Shadow of Night

1

We arrived in an undignified heap of witch and vampire. Matthew was underneath me, his long limbs bent into an uncharacteristically awkward position. A large book was squashed between us, and the force of our landing sent the small silver figurine clutched in my hand sailing across the floor.

“Are we in the right place?” My eyes were screwed shut in case we were still in Sarah’s hop barn in twenty-first-century New York, and not in sixteenth-century Oxfordshire. Even so, the unfamiliar scents told me I was not in my own time or place. Among them was something grassy and sweet, along with a waxen smell that reminded me of summer. There was a tang of wood smoke, too, and I heard the crackle of a fire.

“Open your eyes, Diana, and see for yourself.” A feather-light touch of cool lips brushed my cheek, followed by a soft chuckle. Eyes the color of a stormy sea looked into mine from a face so pale it could only belong to a vampire. Matthew’s hands traveled from neck to shoulders. “Are you all right?”

After journeying so far into Matthew’s past, my body felt as though it might come apart with a puff of wind. I hadn’t felt anything like it after our brief timewalking sessions at my aunts’ house.

“I’m fine. What about you?” I kept my attention fixed on Matthew rather than daring a look around.

“Relieved to be home.” Matthew’s head fell back on the wooden floorboards with a gentle thunk, releasing more of the summery aroma from the rushes and lavender scattered there. Even in 1590 the Old Lodge was familiar to him.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light. A substantial bed, a small table, narrow benches, and a single chair came into focus. Through the carved uprights supporting the bed’s canopy, I spied a doorway that connected this chamber to another room. Light spilled from it onto the coverlet and floor, forming a misshapen golden rectangle. The room’s walls had the same fine, linenfold paneling that I remembered from the few times I’d visited Matthew’s home in present-day Woodstock. Tipping my head back, I saw the ceiling—thickly plastered, coffered into squares, with a splashy red-andwhite Tudor rose picked out in gilt in each recess.

“The roses were obligatory when the house was built,” Matthew commented drily. “I can’t stand them. We’ll paint them all white at the first opportunity.”

The gold-and-blue flames in a stand of candles flared in a sudden draft, illuminating the corner of a richly colored tapestry and the dark, glossy stitches that outlined a pattern of leaves and fruit on the pale counterpane. Modern textiles didn’t have that luster.

I smiled with sudden excitement. “I really did it. I didn’t mess it up or take us somewhere else, like Monticello or—”

“No,” he said with an answering smile, “you did beautifully. Welcome to Elizabeth’s England.”

For the first time in my life, I was absolutely delighted to be a witch. As a historian I studied the past. Because I was a witch, I could actually visit it. We had come to 1590 to school me in the lost arts of magic, yet there was so much more that I could learn here. I bent my head for a celebratory kiss, but the sound of an opening door stopped me.

Matthew pressed a finger to my lips. His head turned slightly, and his nostrils flared. The tension left him when he recognized who was in the next room, where I could hear a faint rustling. Matthew lifted the book and me in one clean move. Taking my hand, he led me to the door.

In the next room, a man stood at a table littered with correspondence. He was of average height, with a neat build and expensive, tailored clothes and tousled brown hair. The tune he hummed was unfamiliar, punctuated now and again with words too low for me to hear.

Shock passed over Matthew’s face before his lips curved into an affectionate smile. “Where are you in truth, my own sweet Matt?” The man held a page up to the light. In a flash, Matthew’s eyes narrowed, indulgence replaced by displeasure.

“Looking for something, Kit?” At Matthew’s words the young man dropped the paper to the table and pivoted, joy lighting his face. I’d seen that face before, on my paperback copy of Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.

“Matt! Pierre said you were in Chester and might not make it home. But I knew you would not miss our annual gathering.” The words were familiar enough but coated in a strange cadence that required me to focus on what he was saying in order to understand them. Elizabethan English was neither as unlike modern English as I had been taught nor as easily understandable as I’d hoped, based on my familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays.

“Why no beard? Have you been ill?” Marlowe’s eyes flickered when they spotted me, nudging me with the insistent pressure that marked him unmistakably as a daemon.

I suppressed an urge to rush at one of England’s greatest playwrights and shake his hand before peppering him with questions. What little information I once knew about him flew from my mind now that he was standing before me. Had any of his plays been performed in 1590? How old was he? Younger than Matthew and I, certainly. Marlowe couldn’t yet be thirty. I smiled at him warmly.

“Wherever did you find that?” Marlowe pointed, his voice dripping with contempt. I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see some hideous work of art. There was nothing but empty space.

He meant me. My smile faltered.

“Gently, Kit,” Matthew said with a scowl.

Marlowe shrugged off the rebuke. “It is no matter. Take your fill of her before the others arrive, if you must. George has been here for some time, of course, eating your food and reading your books. He is still without a patron and hasn’t a farthing to his name.”

“George is welcome to whatever I have, Kit.” Matthew kept his eyes on the young man, his face expressionless as he drew our intertwined fingers to his mouth. “Diana, this is my dear friend Christopher Marlowe.”

Matthew’s introduction provided Marlowe with an opportunity to inspect me more openly. His attention crawled from my toes to the top of my head. The young man’s scorn was evident, his jealousy better hidden. Marlowe was indeed in love with my husband. I had suspected it back in Madison when my fingers had traveled over his inscription in Matthew’s copy of Doctor Faustus.

“I had no idea there was a brothel in Woodstock that specialized in overtall women. Most of your whores are more delicate and appealing, Matthew. This one is a positive Amazon,” Kit sniffed, looking over his shoulder at the disordered drifts of paper that littered the surface of the table. “According to the Old Fox’s latest, it was business rather than lust that took you to the north. Wherever did you find the time to secure her services?”

“It is remarkable, Kit, how easily you squander affection,” Matthew drawled, though there was a note of warning in his tone. Marlowe, seemingly intent on the correspondence, failed to recognize it and smirked. Matthew’s fingers tightened on mine.

“Is Diana her real name, or was it adopted to enhance her allure among customers? Perhaps a baring of her right breast, or a bow and arrow, is in order,” Marlowe suggested, picking up a sheet of paper. “Remember when Blackfriars Bess demanded we call her Aphrodite before she would let us—”

“Diana is my wife.” Matthew was gone from my side, his hand no longer wrapped around mine but twisted in Marlowe’s collar.

“No.” Kit’s face registered his shock.

“Yes. That means she is the mistress of this house, bears my name, and is under my protection. Given all that—and our long-standing friendship, of course—no word of criticism or whisper against her virtue will cross your lips in future.”

I wiggled my fingers to restore their feeling. The angry pressure from Matthew’s grip had driven the ring on the third finger of my left hand into the flesh, leaving a pale red mark. Despite its lack of facets, the diamond in the center captured the warmth of the firelight. The ring had been an unexpected gift from Matthew’s mother, Ysabeau. Hours ago—centuries ago? centuries to come?—Matthew had repeated the words of the old marriage ceremony and slid the diamond over my knuckles.

With a clatter of dishes, two vampires appeared in the room. One was a slender man with an expressive face, weather-beaten skin the color of a hazelnut, and black hair and eyes. He was holding a flagon of wine and a goblet whose stem was shaped into a dolphin, the bowl balanced on its tail. The other was a rawboned woman bearing a platter of bread and cheese.

“You are home, milord,” the man said, obviously confused. Oddly enough, his French accent made him easier to understand. “The messenger on Thursday said—”

“My plans changed, Pierre.” Matthew turned to the woman. “My wife’s possessions were lost on the journey, Françoise, and the clothes she was wearing were so filthy I burned them.” He told the lie with bald confidence. Neither the vampires nor Kit looked convinced by it.

“Your wife?” Françoise repeated, her accent as French as Pierre’s. “But she is a w—”

“Warmblood,” Matthew finished, plucking the goblet from the tray. “Tell Charles there’s another mouth to feed. Diana hasn’t been well and must have fresh meat and fish on the advice of her doctor. Someone will need to go to the market, Pierre.”

Pierre blinked. “Yes, milord.”

“And she will need something to wear,” Françoise observed, eyeing me appraisingly. When Matthew nodded, she disappeared, Pierre following in her wake.

“What’s happened to your hair?” Matthew held up a strawberry blond curl.

“Oh, no,” I murmured. My hands rose. Instead of my usual straight, shoulder-length, straw-colored hair, they found unexpectedly springy reddish-gold locks reaching down to my waist. The last time my hair had developed a mind of its own, I was in college, playing Ophelia in a production of Hamlet. Then and now its unnaturally rapid growth and change of hue were not good signs. The witch within me had awakened during our journey to the past. There was no telling what other magic had been unleashed.

Vampires might have smelled the adrenaline and the sudden spike of anxiety that accompanied this realization, or heard the music my blood made. But daemons like Kit could sense the rise in my witch’s energy.

“Christ’s tomb.” Marlowe’s smile was full of malice. “You’ve brought home a witch. What evil has she done?”

“Leave it, Kit. It’s not your concern.” Matthew’s voice took on that note of command again, but his fingers remained gentle on my hair. “Don’t worry, mon coeur. I’m sure it’s nothing but exhaustion.”

My sixth sense flared in disagreement. This latest transformation couldn’t be explained by simple fatigue. A witch by descent, I was still unsure of the full extent of my inherited powers. Not even my Aunt Sarah and her partner, Emily Mather—witches both—had been able to say for certain what they were or how best to manage them. Matthew’s scientific tests had revealed genetic markers for the magical potential in my blood, but there were no guarantees when or if these possibilities would ever be realized.

Before I could worry further, Françoise returned with something that looked like a darning needle, her mouth bristling with pins. An ambulatory mound of velvet, wool, and linen accompanied her. The slender brown legs emerging from the bottom of the pile suggested that Pierre was buried somewhere inside.

“What are they for?” I asked suspiciously, pointing at the pins.

“For getting madame into this, of course.” Françoise plucked a dull brown garment that looked like a flour sack from the top of the pile of clothes. It didn’t seem an obvious choice for entertaining, but with little knowledge of Elizabethan fashion I was at her mercy.

“Go downstairs where you belong, Kit,” Matthew told his friend. “We will join you presently. And hold your tongue. This is my tale to tell, not yours.”

“As you wish, Matthew.” Marlowe pulled at the hem of his mulberry doublet, his nonchalant gesture belied by the trembling of his hands, and made a small, mocking bow. The compact move managed to both acknowledge Matthew’s command and undermine it.

With the daemon gone, Françoise draped the sack over a nearby bench and circled me, studying my figure to determine the most favorable line of attack. With an exasperated sigh, she began to dress me. Matthew moved to the table, his attention drawn by the piles of paper strewn over its surface. He opened a neatly folded rectangular packet sealed with a blob of pinkish wax, eyes darting across the tiny handwriting.

“Dieu. I forgot about that. Pierre!”

“Milord?” A muffled voice issued from the depths of the fabric.

“Put that down and tell me about Lady Cromwell’s latest complaint.” Matthew treated Pierre and Françoise with a blend of familiarity and authority. If this was how one treated servants, it would take me some time to master the art.

The two muttered by the fire while I was draped, pinned, and trussed into something presentable. Françoise clucked over my single earring, the twisted golden wires hung with jewels that had originally belonged to Ysabeau. Like Matthew’s copy of Doctor Faustus and the small silver figure of Diana, the earring was one of the items that had helped us return to this particular past. Françoise rummaged in a nearby chest and found its match easily. My jewelry sorted out, she snaked thick stockings over my knees and secured them with scarlet ribbons.

“I think I’m ready,” I said, eager to get downstairs and begin our visit to the sixteenth century. Reading books about the past wasn’t the same as experiencing it, as my brief interaction with Françoise and my crash course in the clothing of the period proved.

Matthew surveyed my appearance. “That will do—for now.”

“She’ll more than do, for she looks modest and forgettable,” Françoise said, “which is exactly how a witch should look in this household.”

Matthew ignored Françoise’s pronouncement and turned to me. “Before we go down, Diana, remember to guard your words. Kit is a daemon, and George knows that I’m a vampire, but even the most open-minded of creatures are leery of someone new and different.”

Down in the great hall, I wished George, Matthew’s penniless and patronless friend, a formal and, I thought, properly Elizabethan good evening.

“Is that woman speaking English?” George gaped, raising a pair of round spectacles that magnified his blue eyes to froglike proportions. His other hand was on his hip in a pose I’d last seen in a painted miniature at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“She’s been living in Chester,” Matthew said quickly. George looked skeptical. Apparently not even the wilds of northern England could account for my odd speech patterns. Matthew’s accent was softening into something that better matched the cadence and timbre of the time, but mine remained resolutely modern and American.

“She’s a witch,” corrected Kit, taking a sip of wine.

“Indeed?” George studied me with renewed interest. There were no nudges to indicate that this man was a daemon, no witchy tingles, nor the frosty aftereffects of a vampire’s glance. George was just an ordinary, warmblooded human—one who appeared middle-aged and tired, as though life had already worn him out. “But you do not like witches any more than Kit does, Matthew. You have always discouraged me from attending to the subject. When I set out to write a poem about Hecate, you told me to —”

“I like this one. So much so, I married her,” Matthew interrupted, bestowing a firm kiss on my lips to help convince him.

“Married her!” George’s eyes shifted to Kit. He cleared his throat. “So there are two unexpected joys to celebrate: You were not delayed on business as Pierre thought, and you have returned to us with a wife. My felicitations.” His portentous tone reminded me of a commencement address, and I stifled a smile. George beamed at me in return and bowed. “I am George Chapman, Mistress Roydon.”

His name was familiar. I picked through the disorganized knowledge stored in my historian’s brain. Chapman was not an alchemist—that was my research specialty, and I did not find his name in the spaces devoted to that arcane subject. He was another writer, like Marlowe, but I couldn’t recall any of the titles.

Once we’d dispensed with introductions, Matthew agreed to sit before the fire for a few moments with his guests. There the men talked politics and George made an effort to include me in the conversation by asking about the state of the roads and the weather. I said as little as possible and tried to observe the little tricks of gesture and word choice that would help me pass for an Elizabethan. George was delighted with my attentiveness and rewarded it with a long dissertation on his latest literary efforts. Kit, who didn’t enjoy being relegated to a supporting role, brought George’s lecture to a halt by offering to read aloud from his latest version of Doctor Faustus.

“It will serve as a rehearsal among friends,” the daemon said, eyes gleaming, “before the real performance later.”

“Not now, Kit. It’s well past midnight, and Diana is tired from her journey,” Matthew said, drawing me to my feet.

Kit’s eyes remained on us as we left the room. He knew we were hiding something. He had leaped on every strange turn of phrase when I’d ventured into the conversation and grown thoughtful when Matthew couldn’t remember where his own lute was kept.

Matthew had warned me before we left Madison that Kit was unusually perceptive, even for a daemon. I wondered how long it would be before Marlowe figured out what that hidden something was. The answer to my question came within hours.

The next morning we talked in the recesses of our warm bed while the household stirred.

At first Matthew was willing to answer my questions about Kit (the son of a shoemaker, it turned out) and George (who was not much older than Marlowe, I learned to my surprise). When I turned to the practical matters of household management and female behavior, however, he was quickly bored.

“What about my clothes?” I asked, trying to focus him on my immediate concerns.

“I don’t think married women sleep in these,” Matthew said, plucking at my fine linen night rail. He untied its ruffled neckline and was about to plant a kiss underneath my ear to persuade me to his point of view when someone ripped open the bed’s curtains. I squinted against the bright sunlight.

“Well?” Marlowe demanded.

A second, dark-complected daemon peered over Marlowe’s shoulder. He resembled an energetic leprechaun with his slight build and pointed chin, which was accented by an equally sharp auburn beard. His hair evidently had not seen a comb for weeks. I grabbed at the front of my night rail, keenly aware of its transparency and my lack of underclothes.

“You saw Master White’s drawings from Roanoke, Kit. The witch looks nothing at all like the natives of Virginia,” the unfamiliar daemon replied, disappointed. Belatedly he noticed Matthew, who was glaring at him. “Oh. Good morning, Matthew. Would you allow me to borrow your sector? I promise not to take it to the river this time.”

Matthew lowered his forehead to my shoulder and closed his eyes with a groan.

“She must be from the New World—or Africa,” Marlowe insisted, refusing to refer to me by name. “She’s not from Chester, nor from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, or the Empire. I don’t believe she’s Dutch or Spanish either.”

“Good morning to you, Tom. Is there some reason you and Kit must discuss Diana’s birthplace now, and in my bedchamber?” Matthew drew the ties of my night rail together.

“It is too fine to lie abed, even if you have been out of your mind with an ague. Kit says you must have married the witch in the midst of the fever’s crisis. Otherwise there is no way to account for your recklessness.” Tom rattled on in true daemonic fashion, making no effort to answer Matthew’s question. “The roads were dry, and we arrived hours ago.” “And the wine is already gone,” Marlowe complained.

“We”? There were more of them? The Old Lodge already felt stuffed to bursting.

“Out! Madame must wash before she greets his lordship.” Françoise entered the room with a steaming basin of water in her hands. Pierre, as usual, trailed behind.

“Has something of import happened?” George inquired from beyond the curtains. He’d entered the room unannounced, neatly foiling Françoise’s efforts to herd the other men out. “Lord Northumberland has been left alone in the great hall. If he were my patron, I would not treat him thus!”

“Hal is reading a treatise on the construction of a balance sent to me by a mathematician in Pisa. He’s quite content,” Tom replied crossly, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He must be talking about Galileo, I realized with excitement. In 1590, Galileo was an entry-level professor at the university in Pisa. His work on the balance wasn’t published—yet. Tom. Lord Northumberland. Someone who corresponded with Galileo.

My lips parted in astonishment. The daemon perched on the quilted coverlet was Thomas Harriot.

“Françoise is right. Out. All of you,” Matthew said, sounding as cross as Tom.

“What should we tell Hal?” Kit asked, sliding a meaningful glance in my direction.

“That I’ll be down shortly,” Matthew said. He rolled over and pulled me close.

I waited until Matthew’s friends streamed out of the room before I thumped his chest.

“What is that for?” He winced in mock pain, but all I’d bruised was my own fist.

“For not telling me who your friends are!” I propped up on one elbow and stared down at him. “The great playwright Christopher Marlowe. George Chapman, poet and scholar. Mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot, if I’m not mistaken. And the Wizard Earl is waiting downstairs!”

“I can’t remember when Henry earned that nickname, but nobody calls him that yet.” Matthew looked amused, which only made me more furious.

“All we need is Sir Walter Raleigh and we’ll have the entire School of Night in the house.” Matthew looked out the window at my mention of this legendary group of radicals, philosophers, and free-thinkers. Thomas Harriot. Christopher Marlowe. George Chapman. Walter Raleigh. And—

“Just who are you, Matthew?” I hadn’t thought to ask him before we departed.

“Matthew Roydon,” he said with a tip of his head, as though we were only this moment being introduced. “Friend to poets.”

“Historians know almost nothing about you,” I said, stunned. Matthew Roydon was the most shadowy figure associated with the mysterious School of Night.

“You aren’t surprised, are you, now that you know who Matthew Roydon really is?” His black brow rose.

“Oh, I’m surprised enough to last a lifetime. You might have warned me before dropping me into the middle of all this.”

“What would you have done? We barely had time to get dressed before we left, never mind conduct a research project.” He sat up and swung his legs onto the floor. Our private time had been lamentably brief. “There’s no reason for you to be concerned. They’re just ordinary men, Diana.”

No matter what Matthew said, there was nothing ordinary about them. The School of Night held heretical opinions, sneered at the corrupt court of Queen Elizabeth, and scoffed at the intellectual pretensions of church and university. “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know” described this group perfectly. We hadn’t joined a cozy reunion of friends on Halloween night. We’d fallen into a hornet’s nest of Elizabethan intrigue.

“Putting aside how reckless your friends can be, you can’t expect me to be blasé when you introduce me to people I’ve spent my adult life studying,” I said. “Thomas Harriot is one of the foremost astronomers of the time. Your friend Henry Percy is an alchemist.” Pierre, familiar with the signs of a woman on the edge, hastily thrust a set of black britches at my husband so he wouldn’t be bare-legged when my anger erupted.

“So are Walter and Tom.” Matthew ignored the proffered clothing and scratched his chin. “Kit dabbles, too, though without any success. Try not to dwell on what you know about them. It’s probably wrong anyway. And you should be careful with your modern historical labels, too,” he continued, finally snatching at his britches and stepping into them. “Will dreams up the School of Night as a jab at Kit, but not for a few years yet.”

“I don’t care what William Shakespeare has done, is doing, or will do in the future—provided he isn’t at this moment in the great hall with the Earl of Northumberland!” I retorted, sliding out of the high bed.

“Of course Will’s not down there.” Matthew waved his hand dismissively. “Walter doesn’t approve of his command of meter, and Kit thinks he’s a hack and a thief.”

“Well, that’s a relief. What do you plan on telling them about me? Marlowe knows we’re hiding something.”

Matthew’s gray-green eyes met mine. “The truth, I suppose.” Pierre handed him a doublet—black, with intricate quilting—and stared fixedly at a point over my shoulder, the very model of a good servant. “That you’re a timewalker and a witch from the New World.”

“The truth,” I said flatly. Pierre could hear every word but showed no reaction, and Matthew ignored him as though he were invisible. I wondered if we would be here long enough for me to become so oblivious to his presence.

“Why not? Tom will write down everything you say and compare it with his notes on the Algonquian language. Otherwise no one will pay much attention.” Matthew seemed more concerned with his clothing than with the reactions of his friends.

Françoise returned with two warmblooded young women bearing armfuls of clean clothes. She gestured at my night rail, and I ducked behind the bedpost to disrobe. Grateful that my time in locker rooms had squashed most of my qualms about changing in front of strangers, I drew the linen over my hips and up to my shoulders.

“Kit will. He’s been looking for a reason to dislike me, and this will give him several.”

“He won’t be a problem,” Matthew said confidently.

“Is Marlowe your friend or your puppet?” I was still wrestling my head out of the fabric when there was a gasp of horror, a muffled “Mon Dieu.”

I froze. Françoise had seen my back and the crescent-shaped scar that stretched from one side of my lower rib cage to the other, along with the star that rested between my shoulder blades.

“I will dress madame,” Françoise coolly told the maids. “Leave the clothing and return to your work.”

The maids departed with nothing more than a curtsy and a look of idle curiosity. They hadn’t seen the markings. When they were gone, we all began to speak at once. Françoise’s aghast “Who did this?” tumbled over Matthew’s “No one must know” and my own, slightly defensive “It’s just a scar.”

“Someone branded you with a badge of the de Clermont family,” Françoise insisted with a shake of her head, “one that is used by milord.”

“We broke the covenant.” I fought the sick feeling that twisted my stomach whenever I thought about the night another witch had marked me a traitor. “This was the Congregation’s punishment.”

“So that is why you are both here.” Françoise snorted. “The covenant was a foolish idea from the start. Philippe de Clermont should never have gone along with it.”

“One that’s kept us safe from the humans.” I had no great fondness for the agreement, or the nine-member Congregation who enforced it, but its long-term success at hiding otherworldly creatures from the attention of humans was undeniable. The ancient promises made among daemons, vampires, and witches prohibited meddling in human politics or religion and forbade personal alliances among the three different species. Witches were meant to keep to themselves, as were vampires and daemons. They were not supposed to fall in love and intermarry.

“Safe? Do not think you are safe here, madame. None of us are. The English are a superstitious people, prone to seeing a ghost in every churchyard and witches around every cauldron. The Congregation is all that is standing between us and utter destruction. You are wise to take refuge here. Come, you must dress and join the others.” Françoise helped me out of the night rail and handed me a wet towel and a dish of goop that smelled of rosemary and oranges. I found it odd to be treated like a child but knew that it was customary for people of Matthew’s rank to be washed, dressed, and fed like dolls. Pierre handed Matthew a cup of something too dark to be wine.

“She is not only a witch but a fileuse de temps as well?” Françoise asked Matthew quietly. The unfamiliar term—“time spinner”—conjured up images of the many different-colored threads we’d followed to reach this particular past.

“She is.” Matthew nodded, his attention focused on me while he sipped at his cup.

“But if she has come from another time, that means . . .” Françoise began, wide-eyed. Then her expression became thoughtful. Matthew must sound and behave differently.

She suspects that this is not the same Matthew, I thought, alarmed.

“It is enough for us to know that she is under milord’s protection,” Pierre said roughly, a clear warning in his tone. He handed Matthew a dagger. “What it means is not important.”

“It means I love her, and she loves me in return.” Matthew looked at his servant intently. “No matter what I say to others, that is the truth. Understood?”

“Yes,” replied Pierre, though his tone suggested quite the opposite.

Matthew shot an inquiring look at Françoise, who pursed her lips and nodded grudgingly.

She returned her attention to getting me ready, wrapping me in a thick linen towel. Françoise had to have noticed the other marks on my body, those I had received over the course of that one interminable day with the witch Satu, as well as my other, later scars. Françoise asked no further questions, however, but sat me in a chair next to the fire while she ran a comb through my hair.

“And did this insult happen after you declared your love for the witch, milord?” Françoise asked.

“Yes.” Matthew buckled the dagger around his waist.

“It was not a manjasang, then, who marked her,” Pierre murmured. He used the old Occitan word for vampire—“blood eater.” “None would risk the anger of the de Clermonts.”

“No, it was another witch.” Even though I was shielded from the cold air, the admission made me shiver.

“Two manjasang stood by and let it happen, though,” Matthew said grimly. “And they will pay for it.”

“What’s done is done.” I had no wish to start a feud among vampires. We had enough challenges facing us.

“If milord had accepted you as his wife when the witch took you, then it is not done.” Françoise’s swift fingers wove my hair into tight braids. She wound them around my head and pinned them in place. “Your name might be Roydon in this godforsaken country where there is no loyalty to speak of, but we will not forget that you are a de Clermont.”

Matthew’s mother had warned me that the de Clermonts were a pack. In the twenty-first century, I had chafed under the obligations and restrictions that came with membership. In 1590, however, my magic was unpredictable, my knowledge of witchcraft almost nonexistent, and my earliest known ancestor hadn’t yet been born. Here I had nothing to rely on but my own wits and Matthew.

“Our intentions to each other were clear then. But I want no trouble now.” I looked down at Ysabeau’s ring and felt the band with my thumb. My hope that we could blend seamlessly into the past now seemed unlikely as well as naïve. I looked around me. “And this . . .”

“We’re here for only two reasons, Diana: to find you a teacher and to locate that alchemical manuscript if we can.” It was the mysterious manuscript called Ashmole 782 that had brought us together in the first place. In the twenty-first century, it had been safely buried among the millions of books in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. When I’d filled out the call slip, I’d had no idea that the simple action would unlock an intricate spell that bound the manuscript to the shelves, or that the same spell would reactivate the moment I returned it. I was also ignorant of the many secrets about witches, vampires, and daemons its pages were rumored to reveal. Matthew had thought it would be wiser to locate Ashmole 782 in the past than to try to unlock the spell for a second time in the modern world.

“Until we go back, this will be your home,” he continued, trying to reassure me.

The room’s solid furnishings were familiar from museums and auction catalogs, but the Old Lodge would never feel like home. I fingered the thick linen of the towel—so different from the faded terry-cloth sets that Sarah and Em owned, all worn thin from too many washes. Voices in another room lilted and swayed in a rhythm that no modern person, historian or not, could have anticipated. But the past was our only option. Other vampires had made that clear during our final days in Madison, when they’d hunted us down and nearly killed Matthew. If the rest of our plan was going to work, passing as a proper Elizabethan woman had to be my first priority.

“‘O brave new world.’” It was a gross historical violation to quote from Shakespeare’s Tempest two decades before it was written, but this had been a difficult morning.

““Tis new to thee,’” Matthew responded. “Are you ready to meet your trouble, then?”

“Of course. Let’s get me dressed.” I squared my shoulders and rose from the chair. “How does one say hello to an earl?”

2

My concern over proper etiquette was unnecessary. Titles and forms of address weren’t important when the earl in question was a gentle giant named Henry Percy.

Françoise, to whom propriety mattered, clucked and fussed while she finished dressing me in scavenged apparel: someone else’s petticoats; quilted stays to confine my athletic figure into a more traditionally feminine shape; an embroidered smock that smelled of lavender and cedar, with a high, ruffled neck; a black, bell-shaped skirt made of velvet; and Pierre’s best jacket, the only tailored article of clothing that was remotely my size. Try though she might, Françoise couldn’t button this last item over my breasts. I held my breath, tucked in my stomach, and hoped for a miracle as she pulled the corset’s laces tight, but nothing short of divine intervention was going to give me a sylphlike silhouette.

I asked Françoise a number of questions during the complicated process. Portraits of the period had led me to expect an unwieldy birdcage called a farthingale that would hold my skirts out at the hips, but Françoise explained that these were for more formal occasions. Instead she tied a stuffed cloth form shaped like a doughnut around my waist beneath my skirts. The only positive thing to say about it was that it held the layers of fabric away from my legs, enabling me to walk without too much difficulty—provided there was no furniture in the way and my destination could be reached if I moved in a straight line. But I would be expected to curtsy, too. Françoise quickly taught me how to do so while explaining how Henry Percy’s various titles worked—he was “Lord Northumberland” even though his last name was Percy and he was an earl.

But I had no chance to use any of this newly acquired knowledge. As soon as Matthew and I entered the great hall, a lanky young man in soft brown leather traveling clothes spattered with mud jumped up to greet us. His broad face was enlivened with an inquisitive look that lifted his heavy, ash-colored eyebrows toward a forehead with a pronounced widow’s peak.

“Hal.” Matthew smiled with the indulgent familiarity of an older brother. But the earl ignored his old friend and moved in my direction instead.

“M-m-mistress Roydon.” The earl’s deep bass was toneless, with hardly a trace of inflection or accent. Before coming down, Matthew had explained that Henry was slightly deaf and had stammered since childhood. He was, however, adept at lip-reading. Here, at last, was someone I could talk to without feeling self-conscious.

“Upstaged by Kit again, I see,” Matthew said with a rueful smile. “I had hoped to tell you myself.”

“What does it matter who shares such happy news?” Lord Northumberland bowed. “I thank you for your hospitality, mistress, and apologize for greeting you in this state. It is good of you to suffer your husband’s friends so soon. We should have left immediately once we learned of your arrival. The inn would be more than adequate.”

“You are most welcome here, my lord.” This was the moment to curtsy, but my heavy black skirts weren’t easy to manage and the corset was laced so tightly I couldn’t bend at the waist. I arranged my legs in an appropriately reverential position but teetered as I bent my knees. A large, bluntfingered hand shot out to steady me.

“Just Henry, mistress. Everyone else calls me Hal, so my given name is considered quite formal.” Like many who are hard of hearing, the earl kept his voice deliberately soft. He released me and turned his attention to Matthew. “Why no beard, Matt? Have you been ill?”

“A touch of ague, nothing more. Marriage has cured me. Where are the rest of them?” Matthew glanced around for Kit, George, and Tom.

The Old Lodge’s great hall looked very different in daylight. I had seen it only at night, but this morning the heavy paneling turned out to be shutters, all of which were thrown open. It gave the space an airy feeling, despite the monstrous fireplace on the far wall. It was decorated with bits and pieces of medieval stonework, no doubt rescued by Matthew from the rubble of the abbey that once stood here—the haunting face of a saint, a coat of arms, a Gothic quatrefoil.

“Diana?” Matthew’s amused voice interrupted my examination of the room and its contents. “The others are in the parlor, reading and playing cards. Hal didn’t feel it was right to join them until he had been invited to stay by the lady of the house.”

“The earl must stay, of course, and we can join your friends immediately.” My stomach rumbled.

“Or we could get you something to eat,” he suggested, eyes twinkling. Now that I had met Henry Percy without mishap, Matthew was beginning to relax. “Has anyone fed you, Hal?”

“Pierre and Françoise have been attentive as ever,” he reassured us. “Of course, if Mistress Roydon will join me . . .” The earl’s voice trailed off, and his stomach gurgled with mine. The man was as tall as a giraffe. It must take huge quantities of food to keep his body fueled.

“I, too, am fond of a large breakfast, my lord,” I said with a laugh.

“Henry,” the earl corrected me gently, his grin showing off the dimple in his chin.

“Then you must call me Diana. I cannot call the Earl of Northumberland by his first name if he keeps referring to me as ‘Mistress Roydon.’” Françoise had been insistent on the need to honor the earl’s high rank.

“Very well, Diana,” Henry said, extending his arm.

He led me across a drafty corridor and into a cozy room with low ceilings. It was snug and inviting, with only a single array of south-facing windows. In spite of its relatively small size, three tables had been wedged into the room, along with stools and benches. A low hum of activity, punctuated by a rattle of pots and pans, told me we were near the kitchens. Someone had tacked a page from an almanac on the wall and a map lay on the central table, one corner held down with a candlestick, the other by a shallow pewter dish filled with fruit. The arrangement looked like a Dutch still life, with its homely detail. I stopped short, dizzied by the scent.

“The quinces.” My fingers reached out to touch them. They looked just as they had in my mind’s eye back in Madison when Matthew had described the Old Lodge.

Henry seemed puzzled by my reaction to an ordinary dish of fruit but was too well bred to comment. We settled ourselves at the table, and a servant added fresh bread along with a platter of grapes and a bowl of apples to the still life before us. It was comforting to see such familiar fare. Henry helped himself, and I followed his example, carefully noting which foods he selected and how much of them he consumed. It was always the little differences that gave strangers away, and I wanted to appear as ordinary as possible. While we filled our plates, Matthew poured himself a glass of wine.

Throughout our meal Henry behaved with unfailing courtesy. He never asked me anything personal, nor did he pry into Matthew’s affairs. Instead he kept us laughing with tales of his dogs, his estates, and his martinet of a mother, all the while providing a steady supply of toasted bread from the fire. He was just beginning an account of moving house in London when a clatter arose in the courtyard. The earl, whose back was to the door, didn’t notice.

“She is impossible! You all warned me, but I didn’t believe anyone could be so ungrateful. After all the riches I’ve poured into her coffers, the least she could do was— Oh.” Our new guest’s broad shoulders filled the doorway, one of them swathed in a cloak as dark as the hair that curled around his splendid feathered hat. “Matthew. Are you ill?”

Henry turned with surprise. “Good day, Walter. Why aren’t you at court?”

I tried to swallow a morsel of toast. Our new arrival was almost certainly the missing member of Matthew’s School of Night, Sir Walter Raleigh.

“Cast out of paradise for want of a position, Hal. And who is this?” Piercing blue eyes settled on me, and teeth gleamed from his dark beard. “Henry Percy, you sly imp. Kit told me you were intent on bedding the fair Arabella. If I’d known your tastes ran to something more mature than a girl of fifteen, I would have yoked you to a lusty widow long ago.”

Mature? Widow? I had just turned thirty-three.

“Her charms have induced you to stay home from church this Sunday. We must thank the lady for getting you off your knees and onto a horse, where you belong,” Raleigh continued, his accent as thick as Devonshire cream.

The Earl of Northumberland rested his toasting fork on the hearth and considered his friend. He shook his head and returned to his work. “Go out, come in again, and ask Matt for his news. And look contrite when you do it.”

“No.” Walter stared at Matthew, openmouthed. “She’s yours?”

“With the ring to prove it.” Matthew kicked a stool from under the table with one long, booted leg. “Sit down, Walter, and have some ale.”

“You swore you would never wed,” Walter said, clearly confused.

“It took some persuasion.”

“I expect it did.” Walter Raleigh’s appraising glance settled on me once more. “’Tis a pity she is wasted on a cold-blooded creature. I wouldn’t have delayed for an instant.”

“Diana knows my nature and doesn’t mind my ‘coldness,’ as you put it. Besides, it was she who needed persuading. I fell in love with her at first glance,” said Matthew.

Walter snorted in response.

“Don’t be so cynical, old friend. Cupid may yet catch you.” Matthew’s gray eyes lit up with the mischief born from certain knowledge of Raleigh’s future.

“Cupid will have to wait to turn his arrows on me. I’m entirely occupied at present fending off the unfriendly advances of the queen and the admiral.” Walter tossed his hat onto a nearby table, where it slid over the shiny surface of a backgammon board, disturbing the game in progress. He groaned and sat next to Henry. “Everyone wants a bit of my hide, it seems, but no one will give me a speck of preferment while this business of the colony hangs over my head. The idea for this year’s anniversary celebration was mine, yet that woman put Cumberland in charge of the ceremonies.” His temper rose again.

“Still no news from Roanoke?” Henry inquired gently, handing Walter a cup of thick, brown ale. My stomach lurched at the mention of Raleigh’s doomed venture in the New World. It was the first time anyone had wondered aloud about the outcome of a future event, but it would not be the last.

“White arrived back at Plymouth last week, driven home by foul weather. He had to abandon the search for his daughter and granddaughter.” Walter took a long draft of ale and stared into space. “Christ knows what happened to them all.”

“Come spring, you will return and find them.” Henry sounded sure, but Matthew and I knew that the missing Roanoke colonists would never be found and Raleigh would never again set foot on the soil of North Carolina.

“I pray you are right, Hal. But enough of my troubles. What part of the country are your people from, Mistress Roydon?”

“Cambridge,” I said softly, keeping my response brief and as truthful as possible. The town was in Massachusetts, not England, but if I started making things up now, I’d never keep my stories straight.

“So you are a scholar’s daughter. Or perhaps your father was a theologian? Matt would be pleased to have someone to talk to about matters of faith. With the exception of Hal, his friends are hopeless when it comes to doctrine.” Walter sipped his ale and waited.

“Diana’s father died when she was quite young.” Matthew took my hand.

“I am sorry for you, Diana. The loss of a f-f-father is a terrible blow,” Henry murmured.

“And your first husband, did he leave you with sons and daughters for comfort?” asked Walter, a trace of sympathy creeping into his voice.

Here and now a woman my age would have been married before and have had a brood of three or four children. I shook my head. “No.”

Walter frowned, but before he could pursue the matter further, Kit arrived, with George and Tom in tow.

“At last. Talk sense into him, Walter. Matthew cannot keep playing Odysseus to her Circe.” Kit grabbed the goblet sitting in front of Henry. “Good day, Hal.”

“Talk sense into whom?” Walter asked testily.

“Matt, of course. That woman is a witch. And there’s something not quite right about her.” Kit’s eyes narrowed. “She’s hiding something.”

“A witch,” Walter repeated carefully.

A servant carrying an armful of logs froze in the doorway.

“As I said,” Kit affirmed with a nod. “Tom and I recognized the signs straightaway.”

The maid dumped the logs in the waiting basket and scurried off.

“For a maker of plays, Kit, you have a lamentable sense of time and place.” Walter’s blue eyes turned to Matthew. “Shall we go elsewhere to discuss the matter, or is this merely one of Kit’s idle fancies? If it is the latter, I would like to stay where it is warm and finish my ale.” The two men studied each other. When Matthew’s expression didn’t waver, Walter cursed under his breath. Pierre appeared, as if on cue.

“There is a fire in the parlor, milord,” the vampire told Matthew, “and wine and food are laid out for your guests. You will not be disturbed.”

The parlor was neither as cozy as the room where we’d taken our breakfast nor as imposing as the great hall. The abundance of carved armchairs, rich tapestries, and ornately framed paintings suggested that its primary purpose was to entertain the house’s most important guests. A splendid rendering of St. Jerome and his lion by Holbein hung by the fireplace. It was unfamiliar to me, as was the Holbein portrait next to it of a piggy-eyed Henry VIII holding a book and a pair of spectacles and looking pensively at the viewer, the table before him strewn with precious objects. Henry’s daughter, the first and current Queen Elizabeth, stared at him with hauteur from across the room. Their tense standoff did nothing to lighten the mood as we took our seats. Matthew propped himself up by the fire with his arms crossed over his chest, looking every bit as formidable as the Tudors on the walls.

“Are you still going to tell them the truth?” I whispered to him.

“It is generally easier that way, mistress,” Raleigh said sharply, “not to mention more fitting among friends.”

“You forget yourself, Walter,” Matthew warned, anger flaring.

“Forget myself! This from someone who has taken up with a witch?” Walter had no trouble keeping pace with Matthew when it came to irritation. And there was a note of real fear in his voice as well.

“She is my wife,” Matthew retorted. He rubbed his hand over his hair. “As for her being a witch, we are all in this room vilified for something, be it real or imaginary.”

“But to wed her—whatever were you thinking?” Walter asked numbly.

“That I loved her,” Matthew said. Kit rolled his eyes and poured a fresh cup of wine from a silver pitcher. My dreams of sitting with him by a cozy fire discussing magic and literature faded further in the harsh light of this November morning. I had been in 1590 for less than twenty-four hours, but I was already heartily sick of Christopher Marlowe.

At Matthew’s response the room fell silent while he and Walter studied each other. With Kit, Matthew was indulgent and a bit exasperated. George and Tom brought out his patience and Henry his brotherly affection. But Raleigh was Matthew’s equal—in intelligence, power, perhaps even in ruthlessness—which meant that Walter’s was the only opinion that mattered. They had a wary respect for each other, like two wolves determining who had the strength to lead their pack.

“So it’s like that,” Walter said slowly, acceding to Matthew’s authority.

“It is.” Matthew planted his feet more evenly on the hearth.

“You keep too many secrets and have too many enemies to take a wife. And yet you’ve done so anyway.” Walter looked amazed. “Other men have accused you of relying overmuch on your own subtlety, but I never agreed with them until now. Very well, Matthew. If you are so cunning, tell us what to say when questions are raised.”

Kit’s cup slammed onto the table, red wine sloshing over his hand. “You cannot expect us to—”

“Quiet.” Walter shot a furious glance at Marlowe. “Given the lies we tell on your behalf, I’m surprised you would dare to object. Go on, Matthew.”

“Thank you, Walter. You are the only five men in the kingdom who might listen to my tale and not think me mad.” Matthew raked his hands through his hair. “Do you recall when we spoke last of Giordano Bruno’s ideas about an infinite number of worlds, unlimited by time or space?”

The men exchanged glances.

“I am not sure,” Henry began delicately, “that we understand your meaning.”

“Diana is from the New World.” Matthew paused, which gave Marlowe the opportunity to look triumphantly about the room. “From the New World to come.”

In the silence that followed, all eyes swiveled in my direction.

“She said she was from Cambridge,” said Walter blankly.

“Not that Cambridge. My Cambridge is in Massachusetts.” My voice creaked from stress and disuse. I cleared my throat. “The colony will exist north of Roanoke in another forty years.”

A din of exclamations rose, and questions came at me from all directions. Harriot reached over and hesitantly touched my shoulder. When his finger met solid flesh, he withdrew it in wonder.

“I have heard about creatures who could bend time to their will. This is a marvelous day, is it not, Kit? Did you ever think to know a time spinner? We must be careful around her, of course, or we might get entangled in her web and lose our way.” Harriot’s face was wistful, as if he might enjoy being caught up in another world.

“And what brings you here, Mistress Roydon?” Walter’s deep voice cut through the chatter.

“Diana’s father was a scholar,” Matthew replied for me. There were murmurs of interest, quelled by Walter’s upraised hand. “Her mother, too. Both were witches and died under mysterious circumstances.”

“That is something we share, then, D-D-Diana,” Henry said with a shudder. Before I could ask the earl what he meant, Walter waved Matthew on.

“As a result her education as a witch was . . . overlooked,” Matthew continued.

“It is easy to prey on such a witch.” Tom frowned. “Why, in this New World to come, is more care not taken with such a creature?”

“My magic, and my family’s long history with it, meant nothing to me. You must understand what it is like to want to go beyond the restrictions of your birth.” I looked at Kit, the shoemaker’s son, hoping for agreement if not sympathy, but he turned away.

“Ignorance is an unforgivable sin.” Kit fussed with a bit of red silk that was peeking out of one of the dozens of jagged slashes cut into his black doublet.

“So is disloyalty,” said Walter. “Go on, Matthew.”

“Diana may not have been trained in the craft of a witch, but she is far from ignorant. She is a scholar, too,” Matthew said proudly, “with a passion for alchemy.”

“Lady alchemists are nothing but kitchen philosophers,” Kit sniffed, “more interested in improving their complexions than understanding the secrets of nature.”

“I study alchemy in the library—not the kitchen,” I snapped, forgetting to modulate my tone or accent. Kit’s eyes widened. “Then I teach students about the subject at a university.”

“They will let women teach at the university?” George said, fascinated and repelled in equal measure.

“Matriculate, too,” Matthew murmured, pulling on the tip of his nose apologetically. “Diana went to Oxford.”

“That must have improved attendance at lectures,” Walter commented drily. “Had women been allowed at Oriel, even I might have taken another degree. And are lady scholars under attack in this future colony somewhere north of Roanoke?” It was a reasonable conclusion to have drawn from Matthew’s story thus far.

“Not all of them, no. But Diana found a lost book at the university.” The members of the School of Night pitched forward in their seats. Lost books were of far more interest to this group than were ignorant witches and lady scholars. “It contains secret information about the world of creatures.”

“The Book of Mysteries that is supposed to tell of our creation?” Kit looked amazed. “You’ve never been interested in those fables before, Matthew. In fact, you’ve dismissed them as superstition.”

“I believe in them now, Kit. Diana’s discovery brought enemies to her door.”

“And you were with her. So her enemies lifted the latch and entered.” Walter shook his head.

“Why did Matthew’s regard effect such dire consequences?” George asked. His fingers searched out the black grosgrain ribbon that tied his spectacles to the fastenings on his doublet. The doublet was fashionably puffed out over his stomach and the stuffing rustled like a bag of oatmeal whenever he moved. George lifted the round frames to his face and examined me as if I were an interesting new object of study.

“Because witches and wearhs are forbidden to marry,” Kit said promptly. I’d never heard the word wearh before, with its whistling w at the beginning and guttural sound at the end.

“So are daemons and wearhs.” Walter clamped a warning hand on Kit’s shoulder.

“Really?” George blinked at Matthew, then at me. “Does the queen forbid such a match?”

“It is an ancient covenant between creatures that none dares to disobey.” Tom sounded frightened. “Those who do so are called to account by the Congregation and punished.”

Only vampires as old as Matthew could remember a time before the covenant had established how creatures were to behave with one another and interact with the humans who surrounded us. “No fraternizing between otherworldly species” was the most important rule, and the Congregation policed the boundaries. Our talents—creativity, strength, supernatural power—were impossible to ignore in mixed groups. It was as if the power of a witch highlighted the creative energy of any nearby daemons, and the genius of a daemon made a vampire’s beauty more striking. As for our relationships with humans, we were supposed to keep a low profile and steer clear of politics and religion.

Just this morning Matthew had insisted there were too many other problems facing the Congregation in the sixteenth century—religious war, the burning of heretics, and the popular hunger for the strange and bizarre newly fed by the technology of the printing press—for its members to bother with something so trivial as a witch and a vampire who had fallen in love. Given the bewildering and dangerous events that had taken place since I’d met Matthew in late September, I had found this difficult to believe.

“Which congregation?” George asked with interest. “Is this some new religious sect?”

Walter ignored his friend’s question and gave Matthew a piercing look. Then he turned to me. “And do you still have this book?”

“No one has it. It went back into the library. The witches expect me to recall it for them.”

“So you are hunted for two reasons. Some want to keep you from a wearh, others see you as a necessary means to a desired end.” Walter pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Matthew tiredly. “You are a veritable lodestone when it comes to trouble, my friend. And this couldn’t have happened at a more inopportune time. The queen’s anniversary celebration is less than three weeks away. You’re expected at court.”

“Never mind the queen’s celebration! We are not safe with a time twister in our midst. She can see what fate has in store for each of us. The witch will be able to undo our futures, cause ill fortune—even hasten our deaths.” Kit rocketed out of his chair to stand before Matthew. “How by all that is holy could you do this?”

“It seems your much-vaunted atheism has failed you, Kit,” said Matthew evenly. “Afraid you might have to answer for your sins after all?”

“I may not believe in a beneficent, all-powerful deity as you do, Matthew, but there is more to this world than what’s described in your philosophy books. And this woman—this witch—cannot be allowed to meddle in our affairs. You may be in her thrall, but I have no intention of putting my future in her hands!” Kit retorted.

“A moment.” A look of growing astonishment passed over George’s face. “Did you come to us from Chester, Matthew, or—”

“No. You must not answer, Matt,” Tom said with sudden lucidity. “Janus has come among us to work some purpose, and we must not interfere.”

“Talk sense, Tom—if you can,” Kit said nastily.

“With one face, Matthew and Diana look to the past. With the other, they consider the future,” Tom said, unconcerned with Kit’s interruption.

“But if Matt is not . . .” George trailed off into silence.

“Tom is right,” Walter said gruffly. “Matthew is our friend and has asked for our help. It is, so far as I can recall, the first time he has done so. That is all we need to know.”

“He asks too much,” Kit retorted.

“Too much? It’s little and late, in my opinion. Matthew paid for one of my ships, saved Henry’s estates, and has long kept George and Tom in books and dreams. As for you”—Walter surveyed Marlowe from head to toe—“everything in you and on you—from your ideas to your last cup of wine to the hat on your head—is thanks to Matthew Roydon’s good graces. Providing a safe port for his wife during this present tempest is a trifle in comparison.”

“Thank you, Walter.” Matthew looked relieved, but the smile he turned on me was tentative. Winning over his friends—Walter in particular—had been more difficult than he’d anticipated.

“We will need to devise a story to explain how your wife came to be here,” Walter said thoughtfully, “something to divert attention from her strangeness.”

“Diana needs a teacher, too,” added Matthew.

“She must be taught some manners, certainly,” Kit grumbled. “No, her teacher must be another witch,” Matthew corrected him.

Walter made a low sound of amusement. “I doubt there’s a witch within twenty miles of Woodstock. Not with you living here.”

“And what of this book, Mistress Roydon?” George whipped out a pointed gray stick wrapped in string from a pocket hidden away in the bulbous outlines of his short britches. He licked the tip of his pencil and held it expectantly. “Can you tell me its size and contents? I will look for it in Oxford.”

“The book can wait,” I said. “First I need proper clothes. I can’t go out of the house wearing Pierre’s jacket and the skirt that Matthew’s sister wore to Jane Seymour’s funeral.”

“Go out of the house?” Kit scoffed. “Utter lunacy.”

“Kit is right,” George said apologetically. He made a notation in his book. “Your speech makes it apparent you are a stranger to England. I would be happy to give you elocution lessons, Mistress Roydon.” The idea of George Chapman playing Henry Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle was enough to make me look longingly at the exit.

“She shouldn’t be allowed to speak at all, Matt. You must keep her quiet,” Kit insisted.

“What we need is a woman, someone to advise Diana. Why is there not one daughter, wife, or mistress to be had among the five of you?” Matthew demanded. Deep silence fell.

“Walter?” Kit asked archly, sending the rest of the men into a fit of laughter and lightening the heavy atmosphere as though a summer storm had blown through the room. Even Matthew joined in.

Pierre entered as the laughter faded, kicking up sprigs of rosemary and lavender strewn among the rushes laid down to keep dampness from being tromped through the house. At the same moment, the bells began to toll the hour of twelve. Like the sight of the quinces, the combination of sounds and smells took me straight back to Madison.

Past, present, and future met. Rather than a slow, fluid unspooling, there was a moment of stillness as if time had stopped. My breath hitched.

“Diana?” Matthew said, taking me by the elbows.

Something blue and amber, a weave of light and color, caught my attention. It was tightly meshed in the corner of the room, where nothing could fit but cobwebs and dust. Fascinated, I tried to move toward it.

“Is she having a fit?” Henry asked, his face coming into focus over Matthew’s shoulder.

The tolling of the bell stopped, and the scent of lavender faded. Blue and amber flickered to gray and white before disappearing.

“I’m sorry. I thought I saw something in the corner. It must have been a trick of the light,” I said, pressing my hand to my cheek.

“Perhaps you are suffering from timelag, mon coeur,” Matthew murmured. “I promised you a walk in the park. Will you go outside with me to clear your head?”

Maybe it was the aftereffects of timewalking, and perhaps fresh air would help. But we had just arrived, and Matthew hadn’t seen these men for more than four centuries.

“You should be with your friends,” I said firmly, though my eyes drifted to the windows.

“They’ll still be here, drinking my wine, when we return,” Matthew said with a smile. He turned to Walter. “I’m going to show Diana her house and make sure she is able to find her way through the gardens.”

“We will need to talk further,” Walter warned. “There is business to discuss.”

Matthew nodded and tucked his hand around my waist. “It can wait.”

We left the School of Night in the warm parlor and headed outdoors. Tom had already lost interest in the problems of vampire and witch and was engrossed in his reading. George was similarly consumed by his own thoughts and busily writing in a notebook. Kit’s glance was watchful, Walter’s wary, and Henry’s eyes were filled with sympathy. The three men looked like an unkindness of ravens with their dark clothes and attentive expressions. It reminded me of what Shakespeare would soon say about this extraordinary group.

“How does it begin?” I murmured softly. “‘Black is the badge of hell’?”

Matthew looked wistful. “‘Black is the badge of hell / The hue of dungeons, and the school of night.’”

“The hue of friendship would be more accurate,” I said. I’d seen Matthew manage the readers at the Bodleian, but his influence over the likes of Walter Raleigh and Kit Marlowe was still unexpected. “Is there anything they wouldn’t do for you, Matthew?

“Pray God we never find out,” he said somberly.

3

On Monday morning I was tucked into Matthew’s office. It was located between Pierre’s apartments and a smaller chamber that was used for estate business, and it afforded a view toward the gatehouse and the Woodstock road.

Most of the lads—now that I knew them better, it seemed a far more fitting collective term than the grandiose School of Night—were closeted in what Matthew called the breakfast room, drinking ale and wine and applying their considerable imaginations to my backstory. Walter assured me it would, when complete, explain my sudden appearance at Woodstock to curious residents and alleviate questions about my odd accent and ways.

What they had concocted so far was melodramatic in the extreme. This was not surprising given that our two resident playwrights, Kit and George, came up with the key elements of the plot. The characters included dead French parents, avaricious noblemen who had preyed on a helpless orphan (me), and aged lechers intent on stripping me of my virtue. The tale turned epic with my spiritual trials and conversion from Catholicism to Calvinism. These led to voluntary exile on England’s Protestant shores, years of abject poverty, and Matthew’s fortuitous rescue and instantaneous regard. George (who really was something of a schoolmarm) promised to drill me in the particulars when they had applied the finishing touches to the story.

I was enjoying some quiet, which was a rare commodity in a crowded Elizabethan household of this size. Like a troublesome child, Kit unerringly gauged the worst moment to deliver the mail, announce dinner, or request Matthew’s help with some problem. And Matthew was understandably eager to be with friends he had never expected to see again.

At present he was with Walter and I was devoting my attention to a small book while awaiting his return. He’d left his table by the window littered with bags of sharpened quills and glass pots full of ink. Other tools were scattered nearby: a stick of wax to seal his correspondence, a thin knife to open letters, a candle, a silver shaker. This last was full not of salt but sand, as my gritty eggs this morning had proved.

My table held a similar shaker to set the ink on the page and keep it from smudging, a single pot of black ink, and the remains of three pens. I was currently destroying a fourth in an effort to master the complicated swirls of Elizabethan handwriting. Making a to-do list should have been a snap. As a historian I had spent years reading old handwriting and knew exactly how the letters should look, what words were most common, and the erratic spelling choices that were mine to make in a time when there were few dictionaries and grammatical rules.

It turned out that the challenge lay not in knowing what to do but in actually doing it. After working for years to become an expert, I was a student again. Only this time my objective wasn’t to understand the past but to live in it. Thus far it had been a humbling experience, and all I’d managed was to make a mess of the first page of the pocket-size blank book Matthew had given me this morning.

“It’s the Elizabethan equivalent of a laptop computer,” he’d explained, handing me the slim volume. “You’re a woman of letters and need somewhere to put them.” I cracked the tight binding, releasing the crisp smell of paper. Most virtuous women of the time used these little books for prayers. Diana

There was a thick blot where I’d pressed down at the beginning of the D and by the time I reached the last A the pen was out of ink. Still, my effort was a perfectly respectable example of the period’s Italic hand. My hand moved far more slowly than Matthew’s did when he wrote letters using the squiggly Secretary script. That was the handwriting of lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, but too difficult for me at present. Bishop

That was even better. But my smile quickly dissolved, and I struck out my last name. I was married now. I dipped the pen in the ink. de Clermont

Diana de Clermont. That made me sound like a countess, not a historian. A drop of ink fell wetly onto the page below. I stifled a curse at the black splotch. Happily, it hadn’t obliterated my name. But that wasn’t my name either. I smudged the blob over “de Clermont.” You could still read it—barely. I steadied my hand and deliberately formed the correct letters. Roydon.

That was my name now. Diana Roydon, wife of the most obscure figure associated with the mysterious School of Night. I examined the page critically. My handwriting was a disaster. It looked nothing like what I’d seen of the chemist Robert Boyle’s neat, rounded script or that of his brilliant sister, Katherine. I hoped that women’s handwriting in the 1590s was far messier than it was in the 1690s. A few more strokes of the pen and a final flourish and I would be done. Her Booke.

Male voices sounded outside. I put down my pen with a frown and went to the window.

Matthew and Walter were below. The panes of glass muffled their words, but the subject of the conversation was evidently unpleasant, judging from Matthew’s harried expression and the bristling line of Raleigh’s eyebrows. When Matthew made a dismissive gesture and turned to walk away, Walter stopped him with a firm hand.

Something had been bothering Matthew since he’d received the first batch of mail this morning. A stillness had come over him, and he’d held the pouch without opening it. Though he’d explained that the letters dealt with ordinary estate business, surely there was more there than demands for taxes and bills due.

I pressed my warm palm against the cold pane as if it were only the glass that stood between me and Matthew. The play of temperatures reminded me of the contrast between warmblooded witch and cool-blooded vampire. I returned to my seat and picked up my pen.

“You decided to make your mark on the sixteenth century after all.” Matthew was suddenly at my side. The twitch at the corner of his mouth indicated amusement but didn’t entirely disguise his tension.

“I’m still not sure that creating a lasting memento of my time here is a good idea,” I confessed. “A future scholar might realize there’s something odd about it.” Just as Kit had known there was something wrong with me.

“Don’t worry. The book won’t leave the house.” Matthew reached for his stack of mail.

“You can’t be sure of that,” I protested.

“Let history take care of itself, Diana,” he said decisively, as if the matter were now closed. But I couldn’t let go of the future—or my worries about the effects that our presence in the past might have on it.

“And I still don’t think we should let Kit keep that chess piece.” The memory of Marlowe triumphantly brandishing the tiny figure of Diana haunted me. She occupied the role of the white queen in Matthew’s costly silver chess set and had been the third object I’d used to steer us to the proper place in the past, along with Ysabeau’s earring and Matthew’s copy of Kit’s play Doctor Faustus. Two unfamiliar young daemons, Sophie Norman and her husband Nathaniel Wilson, had unexpectedly delivered it to my aunts’ house in Madison just as we were deciding to timewalk.

“Kit won it from me fair and square last night—just as he was supposed to do. At least this time I could see how he managed it. He distracted me with his rook.” Matthew dashed off a note with enviable speed before folding the pages into a neat packet. He dropped a molten blob of vermilion across the edges of the letter before pressing his signet ring into it. The golden surface of the ring bore the simple glyph for the planet Jupiter, not the more elaborate emblem that Satu had burned into my flesh. The wax crackled as it cooled. “Somehow my white queen went from Kit to a family of witches in North Carolina. We have to believe that it will do so again, with or without our help.”

“Kit didn’t know me before. And he doesn’t like me.”

“All the more reason not to worry. As long as it pains him to look upon the likeness of Diana, he won’t be able to part with it. Christopher Marlowe is a masochist of the first order.” Matthew took up another letter and sliced it open with his knife.

I surveyed the other items on my table and picked up a pile of coins. A working knowledge of Elizabethan currency had not been covered in my graduate education. Nor had household management, the proper order of donning undergarments, forms of address for servants, or how to make a medicine for Tom’s headache. Discussions with Françoise about my wardrobe revealed my ignorance of common names for ordinary colors. “Gooseturd green” was familiar to me, but the peculiar shade of grizzled brown known as “rat hair” was not. My experiences thus far had me planning to throttle the first Tudor historian I met upon my return for gross dereliction of duty.

But there was something compelling about figuring out the details of everyday life, and I quickly forgot my annoyance. I picked through the coins in my palm, looking for a silver penny. It was the cornerstone on which my precarious knowledge was built. The coin was no bigger than my thumbnail, as thin as a wafer, and bore the same profile of Queen Elizabeth as did most of the others. I organized the rest according to relative worth and began an orderly account of them on the next clean page in my book.

“Thank you, Pierre,” Matthew murmured, barely glancing up as his servant whisked away the sealed letters and deposited still more correspondence on the surface.

We wrote in companionable silence. Soon finished with my list of coins, I tried to remember what Charles, the household’s laconic cook, had taught me about making a caudle—or was it a posset?

A Caudle for pains in the head... Satisfied with the relatively straight line of text, three tiny blots, and the wobbly C, I continued.

Set your water to boil. Beat two egge yolkes. Add white wine and beat some more. When the water boils, set it to cool, then add the wine and egge. Stirre it as it boils again, adding saffron and honey.

The resulting mixture had been revolting—violently yellow with the consistency of runny cottage cheese—but Tom had slurped it down without complaint. Later, when I’d asked Charles for the proper proportion of honey to wine, he’d thrown up his hands in disgust at my ignorance and stalked away without a word.

Living in the past had always been my secret desire, but it was far more difficult than I’d ever imagined. I sighed.

“You’ll need more than that book to feel at home here.” Matthew’s eyes didn’t leave his correspondence. “You should have a room of your own, too. Why don’t you take this one? It’s bright enough to serve as a library. Or you could turn it into an alchemical laboratory—although you might want somewhere more private if you’re planning to turn lead into gold. There’s a room by the kitchen that might do.”

“The kitchen may not be ideal. Charles doesn’t approve of me,” I replied.

“He doesn’t approve of anyone. Neither does Françoise—except for Charles, of course, whom she venerates as a misunderstood saint despite his fondness for drink.”

Sturdy feet tromped down the hall. The disapproving Françoise appeared at the threshold. “There are men here for Mistress Roydon,” she announced, stepping aside to reveal a gray-haired septuagenarian with callused hands and a much younger man who shifted from one foot to the other. Neither of these men was a creature.

“Somers.” Matthew frowned. “And is that young Joseph Bidwell?”

“Aye, Master Roydon.” The younger man pulled his cap from his head.

“Mistress Roydon will allow you to take her measurements now,” Françoise said.

“Measurements?” The look Matthew directed to me and Françoise demanded an answer—quickly.

“Shoes. Gloves. For madame’s wardrobe,” Françoise said. Unlike petticoats, shoes were not one-size-fits-most.

“I asked Françoise to send for them,” I explained, hoping to gain Matthew’s cooperation. Somers’s eyes widened at my strange accent before his face returned to an expression of neutral deference.

“My wife’s journey was unexpectedly difficult,” Matthew said smoothly, coming to stand by my side, “and her belongings were lost. Regrettably, Bidwell, we have no shoes for you to copy.” He rested a warning hand on my shoulder, hoping to silence any further commentary.

“May I, Mistress Roydon?” Bidwell asked, lowering himself until his fingers hovered over the ties that secured a pair of ill-fitting shoes to my feet. The borrowed footwear was a giveaway that I wasn’t who I was pretending to be.

“Please,” Matthew replied before I could respond. Françoise gave me a sympathetic look. She knew what it was like to be silenced by Matthew Roydon.

The young man started when he came into contact with a warm foot and its frequent pulse. Clearly he expected a colder, less lively extremity.

“About your business,” Matthew said sharply.

“Sir. My lord. Master Roydon.” The young man blurted out most available titles except for “Your Majesty” and “Prince of Darkness.” These were implied nonetheless.

“Where’s your father, lad?” Matthew’s voice softened.

“Sick abed these four days past, Master Roydon.” Bidwell drew a piece of felt from a bag tied around his waist and placed each of my feet on it, tracing the outlines with a stick of charcoal. He made some notations on the felt and, quickly finished, lowered my foot gently to the floor. Bidwell pulled out a curious book made from squares of colored hide sewn together with leather thongs and offered it to me.

“What colors are popular, Master Bidwell?” I asked, waving the leather samples away. I needed advice, not a multiple-choice test.

“Ladies who are going to court are having white stamped with gold or silver.”

“We’re not going to court,” Matthew said swiftly.

“Black then, and a nice tawny.” Bidwell held up for approval a patch of leather the color of caramel. Matthew gave it before I could say a word.

Then it was the older man’s turn. He, too, was surprised when he took my hand and felt the calluses on my palms. Well-bred ladies who married men such as Matthew didn’t row boats. Somers took in the lump on my middle finger. Ladies didn’t have bumps from holding pens too tightly either. He slid a buttery-soft glove that was much too large onto my right hand. A needle charged with coarse thread was tucked into the hem.

“Does your father have everything he needs, Bidwell?” Matthew asked the shoemaker.

“Yes, thank you, Master Roydon,” Bidwell replied with a bob of his head.

“Charles will send him custard and venison.” Matthew’s gray eyes flickered over the young man’s thin frame. “Some wine, too.”

“Master Bidwell will be grateful for your kindness,” Somers said, his fingers drawing the thread through the leather so that the glove fit snugly.

“Is anyone else ill?” Matthew asked.

“Rafe Meadows’s girl was sick with a terrible fever. We feared for Old Edward, but he is only afflicted with an ague,” Somers replied tersely.

“I trust Meadows’s daughter has recovered.”

“No.” Somers snapped the thread. “They buried her three days ago, God rest her soul.”

“Amen,” said everyone in the room. Françoise lifted her eyebrows and jerked her head in Somers’s direction. Belatedly I joined in.

Their business concluded and the shoes and gloves promised for later in the week, both men bowed and departed. Françoise turned to follow them out, but Matthew stopped her.

“No more appointments for Diana.” There was no mistaking the seriousness in his tone. “See to it that Edward Camberwell has a nurse to look after him and sufficient food and drink.”

Françoise curtsied in acquiescence and departed with another sympathetic glance.

“I’m afraid the men from the village know I don’t belong here.” I drew a shaking hand across my forehead. “My vowels are a problem. And my sentences go down when they should go up. When are you supposed to say ‘amen’? Somebody needs to teach me how to pray, Matthew. I have to start somewhere, and—”

“Slow down,” he said, sliding his hands around my corseted waist. Even through several layers of clothing, his touch was soothing. “This isn’t an Oxford viva, nor are you making your stage debut. Cramming information and rehearsing your lines isn’t going to help. You should have asked me before you summoned Bidwell and Somers.”

“How can you pretend to be someone new, someone else, over and over again?” I wondered. Matthew had done this countless times over the centuries as he pretended to die only to reemerge in a different country, speaking a different language, known by a different name.

“The first trick is to stop pretending.” My confusion must have been evident, and he continued. “Remember what I told you in Oxford. You can’t live a lie, whether it’s masquerading as a human when you’re really a witch or trying to pass as Elizabethan when you’re from the twenty-first century. This is your life for now. Try not to think of it as a role.”

“But my accent, the way that I walk . . .” Even I had noticed the length of my steps relative to that of the other women in the house, but Kit’s open mockery of my masculine stride had brought the point home.

“You’ll adjust. Meanwhile people will talk. But no one’s opinion in Woodstock matters. Soon you will be familiar and the gossip will stop.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “You don’t know much about gossip, do you?”

“Enough to know you are simply this week’s curiosity.” He glanced at my book, taking in the blotches and indecisive script. “You’re holding your pen too tightly. That’s why the point keeps breaking and the ink won’t flow. You’re holding on to your new life too tightly as well.”

“I never thought it would be so difficult.”

“You’re a fast learner, and so long as you’re safely at the Old Lodge, you’re among friends. But no more visitors for the time being. Now, what have you been writing?”

“My name, mostly.”

Matthew flipped a few pages in my book, examining what I’d recorded. One eyebrow lifted. “You’ve been preparing for your economics and culinary examinations, too. Why don’t you write about what’s happening here at the house instead?”

“Because I need to know how to manage in the sixteenth century. Of course, a diary might be useful, too.” I considered the possibility. It would certainly help me sort out my still-muddled sense of time. “I shouldn’t use full names. People in 1590 use initials to save paper and ink. And nobody reflects on thoughts or emotions. They record the weather and the phases of the moon.”

“Top marks on sixteenth-century English record keeping,” said Matthew with a laugh.

“Do women write down the same things as men?”

He took my chin in his fingers. “You’re impossible. Stop worrying about what other women do. Be your own extraordinary self.” When I nodded, he kissed me before returning to his table.

Holding the pen as loosely as possible, I began a fresh page. I decided to use astrological symbols for the days of the week and record the weather as well as a few cryptic notes about life at the Old Lodge. That way no one reading them in a future time would find anything out of the ordinary. Or so I hoped.

Some future scholar might suspect that these initials referred to the School of Night, especially given the name Roydon on the first page, but there would be no way to prove it. Besides, these days few scholars were interested in this group of intellectuals. Educated in the finest Renaissance style, the members of the School of Night were able to move between ancient and modern languages with alarming speed. All of them knew Aristotle backward and forward. And when Kit, Walter, and Matthew began talking politics, their encyclopedic command of history and geography made it nearly impossible for anyone else to keep up. Occasionally George and Tom managed to squeak in an opinion, but Henry’s stammer and slight deafness made his full participation in the intricate discussions impossible. He spent most of the time quietly observing the others with a shy deference that was endearing, considering that the earl outranked everyone in the room. If there weren’t so many of them, I might be able to keep up, too.

As for Matthew, gone was the thoughtful scientist brooding over his test results and worrying about the future of the species. I’d fallen in love with that Matthew but found myself doing so all over again with this sixteenth-century version, charmed by every peal of his laughter and each quick rejoinder he made when battles broke out over some fine point of philosophy. Matthew shared jokes over dinner and hummed songs in the corridors. He wrestled with his dogs by the fire in the bedroom—two enormous, shaggy mastiffs named Anaximander and Pericles. In modern Oxford or France, Matthew had always seemed slightly sad. But he was happy here in Woodstock, even when I caught him looking at his friends as though he couldn’t quite believe they were real.

“Did you realize how much you missed them?” I asked, unable to refrain from interrupting his work.

“Vampires can’t brood over those we leave behind,” he replied. “We’d go mad. I have had more to remember them by than is usually the case: their words, their portraits. You forget the little things, though —a quirk of expression, the sound of their laughter.”

“My father kept caramels in his pocket,” I whispered. “I had no memory of them, until La Pierre.” When I shut my eyes, I could still smell the tiny candies and hear the rustle of the cellophane against the soft broadcloth of his shirts.

“And you wouldn’t give up that knowledge now,” Matthew said gently, “not even to be rid of the pain.”

He took up another letter, his pen scratching against the page. The tight look of concentration returned to his face, along with a small crease over the bridge of his nose. I imitated the angle at which he held the quill, the length of time that elapsed before he dipped it in the ink. It was indeed easier to write when you didn’t hold the pen in a death grip. I poised the pen over the paper and prepared to write more.

Today was the feast of All Souls, the traditional day to remember the dead. Everyone in the house was remarking upon the thick frost that iced the leaves in the garden. Tomorrow would be even colder, Pierre promised.

Françoise was making me a cloak to keep the chill away, and a warm suit of clothes for the wintry weather ahead. She had been in the attics all morning, sorting through Louisa de Clermont’s abandoned wardrobe. Matthew’s sister’s gowns were sixty years out of date, with their square necklines and bell-shaped sleeves, but Françoise was altering them to better fit what Walter and George insisted was the current style as well as my less statuesque frame. She wasn’t pleased to be ripping apart the seams of one particularly splendid black-and-silver garment, but Matthew had insisted. With the School of Night in residence, I needed formal clothes as well as more practical outfits.

“But Lady Louisa was wed in that gown, my lord,” Françoise protested. “Yes, to an eighty-five-year-old with no living offspring, a bad heart, and numerous profitable estates. I believe the thing has more than repaid the family’s investment in it,” Matthew replied. “It will do for Diana until you can make her something better.”

My book couldn’t refer to that conversation, of course. Instead I’d chosen all my words carefully so that they would mean nothing to anyone else even though they conjured vivid images of particular people, sounds, and conversations for me. If this book survived, a future reader would find these tiny snippets of my life sterile and dry. Historians pored over documents like this, hoping in vain to see the rich, complex life hidden behind the simple lines of text. Matthew swore under his breath. I was not the only one in this house hiding something.

My husband received many letters today and gave me this booke to keep my memories.

As I lifted my pen to replenish its ink, Henry and Tom entered the room looking for Matthew. My third eye blinked open, surprising me with sudden awareness. Since we had arrived, my other nascent powers —witchfire, witchwater, and witchwind—had been oddly absent. With the unexpected extra perception offered by my witch’s third eye, I could discern not only the black-red intensity of the atmosphere around Matthew but also Tom’s silvery light and Henry’s barely perceptible green-black shimmer, each as individual as a fingerprint.

Thinking back on the threads of blue and amber that I’d seen in the corner of the Old Lodge, I wondered what the disappearance of some powers and the emergence of others might signify. There had been the episode this morning, too. . . .

Something in the corner had caught my eye, another glimmer of amber shot through with hints of blue. There was an echo, something so quiet it was more felt than heard. When I’d turned my head to locate its source, the sensation faded. Strands of color and light pulsed in my peripheral vision, as if time were beckoning me to return home.

Ever since my first timewalk in Madison, when I’d traveled a brief span of minutes, I’d thought of time as a substance made of threads of light and color. With enough concentration you could focus on a single thread and follow it to its source. Now, after walking through several centuries, I knew that apparent simplicity masked the knots of possibility that tied an unimaginable number of pasts to a million presents and untold potential futures. Isaac Newton had believed that time was an essential force of nature that couldn’t be controlled. After fighting our way back to 1590, I was prepared to agree with him.

“Diana? Are you all right?” Matthew’s insistent voice broke through my reveries. His friends looked at me with concern.

“Fine,” I said automatically.

“You’re not fine.” He tossed the quill onto the table. “Your scent has changed. I think your magic might be changing, too. Kit is right. We must find you a witch as quickly as possible.”

“It’s too soon to bring in a witch,” I protested. “It’s important that I be able to look and sound as if I belong.”

“Another witch will know you’re a timewalker,” he said dismissively. “She’ll make allowances. Or is there something else?”

I shook my head, unwilling to meet his eyes.

Matthew hadn’t needed to see time unwinding in the corner to sense that something was out of joint. If he already suspected that there was more going on with my magic than I was willing to reveal, there would be no way for me to conceal my secrets from any witch who might soon come to call.

4

The bells of St. Mary’s Church sounded the hour, faint echoes of their music lingering long after the peals ceased. Quince, rosemary, and lavender scented the air. I was perched on an uncomfortable wooden chair in a confining array of smocks, petticoats, sleeves, skirts, and a tightly laced bodice. My career-oriented, twenty-first-century life faded further with each restricted breath. I stared out into the murky daylight, where cold rain pinged against the panes of glass in the leaded windows.

“Elle est ici,” Pierre announced, his glance flicking in my direction. “The witch is here to see madame.”

“At last,” Matthew said. His friends had been eager to help him find the creature. Their suggestions illuminated a collective disregard for women, witches, and everyone who lacked a university education. Henry thought London might provide the most fertile ground for the search, but Walter assured him that it would be impossible to conceal me from superstitious neighbors in the crowded city. George wondered if the scholars of Oxford might be persuaded to lend their expertise, since they at least had proper intellectual credentials. Tom and Matthew gave a brutal critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the natural philosophers in residence, and that idea was cast aside, too. Kit didn’t believe it was wise to trust any woman with the task and drew up a list of local gentlemen who might be willing to establish a training regimen for me. It included the parson of St. Mary’s, who was alert to apocalyptic signs in the heavens, a nearby landowner named Smythson, who dabbled in alchemy and had been looking for a witch or daemon to assist him, and a student at Christ Church College who paid his overdue book bills by casting horoscopes.

Matthew vetoed all these suggestions and called on Widow Beaton, Woodstock’s cunning woman and midwife. She was poor and female— precisely the sort of creature the School of Night scorned—but this, Matthew argued, would better ensure her cooperation. Besides, Widow Beaton was the only creature for miles with purported magical talents. All others had long since fled, he admitted, rather than live near a wearh.

“Summoning Widow Beaton may not be a good idea,” I said later when we were getting ready for bed.

“So you’ve mentioned,” Matthew replied with barely concealed impatience. “But if Widow Beaton can’t help us, she’ll be able to recommend someone who can.”

“The late sixteenth century really isn’t a good time to openly ask around for a witch, Matthew.” I’d been able to do little more than hint at the prospect of witch-hunts when we were with the School of Night, but Matthew knew the horrors to come. Once again he dismissed my concern.

“The Chelmsford witch trials are only memories now, and it will be another twenty years before the Lancashire hunts begin. I wouldn’t have brought you here if a witch-hunt were about to break out in England.” Matthew picked through a few letters that Pierre had left for him on the table.

“With reasoning like that, it’s a good thing you’re a scientist and not a historian,” I said bluntly. “Chelmsford and Lancashire were extreme outbursts of far more widespread concerns.”

“You think a historian can understand the tenor of the present moment better than the men living through it?” Matthew’s eyebrow cocked up in open skepticism.

“Yes,” I said, bristling. “We often do.”

“That’s not what you said this morning when you couldn’t figure out why there weren’t any forks in the house,” he observed. It was true that I’d searched high and low for twenty minutes before Pierre gently broke it to me that the utensils were not yet common in England.

“Surely you aren’t one of those people who believe that historians do nothing but memorize dates and learn obscure facts,” I said. “My job is to understand why things happened in the past. When something occurs right in front of you, it’s hard to see the reasons for it, but hindsight provides a clearer perspective.”

“Then you can relax, because I have both experience and hindsight,” Matthew said. “I understand your reservations, Diana, but calling on Widow Beaton is the right decision.” Case closed, his tone made clear.

“In the 1590s there are food shortages, and people are worried about the future,” I said, ticking the items off on my fingers. “That means people are looking for scapegoats to take the blame for the bad times. Already, human cunning women and midwives fear being accused of witchcraft, though your male friends may not be aware of it.”

“I am the most powerful man in Woodstock,” Matthew said, taking me by the shoulders. “No one will accuse you of anything.” I was amazed at his hubris.

“I’m a stranger, and Widow Beaton owes me nothing. If I draw curious eyes, I pose a serious threat to her safety,” I retorted. “At the very least, I need to pass as an upper-class Elizabethan woman before we ask her for help. Give me a few more weeks.”

“This can’t wait, Diana,” he said brusquely.

“I’m not asking you to be patient so I can learn how to embroider samplers and make jam. There are good reasons for it.” I looked at him sourly. “Call in your cunning woman. But don’t be surprised when this goes badly.”

“Trust me.” Matthew lowered his lips toward mine. His eyes were smoky, and his instincts to pursue his prey and push it into submission were sharp. Not only did the sixteenth-century husband want to prevail over his wife, but the vampire wanted to capture the witch.

“I don’t find arguments the slightest bit arousing,” I said, turning my head. Matthew clearly did, however. I moved a few inches away from him.

“I’m not arguing,” Matthew said softly, his mouth close to my ear. “You are. And if you think I would ever touch you in anger, wife, you are very much mistaken.” After pinning me to the bedpost with frosty eyes, he turned and snatched up his breeches. “I’m going downstairs. Someone will still be awake to keep me company.” He stalked toward the door. Once he’d reached it, he paused.

“And if you really want to behave like an Elizabethan woman, stop questioning me,” he said roughly as he departed.

The next day one vampire, two daemons, and three humans examined my appearance in silence across the wide floorboards. The severe lines of Matthew’s doublet made him look even broader through the shoulders, while the acorns and oak leaves stitched in black around the edges of his white collar accentuated the paleness of his skin. He angled his dark head to gain a fresh perspective on whether I passed muster as a respectable Elizabethan wife. “Well?” he demanded. “Will that do?”

George lowered his spectacles. “Yes. The russet of this gown suits her far better than the last one did and gives a pleasant cast to her hair.”

“Mistress Roydon looks the part, George, it is true. But we cannot explain away her unusual speech simply by saying that she comes from the c-c-country,” Henry said in his toneless bass. He stepped forward to twitch the folds of my brocade skirt into place. “And her height. There is no disguising that. She is taller even than the queen.”

“Are you sure we can’t pass her off as French, Walt, or Dutch?” Tom lifted a clove-studded orange to his nose with ink-stained fingers. “Perhaps Mistress Roydon could survive in London after all. Daemons cannot fail to notice her, of course, but ordinary men may not give her a second glance.”

Walter snorted with amusement and unspooled from a low settle. “Mistress Roydon is finely shaped as well as uncommon tall. Ordinary men between the ages of thirteen and sixty will find reason enough to study her. No, Tom, she’s better off here, with Widow Beaton.”

“Perhaps I could meet Widow Beaton later, in the village, alone?” I suggested, hoping that one of them might see sense and persuade Matthew to let me do this my way.

“No!” cried out six horrified male voices.

Françoise appeared bearing two pieces of starched linen and lace, her bosom swelling like that of an indignant hen facing down a pugnacious rooster. She was as annoyed by Matthew’s constant interference as I was.

“Diana’s not going to court. That ruff is unnecessary,” said Matthew with an impatient gesture. “Besides, it’s her hair that’s the problem.”

“You have no idea what’s necessary,” Françoise retorted. Though she was a vampire and I was a witch, we had reached unexpected common ground when it came to the idiocy of men. “Which would Madame de Clermont prefer?” She extended a pleated nest of gauzy fabric and something crescent-shaped that resembled snowflakes joined together with invisible stitches.

The snowflakes looked more comfortable. I pointed to them.

While Françoise affixed the collar to the edge of my bodice, Matthew reached up in another attempt to put my hair in a more pleasing arrangement. Françoise slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch.”

“I’ll touch my wife when I like. And stop calling Diana ‘Madame de Clermont,’” Matthew rumbled, moving his hands to my shoulders. “I keep expecting my mother to walk through the door.” He drew the edges of the collar apart, pulling loose the black velvet cord that hid Françoise’s pins.

“Madame is a married woman. Her bosom should be covered. There is enough gossip about the new mistress,” Françoise protested.

“Gossip? What kind of gossip?” I asked with a frown.

“You were not in church yesterday, so there is talk that you are with child, or afflicted by smallpox. That heretic priest believes you are Catholic. Others say you are Spanish.”

“Spanish?”

“Oui, madame. Someone heard you in the stables yesterday afternoon.”

“But I was practicing my French!” I was a fair mimic and thought that imitating Ysabeau’s imperious accent might lend credence to my elaborate cover story.

“The groom’s son did not recognize it as such.” Françoise’s tone suggested that the boy’s confusion was warranted. She studied with me with satisfaction. “Yes, you look like a respectable woman.”

“Fallaces sunt rerum species,” said Kit with a touch of acid that brought the scowl back to Matthew’s face. “‘Appearances can be deceiving.’ No one will be taken in by her performance.”

“It’s far too early in the day for Seneca.” Walter gave Marlowe a warning look.

“It is never too early for stoicism,” Kit replied severely. “You should thank me that it’s not Homer. All we’ve heard lately is inept paraphrases of the Iliad. Leave the Greek to someone who understands it, George—someone like Matt.”

“My translation of Homer’s work is not yet finished!” George retorted, bristling.

His response released a flood of Latin quotations from Walter. One of them made Matthew chuckle, and he said something in what I suspected was Greek. The witch waiting downstairs completely forgotten, the men enthusiastically engaged in their favorite pastime: verbal one-upmanship. I sank back into my chair.

“When they are in a fine humor like this, they are a wonder,” Henry whispered. “These are the keenest wits in the kingdom, Mistress Roydon.”

Raleigh and Marlowe were now shouting at each other about the merits—or lack thereof—of Her Majesty’s policies on colonization and exploration.

“One might as well take fistfuls of gold and dump them into the Thames as give them to an adventurer like you, Walter,” Kit chortled.

“Adventurer! You can’t step out of your own door in daylight for fear of your creditors.” Raleigh’s voice shook. “You can be such a fool, Kit.”

Matthew had been following the volleys with increasing amusement. “Who are you in trouble with now?” he asked Marlowe, reaching for his wine. “And how much is it going to cost to get you out of it?”

“My tailor.” Kit waved a hand over his expensive suit. “The printer for Tamburlaine.” He hesitated, prioritizing the outstanding sums. “Hopkins, that bastard who calls himself my landlord. But I do have this.” Kit held up the tiny figure of Diana that he’d won from Matthew when they played chess on Sunday night. Still anxious about letting the statue out of my sight, I inched forward.

“You can’t be so hard up as to pawn that bauble for pennies.” Matthew’s eyes flickered to me, and a small movement of his hand had me sinking back again. “I’ll take care of it.”

Marlowe bounded to his feet with a grin, pocketing the silver goddess. “You can always be counted on, Matt. I’ll pay you back, of course.”

“Of course,” Matthew, Walter, and George murmured doubtfully.

“Keep enough money to buy yourself a beard, though.” Kit stroked his own with satisfaction. “You look dreadful.”

“Buy a beard?” I couldn’t possibly have understood correctly. Marlowe must be using slang again, even though Matthew had asked him to stop on my account.

“There’s a barber in Oxford who is a wizard. Your husband’s hair grows slowly, as with all of his kind, and he’s clean shaven.” When I still looked blank, Kit continued with exaggerated patience. “Matt will be noticed, looking as he does. He needs a beard. Apparently you are not witch enough to provide him with one, so we will have to find someone else to do it.”

My eyes strayed to the empty jug on the elm table. Françoise had filled it with clippings from the garden—sprigs of holly oak, branches from a medlar with their brown fruit resembling rose hips, and a few white roses—to bring some color and scent into the room. A few hours ago, I had laced my fingers through the branches to tug the roses and medlars to the forefront of the vase, wondering about the garden all the while. I was pleased with the results for about fifteen seconds, until the flowers and fruit withered before my eyes. The desiccation spread from my fingertips in all directions, and my hands tingled with an influx of information from the plants: the feel of sunlight, the quenching sensation of rain, the strength in the roots that came from resisting the pull of the wind, the taste of the soil.

Matthew was right. Now that we were in 1590, my magic was changing. Gone were the eruptions of witchfire, witchwater, and witchwind that I had experienced after meeting Matthew. Instead I was seeing the bright threads of time and the colorful auras that surrounded living creatures. A white stag stared at me from the shadows under the oaks whenever I walked in the gardens. Now I was making things wither.

“Widow Beaton is waiting,” Walter reminded us, ushering Tom toward the door.

“What if she can hear my thoughts?” I worried as we descended the wide oak stairs.

“I’m more worried about what you might say aloud. Do nothing that might stir her jealousy or animosity,” Walter advised, following behind with the rest of the School of Night. “If all else fails, lie. Matthew and I do it all the time.”

“One witch can’t lie to another.”

“This will not end well,” Kit muttered darkly. “I’d wager money on it.”

“Enough.” Matthew whirled and grabbed Kit by the collar. The pair of English mastiffs sniffed and growled at Kit’s ankles. They were devoted to Matthew—and none too fond of Kit.

“All I said—” Kit began, squirming in an attempt to escape. Matthew gave him no opportunity to finish and jacked him against the wall.

“What you said is of no interest, and what you meant was clear enough.” Matthew’s grip tightened.

“Put him down.” Walter had one hand on Marlowe’s shoulder and the other on Matthew. The vampire ignored Raleigh and lifted his friend several more inches. In his red-and-black plumage, Kit looked like an exotic bird that had somehow become trapped in the folds of the carved wooden paneling. Matthew held him there for a few more moments to make his point clear, then let him drop.

“Come, Diana. Everything is going to be fine.” Matthew still sounded sure, but an ominous pricking in my thumbs warned me that Kit just might be right.

“God’s teeth,” Walter muttered in disbelief as we processed into the hall. “Is that Widow Beaton?”

At the far end of the room, standing in the shadows, was the witch from central casting: diminutive, bent, and ancient. As we drew closer, the details of her rusty black dress, stringy white hair, and leathery skin became more apparent. One of her eyes was milky with a cataract, the other a mottled hazel. The eyeball with the cataract had an alarming tendency to swivel in its socket, as though its sight might be improved with a different perspective. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I spotted the wart on the bridge of her nose.

Widow Beaton slid a glance in my direction and dipped into a grudging curtsy. The barely perceptible tingle on my skin suggested that she was indeed a witch. Without warning, my third eye fluttered open, looking for further information. Unlike most other creatures, however, Widow Beaton gave off no light at all. She was gray through and through. It was dispiriting to see a witch try so hard to be invisible. Had I been as pallid as that before I touched Ashmole 782? My third eye drooped closed again.

“Thank you for coming to see us, Widow Beaton.” Matthew’s tone suggested that she should be glad he’d let her into his house.

“Master Roydon.” The witch’s words rasped like the fallen leaves that swirled on the gravel outside. She turned her one good eye on me.

“Help Widow Beaton to her seat, George.”

Chapman leaped forward at Matthew’s command, while the rest of us remained at a careful distance. The witch groaned as her rheumatic limbs settled into the chair. Matthew politely waited as she did so, then continued.

“Let us get straight to the heart of the matter. This woman”—he indicated me—“is under my protection and has been having difficulties of late.” Matthew made no mention of our marriage.

“You are surrounded by influential friends and loyal servants, Master Roydon. A poor woman can be of little use to a gentleman such as you.” Widow Beaton tried to hide the reproach in her words with a false note of courtesy, but my husband had excellent hearing. His eyes narrowed.

“Do not play games with me,” he said shortly. “You do not want me as an enemy, Widow Beaton. The woman shows signs of being a witch and needs your help.”

“A witch?” Widow Beaton looked politely doubtful. “Was her mother a witch? Or her father a wizard?”

“Both died when she was still a child. We are not certain what powers they possessed,” Matthew admitted, telling one of his typically vampiric half-truths. He tossed a small bag of coins into her lap. “I would be grateful if you could examine her.”

“Very well.” Widow Beaton’s gnarled fingers reached for my face. When our flesh touched, an unmistakable surge of energy passed between us. The old woman jumped.

“So?” Matthew demanded.

Widow Beaton’s hands dropped to her lap. She clutched at the pouch of money, and for a moment it seemed as though she might hurl it back at him. Then she regained her composure.

“It is as I suspected. This woman is no witch, Master Roydon.” Her voice was even, though a bit higher than it had been. A wave of contempt rose from my stomach and filled my mouth with bitterness.

“If you think that, you don’t have as much power as the people of Woodstock imagine,” I retorted.

Widow Beaton drew herself up indignantly. “I am a respected healer, with a knowledge of herbs to protect men and women from illness. Master Roydon knows my abilities.”

“That is the craft of a witch. But our people have other talents as well,” I said carefully. Matthew’s fingers were painfully tight on my hand, urging me to be silent.

“I know of no such talents,” was her quick reply. The old woman was as obstinate as my Aunt Sarah and shared her disdain for witches like me who could draw on the elements without any careful study of the witch’s craft tradition. Sarah knew the uses of every herb and plant and could remember hundreds of spells perfectly, but there was more to being a witch. Widow Beaton knew that, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

“Surely there is some way to determine the extent of this woman’s powers beyond a simple touch. Someone with your abilities must know what they are,” Matthew said, his lightly mocking tone a clear challenge. Widow Beaton looked uncertain, weighing the pouch in her hand. In the end its heaviness convinced her to rise to the contest. She slipped the payment into a pocket concealed under her skirts.

“There are tests to determine whether someone is a witch. Some rely on the recitation of a prayer. If a creature stumbles over the words, hesitates even for a moment, then it is a sign that the devil is near,” she pronounced, adopting a mysterious tone.

“The devil is not abroad in Woodstock, Widow Beaton,” Tom said. He sounded like a parent trying to convince a child there wasn’t a monster under the bed.

“The devil is everywhere, sir. Those who believe otherwise fall prey to his wiles.”

“These are human fables meant to frighten the superstitious and the weak-minded,” said Tom dismissively.

“Not now, Tom,” Walter muttered.

“There are other signs, too,” George said, eager as ever to share his knowledge. “The devil marks a witch as his own with scars and blemishes.”

“Indeed, sir,” Widow Beaton, “and wise men know to look for them.”

My blood drained from my head in a rush, leaving me dizzy. If anyone were to do so, such marks would be found on me.

“There must be other methods,” Henry said uneasily.

“Yes there are, my lord.” Widow Beaton’s milky eye swept the room. She pointed at the table with its scientific instruments and piles of books. “Join me there.”

Widow Beaton’s hand slid through the same gap in her skirts that had provided a hiding place for her coins and drew out a battered brass bell. She set it on the table. “Bring a candle, if you please.”

Henry quickly obliged, and the men drew around, intrigued.

“Some say a witch’s true power comes from being a creature between life and death, light and darkness. At the crossroads of the world, she can undo the work of nature and unravel the ties that bind the order of things.” Widow Beaton pulled one of the books into alignment between the candle in its heavy silver holder and the brass bell. Her voice dropped. “When her neighbors discovered a witch in times past, they cast her out of the church by the ringing of a bell to indicate that she was dead.” Widow Beaton lifted the bell and set it tolling with a twist of her wrist. She released it, and the bell remained suspended over the table, still chiming. Tom and Kit edged forward, George gasped, and Henry crossed himself. Widow Beaton looked pleased with their reaction and turned her attention to the English translation of a Greek classic, Euclid’s Elements of Geometrie, which rested on the table with several mathematical instruments from Matthew’s extensive collection.

“Then the priest took up a holy book—a Bible—and closed it to show that the witch was denied access to God.” The Elements of Geometrie snapped shut. George and Tom jumped. The members of the School of Night were surprisingly susceptible for men who considered themselves immune to superstition.

“Finally the priest snuffed out a candle, to signify that the witch had no soul.” Widow Beaton’s fingers reached into the flame and pinched the wick. The light went out, and a thin plume of gray smoke rose into the air.

The men were mesmerized. Even Matthew looked unsettled. The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the constant, tinny ringing of the bell.

“A true witch can relight the fire, open the pages of the book, and stop the bell from ringing. She is a wonderful creature in the eyes of God.” Widow Beaton paused for dramatic effect, and her milky eye rolled in my direction. “Can you perform these acts, girl?”

When modern witches reached the age of thirteen, they were presented to the local coven in a ceremony eerily reminiscent of Widow Beaton’s tests. Witches’ altar bells rang to welcome the young witch into the community, though they were typically fashioned from heavy silver, polished and passed down from one generation to the next. Instead of a Bible or a book of mathematics, the young witch’s family spell book was brought in to lend the weight of history to the occasion. The only time Sarah had allowed the Bishop grimoire out of the house was on my thirteenth birthday. As for the candle, its placement and purpose were the same. It was why young witches practiced igniting and extinguishing candles from an early age.

My official presentation to the Madison coven had been a disaster, one witnessed by all my relatives. Two decades later I still had the odd nightmare about the candle that would not light, the book that refused to open, the bell that rang for every other witch but not for me. “I’m not sure,” I confessed hesitantly.

“Try,” Matthew encouraged, his voice confident. “You lit some candles a few days ago.”

It was true. I had eventually been able to illuminate the jack-o’-lanterns that lined the driveway of the Bishop house on Halloween. There had been no audience to watch my initial bungled attempts, however. Today Kit’s and Tom’s eyes nudged me expectantly. I could barely feel the brush of Widow Beaton’s glance but was all too aware of Matthew’s familiar, cool attention. The blood in my veins turned to ice in response, as if refusing to generate the fire that would be required for this bit of witchcraft. Hoping for the best, I concentrated on the candle’s wick and muttered the spell.

Nothing happened.

“Relax,” Matthew murmured. “What about the book? Should you start there?”

Putting aside the fact that the proper order of things was important in witchcraft, I didn’t know where to begin with Euclid’s Elements. Was I supposed to focus on the air trapped in the fibers of the paper or summon a breeze to lift the cover? It was impossible to think clearly with the incessant ringing.

“Can you please stop the bell?” I implored as my anxiety rose.

Widow Beaton snapped her fingers, and the brass bell dropped to the table. It gave a final clang that set its misshapen edges vibrating, then fell silent.

“It is as I told you, Master Roydon,” Widow Beaton said with a note of triumph. “Whatever magic you think you have witnessed, it was nothing but illusions. This woman has no power. The village has nothing to fear from her.”

“Perhaps she is trying to trap you, Matthew,” Kit chimed in. “I wouldn’t put it past her. Women are duplicitous creatures.”

Other witches had made the same proclamation as Widow Beaton, and with similar satisfaction. I had a sudden, intense need to prove her wrong and wipe the knowing look from Kit’s face.

“I can’t light a candle. And no one has been able to teach me how to open a book or stop a bell from ringing. But if I am powerless, how do you explain this?” A bowl of fruit sat nearby. More quinces, freshly picked from the garden, glowed golden in the bleak light. I selected one and balanced it on my palm where everyone could see it.

The skin on my palm tingled as I focused on the fruit nestled there. Its pulpy flesh was clear to me through the quince’s tough skin as though the fruit were made of glass. My eyes drifted closed, while my witch’s eye opened and began its search for information. Awareness crept from the center of my forehead, down my arm, and through my fingertips. It extended like the roots of a tree, its fibers snaking into the quince.

One by one I took hold of the fruit’s secrets. There was a worm at its core, munching its way through the soft flesh. My attention was caught by the power trapped there, and warmth tingled across my tongue in a taste of sunshine. The skin between my brows fluttered with pleasure as I drank in the light of the invisible sun. So much power, I thought. Life. Death. My audience faded into insignificance. The only thing that mattered now was the limitless possibility for knowledge resting in my hand.

The sun responded to some silent invitation and left the quince, traveling into my fingers. Instinctively I tried to resist the approaching sunlight and keep it where it belonged—in the fruit—but the quince turned brown, shriveling and sinking into itself.

Widow Beaton gasped, breaking my concentration. Startled, I dropped the misshapen fruit to the floor. where it splattered against the polished wood. When I looked up, Henry was crossing himself again, shock evident in the force of his stare and the slow, automatic movements of his hand. Tom and Walter were focused on my fingers instead, where minuscule strands of sunlight were making a futile attempt to mend the broken connection with the quince. Matthew enfolded my sputtering hands in his, obscuring the signs of my undisciplined power. My hands were still sparking, and I tried to pull away so as not to scorch him. He shook his head, hands steady, and met my eyes as though to say he was strong enough to absorb whatever magic might come his way. After a moment of hesitation, my body relaxed into his.

“It’s over. No more,” he said emphatically.

“I can taste sunlight, Matthew.” My voice was sharp with panic. “I can see time, waiting in the corners.”

“That woman has bewitched a wearh. This is the devil’s work,” Widow Beaton hissed. She was backing carefully away, her fingers forked to ward off danger.

“There is no devil in Woodstock,” Tom repeated firmly.

“You have books full of strange sigils and magical incantations,” Widow Beaton said, gesturing at Euclid’s Elements. It was, I thought, a very good thing that she hadn’t overheard Kit reading aloud from Doctor Faustus.

“That is mathematics, not magic,” protested Tom.

“Call it what you will, but I have seen the truth. You are just like them, and called me here to draw me into your dark plans.”

“Just like whom?” Matthew asked sharply.

“The scholars from the university. They drove two witches from Duns Tew with their questions. They wanted our knowledge but condemned the women who shared it. And a coven was just beginning to form in Faringdon, but the witches scattered when they caught the attention of men like you.” A coven meant safety, protection, community. Without a coven a witch was far more vulnerable to the jealousy and fear of her neighbors.

“No one is trying to force you from Woodstock.” I only meant to soothe her, but a single step in her direction sent her retreating further.

“There is evil in this house. Everyone in the village knows it. Yesterday Mr. Danforth preached to the congregation about the danger of letting it take root.”

“I am alone, a witch like you, without family to help me,” I said, trying to appeal to her sympathy. “Take pity on me before anyone else discovers what I am.”

“You are not like me, and I want no trouble. None will give me pity when the village is baying for blood. I have no wearh to protect me, and no lords and court gentlemen will step forward to defend my honor.”

“Matthew—Master Roydon—will not let any harm come to you.” My hand rose in a pledge.

Widow Beaton was incredulous. “Wearhs cannot be trusted. What would the village do if they found out what Matthew Roydon really is?”

“This matter is between us, Widow Beaton,” I warned.

“Where are you from, girl, that you believe one witch will shelter another? It is a dangerous world. None of us are safe any longer.” The old woman looked at Matthew with hatred. “Witches are dying in the thousands, and the cowards of the Congregation do nothing. Why is that, wearh?”

“That’s enough,” Matthew said coldly. “Françoise, please show Widow Beaton out.”

“I’ll leave, and gladly.” The old woman drew herself as straight as her gnarled bones would allow. “But mark my words, Matthew Roydon. Every creature within a day’s journey suspects that you are a foul beast who feeds on blood. When they discover you are harboring a witch with these dark powers, God will be merciless on those who have turned against Him.”

“Farewell, Widow Beaton.” Matthew turned his back on the witch, but Widow Beaton was determined to have the last word.

“Take care, sister,” Widow Beaton called as she departed. “You shine too brightly for these times.”

Every eye in the room was on me. I shifted, uncomfortable from the attention.

“Explain yourself,” Walter said curtly.

“Diana owes you no explanation,” Matthew shot back.

Walter raised his hand in silent truce.

“What happened?” Matthew asked in a more measured tone. Apparently I owed him one.

“Exactly what I predicted: We’ve frightened off Widow Beaton. She’ll do everything she can to distance herself from me now.”

“She should have been biddable. I’ve done the woman plenty of favors,” Matthew muttered.

“Why didn’t you tell her who I was to you?” I asked quietly.

“Probably for the same reason you didn’t tell me what you could do to ordinary fruit from the garden,” he retorted, taking me by the elbow. Matthew turned to his friends. “I need to speak to my wife. Alone.” He steered me outside.

“So now I’m your wife again!” I exclaimed, wrenching my elbow from his grip.

“You never stopped being my wife. But not everybody needs to know the details of our private life. Now, what happened in there?” he demanded, standing by one of the neatly clipped knots of boxwood in the garden.

“You were right before: My magic is changing.” I looked away. “Something like it happened earlier to the flowers in our bedroom. When I rearranged them, I tasted the soil and air that made them grow. The flowers died at my touch. I tried to make the sunlight return to the fruit. But it wouldn’t obey me.”

“Widow Beaton’s behavior should have unleashed witchwind because you felt trapped, or witchfire because you were in danger. Perhaps timewalking damaged your magic,” Matthew suggested with a frown.

I bit my lip. “I should never have lost my temper and shown her what I could do.”

“She knew you were powerful. The smell of her fear filled the room.” His eyes were grave. “Perhaps it was too soon to put you in front of a stranger.”

But it was too late now.

The School of Night appeared at the windows, their pale faces pressing against the glass like stars in a nameless constellation.

“The damp will ruin her gown, Matthew, and it’s the only one that looks decent on her,” George scolded, sticking his head out of the casement. Tom’s elfin face peeked around George’s shoulder.

“I enjoyed myself immensely!” Kit shouted, flinging open another window with so much force the panes rattled. “That hag is the perfect witch. I shall put Widow Beaton in one of my plays. Did you ever imagine she could do that with an old bell?”

“Your past history with witches has not been forgotten, Matthew,” Walter said, his feet crunching across the gravel as he and Henry joined us outside. “She will talk. Women like Widow Beaton always do.”

“If she speaks out against you, Matt, is there a reason for concern?” Henry inquired gently.

“We’re creatures, Hal, in a human world. There’s always reason for concern,” Matthew said grimly.

5

The School of Night might debate philosophy, but on one point they were agreed: A witch would still have to be found. Matthew dispatched George and Kit to make inquiries in Oxford, as well as to ask after our mysterious alchemical manuscript.

After supper on Thursday evening, we took our places around the hearth in the great hall. Henry and Tom read and argued about astronomy or mathematics. Walter and Kit played dice at a long table, trading ideas about their latest literary projects. I was reading aloud from Walter’s copy of The Faerie Queene to practice my accent and enjoying it no more than I did most Elizabethan romances.

“The beginning is too abrupt, Kit. You’ll frighten the audience so badly they’ll leave the playhouse before the second scene,” Walter protested. “It needs more adventure.” They had been dissecting Doctor Faustus for hours. Thanks to Widow Beaton, it had a new opening.

“You are not my Faustus, Walt, for all your intellectual pretentions,” Kit said sharply. “Look what your meddling did to Edmund’s story. The Faerie Queene was a perfectly enjoyable tale about King Arthur. Now it’s a calamitous blend of Malory and Virgil, it wends on and on, and Gloriana— please. The queen is nearly as old as Widow Beaton and just as crotchety. It will astonish me if Edmund finishes it, with you telling him what to do all the time. If you want to be immortalized on the boards, talk to Will. He’s always hard up for ideas.”

“Is that agreeable to you, Matthew?” George prompted. He was updating us on his search for the manuscript that would one day be known as Ashmole 782.

“I’m sorry, George. Did you say something?” There was a flash of guilt in Matthew’s distracted gray eyes. I knew the signs of mental multitasking. It had gotten me through many a faculty meeting. His thoughts were probably divided among the conversations in the room, his ongoing review of what went awry with Widow Beaton, and the contents of the mailbags that continued to arrive.

“None of the booksellers have heard of a rare alchemical work circulating in the city. I asked a friend at Christ Church, and he too knows nothing. Shall I keep asking for it?”

Matthew opened his mouth to respond, but a crash sounded in the front hallway as the heavy front door flew open. He was on his feet in an instant. Walter and Henry jumped up and scrabbled for their daggers, which they’d taken to wearing morning, noon, and night.

“Matthew?” boomed an unfamiliar voice with a timbre that instinctively raised the hairs on my arms. It was too clear and musical to be human. “Are you here, man?”

“Of course he’s here,” someone else replied, his voice lilting in the cadence of a Welsh native. “Use your nose. Who else smells like a grocer’s shop the day fresh spices arrive from the docks?”

Moments later two bulky figures swathed in rough brown cloaks appeared at the other end of the room, where Kit and George still sat with their dice and books. In my own time, professional football teams would have recruited the new arrivals. They had overdeveloped arms with prominent tendons, enlarged wrists, thickly muscled legs, and brawny shoulders. As the men drew closer, light from the candles caught their bright eyes and danced off the honed edges of their weapons. One was a blond giant an inch taller than Matthew; the other was a redhead a good six inches shorter with a decided squint in his left eye. Neither could be more than thirty. The blond was relieved, though he hid it quickly. The redhead was furious and didn’t care who knew it.

“There you are. You gave us a fright, disappearing without leaving word,” the blond man said mildly, drawing to a stop and sheathing his long, exceedingly sharp sword. Walter and Henry, too, withdrew their weapons. They recognized the men.

“Gallowglass. Why are you here?” Matthew asked the blond warrior with a note of wary confusion.

“We’re looking for you, of course. Hancock and I were with you on Saturday.” Gallowglass’s chilly blue eyes narrowed when he didn’t receive a reply. He looked like a Viking on the brink of a killing spree. “In Chester.”

“Chester.” Matthew’s expression turned to dawning horror. “Chester!”

“Aye. Chester,” repeated the redheaded Hancock. He glowered and peeled sodden leather gauntlets from his arms, tossing them onto the floor near the fireplace. “When you didn’t meet up with us as planned on Sunday, we made inquiries. The innkeeper told us you’d left, which came as something of a surprise, and not only because you hadn’t settled the bill.”

“He said you were sitting by the fire drinking wine one moment and gone the next,” Gallowglass reported. “The maid—the little one with the black hair who couldn’t take her eyes off you—caused quite a stir. She insisted you were taken by ghosts.”

I closed my eyes in sudden understanding. The Matthew Roydon who had been in sixteenth-century Chester vanished because he was displaced by the Matthew who’d traveled here from modern-day Oxfordshire. When we left, the sixteenth-century Matthew, presumably, would reappear. Time wouldn’t allow both Matthews to be in the same place at the same moment. We had already altered history without intending to do so.

“It was All Hallows’ Eve, so her story made a certain sort of sense,” Hancock conceded, turning his attention to his cloak. He shook the water from its folds and flung it over a nearby chair, releasing the scent of spring grass into the winter air.

“Who are these men, Matthew?” I moved closer to get a better look at the pair. He turned and settled his hands on my upper arms, keeping me where I was.

“They’re friends,” Matthew said, but his obvious effort to regroup made me wonder if he was telling the truth.

“Well, well. She’s no ghost.” Hancock peered over Matthew’s shoulder, and my flesh turned to ice.

Of course Hancock and Gallowglass were vampires. What other creatures could be that big and bloody-looking?

“Nor is she from Chester,” Gallowglass said thoughtfully. “Does she always have such a bright glaem about her?”

The word might be unfamiliar, but its meaning was clear enough. I was shimmering again. It sometimes happened when I was angry, or concentrating on a problem. It was another familiar manifestation of a witch’s power, and vampires could detect the pale glow with their preternaturally sharp eyes. Feeling conspicuous, I stepped back into Matthew’s shadow.

“That’s not going to help, lady. Our ears are as sharp as our eyes. Your witch’s blood is trilling like a bird.” Hancock’s bushy red brows rose as he looked sourly at his companion. “Trouble always travels in the company of women.”

“Trouble is no fool. Given the choice, I’d rather travel with a woman than with you.” The blond warrior addressed Matthew. “It’s been a long day, Hancock’s arse is sore, and he’s hungry. If you don’t tell him why there’s a witch in your house, and quickly, I don’t have high hopes for her continued safety.”

“It must have to do with Berwick,” Hancock declared. “Bloody witches. Always causing trouble.”

“Berwick?” My pulse kicked up a notch. I recognized the name. One of the most notorious witch trials in the British Isles was connected to it. I searched my memory for the dates. Surely it had happened well before or after 1590, or Matthew wouldn’t have selected this moment for our timewalk. But Hancock’s next words drove all thoughts of chronology and history from my mind.

“That, or some new Congregation business that Matthew will want us to sort out for him.”

“The Congregation?” Marlowe’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at Matthew appraisingly. “Is this true? Are you one of the mysterious members?”

“Of course it’s true! How do you imagine he’s kept you from the noose, young Marlowe?” Hancock searched the room. “Is there something to drink other than wine? I hate these French pretensions of yours, de Clermont. What’s wrong with ale?”

“Not now, Davy,” Gallowglass murmured to his friend, though his eyes were fixed on Matthew.

My eyes were fixed on him, too, as an awful sense of clarity settled over me.

“Tell me you’re not,” I whispered. “Tell me you didn’t keep this from me.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Matthew said flatly. “I promised you secrets but no lies, remember?”

I felt sick. In 1590, Matthew was a member of the Congregation, and the Congregation was our enemy.

“And Berwick? You told me there was no danger of being caught up in a witch-hunt.”

“Nothing in Berwick will affect us here,” Matthew assured me.

“What has happened in Berwick?” Walter asked, uneasy.

“Before we left Chester, there was news out of Scotland. A great gathering of witches met in a village east of Edinburgh on All Hallows’ Eve,” Hancock said. “There was talk again of the storm the Danish witches raised this past summer, and the spouts of seawater that foretold the coming of a creature with fearsome powers.”

“The authorities have rounded up dozens of the poor wretches,” Gallowglass continued, his arctic-blue eyes still on Matthew. “The cunning woman in the town of Keith, Widow Sampson, is awaiting the king’s questioning in the dungeons of Holyrood Palace. Who knows how many will join her there before this business is done?”

“The king’s torture, you mean,” Hancock muttered. “They say the woman has been locked into a witch’s bridle so she cannot utter more charms against His Majesty, and chained to the wall without food or drink.”

I sat down abruptly.

“Is this one of the accused, then?” Gallowglass asked Matthew. “And I’d like the witch’s bargain, too, if I may: secrets, but no lies.”

There was a long silence before Matthew answered. “Diana is my wife, Gallowglass.”

“You abandoned us in Chester for a woman?” Hancock was horrified. “But we had work to do!”

“You have an unerring ability to grab the wrong end of the staff, Davy.” Gallowglass’s glance shifted to me. “Your wife?” he said carefully. “So this is just a legal arrangement to satisfy curious humans and justify her presence here while the Congregation decides her future?”

“Not just my wife,” Matthew admitted. “She’s my mate, too.” A vampire mated for life when compelled to do so by an instinctive combination of affection, affinity, lust, and chemistry. The resulting bond was breakable only by death. Vampires might marry multiple times, but most mated just once.

Gallowglass swore, though the sound of it was almost drowned out by his friend’s amusement.

“And His Holiness proclaimed the age of miracles had passed,” Hancock crowed. “Matthew de Clermont is mated at last. But no ordinary, placid human or properly schooled female wearh who knows her place would do. Not for our Matthew. Now that he’s decided at last to settle down with one woman, it had to be a witch. We have more to worry about than the good people of Woodstock, then.”

“What’s wrong in Woodstock?” I asked Matthew with a frown.

“Nothing,” Matthew said breezily. But it was the hulking blond who held my attention.

“Some old besom went into fits on market day. She’s blaming it on you.” Gallowglass studied me from head to toe as if trying to imagine how someone so unprepossessing had caused so much trouble.

“Widow Beaton,” I said breathlessly.

The appearance of Françoise and Charles forestalled further conversation. Françoise had fragrant gingerbread and spiced wine for the warmbloods. Kit (who was never reluctant to sample the contents of Matthew’s cellar) and George (who was looking a bit green after the evening’s revelations) helped themselves. Both had the air of audience members waiting for the next act to start.

Charles, whose task it was to sustain the vampires, had a delicate pitcher with silver handles and three tall glass beakers. The red liquid within was darker and more opaque than any wine. Hancock stopped Charles on his way to the head of the household.

“I need something to drink more than Matthew does,” he said, grabbing a beaker while Charles gasped at the affront. Hancock sniffed the pitcher’s contents and took that, too. “I haven’t had fresh blood for three days. You have odd taste in women, de Clermont, but no one can criticize your hospitality.”

Matthew motioned Charles in the direction of Gallowglass, who also drank thirstily. When Gallowglass took his final draft, he wiped his hand across his mouth.

“Well?” he demanded. “You’re tight-lipped, I know, but some explanation as to how you let yourself get into this seems in order.”

“This would be better discussed in private,” said Walter, eyeing George and the two daemons.

“Why is that, Raleigh?” Hancock’s voice took on a pugnacious edge. “De Clermont has a lot to answer for. So does his witch. And those answers had best trip off her tongue. We passed a priest on the way. He was with two gentlemen who had prosperous waistlines. Based on what I heard, de Clermont’s mate will have three days—”

“At least five,” Gallowglass corrected.

“Maybe five,” Hancock said, inclining his head in his companion’s direction, “before she’s held over for trial, two days to figure out what to say to the magistrates, and less than half an hour to come up with a convincing lie for the good father. You had best start telling us the truth.”

All attention settled on Matthew, who stood mute.

“The clock will strike the quarter hour soon,” Hancock reminded him after some time had passed.

I took matters into my own hands. “Matthew protected me from my own people.”

“Diana,” Matthew growled.

“Matthew meddled in the affairs of witches?” Gallowglass’s eyes widened slightly.

I nodded. “Once the danger passed, we were mated.”

“And all this happened between noon and nightfall on Saturday?” Gallowglass shook his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Auntie.”

“‘Auntie’?” I turned to Matthew in shock. First Berwick, then the Congregation, and now this. “This . . . berserker is your nephew? Let me guess. He’s Baldwin’s son!” Gallowglass was almost as muscle-bound as Matthew’s copper-headed brother—and as persistent. There were other de Clermonts I knew: Godfrey, Louisa, and Hugh (who received only brief, cryptic mentions). Gallowglass could belong to any of them—or to someone else on Matthew’s convoluted family tree.

“Baldwin?” Gallowglass gave a delicate shiver. “Even before I became a wearh, I knew better than to let that monster near my neck. Besides, my people were Úlfhéðnar, not berserkers. And I’m only part Norse—the gentle part, if you must know. The rest is Scots, by way of Ireland.”

“Foul-tempered, the Scots,” Hancock added.

Gallowglass acknowledged his companion’s remark with a gentle tug on his ear. A golden ring glinted in the light, incised with the outlines of a coffin. A man was stepping free of it, and there was a motto around the edges.

“You’re knights.” I looked for a matching ring on Hancock’s finger. There it was, oddly placed on his thumb. Here at last was evidence that Matthew was involved in the business of the Order of Lazarus, too.

“We-elll,” Gallowglass drawled, sounding suddenly like the Scot he professed to be, “there’s always been a dispute about that. We’re not really the shining-armor type, are we Davy?”

“No. But the de Clermonts have deep pockets. Money like that is hard to refuse,” Hancock observed, “especially when they promise you a long life for the enjoying of it.”

“They’re fierce fighters, too.” Gallowglass rubbed the bridge of his nose again. It was flattened, as though it had been broken and never healed properly.

“Oh, aye. The bastards killed me before they saved me. Fixed my bad eye, while they were at it,” Hancock said cheerfully, pointing to his gammy lid.

“Then you’re loyal to the de Clermonts.” Sudden relief washed through me. I would prefer to have Gallowglass and Hancock as allies rather than enemies, given the disaster unfolding.

“Not always,” replied Gallowglass darkly.

“Not to Baldwin. He’s a sly bugger. And when Matthew behaves like a fool, we pay no attention to him either.” Hancock sniffed and pointed to the gingerbread, which lay forgotten on the table. “Is someone going to eat that, or can we pitch it into the fire? Between Matthew’s scent and Charles’s cooking, I feel ill.”

“Given our approaching visitors, our time would be better spent devising a course of action than talking about family history,” Walter said impatiently.

“Jesu, there’s no time to come up with a plan,” Hancock said cheerfully. “Matthew and his lordship should say a prayer instead. They’re men of God. Maybe He’s listening.”

“Perhaps the witch could fly away,” Gallowglass murmured. He held up both hands in mute surrender when Matthew glared at him.

“Oh, but she can’t.” All eyes turned to Marlowe. “She can’t even conjure Matthew a beard.”

“You’ve taken up with a witch, against all the Congregation’s strictures, and she’s worthless?” It was impossible to tell if Gallowglass was more indignant or incredulous. “A wife who can summon a storm or give your enemy a horrible skin affliction has certain advantages, I grant you. But what good is a witch who can’t even serve as her husband’s barber?”

“Only Matthew would wed a witch from God-knows-where with no sorcery to speak of,” Hancock muttered to Walter.

“Quiet, all of you!” Matthew exploded. “I can’t think for all the senseless chatter. It’s not Diana’s fault that Widow Beaton is a meddling old fool or that she can’t perform magic on command. My wife was spellbound. And there’s an end to it. If one more person in this room questions me or criticizes Diana, I’ll rip your heart out and feed it to you while it still beats.”

“There is our lord and master,” Hancock said with a mocking salute. “For a minute I was afraid you were the one who was bewitched. Hang on, though. If she’s spellbound, what’s wrong with her? Is she dangerous? Mad? Both?”

Unnerved by the influx of nephews, agitated parsons, and the trouble brewing in Woodstock, I reached behind me for the chair. With my reach restricted by the unfamiliar clothes, I lost my balance and began to fall. A rough hand shot out and gripped me by the elbow, lowering me to the seat with surprising gentleness.

“It’s all right, Auntie.” Gallowglass made a soft noise of sympathy. “I’m not sure what’s amiss in your head, but Matthew will take care of you. He has a warm spot in his heart for lost souls, bless him.”

“I’m dizzy, not deranged,” I retorted.

Gallowglass’s eyes were flinty as his mouth approached my ear. “Your speech is disordered enough to stand for madness, and I doubt the priest cares one way or the other. Given that you aren’t from Chester or anywhere else I’ve been—and that’s a fair number of places, Auntie—you might want to mind your manners unless you want to find yourself locked in the church crypt.”

Long fingers clamped around Gallowglass’s shoulder and pulled him away. “If you’re quite finished trying to frighten my wife—a pointless exercise, I assure you—you might tell me about the men you passed,” Matthew said frostily. “Were they armed?”

“No.” After a long, interested look at me, Gallowglass turned toward his uncle.

“And who was with the minister?”

“How the hell should we know, Matthew? All three were warmbloods and not worth a second thought. One was fat and gray-haired, the other was medium size and complained about the weather,” Gallowglass said impatiently.

“Bidwell,” Matthew and Walter said at the same moment.

“It’s probably Iffley with him,” remarked Walter. “The two of them are always complaining—about the state of the roads, the noise at the inn, the quality of the beer.”

“Who’s Iffley?” I wondered aloud.

“A man who fancies himself the finest glover in all England. Somers works for him,” Walter replied.

“Master Iffley does craft the queen’s gloves,” George acknowledged.

“He made her a single pair of hunting gauntlets two decades ago. That’s hardly enough to make Iffley the most important man for thirty miles, dearly as he might covet the honor.” Matthew snorted contemptuously. “Singly none of them are terribly bright. Together they’re downright foolish. If that’s the best the village can do, we can return to our reading.”

“That’s it?” Walter’s voice was brittle. “We sit and let them come to us?” “Yes. But Diana doesn’t leave my sight—or yours, Gallowglass,” Matthew warned.

“You don’t have to remind me of my family duty, Uncle. I’ll be sure your feisty wife makes it to your bed tonight.”

“Feisty, am I? My husband is a member of the Congregation. A posse of men is coming on horseback to accuse me of harming a friendless old woman. I’m in a strange place and keep getting lost on my way to the bedroom. I still have no shoes. And I’m living in a dormitory full of adolescent boys who never stop talking!” I fumed. “But you needn’t trouble yourself on my account. I can take care of myself!”

“Take care of yourself?” Gallowglass laughed at me and shook his head. “No you can’t. And when the fighting’s done, we’ll need to see to that accent of yours. I didn’t understand half of what you just said.”

“She must be Irish,” Hancock said, glaring at me. “That would explain the spellbinding and the disordered speech. The whole lot of them are mad.”

“She’s not Irish,” Gallowglass said. “Mad or no, I would have understood her accent if that were the case.”

“Quiet!” Matthew bellowed.

“The men from the village are at the gatehouse,” Pierre announced in the ensuing silence.

“Go and fetch them,” Matthew ordered. He turned his attention to me. “Let me do the talking. Don’t answer their questions unless and until I tell you to do so. Now,” he continued briskly, “we can’t afford to have anything . . . unusual happen tonight as it did when Widow Beaton was here. Are you still dizzy? Do you need to lie down?”

“Curious. I’m curious,” I said, hands clenched. “Don’t worry about my magic or my health. Worry about how many hours it’s going to take you to answer my questions after the minister is gone. And if you try to wiggle out of them with the excuse that ‘it’s not my tale to tell,’ I’ll flatten you.”

“You are perfectly fine, then.” Matthew’s mouth twitched. He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “I love you, ma lionne.”

“You might reserve your professions of love until later and give Auntie a chance to compose herself,” Gallowglass suggested.

“Why does everyone feel compelled to tell me how to manage my own wife?” Matthew shot back. The cracks in his composure were starting to show.

“I really couldn’t say,” Gallowglass replied serenely. “She reminds me a bit of Granny, though. We give Philippe advice morning, noon, and night about how best to control her. Not that he listens.”

The men arranged themselves around the room. The apparent randomness of their positions created a human funnel—wider at the entrance to the room, narrower at the fireside where Matthew and I sat. As George and Kit would be the first to greet the man of God and his companions, Walter whisked away their dice and the manuscript of Doctor Faustus in favor of a copy of Herodotus’s Histories. Though it was not a Bible, Raleigh assured us it would lend proper gravitas to the situation. Kit was still protesting the unfairness of the substitution when footsteps and voices sounded.

Pierre ushered the three men inside. One so strongly resembled the reedy young man who had measured me for shoes that I knew at once he was Joseph Bidwell. He started at the sound of the door closing behind him and looked uneasily over his shoulder. When his bleary eyes faced forward again and he saw the size of the assembly awaiting him, he jumped once more. Walter, who occupied a position of strategic importance in the middle of the room with Hancock and Henry, ignored the nervous shoemaker and cast a look of disdain at a man in a bedraggled religious habit.

“What brings you here on such a night, Mr. Danforth?” Raleigh demanded.

“Sir Walter,” Danforth said with a bow, taking a cap from his head and twisting it between his fingers. He spotted the Earl of Northumberland. “My lord! I did not know you were still amongst us.”

“Is there something you need, ?” Matthew asked pleasantly. He remained seated, legs stretched out in apparent relaxation.

“Ah. Master Roydon.” Danforth made another bow, this one directed at us. He gave me a curious look before fear overtook him and redirected his eyes to his hat. “We have not seen you in church or in town. Bidwell thought you might be indisposed.”

Bidwell shifted on his feet. The leather boots he wore squelched and complained, and the man’s lungs joined in the chorus with wheezes and a barking cough. A wilted ruff constricted his windpipe and quivered every time he tried to draw breath. Its pleated linen was distinctly the worse for wear, and a greasy brown spot near his chin suggested he’d had gravy with supper.

“Yes, I was taken sick in Chester, but it has passed with God’s grace and thanks to my wife’s care.” Matthew reached out and clasped my hand with husbandly devotion. “My physician thought it would be best if my hair were shorn to rid me of the fever, but it was Diana’s insistence on cool baths that made the difference.”

“Wife?” Danforth said faintly. “Widow Beaton did not tell me—”

“I do not share my private affairs with ignorant women,” Matthew said sharply.

Bidwell sneezed. Matthew examined him first with concern, then with a carefully managed look of dawning understanding. I was learning a great deal about my husband this evening, including the fact that he could be a surprisingly good actor.

“Oh. But of course you are here to ask Diana to cure Bidwell.” Matthew made a sound of regret. “There is so much idle gossip. Has the news of my wife’s skill spread already?”

In this period medicinal knowledge was perilously close to a witch’s lore. Was Matthew trying to get me in trouble?

Bidwell wanted to respond, but all he could manage was a gurgle and a shake of his head.

“If you are not here for physic, then you must be here to deliver Diana’s shoes.” Matthew looked at me fondly, then to the minister. “As you have no doubt heard, my wife’s possessions were lost during our journey, Mr. Danforth.” Matthew’s attention returned to the shoemaker, and a shade of reproach crept into his tone. “I know you are a busy man, Bidwell, but I hope you’ve finished the pattens at least. Diana is determined to go to church this week, and the path to the vestry is often flooded. Someone really should see to it.”

Iffley’s chest had been swelling with indignation since Matthew had started speaking. Finally the man could stand it no more.

“Bidwell brought the shoes you paid for, but we are not here to secure your wife’s services or trifle with pattens and puddles!” Iffley drew his cloak around his hips in a gesture that was intended to convey dignity, but the soaked wool only emphasized his resemblance to a drowned rat, with his pointy nose and beady eyes. “Tell her, Mr. Danforth.”

The Reverend Danforth looked as though he would rather be roasting in hell than standing in Matthew Roydon’s house, confronting his wife.

“Go on. Tell her,” urged Iffley.

“Allegations have been made—” That was far as Danforth got before Walter, Henry, and Hancock closed ranks.

“If you are here to make allegations, sir, you can direct them to me or to his lordship,” Walter said sharply.

“Or to me,” George piped up. “I am well read in the law.” “Ah . . . Er . . . Yes . . . Well . . .” The cleric subsided into silence. “Widow Beaton has fallen ill. So has young Bidwell,” said Iffley, determined to forge on in spite of Danforth’s failing nerve.

“No doubt it is the same ague that afflicted me and now the boy’s father,” my husband said softly. His fingers tightened on mine. Behind me Gallowglass swore under his breath. “Of what, exactly, are you accusing my wife, Iffley?”

“Widow Beaton refused to join her in some evil business. Mistress Roydon vowed to afflict her joints and head with pains.”

“My son has lost his hearing,” Bidwell complained, his voice thick with misery and phlegm. “There is a fierce ringing in his ears, like unto the sound of a bell. Widow Beaton says he has been bewitched.”

“No,” I whispered. The blood left my head in a sudden, startling drop. Gallowglass’s hands were on my shoulders in an instant, keeping me upright.

The word “bewitched” had me staring into a familiar abyss. My greatest fear had always been that humans would discover I was descended from Bridget Bishop. Then the curious glances would start, and the suspicions. The only possible response was flight. I tried to worm my fingers from Matthew’s grasp, but he might have been made of stone for all the good it did me, and Gallowglass still had charge of my shoulders.

“Widow Beaton has long suffered from rheumatism, and Bidwell’s son has recurrent putrid throats. They often cause pain and deafness. These illnesses occurred before my wife came to Woodstock.” Matthew made a lazy, dismissive gesture with his free hand. “The old woman is jealous of Diana’s skill, and young Joseph was taken with her beauty and envious of my married state. These are not allegations, but idle imaginings.”

“As a man of God, Master Roydon, it is my responsibility to take them seriously. I have been reading.” Mr. Danforth reached into his black robes and pulled out a tattered sheaf of papers. It was no more than a few dozen sheets crudely stitched together with coarse string. Time and heavy use had softened the papers’ fibers, fraying the edges and turning the pages gray. I was too far away to make out the title page. All three vampires saw it, though. So did George, who blanched.

“That’s part of the Malleus Maleficarum. I did not know that your Latin was good enough to comprehend such a difficult work, Mr. Danforth,” Matthew said. It was the most influential witch-hunting manual ever produced, and a title that struck terror into a witch’s heart.

The minister looked affronted. “I attended university, Master Roydon.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. That book shouldn’t be in the possession of the weak-minded or superstitious.”

“You know it?” Danforth asked.

“I, too, attended university,” Matthew replied mildly.

“Then you understand why I must question this woman.” Danforth attempted to advance into the room. Hancock’s low growl brought him to a standstill.

“My wife has no difficulties with her hearing. You needn’t come closer.”

“I told you Mistress Roydon has unnatural powers!” Iffley said triumphantly.

Danforth gripped his book. “Who taught you these things, Mistress Roydon?” he called down the echoing expanse of the hall. “From whom did you learn your witchcraft?”

This was how the madness began: with questions designed to trap the accused into condemning other creatures. One life at a time, witches were caught up in the web of lies and destroyed. Thousands of my people had been tortured and killed thanks to such tactics. Denials burbled up into my throat.

“Don’t.” Matthew’s single word of warning was uttered in an icy murmur.

“Strange things are happening in Woodstock. A white stag crossed Widow Beaton’s path,” Danforth continued. “It stopped in the road and stared until her flesh turned cold. Last night a gray wolf was seen outside her house. Its eyes glowed in the darkness, brighter than the lamps that were hung out to help travelers find shelter in the storm. Which of these creatures is your familiar? Who gifted you with it?” Matthew didn’t need to tell me to keep silent this time. The priest’s questions were following a well-known pattern, one I had studied in graduate school.

“The witch must answer your questions, Mr. Danforth,” Iffley insisted, pulling at his companion’s sleeve. “Such insolence from a creature of darkness cannot be allowed in a godly community.”

“My wife speaks to no one without my consent,” said Matthew. “And mind whom you call witch, Iffley.” The more the villagers challenged him, the harder it was for Matthew to restrain himself.

The minister’s eyes traveled from me to Matthew and back again. I stifled a whimper.

“Her agreement with the devil makes it impossible for her to speak the truth,” Bidwell said.

“Hush, Master Bidwell,” Danforth chided. “What do you wish to say, my child? Who introduced you to the devil? Was it another woman?”

“Or man,” Iffley said under his breath. “Mistress Roydon is not the only child of darkness to be found here. There are strange books and instruments, and midnight gatherings are held to conjure spirits.”

Harriot sighed and thrust his book at Danforth. “Mathematics, sir, not magic. Widow Beaton spotted a geometry text.”

“It is not your place to determine the extent of the evil here,” Iffley sputtered.

“If it’s evil you’re seeking, look for it at Widow Beaton’s.” Though he’d done his best to remain calm, Matthew was rapidly losing his temper.

“Do you accuse her of witchcraft, then?” Danforth asked sharply.

“No, Matthew. Not that way,” I whispered, tugging on his hand to gain his attention.

Matthew turned to me. His face looked inhuman, his pupils glassy and enormous. I shook my head, and he took a deep breath, trying to calm both his fury at the invasion of his home and his fierce instinct to protect me.

“Stop your ears against his words, Mr. Danforth. Roydon might be an instrument of the devil, too,” Iffley warned.

Matthew faced the delegation. “If you have reason to charge my wife with some offense, find a magistrate and do so. Otherwise get out. And before you return, Danforth, consider whether aligning with Iffley and Bidwell is a wise course of action.”

The parson gulped.

“You heard him,” Hancock barked. “Out!”

“Justice will be served, Master Roydon—God’s justice,” Danforth proclaimed as he backed out of the room.

“Only if my version doesn’t resolve the matter first, Danforth,” Walter promised.

Pierre and Charles materialized from the shadows, throwing open the doors to shepherd the wide-eyed warmbloods from the room. Outside, it was blowing a gale. The fierceness of the waiting storm would only confirm their suspicions about my supernatural powers.

Out, out, out! called an insistent voice in my head. Panic flooded my system with adrenaline. I had been reduced to prey once more. Gallowglass and Hancock turned toward me, intrigued by the scent of fear seeping from my pores.

“Stay where you are,” Matthew warned the vampires. He crouched before me. “Diana’s instincts are telling her to flee. She’ll be fine in a moment.”

“This is never going to end. We came for help, but even here I’m hunted.” I bit my lip.

“There’s nothing to fear. Danforth and Iffley will think twice before causing any more trouble,” Matthew said firmly, taking my clasped hands in his. “No one wants me for an enemy—not other creatures, not the humans.”

“I understand why the creatures might fear you. You’re a member of the Congregation and have the power destroy them or, even worse, expose them to the humans. No wonder Widow Beaton came here when you commanded. But that doesn’t explain this human reaction to you. Danforth and Iffley must suspect that you’re a . . . wearh.” I caught myself just before the word vampire spilled out.

“Oh, he’s in no danger from them,” said Hancock dismissively. “These men are nobodies. Unfortunately, they’re likely to bring this business to the attention of humans who do matter.”

“Ignore him,” Matthew told me.

“Which humans?” I whispered.

Gallowglass gasped. “By all that is holy, Matthew. I’ve seen you do terrible things, but how could you keep this from your wife, too?”

Matthew looked into the fire. When his eyes finally met mine, they were filled with regret.

“Matthew?” I prompted. The knot that had been forming in my stomach since the arrival of the first bag of mail tightened further.

“They don’t think I’m a vampire. They know I’m a spy.”

6

“A spy?” I repeated numbly.

“We prefer to be called intelligencers,” Kit said tartly.

“Shut it, Marlowe,” Hancock growled, “or I’ll stop that mouth for you.” “Spare us, Hancock. No one takes you seriously when you sputter like that.” Marlowe’s chin jutted into the room. “And if you don’t keep a civil tongue with me, there will soon be an end to all these Welsh kings and soldiers on the stage. I’ll make you all traitors and servants with low cunning.”

“What is a vampire?” George asked, reaching for his notebook with one hand and a piece of gingerbread with the other. As usual, no one was paying much attention to him.

“So you’re some kind of Elizabethan James Bond? But . . .” I looked at Marlowe, horrified. He would be murdered in a knife fight in Deptford before he reached the age of thirty, and the crime would be linked to his life as a spy.

“The London hatmaker near St. Dunstan’s who turns such a neat brim? That James Bond?” George chuckled. “Whyever would you think Matthew was a hatmaker, Mistress Roydon?”

“No, George, not that James Bond.” Matthew remained crouched before me, watching my reactions. “You were better off not knowing about this.” “Bullshit.” I neither knew nor cared if this was an appropriately Elizabethan oath. “I deserve the truth.”

“Perhaps, Mistress Roydon, but if you truly love him, it is pointless to insist upon it,” Marlowe said. “Matthew can no longer distinguish between what is true and what is not. This is why he is invaluable to Her Majesty.” “We’re here to find you a teacher,” Matthew insisted, his eyes locked on me. “The fact that I am both a member of the Congregation and the queen’s agent will keep you from harm. Nothing happens in the country without my being aware of it.”

“For someone who claims to know everything, you were blissfully unaware that I’ve thought for days that something was going on in this house. There is too much mail. And you and Walter have been arguing.” “You see what I want you to see. Nothing more.” Even though Matthew’s tendency toward imperiousness had grown exponentially since we came to the Old Lodge, my jaw dropped at his tone.

“How dare you,” I said slowly. Matthew knew I’d spent my whole life surrounded by secrets. I’d paid a high price for it, too. I stood.

“Sit down,” he grated out. “Please.” He caught my hand.

Matthew’s best friend, Hamish Osborne, had warned me that he wouldn’t be the same man here. How could he be, when the world was such a different place? Women were expected to accept without question what a man told them. Among his friends it was all too easy for Matthew to slip back into old behaviors and patterns of thinking.

“Only if you answer me. I want the name of the person you report to and how you got embroiled in this business.” I glanced over at his nephew and his friends, worried that these were state secrets.

“They already know about Kit and me,” Matthew said, following my eyes. He struggled to find the words. “It all started with Francis Walsingham.

“I’d left England late in Henry’s reign. I spent time in Constantinople, went to Cyprus, wandered through Spain, fought at Lepanto—even set up a printing business in Antwerp,” Matthew explained. “It’s the usual path for a wearh. We search for a tragedy, an opportunity to slip into someone else’s life. But nothing suited me, so I returned home. France was on the verge of religious and civil war. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn the signs. A Huguenot schoolmaster was happy to take my money and go to Geneva, where he could raise his daughters in safety. I took the identity of his long-dead cousin, moved into his house in Paris, and started over as Matthew de la Forêt.”

“‘Matthew of the Forest’?” My eyebrows lifted at the irony. “That was the schoolmaster’s name,” he said wryly. “Paris was dangerous, and Walsingham, as English ambassador, was a magnet for every disenchanted rebel in the country. Late in the summer of 1572, all the simmering anger in France came to a boil. I helped Walsingham escape, along with the English Protestants he was sheltering.”

“The massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Day.” I shivered, thinking of the blood-soaked wedding between a French Catholic princess and her Protestant husband.

“I became the queen’s agent later, when she sent Walsingham back to Paris. He was supposed to be brokering Her Majesty’s marriage to one of the Valois princes.” Matthew snorted. “It was clear the queen had no real interest in the match. It was during that visit that I learned of Walsingham’s network of intelligencers.”

My husband met my eyes briefly, then looked away. He was still keeping something from me. I reviewed the story, detected the fault lines in his account, and followed them to a single, inescapable conclusion: Matthew was French, Catholic, and he could not possibly have been aligned politically with Elizabeth Tudor in 1572—or in 1590. If he was working for the English Crown, it was for some larger purpose. But the Congregation had vowed to stay out of human politics. Philippe de Clermont and his Knights of Lazarus had not.

“You’re working for your father. And you’re not only a vampire but a Catholic in a Protestant country.”

The fact that Matthew was working for the Knights of Lazarus, not just Elizabeth, exponentially increased the danger. It wasn’t just witches who were hunted down and executed in Elizabethan England —so were traitors, creatures with unusual powers, and people of different faiths. “The Congregation is of no help if you get involved with human politics. How could your own family ask you to do something so risky?”

Hancock grinned. “That’s why there’s always a de Clermont on the Congregation—to make sure lofty ideals don’t get in the way of good business.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve worked for Philippe, nor will it be the last. You’re good at uncovering secrets. I’m good at keeping them,” Matthew said simply.

Scientist. Vampire. Warrior. Spy. Another piece of Matthew fell into place, and with it I better understood his ingrained habit of never sharing anything—major or minor—unless he was forced to do so.

“I don’t care how much experience you have! Your safety depends on Walsingham—and you’re deceiving him.” His words had only made me angrier.

“Walsingham is dead. I report to William Cecil now.”

“The canniest man alive,” Gallowglass said quietly. “Except for Philippe, of course.”

“And Kit? Does he work for Cecil or for you?”

“Tell her nothing, Matthew,” Kit said. “The witch cannot be trusted.”

“Why, you sly, wee boggart,” Hancock said softly. “It’s you who’s been stirring up the villagers.”

Kit’s cheeks burned red in twin pronouncements of guilt.

“Christ, Kit. What have you done?” Matthew asked, astonished.

“Nothing,” said Marlowe sullenly.

“You’ve been telling tales again.” Hancock waggled his finger in admonishment. “I’ve warned you before that we won’t stand for that, Master Marlowe.”

“Woodstock was already buzzing with news of Matthew’s wife,” Kit protested. “The rumors were bound to bring the Congregation down upon us. How was I supposed to know that the Congregation was already here?”

“Surely you’ll let me kill him now, de Clermont. I’ve wanted to do so for ages,” Hancock said, cracking his knuckles.

“No. You can’t kill him.” Matthew rubbed a hand over his tired face.

“There would be too many questions, and I don’t have the patience to come up with convincing answers at present. It’s just village gossip. I’ll handle it.”

“This gossip comes at a bad time,” Gallowglass reported quietly. “It’s not just Berwick. You know how anxious people were about witches in Chester. When we went north into Scotland, the situation was worse.”

“If this business spreads south into England, she’ll be the death of us,” Marlowe promised, pointing at me.

“This trouble will stay confined to Scotland,” Matthew retorted. “And there will be no more visits to the village, Kit.”

“She appeared on All Hallows’ Eve, just when the arrival of a fearsome witch was predicted. Don’t you see? Your new wife raised the storms against King James, and now she has turned her attention to England. Cecil must be told. She poses a danger to the queen.”

“Quiet, Kit,” Henry cautioned, pulling at his arm.

“You cannot silence me. Telling the queen is my duty. Once you would have agreed with me, Henry. But since the witch came, everything’s changed! She has enchanted everyone in the house.” Kit’s eyes were frantic.

“You dote on her like a sister. George is half in love. Tom praises her wit, and Walter would have her skirts up and her back against a wall if he weren’t afraid of Matt. Return her to where she belongs. We were happy before.”

“Matthew wasn’t happy.”

Tom had been drawn to our end of the room by Marlowe’s angry energy.

“You say you love him.” Kit turned to me, his face full of entreaty. “Do you truly know what he is? Have you seen him feed, felt the hunger in him when a warmblood is near? Can you accept Matthew completely—the blackness in his soul along with the light—as I do? You have your magic for solace, but I am not fully alive without him. All poetry flies from my mind when he is gone, and only Matthew can see what little good I have in me. Leave him to me. Please.”

“I can’t,” I said simply.

Kit wiped his sleeve across his mouth as if the gesture might remove all trace of me. “When the rest of the Congregation discovers your affections for him—”

“If my affection for him is forbidden, so is yours,” I interrupted. Marlowe flinched. “But none of us choose whom we love.”

“Iffley and his friends won’t be the last to accuse you of witchcraft,” Kit said with a note of sour triumph. “Mark me well, Mistress Roydon. Daemons often see the future as plainly as witches.”

Matthew’s hand moved to my waist. The cold, familiar touch of his fingers swept from one side of my rib cage to the other, following the curved path that marked me as belonging to a vampire. For Matthew it was a powerful reminder of his earlier failure to keep me safe. Kit made a horrible, half-swallowed sound of distress at the intimacy of the gesture. “If you are so prescient, then you should have foreseen what your betrayal would mean to me,” Matthew said, gradually unfolding himself.

“Get out of my sight, Kit, or so help me God there will be nothing left of you to bury.”

“You would have her over me?” Kit sounded dumbfounded.

“In a heartbeat. Get out,” repeated Matthew.

Kit’s passage out of the room was measured, but once in the corridor his pace quickened. His feet echoed on the wooden stairs, faster and faster, as he climbed to his room.

“We’ll have to watch him.” Gallowglass’s shrewd eyes turned from Kit’s departing back to Hancock. “He can’t be trusted now.”

“Marlowe could never be trusted,” Hancock muttered.

Pierre slipped through the open door looking stricken, another piece of mail in his hand.

“Not now, Pierre,” Matthew groaned, sitting down and reaching for his wine. His shoulders sagged against the back of his chair. “There simply isn’t room in this day for one more crisis—be it queen, country, or Catholics. Whatever it is can wait until morning.”

“But . . . milord,” Pierre stammered, holding out the letter. Matthew glanced at the decisive writing that marched across the front. “Christ and all His saints.” His fingers rose to touch the paper, then froze. Matthew’s throat moved as he struggled for control. Something red and bright appeared in the corner of his eye, then slid down his cheek and splashed onto the folds of his collar. A vampire’s blood tear.

“What is it, Matthew?” I looked over his shoulder, wondering what had caused so much grief.

“Ah. The day is not over yet,” Hancock said uneasily while he backed away. “There is one small matter that requires your attention. Your father thinks you’re dead.”

In my own time, it was Matthew’s father, Philippe, who was dead—horribly, tragically, irrevocably so. But this was 1590, which meant he was alive. Ever since we’d arrived, I had worried about a chance encounter with Ysabeau or with Matthew’s laboratory assistant, Miriam, and the ripples such a meeting might cause in future times. Not once had I considered what seeing Philippe would do to Matthew.

Past, present, and future collided. Had I looked into the corners, I would surely have seen time unspooling in protest at the clash. But my eyes were fixed on Matthew instead, and the blood tear caught in the snowy linen at his throat.

Gallowglass brusquely picked up the tale. “With the news from Scotland and your sudden disappearance, we feared you’d gone north for the queen and been caught up in the madness there. We looked for two days. When we couldn’t find a trace of you—hell, Matthew, we had no choice but to tell Philippe you had vanished. It was that or raise the alarm with the Congregation.”

“There’s more, milord.” Pierre flipped the letter over. The seal on it was like the others I associated with the Knights of Lazarus—except that the wax used here was a vivid swirl of black and red and an ancient silver coin had been pushed into its surface, the edges worn and thin, instead of the usual impression of the order’s seal. The coin was stamped with a cross and a crescent, two de Clermont family symbols.

“What did you tell him?” Matthew was transfixed by the pale moon of silver floating in its red-black sea.

“Our words are of little consequence now that this has arrived. You must be on French soil within the next week. Otherwise Philippe will set out for England,” Hancock mumbled.

“My father cannot come here, Hancock. It is impossible.”

“Of course it’s impossible. The queen would have his head after all he’s done to stir the pot of English politics. You must go to him. So long as you travel night and day, you will have plenty of time,” Hancock assured him.

“I can’t.” Matthew’s gaze was fixed on the unopened letter.

“Philippe will have horses waiting. You will be back before long,” Gallowglass murmured, resting his hand on his uncle’s shoulder.

Matthew looked up, eyes suddenly wild. “It’s not the distance. It’s—” Matthew stopped abruptly.

“He’s your mother’s husband, man. Surely you can trust Philippe—unless you’ve been lying to him as well.”

Hancock’s eyes narrowed. “Kit’s right. No one can trust me.” Matthew shot to his feet. “My life is a tissue of lies.”

“This isn’t the time or place for your philosophical nonsense, Matthew. Even now Philippe wonders if he has lost another son!” Gallowglass exclaimed. “Leave the girl with us, get on your horse, and do what your father commands. If you don’t, I’ll knock you out and Hancock will carry you there.”

“You must be very sure of yourself, Gallowglass, to issue me orders,” Matthew said, a dangerous edge to his tone. He braced his hands on the chimneypiece and stared into the fire.

“I’m sure of my grandfather. Ysabeau made you a wearh, but it is Philippe’s blood that courses through my veins.”

Gallowglass’s words wounded Matthew. His head snapped up when the blow landed, raw emotion overcoming his usual impassiveness.

“George, Tom, go upstairs and see to Kit,” Walter murmured, pointing his friends to the door. Raleigh inclined his head in Pierre’s direction, and Matthew’s servant joined in the efforts to get them out of the room. Calls for more wine and food echoed through the vestibule. Once the two were in Françoise’s care, Pierre returned, shut the door firmly, and placed himself before it. With only Walter, Henry, Hancock, and me there to bear witness to the conversation—along with the silent Pierre—Gallowglass continued his efforts with Matthew.

“You must go to Sept-Tours. He won’t rest until he claims your body for burial or you are standing before him, alive. Philippe doesn’t trust Elizabeth—or the Congregation.” Gallowglass intended his words to bring comfort this time, but Matthew’s air of remove remained.

Gallowglass made an exasperated sound. “Deceive the others—and yourself, if you must. Discuss alternatives all night if you wish. But Auntie’s right: It’s all shite.” Gallowglass’s voice dropped. “Your Diana doesn’t smell right. And you smell older than you did last week. I know the secret you’re both keeping. He’ll know it, too.”

Gallowglass had deduced that I was a timewalker. One look at Hancock told me that he had, too.

“Enough!” Walter barked.

Gallowglass and Hancock quieted immediately. The reason blinked on Walter’s little finger: a signet bearing the outlines of Lazarus and his coffin. “So you’re a knight, too,” I said, stunned.

“Yes,” said Walter tersely.

“And you outrank Hancock. What about Gallowglass?” There were too many overlapping layers of loyalty and allegiance in the room. I was desperate to organize them into a navigable structure.

“I outrank everyone in this room, madam, with the exception of your husband,” Raleigh cautioned. “And that includes you.”

“You have no authority over me,” I shot back. “Exactly what is your role in the de Clermont family’s business, Walter?”

Over my head, Raleigh’s angry blue eyes met Matthew’s. “Is she always like this?”

“Usually,” Matthew said drily. “It takes some getting used to, but I rather like it. You might, too, given time.”

“I already have one demanding woman in my life. I don’t need another,” Walter snorted. “If you must know, I command the brotherhood in England, Mistress Roydon. Matthew cannot do so, given his position on the Congregation. The other members of the family were otherwise occupied. Or they refused.” Walter’s eyes flickered to Gallowglass.

“So you’re one of the order’s eight provincial masters and report directly to Philippe,” I said thoughtfully. “I’m surprised you’re not the ninth knight.”

The ninth knight was a mysterious figure in the order, his identity kept secret from all except those at the very highest levels.

Raleigh swore so vehemently that Pierre gasped. “You keep the fact that you’re a spy and a member of the Congregation from your wife, yet you tell her the most private business of the brotherhood?”

“She asked,” Matthew said simply. “But I think that’s enough talk of the Order of Lazarus for tonight.”

“Your wife won’t be satisfied leaving it there. She will worry at this like a hound with a bone.” Raleigh crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.

“Very well. If you must know, Henry is the ninth knight. His unwillingness to embrace the Protestant faith makes him vulnerable to allegations of treason here in England, and in Europe he is an easy target for every malcontent who would like to see Her Majesty lose her throne. Philippe offered him the position to shield him from those who would abuse his trusting nature.”

“Henry? A rebel?” I looked at the gentle giant, stunned.

“I’m no rebel,” Henry said tightly. “But Philippe de Clermont’s protection has saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“The Earl of Northumberland is a powerful man, Diana,” Matthew said quietly, “which makes him a valuable pawn in the hands of an unscrupulous player.”

Gallowglass coughed. “Can we leave off talk of the brotherhood and return to more urgent matters? The Congregation will call on Matthew to calm the situation in Berwick. The queen will want him to stir it up further, because so long as the Scots are preoccupied with witches, they won’t be able to plan any mischief in England. Matthew’s new wife is facing witchcraft accusations at home. And his father has recalled him to France.”

“Christ,” Matthew said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What a tangled mess.”

“How do you propose we untangle it?” Walter demanded. “You say Philippe cannot come here, Gallowglass, but I fear that Matthew ought not go there either.”

“No one ever said that having three masters—and a wife—was going to be easy,” Hancock declared sourly.

“So which devil will it be, Matthew?” asked Gallowglass.

“If Philippe doesn’t receive the coin embedded in the letter’s seal from my own hand, and soon, he’ll come looking for me,” Matthew said hollowly. “It’s a test of loyalty. My father loves tests.”

“Your father does not doubt you. This misunderstanding will be set to rights when you see each other,” Henry maintained. When Matthew didn’t respond, Henry moved to fill the silence. “You are always telling me that I must have a plan, or else be pulled into the designs of other men. Tell us what must be done, and we will see to it.”

Without speaking, Matthew picked through options, discarding one after the other. It would have taken any other man days to sift through the possible moves and countermoves. For Matthew it took only minutes. There was little sign of the struggle on his face, but the bunching of his shoulder muscles and the distracted pass of his hand through his hair told another story.

“I’ll go,” he said at last. “Diana will stay here, with Gallowglass and Hancock. Walter will have to put off the queen with some excuse. And I’ll handle the Congregation.”

“Diana can’t remain in Woodstock,” Gallowglass told him firmly. “Not now that Kit’s been at work in the village, spreading his lies and asking questions about her. Without your presence neither the queen nor the Congregation will have any incentive to keep your wife from the magistrate.”

“We can go to London, Matthew,” I urged. “Together. It’s a big city. There will be too many witches for anyone to notice me—witches who aren’t afraid of power like mine—and messengers to take word to France that you’re safe. You don’t have to go.”

You don’t have to see your father again.

“London!” Hancock scoffed. “You wouldn’t last three days there, madam. Gallowglass and I will take you into Wales. We’ll go to Abergavenny.”

“No.” My eyes were drawn by the crimson stain at Matthew’s neck. “If Matthew is going to France, I’m going with him.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not dragging you through a war.”

“The war has quieted with the coming of winter,” said Walter. “Taking Diana to Sept-Tours may be for the best. Few are brave enough to tangle with you, Matthew. None at all will cross your father.”

“You have a choice,” I told him fiercely. Matthew’s friends and family weren’t going to use me to force him to France.

“Yes. And I choose you.” He traced my lip with this thumb. My heart sank. He was going to go to Sept-Tours.

“Don’t do this,” I implored him. I didn’t trust myself to say more for fear of betraying the fact that in our own time Philippe was dead, and that it would be torture for Matthew to see him alive again.

“Philippe told me that mating was destiny. Once I found you, there would be nothing to do but accept fate’s decision. But that’s not how it works at all. In every moment, for the rest of my life, I will be choosing you—over my father, over my own self-interest, even over the de Clermont family.” Matthew’s lips pressed against mine, silencing my protests. There was no mistaking the conviction in his kiss.

“It’s decided, then,” Gallowglass said softly.

Matthew’s eyes held mine. He nodded. “Yes. Diana and I will go home. Together.”

“There’s work to do, arrangements to be made,” Walter said. “Leave it to us. Your wife looks exhausted, and the journey will be taxing. You both should rest.”

Neither of us made any move toward bed once the men had gone off to the parlor.

“Our time in 1590 isn’t turning out quite as I hoped,” Matthew admitted. “It was supposed to be straightforward.”

“How could it possibly be straightforward, with the Congregation, the trials in Berwick, the Elizabethan intelligence service, and the Knights of Lazarus all vying for your attention?”

“Being a member of the Congregation and serving as a spy should be helps—not hindrances.” Matthew stared out the window. “I thought we’d come to the Old Lodge, use the services of Widow Beaton, find the manuscript in Oxford, and be gone within a few weeks.”

I bit my lip to keep from pointing out the flaws in his strategy—Walter, Henry, and Gallowglass had already done so repeatedly this evening—but my expression gave me away.

“It was shortsighted of me,” he said with a sigh. “And it’s not just establishing your credibility that’s a problem, or avoiding the obvious traps like witch trials and wars. I’m overwhelmed, too. The broad canvas of what I did for Elizabeth and the Congregation—and the countermoves I made on behalf of my father—that’s clear, but all the details have faded. I know the date, but not the day of the week. That means I’m not sure which messenger is due to arrive and where the next delivery will be made. I could have sworn I’d parted ways with Gallowglass and Hancock before Halloween.”

“The devil is always in the details,” I murmured. I brushed at the sooty track of dried blood that marked the passage of his tear. There were specks of it near the corner of his eye, a thin trace down his cheek. “I should have realized your father might contact you.”

“It was only a matter of time before his letter came. Whenever Pierre brings the mail, I steel myself. But the courier had already been and gone today. His handwriting took me by surprise, that’s all,” he explained. “I’d forgotten how strong it once was. When we got him back from the Nazis in 1944, his body was so broken that not even vampire blood could mend it. Philippe couldn’t hold a pen. He loved to write, and all he could manage was an illegible scrawl.” I knew of Philippe’s capture and captivity in World War II, but few details of what he’d suffered at the hands of the Nazis who had wanted to determine just how much pain a vampire could endure. “Maybe the goddess wanted us back in 1590 for more than just my benefit. Seeing Philippe again may reopen these old wounds of yours—and heal them.”

“Not before making them worse.” Matthew’s head dipped. “But in the end it might make them better.” I smoothed his hair over his hard, stubborn skull. “You still haven’t opened your father’s letter.”

“I know what it says.”

“Perhaps you should open it anyway.”

At last Matthew slid his finger under the seal and broke it. The coin tumbled out of the wax, and he caught it in his palm. When he unfolded the thick paper, it released a faint scent of laurel and rosemary. “Is that Greek?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the single line of text and a swirling rendition of the letter phi below.

“Yes.” Matthew traced the letters, making his first tentative contact with his father. “He commands me to come home. Immediately.”

“Can you bear seeing him again?”

“No. Yes.” Matthew’s fingers crumpled the page into his fist. “I don’t know.”

I took the page away from him, flattening it back into its rectangle. The coin sparkled in Matthew’s palm. It was such a small sliver of metal to have caused so much trouble.

“You won’t face him alone.” Standing by his side when he saw his dead father wasn’t much, but it was all I could do to ease his grief.

“Each of us is alone with Philippe. Some think my father can see into one’s very soul,” Matthew murmured. “It worries me to take you there. With Ysabeau I could predict how she would react: coldness, anger, then acquiescence. When it comes to Philippe, I have no idea. No one understands the way Philippe’s mind works, what information he possesses, what traps he’s laid. If I am secretive, then my father is inscrutable. Not even the Congregation knows what he’s up to, and God knows they spend enough time trying to figure it out.”

“It will be fine,” I reassured him. Philippe would have to accept me into the family. Like Matthew’s mother and brother, he would have no choice.

“Don’t think you can best him,” Matthew warned. “You may be like my mother, as Gallowglass said, but even she gets caught in his web from time to time.”

“And are you still a member of the Congregation in the present? Is that how you knew that Knox and Domenico were members?” The witch Peter Knox had been stalking me since the moment I called up Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian. As for Domenico Michele, he was a vampire with old animosities when it came to the de Clermonts. He’d been present at La Pierre before yet another member of the Congregation tortured me.

“No,” Matthew said shortly, turning away.

“So what Hancock said about a de Clermont always being on the Congregation is no longer true?” I held my breath. Say yes, I urged him silently, even if it’s a lie.

“It’s still true,” he said evenly, crushing my hope.

“Then who . . . ?” I trailed off. “Ysabeau? Baldwin? Surely not Marcus!”

I couldn’t believe that Matthew’s mother, his brother, or his son could be involved without someone letting it slip.

“There are creatures on my family tree that you don’t know, Diana. In any case, I’m not free to divulge the identity of the one who sits at the Congregation’s table.”

“Do any of the rules that bind the rest of us apply to your family?” I wondered. “You meddle in politics—I’ve seen the account books that prove it. Are you hoping that when we return to the present, this mysterious family member is going to somehow shield us from the Congregation’s wrath?”

“I don’t know,” Matthew said tightly. “I’m not sure of anything. Not anymore.”

Our plans for departure took shape quickly. Walter and Gallowglass argued about the best route, while Matthew set his affairs in order.

Hancock was dispatched to London with Henry and a leather-wrapped packet of correspondence. As a peer of the realm, the earl was required at court for the celebrations of the queen’s anniversary on the seventeenth of November. George and Tom were packed off to Oxford with a substantial sum of money and a disgraced Marlowe. Hancock warned them of the dire consequences that would ensue if the daemon caused any more trouble. Matthew might be far away, but Hancock would be within sword’s reach and would not hesitate to strike if it was warranted. In addition, Matthew instructed George on exactly what questions about alchemical manuscripts he could ask the scholars of Oxford.

My own affairs were far simpler to arrange. I had few personal items to pack: Ysabeau’s earrings, my new shoes, a few items of clothing. Françoise turned all her attention to making me a sturdy, cinnamon-colored gown for the journey. Its high, fur-lined collar was designed to fasten closely and keep out the winds and rain. The silky fox pelts that Françoise stitched into the lining of my cloak would serve the same purpose, as would the bands of fur she inserted into the embroidered edges of my new gloves.

My last act at the Old Lodge was to take the book Matthew had given me to the library. It would be easy to lose such an item on the way to SeptTours, and I wanted my diary to be as safe from prying eyes as possible. I stooped to the rushes and picked up sprigs of rosemary and lavender. Then I went to Matthew’s desk and selected a quill and a pot of ink and made one final entry.

After blowing gently on the words to set the ink, I slipped the rosemary and lavender into the crevice between the pages. My aunt used rosemary for memory spells and lavender to breathe a note of caution into love charms—a fitting combination for our present circumstances. “Wish us luck, Sarah,” I whispered as I slid the small volume into the end of the shelf, in hopes that it would still be there should I return.

7

Rima Jaén hated the month of November. The hours of daylight shrank, giving up their battle against the shadows a few moments earlier with each passing day. And it was a terrible time to be in Seville, with the whole city gearing up for the holiday season and rain just around the corner. The normally erratic driving habits of the city’s residents grew worse by the hour.

Rima had been stuck at her desk for weeks. Her boss had decided to clear out the storage rooms in the attic. Last winter the rain had made it through the ancient, cracked roof tiles on top of the decrepit house, and the forecast for the coming months was even worse. There was no money to fix the problem, so the maintenance staff was hauling moldy cardboard boxes down the stairs to make sure that nothing of value was damaged in future storms. Everything else was discreetly gotten rid of in such a way that no potential donors could discover what was afoot.

It was a dirty, deceitful business, but it had to be done, Rima reflected. The library was a small, specialist archive with scant resources. The core of its collections came from a prominent Andalusian family whose members could trace their roots back to the reconquista, when the Christians had taken back the peninsula from the Muslim warriors who had claimed it in the eighth century. Few scholars had reason to poke through the bizarre range of books and objects the Gonçalves had collected over the years. Most researchers were down the street at the Archivo General de Indias, arguing about Columbus. Her fellow Sevillanos wanted their libraries to have the latest thriller, not crumbling Jesuit instruction manuals from the 1700s and women’s fashion magazines from the 1800s.

Rima picked up the small volume sitting on the corner of her desk and swung a pair of brightly colored glasses down from the top of her head, where they were holding back her black hair. She’d noticed the book a week ago, when one of the maintenance workers had dropped a wooden crate before her with a grunt of displeasure. Since then she’d entered it into the collection as Gonçalve Manuscript 4890 along with the description “English commonplace book, anonymous, late 16th century.” Like most commonplace books, it was mostly blank. Rima had seen one Spanish example owned by a Gonçalve heir sent to the University of Seville in 1628. It had been finely bound, indexed, ruled, and paginated with ornate numbers set in swirls of multicolored ink. There was not a single word in it. Even in the past, people never quite lived up to their aspirations.

Commonplace books like this one were repositories for biblical passages, snatches of poetry, mottoes, and the sayings of classical authors. They typically included doodles and shopping lists as well as lyrics to bawdy songs and accounts of strange and important events. This one was no different, Rima thought as her black eyes darted over the pages. Sadly, someone had ripped out the first page. Once it had probably borne the owner’s name. Without it there was virtually no chance of identifying the owner, or any of the other people mentioned only by initials. Historians were far less interested in this sort of nameless, faceless evidence, as though its anonymity somehow made the person behind it less important.

On the remaining pages there was a chart listing all the English coinage in use in the sixteenth century and its relative worth. One page in the back had a hastily scribbled list of clothing: a cloak, two pairs of shoes, a gown trimmed in fur, six smocks, four petticoats, and a pair of gloves. There were a few dated entries that made no sense at all and a headache cure—a caudle, made with milk and wine. Rima smiled and wondered if it would work on her migraines.

She should have returned the little volume to the locked rooms on the third floor where the manuscripts were stored, but something about it made her want to keep it nearby. It was clear that a woman had written it. The round hand was endearingly shaky and uncertain, and the words snaked up and down on pages liberally sprinkled with inkblots. No learned sixteenth-century man wrote like that, unless he was ill or aged. This book’s author was neither. There was a curious vibrancy to the entries that was strangely at odds with the tentative handwriting.

She had shown the manuscript to Javier López, the charming yet entirely unqualified person hired by the last of the Gonçalves to transform the family’s house and personal effects into a library and museum. His expansive ground-floor office was paneled in fine mahogany and had the only working heaters in the building. During their brief interview, he’d dismissed her suggestion that the book deserved more careful study. He also forbade her to take photographs of it so she could share the images with colleagues in the United Kingdom. As for her belief that the book’s owner had been a woman, the director had muttered something about feminists and waved her out of his office.

And so the book remained on her desk. In Seville such a book would always be unwanted and unimportant. Nobody came to Spain to look for English commonplace books. They went to the British Library, or the Folger Shakespeare Library in the United States.

There was that strange man who came by now and again to comb through the collections. He was French, and his appraising stare made Rima uncomfortable. Herbert Cantal—or maybe it was Gerbert Cantal. She couldn’t remember. He’d left a card on his last visit and had encouraged her to get in touch if anything interesting turned up. When Rima asked what, exactly, might qualify, the man had said he was interested in everything. It was not the most helpful of responses.

Now something interesting had turned up. Unfortunately, the man’s business card had not, though she’d cleaned out her desk in an effort to locate it. Rima would have to wait until he appeared again to share this little book with him. Perhaps he would be more interested in it than her boss was.

Rima flipped through the pages. There was a tiny sprig of lavender and a few crumbling rosemary leaves pressed between two of the pages. She hadn’t seen them before and picked them carefully from the crevice of the binding. For a moment there was a trace of scent in the faded bloom, forging a connection between herself and a person who had lived hundreds of years ago. Rima smiled wistfully, thinking about the woman she would never know.

“Más basura.” Daniel from building maintenance was back, his worn gray overalls grimy from transporting boxes from the attic. He slid several more boxes off the beaten-up dolly and onto the floor. In spite of the cool weather, sweat stood out on his forehead, and he wiped it off with his sleeve, leaving a smudge of black dust. “Café?”

It was the third time this week he’d asked her out. Rima knew that he found her attractive. Her mother’s Berber ancestry appealed to some men—not surprising, since it had bestowed upon her soft curves, warm skin, and almond-shaped eyes. Daniel had been muttering salacious comments, brushing against her backside when she went to the mail room, and ogling her breasts for years. That he was five inches shorter than she and twice her age didn’t seem to deter him. “Estoy muy ocupada,” Rima replied.

Daniel’s grunt was infused with deep skepticism. He glanced back at the boxes as he left. The one on top held a moldering fur muff and a stuffed wren attached to a piece of cedar. Daniel shook his head, astonished that she would prefer to spend her time with dead animals than with him.

“Gracias,” Rima murmured as he departed. She closed the book gently and returned it to its place on her desk.

While she transferred the box’s contents to a nearby table, Rima’s eyes strayed back to the little volume in its simple leather cover. In four hundred years, would the only proof of her existence be a page from her calendar, a shopping list, and a scrap of paper with her grandmother’s recipe for alfajores on it, all placed in a file labeled “Anonymous, of no importance” and stored in an archive no one ever visited?

Such dark thoughts were bound to be unlucky. Rima shivered and touched the hand-shaped amulet of the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima. It hung around her neck on a leather cord and had been passed down among the women of her family for as long as anyone could remember.

“Khamsa fi ainek,” she whispered, hoping her words would ward off any evil spirit she might have unwittingly called.