feeling.”
He pulled a small card from his wallet and placed it on the table. Nothing flashy—just his name, number, and a discreet Freemason seal embossed in the corner.
“If something stirs near Bourbon again, I want to know.”
She raised a brow. “You trust me now?”
“No,” he said. “But I trust you’re too stubborn to die easy.”
Chelsea laughed softly. “And here I thought lawyers didn’t have a sense of humor.”
“Marine first,” he said, opening the door. “Lawyer second. Bad decision-maker always.”
When he stepped into the hallway, she leaned against the frame, barefoot and unarmored. “Try not to get eaten by the Quarter. She’s fickle about her men.”
He looked back once, half-shadowed in the soft blue light. “Tell her I bite back.”
The walk back to where he’d parked his bike was quiet and thick with early-morning fog. The French Quarter felt different now—quieter, heavier, like the city knew he was leaving and disapproved. His dress shoes clicked against the cobblestones, the weight of his suit clinging after the long night. The crimson-laced memory of Chelsea still shimmered behind his eyes.
He reached the alley where the motorcycle waited, chained beneath an iron balcony dripping with vines. Slipping on his gloves, he paused just long enough to exhale—a slow breath carrying magic, lust, and something heavier.
The engine of the motorcycle coughed to life, scattering pigeons from the rooftop. He didn’t look back again.
But her fingertips still buzzed from where they’d almost touched.
