Read Chapter 12: The Price of Knowledge

The knock came at nine in the morning, three sharp raps against the front door’s worn brass. Elodie was in the study, the unrecorded deed spread across the desk beside the locket, and she heard Julien’s footsteps cross the foyer before she could stop him.

By the time she reached the hallway, the door was already open.

The man on the threshold was tall, lean, dressed in a dark suit that cost more than the average New Orleans mortgage. His hair was slicked back, silver at the temples, and his face was the kind of handsome that seemed engineered for persuasion. But it was the cheek that caught her attention—a long, pale scar running from his left eye down to the corner of his mouth, pulled tight over old tissue.

Julien stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for the Marchand representative.” The man’s voice was smooth, unhurried, with the faintest trace of an accent Elodie couldn’t place. “I was told the estate was being handled.”

Elodie stepped forward. “I’m Elodie Marchand. And you are?”

The man smiled, and the scar bent like a river on a map. “My name is not important. What matters is who I represent.”

He reached into his jacket and produced a cream-colored envelope, creased with age, the wax seal cracked and faded. “The Leveau family,” he said, holding it out to her. “In full standing. We received word that your client is planning to unsettle a debt that has been sleeping for over a century. I’m here to make sure everyone understands the terms before they do something regrettable.”

Elodie took the envelope. The paper was thick, the handwriting on the front elegant and unfamiliar. She didn’t open it.

“The Leveau family,” she repeated. “Marie Leveau’s descendants?”

The man’s smile didn’t waver. “You’ve done your homework. Good. That will save us time.”

Julien stepped between them. “I don’t care who you represent. This property is not for sale to anyone but the party already under contract. And I’m not selling.”

The man’s eyes slid past Julien to Elodie, and for a moment something cold flickered in them. “The property, is it? Mr. Fontenot believes this is about real estate.”

He took a step into the foyer, and neither Elodie nor Julien moved to block him. The house seemed to settle around them, the floorboards creaking in the silence.

“In 1859,” the man said, “your ancestor Émile Fontenot took a loan from Marie Leveau. A substantial loan, secured against this land. The terms were simple. If the debt was repaid, the land was yours. If not—” He spread his hands. “The debt would be collected in full. By whatever means necessary.”

“That loan was repaid,” Julien said. “The deed is recorded. The property has been in my family for a hundred and sixty years.”

“A deed was recorded,” the man corrected gently. “The original note, however, was never canceled. And the terms of that loan were not limited to money. You can read for yourself.” He nodded at the envelope in Elodie’s hand. “The Leveau family has been patient. More than patient. But your recent activities—” He looked around the foyer, at the staircase, at the walls. “You’ve woken something. And now the account must be settled.”

“The account,” Elodie said slowly. “You mean the curse.”

The man’s smile thinned. “The music is not a curse, Miss Marchand. It’s a claim. A lullaby for a child who never got to sleep. And every night that claim goes unpaid, it grows stronger. Soon, it will take what it’s owed.”

A cold silence stretched between them.

“What does that mean?” Julien’s voice was low, rough.

The man turned to face him fully. “It means you have forty-eight hours to produce the original loan document and pay the debt in full. The mansion, the land, everything on it. Or the next time that piano plays, it won’t be for the child. It will be for Clarisse. And when her soul is finally spent, the music will move on to someone living.”

The words hit the room like a stone dropped in still water.

Julien’s hands curled into fists. “You’re insane. You think I’m going to hand over my family’s home because you walked in here with a story and a letter?”

The man’s expression didn’t change. “I’m not asking you to hand it over, Mr. Fontenot. I’m telling you what the alternative looks like.” He stepped back toward the door, pausing on the threshold. “I’ll be at the Dauphine House if you change your mind. But I wouldn’t wait too long. Forty-eight hours. Not a minute more.”

He turned to leave, and Elodie caught the movement of his collar—the glint of a thin gold chain, and at the end of it, a small oval locket.

Her breath caught.

It was the same shape, the same antique filigree, the same worn gold as the one sitting in the study on the desk beside the unrecorded deed.

The one that held the photograph of Marie Leveau.

The man noticed her staring. His hand moved to the locket, tucking it inside his shirt, and his eyes met hers with something that looked almost like amusement.

“She was a beautiful woman,” he said softly. “Marie. But beauty is often a mask for something far older. You’ll learn that, Miss Marchand. Before this is over.”

He stepped out, and the door swung shut behind him with a click that echoed through the foyer.

Julien stood motionless, staring at the closed door. Elodie looked down at the envelope in her trembling hands. The seal was worn nearly flat, but as she turned it over, she saw a small mark pressed into the wax—a crescent moon, its horns pointing downward.

The same symbol that was etched above the attic door.

The music had stopped, and the house was silent. But Elodie could feel it—the weight of the account settling over them, patient, waiting. Forty-eight hours had never felt so short.