Shadow of Night

15

“It looks like a demented hedgehog,” I observed. Elizabeth’s London was filled with needlelike spires that stuck up from the huddle of buildings that surrounded them. “What is that?” I gasped, pointing to a vast expanse of stone pierced by tall windows. High above the wooden roof was a charred, stout stump that made the building’s proportions look all wrong.

“St. Paul’s,” Matthew explained. This was not Christopher Wren’s graceful white-domed masterpiece, its bulk concealed until the last moment by modern office blocks. Old St. Paul’s, perched on London’s highest hill, was seen all at once.

“Lightning struck the spire, and the wood of the roof caught fire. The English believe it was a miracle the entire cathedral didn’t burn to the ground,” he continued.

“The French, not surprisingly, believe that the hand of the Lord was evident somewhat earlier in the event,” commented Gallowglass. He had met us at Dover, commandeered a boat in Southwark, and was now rowing us all upstream. “No matter when God showed His true colors, He hasn’t provided money for its repair.”

“Nor has the queen.” Matthew devoted his attention to the wharves on the shoreline, and his right hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

I had never imagined that Old St. Paul’s would be so big. I gave myself another pinch. I had been administering them since spotting the Tower (it, too, looked enormous without skyscrapers all around) and London Bridge (which functioned as a suspended shopping mall). Many sights and sounds had impressed me since our arrival in the past, but nothing had taken my breath away like my first glimpses of London.

“Are you sure you don’t want to dock in town first?” Gallowglass had been dropping hints about the wisdom of this course of action since we’d climbed into the boat.

“We’re going to the Blackfriars,” Matthew said firmly. “Everything else can wait.”

Gallowglass looked dubious, but he kept rowing until we reached the westernmost reaches of the old, walled city. There we docked at a steep set of stone stairs. The bottom treads were submerged in the river, and from the look of the walls the tide would continue to rise until the rest were underwater, too. Gallowglass tossed a line to a brawny man who thanked him profusely for returning his property in one piece.

“You seem only to travel in other people’s boats, Gallowglass. Maybe Matthew should give you your own for Christmas,” I said drily.

“And deprive me of one of my few pleasures?” Gallowglass’s teeth showed in his beard. Matthew’s nephew thanked the boatman and tossed him a coin the size and weight of which reduced the poor fellow’s previous anxiety to a hazy glow of appreciation.

We passed from the landing through an archway and onto Water Lane, a narrow, twisting artery crowded with houses and shops. With every rising floor, the houses jutted farther over the street, like a clothes chest with the upper drawers pulled out. This effect was heightened by the linens, carpets, and other items hanging out the windows. Everyone was taking advantage of the unusually fine weather to air out lodgings and garments.

Matthew retained a firm grip on my hand, and Gallowglass walked to my right. Sights and sounds came at us from every direction. Fabrics in saturated red, green, brown, and gray swung from hips and shoulders as skirts and cloaks were twitched away from wagon wheels and caught on the packages and weapons carried by passersby. The ring of hammers, the neighing of horses, the distant lowing of a cow, and the sound of metal rolling on stone competed for attention. Dozens of signs bearing angels, skulls, tools, brightly colored shapes, and mythological figures swayed and squeaked in the wind that blew up from the water. Above my head a wooden sign swung on its metal rod. It was decorated with a white deer, its delicate antlers circled with a golden band.

“Here we are,” Matthew said. “The Hart and Crown.”

The building was half-timbered, like most on the street. A vaulted passage spanned two arrays of windows. A shoemaker was busy at work on one side of the arch, while the woman opposite kept track of several children, customers, and a large account book. She gave Matthew a brisk nod.

“Robert Hawley’s wife rules over his apprentices and customers with an iron fist. Nothing happens in the Hart and Crown without Margaret’s knowledge,” explained Matthew. I made a mental note to befriend the woman at the earliest opportunity.

The passage emptied out into the building’s interior courtyard—a luxury in a city as densely packed as London. The courtyard boasted another rare amenity: a well that provided clean water to the residents of the complex. Someone had taken advantage of the courtyard’s southern exposure by tearing up the old paving stones to plant a garden, and now its neat, empty beds patiently awaited spring. A group of washerwomen conducted business out of an old shed next to a shared privy.

To the left, a twisting set of stairs rose to our rooms on the first floor, where Françoise was waiting to welcome us on the wide landing. She’d flung open the stout door into the apartments, crowding a cupboard with pierced sides. A goose, denuded of feathers and with its neck broken, was tied to one of the cupboard’s knobs.

“At last.” Henry Percy appeared, beaming. “We’ve been waiting for hours. My good lady mother sent you a goose. She heard reports that no fowl are to be had in the city and became alarmed that you would go hungry.”

“It is good to see you, Hal,” Matthew said with a laugh and a shake of his head at the goose. “How is your mother?”

“Always a termagant at Christmas, thank you. Most of the family found excuses to be elsewhere, but I am detained here at the queen’s pleasure. Her Majesty shouted across the audience chamber that I could not be trusted even so far as P-P-Petworth.” Henry stammered and looked ill at the recollection.

“You are more than welcome to spend Christmas with us, Henry,” I said, taking off my cloak and stepping inside, where the scent of spices and freshly cut fir filled the air.

“It is good of you to invite me, Diana, but my sister Eleanor and brother George are in town and they shouldn’t have to brave her on their own.”

“Stay with us this evening at least,” Matthew urged, steering him to the right, where warmth and firelight beckoned, “and tell us what has happened while we were away.”

“All is quiet here,” Henry reported cheerfully.

“Quiet?” Gallowglass stomped up the stairs, looking frostily at the earl. “Marlowe’s at the Cardinal’s Hat, drunk as a fiddler, trading verses with that impoverished scrivener from Stratford who trails after him in hopes of becoming a playwright. For now Shakespeare seems content with learning how to forge your signature, Matthew. According to the innkeeper’s records, you promised to pay Kit’s room and board charges last week.”

“I left them only an hour ago,” Henry protested. “Kit knew that Matthew and Diana were due to arrive this afternoon. He and Will promised to be on their best behavior.”

“That explains it, then,” Gallowglass muttered sarcastically.

“Is this your doing, Henry?” I looked from the entrance hall into our main living quarters. Someone had tucked holly, ivy, and fir around the fireplace and the window frames and mounded them in the center of an oak table. The fireplace was loaded with logs, and a cheerful fire hissed and crackled.

“Françoise and I wanted your first Christmas to be festive,” Henry said, turning pink.

The Hart and Crown represented urban living at its sixteenth-century best. The parlor was a good size but felt snug and comfortable. Its western wall was filled with a multipaned window that overlooked Water Lane. It was perfectly situated for people-watching, with a cushioned seat built into the base. Carved wainscoting warmed the walls, each panel covered with twisting flowers and vines.

The room’s furnishings were spare but well made. A wide settle and two deep chairs waited by the fireplace. The oak table in the center of the room was unusually fine, less than three feet across but quite long, its legs decorated with the delicate faces of caryatids and herms. A beam set with candles hung over the table. It could be raised and lowered by use of the smooth rope-and-pulley system suspended from the ceiling. Carved lions’ heads snarled from the front band of a monstrous cupboard that held a wide array of beakers, pitchers, cups, and goblets—though very few plates, as befitted a vampire household.

Before we settled down to our dinner of roast goose, Matthew showed me our bedroom and his private office. Both were across the entrance hall opposite the parlor. Gabled windows overlooked the courtyard, making both rooms feel light and surprisingly airy. The bedroom had only three pieces of furniture: a four-poster bed with a carved headboard and heavy wooden tester, a tall linen press with paneled sides and door, and a long, low chest under the windows. The last was locked, and Matthew explained that it held his suit of armor and several spare weapons. Henry and Françoise had been in here, too. Ivy crawled up the bedposts, and they’d tied sprigs of holly to the headboard.

Whereas the bedroom looked barely occupied, Matthew’s office was clearly well used. Here there were baskets of paper, bags and tankards full of quills, pots of ink, enough wax to make several dozen candles, balls of twine, and so much waiting mail that my heart sank just thinking about it. A comfortable-looking chair with a sloping back and curved arms sat before a table with extendable leaves. Except for the heavy table legs with their bulbous, cup-shaped carvings, everything was plain and practical.

Though I had blanched at the piles of work that awaited him, Matthew was unconcerned. “It can all wait. Not even spies conduct business on Christmas Eve,” he told me.

Over dinner we talked more about Walter’s latest exploits and the shocking state of traffic in London, and we steered clear of more sober subjects, like Kit’s latest drinking binge and the enterprising William Shakespeare. After the plates were cleared, Matthew pulled a small game table away from the wall. He removed a deck of cards from the compartment under the tabletop and proceeded to teach me how to gamble, Elizabethan style. Henry had just persuaded Matthew and Gallowglass to play flapdragon—an alarming game that involved setting raisins alight in a dish of brandy and betting on who could swallow the greatest number—when the sound of carolers rose from the street outside the windows. They were not all singing in the same key, and those who didn’t know the words were inserting scandalous details about the personal lives of Joseph and Mary.

“Here, milord,” Pierre said, thrusting a bag of coins at Matthew.

“Do we have cakes?” Matthew asked Françoise.

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Of course we have cakes. They are in the new food cupboard on the landing, where the smell will not disturb anyone,” Françoise said, pointing in the direction of the stairs. “Last year you gave them wine, but I do not believe they require it tonight.”

“I’ll go with you, Matt,” Henry volunteered. “I like a good song on Christmas Eve.”

The appearance of Matthew and Henry downstairs was marked by a definite uptick in the choir’s volume. When the carolers came to a rather uneven finish, Matthew thanked them and passed out coins. Henry distributed the cakes, which led to many bows and a hushed “Thank you, my lord” as the news passed that this was the Earl of Northumberland. The carolers moved off to another house, following some mysterious order of precedence that they hoped would ensure them the best refreshments and payments.

Soon I could no longer smother my yawns, and Henry and Gallowglass began to gather up their gloves and cloaks. Both were smiling like satisfied matchmakers when they headed for the door. Matthew joined me in bed, holding me until I fell asleep, humming carols and naming the city’s many bells as they sounded the hour.

“There is St. Mary-le-Bow,” he said, listening to the sounds of the city. “And St. Katherine Cree.”

“Is that St. Paul’s?” I asked as a prolonged clarion sounded.

“No. The lightning that took off the steeple destroyed the bells, too,” he said. “That’s St. Saviour’s. We passed it on our way into town.” The rest of London’s churches caught up with Southwark’s cathedral. Finally a straggler finished with a discordant clang, the last sound I heard before sleep overtook me.

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by conversation coming from Matthew’s study. I felt the bed, but he was no longer with me. The leather straps that held up the mattress squeaked and stretched as I jumped to the cold floor. I shivered and threw on a shawl before leaving the room.

Judging by the pools of wax in the shallow candlestands, Matthew had been working for hours. Pierre was with him, standing next to the shelves built into a recess by the fireplace. He looked as though he’d been dragged backward through the Thames mud at low tide.

“I’ve been all over the city with Gallowglass and his Irish friends,” Pierre murmured. “If the Scots know anything more about the schoolmaster, they will not divulge it, milord.”

“What schoolmaster?” I stepped into the room. It was then I spotted the narrow door hidden in the wooden paneling.

“I am sorry, madame. I did not mean to wake you.” Pierre’s dismay showed through the filth, and the stench that accompanied him made my eyes water.

“It’s all right, Pierre. Go. I’ll find you later.” Matthew waited while his servant fled, shoes squelching. Matthew’s eyes drifted to the shadows by the fireplace.

“The room that lies beyond that door wasn’t on your welcome tour,” I pointed out, going to his side. “What’s happened now?”

“More news from Scotland. A jury sentenced a wizard named John Fian—a schoolmaster from Prestonpans—to death. While I was away, Gallowglass tried to find out what truth, if any, lies behind the wild accusations: worshipping Satan, dismembering dead bodies in a graveyard, transforming moles’ feet into pieces of silver so he was never without money, going to sea in a ship with the devil and Agnes Sampson to thwart the king’s policies.” Matthew tossed a paper onto the table in front of him. “So far as I can tell, Fian is one of what we used to call the tempestarii, and nothing more.”

“A windwitch, or possibly a waterwitch,” I said, translating the unfamiliar term.

“Yes,” Matthew agreed with a nod. “Fian augmented his teacher’s salary by causing thunderstorms during dry spells and early thaws when it looked as if the Scottish winter would never end. His fellow villagers adored him, by all accounts. Even Fian’s pupils had nothing but praise. Fian might have been a bit of a seer—he’s credited with foretelling people’s deaths, but that could have been something Kit cooked up to embellish the story for an English audience. He’s obsessed with a witch’s second sight, as you’ll remember.”

“Witches are vulnerable to the shifting moods of our neighbors, Matthew. One minute we’re friends, the next we’re run out of town—or worse.”

“What happened to Fian was definitely worse,” Matthew said grimly.

“I can imagine,” I said with a shudder. If Fian had been tortured as Agnes Sampson had, he must have welcomed death. “What’s in that room?”

Matthew considered telling me that it was a secret but wisely refrained. He stood. “It would be better if I showed you. Stay by me. It’s not yet dawn, and we can’t take a candle into the room for fear that someone will see it from outside. I don’t want you to trip.” I nodded mutely and took his hand.

We stepped across the threshold into a long room with a row of windows barely larger than arrow slits tucked under the eaves. After a few moments, my eyes adjusted and gray shapes began to emerge from the gloom. A pair of old garden chairs woven from willow twigs stood across from each other, their backs curved forward. Low, battered benches were set out in two rows down the center of the room. Each bore a strange assortment of objects: books, papers, letters, hats, and clothes. From the right came a gleam of metal: swords, hilts up and points down. A pile of daggers rested on the floor nearby. There was a scratching sound, too, and a scurry of feet.

“Rats.” Matthew’s voice was matter-of-fact, but I couldn’t help drawing my night rail tight against my legs. “Pierre and I do what we can, but it’s impossible to get rid of them entirely. They find all this paper irresistible.” He gestured up, and I noticed for the first time the bizarre festoons on the walls.

I crept closer and peered at the garlands. Each one hung from a thin, twisted cord affixed to the plaster with a square-headed nail. The cord had then been threaded through the upper-left-hand corner of a series of documents. The knot in the end of the cord was slung back up and looped around the same nail, creating a wreath of paper.

“One of the world’s first file cabinets. You say I keep too many secrets,” he said softly, reaching out and snagging one of the garlands. “You can add these to your reckoning.”

“But there are thousands of them.” Surely not even a fifteen-hundredyear-old vampire could possess so many.

“There are,” Matthew agreed. He watched as my eyes swept the room, taking in the archive he guarded. “We remember what other creatures want to forget, and that makes it possible for the Knights of Lazarus to protect those in our care. Some of the secrets go back to the reign of the queen’s grandfather. Most of the older files have already been moved to Sept-Tours for safekeeping.”

“So many trails of paper,” I murmured, “and all of them ultimately lead back to you and the de Clermonts.” The room faded until I saw only the loops and swirls of the words unwinding into long, intertwined filaments. They formed a map of connections that linked subjects, authors, dates. There was something I needed to understand about these crisscrossing lines. . . .

“I’ve been going through these papers since you fell asleep, looking for references to Fian. I thought that there might be mention of him here,” Matthew said, leading me back into his study, “something that might explain why his neighbors turned on him. There must be a pattern that will tell us why the humans are behaving this way.”

“If you find it, my fellow historians will be eager to know. But understanding Fian’s case doesn’t guarantee you can prevent the same thing from happening to me.” The ticking muscle in Matthew’s jaw told me that my words found their target. “And I’m quite sure you didn’t delve into the matter this closely before.”

“I’m no longer that man who turned a blind eye to all this suffering— and I don’t want to become him again.” Matthew pulled out his chair and dropped heavily into it. “There must be something I can do.”

I gathered him in my arms. Even seated, Matthew was so tall that the top of his head hit my rib cage. He burrowed into me. He stilled, then drew slowly away, his eyes fixed on my abdomen.

“Diana. You’re—” He stopped.

“Pregnant. I thought so,” I said matter-of-factly. “My period’s been irregular ever since Juliette, so I wasn’t sure. I was sick on the way from Calais to Dover, but the seas were rough and that fish I had before we left was definitely dodgy.”

He continued to stare at my belly. I rattled on nervously.

“My high-school health teacher was right: You really can get pregnant the first time you have sex with a guy.” I’d done the math and was pretty sure conception had occurred during our wedding weekend.

Still he was silent.

“Say something, Matthew.”

“It’s impossible.” He looked stunned.

“Everything about us is impossible.” I lowered a trembling hand to my stomach.

Matthew twined his fingers through mine and finally looked me in the eye. I was surprised by what I saw there: awe, pride, and a hint of panic. Then he smiled. It was an expression of complete joy.

“What if I’m no good at being a parent?” I asked uncertainly. “You’ve been a father—you know what to do.”

“You’re going to be a wonderful mother” was his prompt response. “All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.” Matthew moved our clasped hands over my belly in a gentle caress. “We’ll tackle the first two together. The last will be up to you. How are you feeling?”

“A bit tired and queasy, physically. Emotionally, I don’t know where to begin.” I drew a shaky breath. “Is it normal to be frightened and fierce and tender all at once?”

“Yes—and thrilled and anxious and sick with dread, too,” he said softly.

“I know it’s ridiculous, but I keep worrying that my magic might hurt the baby, even though thousands of witches give birth every year.” But they aren’t married to vampires.

“This isn’t a normal conception,” Matthew said, reading my mind. “Still, I don’t think you need to concern yourself.” A shadow moved through his eyes. I could practically see him adding one more worry to his list.

“I don’t want to tell anyone. Not yet.” I thought of the room next door. “Can your life include one more secret—at least for a little while?”

“Of course,” Matthew said promptly. “Your pregnancy won’t show for months. But Françoise and Pierre will know soon from your scent, if they don’t already, and so will Hancock and Gallowglass. Happily, vampires don’t usually ask personal questions.”

I laughed softly. “It figures that I’ll be the one to give the secret away. You can’t possibly be any more protective, so no one is going to guess what we’re hiding based on your behavior.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” he said, smiling broadly. Matthew flexed his fingers over mine. It was a distinctly protective gesture.

“If you keep touching me that way, people are going to figure it out pretty quickly,” I agreed drily, running my fingers along his shoulder. He shivered, and I smiled. “You’re not supposed to shiver when you feel something warm.”

“That’s not why I’m shivering.” Matthew stood, blocking out the light from the candles.

My heart caught at the sight of him. He smiled, hearing the slight irregularity, and drew me toward the bed. We shed our clothes, tossing them to the floor, where they lay in two white pools that caught the silvery light from the windows.

Matthew’s touches were feather-light while he tracked the minute changes already taking place in my body. He lingered over each centimeter of tender flesh, but his cool attention increased the ache rather than soothing it. Every kiss was as knotted and complex as our feelings about sharing a child. At the same time, the words he whispered in the darkness encouraged me to focus solely on him. When I could bear waiting no longer, Matthew seated himself within me, his movements unhurried and gentle, like his kiss.

I arched my back in an effort to increase the contact between us, and Matthew stilled. With my spine bowed, he was poised at the entrance to my womb. And in that brief, forever moment, father, mother, and child were as close as any three creatures could be.

“My whole heart, my whole life,” he promised, moving within me.

I cried out, and Matthew held me close until the trembling stopped. He then kissed his way down the length of my body, starting with my witch’s third eye and continuing on to my lips, throat, breastbone, solar plexus, navel, and, at last, my abdomen.

He stared down at me, shook his head, and gave me a boyish grin. “We made a child,” he said, dumbfounded.

“We did,” I agreed with an answering smile.

Matthew slid his shoulders between my thighs, pushing them wide. With one arm wrapped around my knee, and the other twined around the opposite hip so his hand could rest on the pulse there, he lowered his head onto my belly as though it were a pillow and let out a contented sigh. Utterly quiet, he listened for the soft whooshing of the blood that now sustained our child. When he heard it, he tilted his head so our eyes met. He smiled, bright and true, and returned to his vigil.

In the candlelit darkness of Christmas morning, I felt the quiet power that came from sharing our love with another creature. No longer a solitary meteor moving through space and time, I was now part of a complicated planetary system. I needed to learn how to keep my own center of gravity while being pulled this way and that by bodies larger and more powerful than I was. Otherwise Matthew, the de Clermonts, our child—and the Congregation—might pull me off course.

My time with my mother had been too short, but in seven years she had taught me plenty. I remembered her unconditional love, the hugs that seemed to encompass days, and how she was always right where I needed her to be. It was as Matthew said: Children needed love, a reliable source of comfort, and an adult willing to take responsibility for them.

It was time to stop treating our sojourn here as an advanced seminar in Shakespeare’s England and recognize it instead as my last, best chance to figure out who I was, so that I could help my child understand his place in the world.

But first I needed to find a witch.

16

We passed the weekend quietly, reveling in our secret and indulging in the speculations of all parents-to-be. Would the newest member of the de Clermont clan have black hair like his father but my blue eyes? Would he like science or history? Would he be skilled with his hands like Matthew or all thumbs like me? As for the sex, we had different opinions. I was convinced it was a boy, and Matthew was equally sure it was a girl. Exhausted and exhilarated, we took a break from thoughts of the future to view sixteenth-century London from the warmth of our rooms. We started at the windows overlooking Water Lane, where I spied the distant towers of Westminster Abbey, and finished in chairs pulled up to the bedroom windows, where we could see the Thames. Neither the cold nor the fact that it was the Christian day of rest kept the watermen from their business making deliveries and ferrying passengers. At the bottom of our street, a group of rowers-for-hire huddled on the stairs that led down to the waterside, their empty boats bobbing up and down on the swells.

Matthew shared his memories of the city during the course of the afternoon as the tide rose and fell. He told me about the time in the fifteenth century when the Thames froze for more than three months—so long that temporary shops were built on the ice to cater to the foot traffic. He also reminisced about his unproductive years at Thavies Inn, where he had gone through the motions of studying the law for the fourth and final time.

“I’m glad you got to see it before we leave,” he said, squeezing my hand. One by one, people were illuminating their lamps, hanging them from the prows of boats and setting them in the windows of houses and inns. “We’ll even try to fit in a visit to the Royal Exchange.”

“We’re going back to Woodstock?” I asked, confused.

“For a short time, perhaps. Then we’ll be going back to our present.” I stared at him, too startled to speak.

“We don’t know what to expect during the gestation period, and for your safety—and the child’s—we need to monitor the baby. There are tests to run, and it would be a good idea to have a baseline ultrasound. Besides, you’ll want to be with Sarah and Emily.”

“But, Matthew,” I protested, “we can’t go home yet. I don’t know how.” His head swung around.

“Em explained it clearly before we left. To travel back in time, you need three objects to take you where you want to go. To travel forward you need witchcraft, but I can’t do spells. It’s why we came.”

“You can’t possibly carry the baby to term here,” Matthew said, shooting out of his chair.

“Women do have babies in the sixteenth century,” I said mildly. “Besides, I don’t feel any different. I can’t be more than a few weeks pregnant.”

“Will you be powerful enough to carry both her and me back to the future? No, we need to leave as soon as possible, and well before she’s born.” Matthew drew to a halt. “What if timewalking damages the fetus in some way? Magic is one thing, but this—” He sat down abruptly.

“Nothing has changed,” I said soothingly. “The baby can’t be much bigger than a grain of rice. Now that we’re in London, it shouldn’t be difficult to find someone to help me with my magic—not to mention one who understands timewalking better than Sarah and Em.”

“She’s the size of a lentil.” Matthew stopped. He thought for a few moments and came to a decision. “By six weeks all the most critical fetal developments will have taken place. That should give you plenty of time.” He sounded like a doctor, not a father. I was beginning to prefer Matthew’s premodern rages to his modern objectivity.

“And if I need seven?” Had Sarah been in the room, she would have warned him that my reasonableness was not a good sign.

“Seven weeks would be fine,” Matthew said, lost in his own thoughts.

“Oh, well, that’s good. I’d hate to feel rushed when it comes to something as important as figuring out who I am.” I strode toward him.

“Diana, that’s not—”

We were standing nose to nose now. “I don’t have a chance of being a good mother without knowing more about the power in my blood.”

“This isn’t good—”

“Don’t you dare say this isn’t good for the baby. I’m not some vessel.” My temper was at full boil now. “First it was my blood you wanted for your scientific experiments, and now it’s this baby.”

Matthew, damn him, stood quietly by, arms crossed and gray eyes hard.

“Well?” I demanded.

“Well what? Apparently my participation in this conversation isn’t required. You’re already finishing my sentences. You might as well start them, too.”

“This has nothing to do with my hormones,” I said. Belatedly it occurred to me that this statement alone was probably evidence to the contrary.

“That hadn’t occurred to me until you mentioned it.”

“That’s not what it sounded like.”

His eyebrow rose.

“I’m the same person I was three days ago. Pregnancy isn’t a pathological condition, and it doesn’t eliminate our reasons for being here. We haven’t even had a proper chance to look for Ashmole 782.”

“Ashmole 782?” Matthew made an impatient sound. “Everything has changed, and you are not the same person. We can’t keep this pregnancy a secret indefinitely. In a matter of days, every vampire will be able to smell the changes in your body. Kit will figure it out soon after, and he’ll be asking about the father—because it can’t be me, can it? A pregnant witch living with a wearh will raise the animosity of every creature in this city, even the ones who don’t care much for the covenant. Someone could complain to the Congregation. My father will demand we go back to Sept-Tours for your safety, and I can’t endure saying good-bye to him one more time.” His voice rose steadily with each problem.

“I didn’t think—”

“No,” Matthew interrupted, “you didn’t. You couldn’t have. Christ, Diana. Before, you and I were in a forbidden marriage. That’s hardly unique. Now you’re carrying my child. That’s not only unique—other creatures believe it’s impossible. Seven weeks, Diana. Not a moment more.” He was implacable.

“You might not be able to find a witch willing to help by then,” I persisted. “Not with what’s happening in Scotland.”

“Who said anything about willingness?” Matthew’s smile chilled me.

“I’m going to the parlor to read.” I turned toward the bedroom, wanting to be as far from him as possible. He was waiting for me in the doorway, his arm barring my passage.

“I will not lose you, Diana,” he said, emphatic but quiet. “Not to look for an alchemical manuscript and not for the sake of an unborn child.”

“And I will not lose myself,” I retorted. “Not to satisfy your need for control. Not before I find out who I am.”

On Monday, I was again sitting in the parlor, picking through The Faerie Queene and going out of my mind with boredom when the door opened. Visitors. I clapped the book shut eagerly.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.” Walter stood dripping in the doorway. George and Henry were with him, both looking equally wretched.

“Hello, Diana.” Henry sneezed, then greeted me with a formal bow before heading to the fireplace and extending his fingers toward the flames with a groan.

“Where is Matthew?” I asked, motioning George toward a seat.

“With Kit. We left them at a bookseller.” Walter gestured in the direction of St. Paul’s. “I’m famished. The stew Kit ordered for dinner was inedible. Matt said Françoise should make us something to eat.” Raleigh’s mischievous grin betrayed his lie.

The lads were on their second plates of food and their third helping of wine when Matthew came home with Kit, an armful of books, and a full complement of facial hair courtesy of one of these wizard barbers I kept hearing about. My husband’s trim new mustache suited the width of his mouth, and his beard was fashionably small and well shaped. Pierre followed behind, bearing a linen sack of paper rectangles and squares.

“Thank God,” Walter said, nodding approvingly at the beard. “Now you look like yourself.”

“Hello, my heart,” Matthew said, kissing me on the cheek. “Do you recognize me?”

“Yes—even though you look like a pirate,” I said with a laugh.

“It is true, Diana. He and Walter look like brothers now,” admitted Henry.

“Why do you persist in calling Matthew’s wife by her first name, Henry? Has Mistress Roydon become your ward? Is she your sister now? The only other explanation is that you are planning a seduction,” Marlowe grumbled, plunking himself down in a chair.

“Stop poking at the hornet’s nest, Kit,” Walter chided.

“I have belated Christmas presents,” Matthew said, sliding his stack in my direction.

“Books.” It was disconcerting to feel their obvious newness—the creak of the tight bindings as they protested being opened for the first time, the smell of paper and the tang of ink. I was used to seeing volumes like these in a worn condition within library reading rooms, not resting on the table where we ate our meals. The top volume was a blank book to replace the one still in Oxford. The next was a book of prayers, beautifully bound. The ornate title page was adorned with a reclining figure of the biblical patriarch Jesse. A sprawling tree emerged from his stomach. My forehead creased. Why had Matthew bought me a prayer book?

“Turn the page,” he urged, his hands heavy and quiet against the small of my back.

On the reverse was a woodcut of Queen Elizabeth kneeling in prayer. Skeletons, biblical figures, and classical virtues decorated each page. The book was a combination of text and imagery, just like the alchemical treatises I studied.

“It’s exactly the kind of book a respectable married lady would own,” Matthew said with a grin. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “That should satisfy your desire to keep up appearances. But don’t worry. The next one isn’t respectable at all.”

I put the prayer book aside and took the thick volume Matthew offered. Its pages were sewn together and slipped inside a protective wrapper of thick vellum. The treatise promised to explain the symptoms and cures of every disease known to afflict mankind.

“Religious books are popular gifts, and easy to sell. Books about medicine have a smaller audience and are too costly to bind without a commission,” Matthew explained as I fingered the limp covering. He handed me yet another volume. “Luckily, I had already ordered a bound copy of this one. It’s hot off the presses and destined to be a bestseller.”

The item in question was covered in simple black leather, with some silver stamps for ornamentation. Inside was a first edition of Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. I laughed, remembering how much I’d hated reading it in college.

“A witch cannot live by prayer and physic alone.” Matthew’s eyes twinkled with mischief. His mustache tickled when he moved to kiss me.

“Your new face is going to take some getting used to,” I said, laughing and rubbing my lips at the unexpected sensation.

The Earl of Northumberland eyed me as he would a piece of horseflesh in need of a training regimen. “These few titles will not keep Diana occupied for long. She is used to more varied activity.”

“As you say. But she can hardly roam the city and offer classes on alchemy.” Matthew’s mouth tightened with amusement. Hour by hour, his accent and choice of words molded to the time. He leaned over me, sniffed the wine jug, and grimaced. “Is there something to drink that hasn’t been dosed with cloves and pepper? It smells dreadful.”

“Diana might enjoy Mary’s company,” Henry suggested, not having heard Matthew’s query.

Matthew stared at Henry. “Mary?”

“They are of a similar age and temperament, I think, and both are paragons of learning.”

“The countess is not only learned but also has a propensity for setting things alight,” Kit observed, pouring himself another generous beaker of wine. He stuck his nose in it and breathed deeply. It smelled rather like Matthew. “Stay away from her stills and furnaces, Mistress Roydon, unless you want fashionably frizzled hair.”

“Furnaces?” I wondered who this could be.

“A h, yes. The Countess of Pembroke,” George said, eyes gleaming at the prospect of patronage.

“Absolutely not.” Between Raleigh, Chapman, and Marlowe, I’d met enough literary legends to last me a lifetime. The countess was the foremost woman of letters in the country, and Sir Philip Sidney’s sister. “I’m not ready for Mary Sidney.”

“Nor is Mary Sidney ready for you, Mistress Roydon, but I suspect that Henry is right. You will soon grow tired of Matthew’s friends and need to seek your own. Without them you will be prone to idleness and melancholy.” Walter nodded to Matthew. “You should invite Mary here to share supper.”

“The Blackfriars would come to a complete standstill if the Countess of Pembroke appeared on Water Lane. It would be far better to send Mistress Roydon to Baynard’s Castle. It’s just over the wall,” Marlowe said, eager to be rid of me.

“Diana would have to walk into the city,” Matthew said pointedly.

Marlowe gave a dismissive snort. “It’s the week between Christmas and New Year. Nobody will pay attention if two married women share a cup of wine and some gossip.”

“I’d be happy to take her,” Walter volunteered. “Perhaps Mary will want to know more about my venture in the New World.”

“You’ll have to ask the countess to invest in Virginia another time. If Diana goes, I’ll be with her.” Matthew’s eyes sharpened. “I wonder if Mary knows any witches?”

“She’s a woman, isn’t she? Of course she knows witches,” Marlowe said. “Shall I write to her, then, Matt?” Henry inquired.

“Thank you, Hal.” Matthew was clearly unconvinced of the merits of the plan. Then he sighed. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen her. Tell Mary we’ll call on her tomorrow.”

My initial reluctance to meet Mary Sidney faded as our rendezvous approached. The more I remembered—and discovered—about the Countess of Pembroke, the more excited I became.

Françoise was in a state of high anxiety about the visit, and she fussed over my clothes for hours. She fixed a particularly frothy ruff around the high neckline of a black velvet jacket that Maria had fashioned for me in France. She also cleaned and pressed my flattering russet gown with its bands of black velvet. It went well with the jacket and provided a jolt of color. Once I was dressed, Françoise pronounced me passable, though too severe and German-looking for her tastes.

I bolted down some stew filled with chunks of rabbit and barley at midday in an effort to speed our departure. Matthew took an interminable time sipping his wine and questioning me in Latin about my morning. His expression was devilish.

“If you’re trying to infuriate me, you’re succeeding!” I told him after a particularly convoluted question.

“Refero mihi in latine, quaeso,” Matthew said in a professorial tone. When I threw a hunk of bread at him, he laughed and ducked.

Henry Percy arrived just in time to catch the bread neatly with one hand. He returned it to the table without comment, smiled serenely, and asked if we were ready to depart.

Pierre materialized without a sound from the shadows near the entrance to the shoe shop and began walking up the street with a diffident air, his right hand firmly around the hilt of his dagger. When Matthew turned us toward the city, I looked up. There was St. Paul’s.

“I’m not likely to get lost with that in the neighborhood,” I murmured.

As we made our slow progress toward the cathedral, my senses grew accustomed to the chaos and it was possible to pick out individual sounds, smells, and sights. Bread baking. Coal fires. Wood smoke. Fermentation. Freshly washed garbage, courtesy of yesterday’s rains. Wet wool. I breathed deeply, making a mental note to stop telling my students that if you went back in time, you would be knocked over instantly by the foul smell. Apparently that wasn’t true, at least not in late December.

Men and women looked up from their work and out their windows with unabashed curiosity as we passed, bobbing their heads respectfully when they recognized Matthew and Henry. We stepped by a printing establishment, passed another where a barber was cutting a man’s hair, and skirted a busy workshop where hammers and heat indicated that someone was working in fine metals.

As the strangeness wore off, I was able to focus on what people were saying, the texture of their clothes, the expressions on their faces. Matthew had told me our neighborhood was full of foreigners, but it sounded like Babel. I turned my head. “What language is she speaking?” I whispered with a glance at a plump woman wearing a deep blue-green jacket trimmed with fur. It was, I noted, cut rather like my own.

“Some dialect of German,” said Matthew, lowering his head to mine so that I could hear him over the noise in the street.

We passed through the arch of an old gatehouse. The lane widened into a street that had managed against all odds to retain most of its paving. A sprawling, multistoried building to our right buzzed with activity.

“The Dominican priory,” Matthew explained. “When King Henry expelled the priests, it became a ruin, then a tenement. There’s no telling how many people are crammed in there now.” He glanced across the courtyard, where a listing stone-and-timber wall spanned the distance between the tenement and the back of another house. A sorry excuse for a door hung from a single set of hinges.

Matthew looked up at St. Paul’s and then down at me. His face softened. “To hell with caution. Come on.”

He steered me through an opening between a section of the old city wall and a house that looked as though it were about to tip its third story onto passersby. It was possible to make progress along the slim thoroughfare only because everyone was moving in the same direction: up, north, out. We were carried by the wave of humanity into another street, this one much wider than Water Lane. The noise increased, along with the crowds.

“You said the city was deserted because of the holidays,” I remarked.

“It is,” Matthew replied. After a few steps, we were pitched into an even greater maelstrom. I stopped in my tracks.

St. Paul’s windows glimmered in the pale afternoon light. The churchyard around it was a solid mass of people—men, women, children, apprentices, servants, clergymen, soldiers. Those who weren’t shouting were listening to those who were, and everywhere you looked, there was paper. It was hung up on strings outside bookstalls, nailed to any solid surface, made into books, and waved in the faces of onlookers. A group of young men huddled around one post covered with flapping announcements, listening to someone slowly sound out job advertisements. Every now and then, one would break free from the rest, hands slapping him on the back as he pulled his cap down and set off in search of employment.

“Oh, Matthew.” It was all I could manage.

People continued to swarm around us, carefully avoiding the tips of the long swords my escorts wore at their waists. A breeze caught at my hood. I felt a tingle, followed by a faint pressure. Somewhere in the busy churchyard, a witch and a daemon had sensed our presence. Three creatures traveling together were hard to ignore.

“We’ve caught someone’s attention,” I said. Matthew didn’t seem overly concerned as he scanned the nearby faces. “Someone like me. Someone like Kit. No one like you.”

“Not yet,” he said under his breath. “You aren’t to come here by yourself, Diana—ever. Stay in the Blackfriars, with Françoise. If you go any farther than that passageway”—Matthew nodded behind us —“Pierre or I must be with you.” When he was satisfied that I had taken his warning seriously, he drew me away. “Let’s go see Mary.”

We turned south again, toward the river, and the wind flattened my skirts against my legs. Though we were walking downhill, every step was a struggle. A low whistle sounded as we passed by one of London’s many churches, and Pierre disappeared into an alley. He popped out of another just as I spotted a familiar-looking building behind a wall.

“That’s our house!”

Matthew nodded and directed my attention down the street. “And that is Baynard’s Castle.”

It was the largest building I had seen yet except for the Tower, St. Paul’s, and the distant prospect of Westminster Abbey. Three crenellated towers faced the river, linked by walls that were easily twice the height of any nearby houses.

“Baynard’s Castle was built to be approached from the river, Diana,” Henry said in an apologetic tone as we traveled down another winding lane. “This is the back entrance, and not how visitors are supposed to arrive—but it is a great deal warmer on a day like this.”

We ducked into an imposing gatehouse. Two men wearing charcoal gray uniforms with maroon, black, and gold badges strolled up to identify the visitors. One recognized Henry and grabbed at his companion’s sleeve before he could question us.

“Lord Northumberland!”

“We’re here to see the countess.” Henry swung his cloak in the direction of the guard. “See if you can get that dry. And find Master Roydon’s man something hot to drink, if you would.” The earl cracked his fingers inside his leather gloves and grimaced.

“Of course, my lord,” the gatekeeper said, eyeing Pierre with suspicion.

The castle was arranged around two enormous hollow squares, the central spaces filled with leafless trees and the vestiges of summer flowers. We climbed a wide set of stairs and met up with more liveried servants, one of whom led us to the countess’s solar: an inviting room with large, southfacing windows overlooking the river. They provided a view of the same stretch of the Thames that was visible from the Blackfriars.

Despite the similarity of the view, there was no mistaking this lofty, bright space for our house. Though our rooms were large and comfortably furnished, Baynard’s Castle was the home of aristocracy, and it showed. Wide, cushioned settles flanked the fireplace, along with chairs so deep that a woman could curl up in one with all her skirts tucked around her. Tapestries enlivened the stone walls with splashes of bright color and scenes from classical mythology. There were signs, too, of a scholar’s mind at work. Books, bits of ancient statuary, natural objects, pictures, maps, and other curiosities covered the tables.

“Master Roydon?” A man with a pointed beard and dark hair peppered with gray stood. He held a small board in one hand and a tiny brush in the other.

“Hilliard!” Matthew said, his delight evident. “What brings you here?”

“A commission for Lady Pembroke,” the man said, waving his palette. “I must put the finishing touches on this miniature. She wishes to have it for a gift at the New Year.” His bright brown eyes studied me.

“I forget, you have not met my wife. Diana, this is Nicholas Hilliard, the limner.”

“I am honored,” I said, dipping into a curtsy. London had well over a hundred thousand residents. Why did Matthew have to know everyone that historians would one day find significant? “I know and admire your work.”

“She has seen the portrait of Sir Walter that you painted for me last year,” Matthew said smoothly, covering up my too-effusive greeting.

“One of his best pieces, I agree,” Henry said, looking over the artist’s shoulder. “This seems destined to rival it, though. What an excellent likeness of Mary, Hilliard. You’ve captured the intensity of her gaze.” Hilliard looked pleased.

A servant appeared with wine, and Henry, Matthew, and Hilliard conversed in low voices while I examined an ostrich egg set in gold and a nautilus shell in a silver stand, both of which sat on a table along with several priceless mathematical instruments that I didn’t dare touch.

“Matt!” The Countess of Pembroke stood in the doorway wiping inkstained fingers on a handkerchief hastily supplied by her maid. I wondered why anyone would bother, since her mistress’s dove gray gown was already splotched and even singed in places. The countess peeled the simple garment from her body, revealing a far more splendid velvet and taffeta outfit in a rich shade of plum. As she passed the early-modern equivalent of a lab coat to her servant, I smelled a distinct whiff of gunpowder. The countess tucked up a tight curl of blond hair that had drifted down by her right ear. She was tall and willowy, with creamy skin and deep-set brown eyes.

She stretched out her hands in welcome. “My dear friend. I have not seen you for years, not since my brother Philip’s funeral.”

“Mary,” Matthew said, bowing over her hand. “You are looking well.”

“London does not agree with me, as you know, but it has become a tradition that we travel here for the queen’s anniversary celebrations, and I stayed on. I am working on Philip’s psalms and a few other fancies and do not mind it so much. And there are consolations, like seeing old friends.” Mary’s voice was airy, but it still conveyed her sharp intelligence.

“You are indeed flourishing,” Henry said, adding his welcome to Matthew’s and looking at the countess approvingly.

Mary’s brown eyes fixed on me. “And who is this?”

“My happiness at seeing you has pushed my manners aside. Lady Pembroke, this is my wife, Diana. We are recently wed.”

“My lady.” I dropped the countess a deep curtsy. Mary’s shoes were encrusted with fantastic gold and silver embroidery that suggested Eden, covered as they were with snakes, apples, and insects. They must have cost a fortune.

“Mistress Roydon,” she said, her eyes snapping with amusement. “Now that that’s over with, let us be plain Mary and Diana. Henry tells me that you are a student of alchemy.”

“A reader of alchemy, my lady,” I corrected, “that is all. Lord Northumberland is too generous.”

Matthew took my hand in his. “And you are too modest. She knows a vast amount, Mary. As Diana is new to London, Hal thought you might help her find her way in the city.”

“With pleasure,” the Countess of Pembroke said. “Come, we shall sit by the window. Master Hilliard requires strong light for his work. While he finishes my portrait, you will tell me all the news. Little happens in the kingdom that is beyond Matthew’s notice and understanding, Diana, and I have been at home in Wiltshire for months.”

Once we were settled, her servant returned with a plate of preserved fruit.

“Ooh,” Henry said, happily wiggling his fingers over the yellow, green, and orange confections. “Comfits. You make them like no one else.”

“And I shall share my secret with Diana,” Mary said, looking pleased. “Of course, once she has the receipt, I may never have the pleasure of Henry’s company again.”

“Now, Mary, you go too far,” he protested around a mouthful of candied orange peel.

“Is your husband with you, Mary, or does the queen’s business keep him in Wales?” Matthew inquired.

“The Earl of Pembroke left Milford Haven several days ago but will go to court rather than come here. I have William and Philip with me for company, and we will not linger much longer in the city but go on to Ramsbury. The air is healthier there.” A sad look crossed her face.

Mary’s words reminded me of the statue of William Herbert in the Bodleian Library quadrangle. The man I passed on the way to Duke Humfrey’s every day, and one of the library’s greatest benefactors, was this woman’s young son. “How old are your children?” I asked, hoping that the question was not too personal.

The countess’s face softened. “William is ten, and Philip is just six. My daughter, Anne, is seven but she has been ill this past month, and my husband felt she should remain at Wilton.”

“Nothing serious?” Matthew frowned.

More shadows scudded across the countess’s face. “Any sickness that afflicts my children is serious,” she said softly.

“Forgive me, Mary. I spoke without thinking. My intention was only to offer what assistance I can.” My husband’s voice deepened with regret. The conversation was touching on a shared history unknown to me.

“You have kept those I love from harm on more than one occasion. I haven’t forgotten it, Matthew, nor would I fail to call on you again if necessary. But Anne suffered from a child’s ague, nothing more. The physicians assure me she will recover.” Mary turned to me. “Do you have children, Diana?”

“Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. Matthew’s gray glance settled on me for a moment, then flitted away. I tugged nervously at the bottom of my jacket.

“Diana has not been married before,” Matthew said.

“Never?” The Countess of Pembroke was fascinated by this piece of information and opened her mouth to question me further. Matthew cut her off.

“Her father and mother died when she was young. There was no one to arrange it.”

Mary’s sympathy increased. “A young girl’s life is sadly dependent upon the whims of her guardians.”

“Indeed.” Matthew arched an eyebrow at me. I could imagine what he was thinking: I was lamentably independent, and Sarah and Em were the least whimsical creatures on earth.

The conversation moved on to politics and current events. I listened attentively for a while, trying to reconcile hazy recollections of a long-ago history class with the complicated gossip that the other three exchanged. There was talk of war, a possible Spanish invasion, Catholic sympathizers, and the religious tension in France, but the names and places were often unfamiliar. As I relaxed into the warmth of Mary’s solar, and comforted by the constant chatter, my mind drifted.

“I am done here, Lady Pembroke. My servant Isaac will deliver the miniature by week’s end,” Hilliard announced, packing up his equipment.

“Thank you, Master Hilliard.” The countess extended her hand, sparkling with the jewels from her many rings. He kissed it, nodded to Henry and Matthew, and departed.

“Such a talented man,” Mary said, shifting in her chair. “He has grown so popular I was fortunate to secure his services.” Her feet twinkled in the firelight, the silver embroidery on her richly colored slippers picking up hints of red, orange, and gold. I wondered idly who had designed the intricate pattern for the embroidery. Had I been closer, I would have asked to touch the stitches. Champier had been able to read my flesh with his fingers. Could an inanimate object provide similar information?

Though my fingers were nowhere near the countess’s shoes, I saw the face of a young woman. She was peering at a sheet of paper with the design for Mary’s shoes on it. Tiny holes along the lines of the drawing solved the mystery of how its intricacies had been transferred to leather. Focusing on the drawing, my mind’s eye took several steps backward in time. Now I saw Mary sitting with a stern, stubborn-jawed man, a table full of insect and plant specimens before them. Both were talking with great animation about a grasshopper, and when the man began to describe it in detail, Mary took up her pen and sketched its outlines.

So Mary is interested in plants and insects, as well as alchemy, I thought, searching her shoes for the grasshopper. There it was, on the heel. So lifelike. And the bee on her right toe looked as though it might fly away at any moment.

A faint buzzing filled my ears as the silver-and-black bee detached itself from the Countess of Pembroke’s shoe and took to the air.

“Oh, no,” I gasped.

“What a strange bee,” Henry commented, swatting at it as it flew past.

But I was looking instead at the snake that was slithering off Mary’s foot and into the rushes. “Matthew!”

He shot forward and lifted the snake by the tail. It extended its forked tongue and hissed indignantly at the rough treatment. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the snake into the fire, where it sizzled for a moment before catching light.

“I didn’t mean . . .” I trailed off.

“It’s all right, mon coeur. You cannot help it.” Matthew touched my cheek before he looked at the countess, who was staring down at her mismatching slippers. “We need a witch, Mary. There is some urgency.”

“I know no witches,” was the Countess of Pembroke’s swift reply.

Matthew’s eyebrows rose.

“None to whom I would introduce your wife. You know I don’t like to speak of such matters, Matthew. When he returned safe from Paris, Philip told me what you were. I was a child then and understood it as a fable. That is how I wish to keep it.”

“And yet you practice alchemy,” Matthew observed. “Is that a fable, too?”

“I practice alchemy to understand God’s miracle of creation!” Mary cried. “There is no . . . witchcraft . . . in alchemy!”

“The word you were searching for is ‘evil.’” The vampire’s eyes were dark and the set of his mouth forbidding. The countess instinctively recoiled. “You are so sure of yourself and your God that you claim to know His mind?”

Mary felt the rebuke but was not ready to give up the fight. “My God and your God are not the same, Matthew.” My husband’s eyes narrowed, and Henry picked at his hose nervously. The countess’s chin rose. “Philip told me about that, too. You still adhere to the pope and the Mass. He saw past the errors of your faith to the man underneath, and I have done the same in the hope that one day you will perceive the truth and follow it.”

“Why, when you see the truth about creatures like Diana and me every day and still deny it?” Matthew sounded weary. He stood. “We will not trouble you again, Mary. Diana will find a witch some other way.”

“Why can we not go on as we have before and speak no more about this?” The countess looked at me and bit her lip, uncertainty in her eyes.

“Because I love my wife and want to see her safe.”

Mary studied him for a moment, gauging his sincerity. It must have satisfied her. “Diana need not fear me, Matt. But no one else in London should be trusted with the knowledge of her. What is happening in Scotland is making people fearful, and quick to blame others for their misfortunes.”

“I’m so sorry about your shoes,” I said awkwardly. They would never be the same.

“We will not mention it,” Mary said firmly, rising to say her good-byes.

None of us said a word as we left Baynard’s Castle. Pierre sauntered out of the gatehouse behind us, jamming his cap on his head.

“That went very well, I think,” Henry said, breaking the silence.

We turned on him in disbelief.

“There were a few difficulties, to be sure,” he said hastily, “but there was no mistaking Mary’s interest in Diana or her continued devotion to you, Matthew. You must give her a chance. She was not raised to trust easily. It’s why matters of faith trouble her so.” He drew his cloak around him. The wind had not diminished, and it was getting dark. “Alas, I must leave you here. My mother is in Aldersgate and expects me for supper.”

“Has she recovered from her indisposition?” Matthew asked. The dowager countess had complained about shortness of breath over Christmas, and Matthew was concerned it might be her heart.

“My mother is a Neville. She will, therefore, live forever and cause trouble at every opportunity!” Henry kissed me on the cheek. “Do not worry about Mary, or about that . . . er, other matter.” He wiggled his eyebrows meaningfully and departed.

Matthew and I watched him go before turning toward the Blackfriars. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

“Before, it was my emotions that set off the magic. Now an idle question is enough to make me see beneath the surface of things. But I have no idea how I animated that bee.”

“Thank God you were thinking about Mary’s shoes. If you’d been examining her tapestries, we would have found ourselves in the midst of a war between the gods on Mount Olympus,” he said drily.

We passed quickly through St. Paul’s Churchyard and back into the relative quiet of the Blackfriars. The day’s earlier frenetic activity had slowed to a more leisurely pace. Craftsmen congregated in doorways to share notes on business, leaving their apprentices to finish up the day’s tasks.

“Do you want takeout?” Matthew pointed at a bake shop. “It’s not pizza, alas, but Kit and Walter are devoted to Prior’s meat pies.” My mouth watered at the scent coming from inside, and I nodded.

Master Prior was shocked when Matthew entered his premises and nonplussed when questioned in detail about the sources and relative freshness of his meat. Finally I settled on a savory pie filled with duck. I wasn’t having venison, no matter how recently it had been killed.

Matthew paid Prior for the food while the baker’s assistants wrapped it. Every few seconds they gave us furtive glances. I was reminded that a witch and a vampire drew human suspicion like a candle drew moths.

Dinner was comfortable and cozy, though Matthew seemed a bit preoccupied. Soon after I’d finished my pie, footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs. Not Kit, I thought, crossing my fingers, not tonight.

When Françoise opened the door, two men in familiar charcoal livery were waiting. Matthew frowned and stood. “Is the countess unwell? Or one of the boys?”

“All are well, sir.” One of them held out a carefully folded piece of paper. On top was an irregular blob of red wax bearing the impression of an arrowhead. “From the Countess of Pembroke,” he explained with a bow, “for Mistress Roydon.”

It was strange to see the formal address on the reverse: “Mistress Diana Roydon, at the sign of the Hart and Crown, the Blackfriars.” My wandering fingers easily summoned up an image of Mary Sidney’s intelligent face. I carried the letter over to the fire, slid my finger under the seal, and sat down to read. The paper was thick and crackled as I spread it out. A smaller slip of paper fluttered onto my lap.

“What does Mary say?” Matthew asked after dismissing the messengers. He stood behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders.

“She wants me to come to Baynard’s Castle on Thursday. Mary has an alchemical experiment under way that she thinks might interest me.” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“That’s Mary for you. She’s cautious but loyal,” Matthew said, dropping a kiss on my head. “And she always did have amazing recuperative powers. What’s on the other paper?”

I picked it up and read aloud the first lines of the enclosed verses.

“Yea, when all me so misdeemed, I to most a monster seemed, Yet in thee my hope was strong.”

“Well, well, well,” Matthew interrupted with a chuckle. “My wife has arrived.” I looked at him in confusion. “Mary’s most treasured project is not alchemical but a new rendition of the Psalms for English Protestants. Her brother Philip began it and died before it was complete. Mary’s twice the poet he was. Sometimes she suspects as much, though she’ll never admit it. That’s the beginning of Psalm Seventy-one. She sent it to you to show the world that you’re part of her circle—a trusted confidante and friend.” His voice dropped to a mischievous whisper. “Even if you did ruin her shoes.” With a final chuckle, Matthew withdrew to his study, dogged by Pierre.

I’d taken over one end of the heavy-legged table in the parlor for a desk. Like every work surface I’d ever occupied, it was now littered with both trash and treasures. I rooted around and found my last sheets of blank paper, selected a fresh quill, and swept a spot clear.

It took five minutes to write a brief response to the countess. There were two embarrassing blotches on it, but my Italic hand was reasonably good, and I’d remembered to spell some of the words phonetically so that they wouldn’t look too modern. When in doubt I doubled a consonant or added a final e. I shook sand on the sheet and waited until it absorbed the excess ink before blowing it into the rushes. Once the letter was folded, I realized that I had no wax or signet to close it. That will have to be fixed.

I set my note aside for Pierre and returned to the slip of paper. Mary had sent me all three stanzas of Psalm 71. I took up a new blank book that Matthew had bought for me and opened it to the first page. After dipping the quill into the nearby pot of ink, I moved the sharp point carefully across the sheet.

They by whom my life is hated With their spies have now debated Of their talk, and, lo, the sum: God, they say, hath him forsaken. Now pursue, he must be taken; None will to his rescue come.

When the ink was dry, I closed my book and slid it underneath Philip Sidney’s Arcadia.

There was more to this gift from Mary than a simple offer of friendship, of that I was certain. While the lines I’d read aloud to Matthew were an acknowledgment of his service to her family and a declaration that she would not turn away from him now, the final lines held a message for me: We were being watched. Someone suspected that all was not as it seemed on Water Lane, and Matthew’s enemies were betting that even his allies would turn against him once they discovered the truth.

Matthew, a vampire as well as the queen’s servant and a member of the Congregation, couldn’t be involved with finding a witch to serve as my magical tutor. And with a baby on the way, finding one quickly had taken on a new significance. I pulled a sheet of paper toward me and began to make a list. Sealing Waxe

A Signet

London was a big city. And I was going to do some shopping.

17

“I’m going out.”

Françoise looked up from her sewing. Thirty seconds later Pierre was climbing the stairs. Had Matthew been at home, he would no doubt have appeared as well, but he was out conducting some mysterious business in the city. I’d woken to the sight of his damp suit still drying by the fireplace. He’d been called away in the night and returned, only to leave once more.

“Indeed?” Françoise’s eyes narrowed. She had suspected I was up to no good ever since I’d gotten dressed. Instead of grumbling about the number of petticoats she pulled over my head, today I’d added another made out of warm gray flannel. Then we argued about which gown I should wear. I preferred the comfortable clothes I’d brought from France over Louisa de Clermont’s more splendid garments. Matthew’s sister, with her dark hair and porcelain skin, could pull off a gown of vivid turquoise velvet (“Verdigris,” Françoise had corrected me) or a sickly gray-green taffeta (appropriately called “Dying Spaniard”), but they looked ghastly with my faint freckles and reddish-blond curls, and they were too grand to wear around town.

“Perhaps madame should wait until Master Roydon returns,” Pierre suggested. He shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“No, I think not. I’ve made a list of things I need, and I want to go shopping for them myself.” I scooped up the leather bag of coins given to me by Philippe. “Is it all right to carry a bag, or am I supposed to stick the money into my bodice and fish the coins out when necessary?” This aspect of historical fiction had always fascinated me—women stuffing things into their dresses—and I was looking forward to discovering whether the items were as easy to remove in public as the novelists suggested. Sex was certainly not as easy to arrange in the sixteenth century as it was made out to be in some romances. There were too many clothes in the way, for a start.

“Madame will not carry money at all!” Françoise pointed to Pierre, who loosened the strings of a bag tied around his waist. It was apparently bottomless and held a considerable stash of pointy implements, including pins, needles, something that looked like a set of picklocks, and a dagger. Once my leather bag was included, it jingled at his slightest movement.

Out on Water Lane, I strode with as much determination as my pattens (those helpful wooden wedges that slipped over my shoes and kept me from the muck) would allow in the direction of St. Paul’s. The fur-lined cloak billowed around my feet, its thick fabric a barrier to the clinging fog. We were enjoying a temporary reprieve from the recent downpours, but the weather was by no means dry.

Our first stop was at Master Prior’s bakery for some buns studded with currants and candied fruit. I was often hungry in the late afternoons and would want something sweet. My next visit was near the alley that linked the Blackfriars to the rest of London, at a busy printing shop marked with the sign of an anchor.

“Good morning, Mistress Roydon,” the proprietor said the moment I crossed the threshold. Apparently my neighbors knew me without introduction. “You are here to pick up your husband’s book?”

I nodded confidently in spite of not knowing which book he was talking about, and he pulled at a slim volume that was resting on a high shelf. A flip through the pages revealed that it dealt with military affairs and ballistics.

“I am sorry there was no bound copy of your physic book,” he said as he wrapped Matthew’s purchase. “When you can part with it, I will have it bound to suit you.”

So this was where my compendium of illnesses and cures had come from. “I thank you, Master . . .” I trailed off.

“Field,” he supplied.

“Master Field,” I repeated. A bright-eyed young woman with a baby on her hip came out of the office at the back of the shop, a toddler clinging to her skirts. Her fingers were rough and ingrained with ink.

“Mistress Roydon, this is my wife, Jacqueline.”

“Ah. Madame Roydon.” The woman’s accent was softly French and reminded me of Ysabeau. “Your husband told us you are a great reader, and Margaret Hawley reports that you study alchemy.”

Jacqueline and her husband knew a great deal about my business. No doubt they also were apprised of my shoe size and the type of meat pie I preferred. It struck me as even odder, therefore, that no one in the Blackfriars seemed to have noticed I was a witch.

“Yes,” I said, straightening the seams of my gloves. “Do you sell unbound paper, Master Field?”

“Of course,” Field said with a confused frown. “Have you filled your book with commonplaces already?” Ah. He was the source of my notebook, too.

“I require paper for correspondence,” I explained. “And sealing wax. And a signet. Can I purchase them here?” The Yale bookstore had all kinds of stationery, pens, and sticks of brightly colored, entirely pointless wax along with cheap brass seals made in the shape of letters. Field and his wife exchanged glances.

“I will send more paper this afternoon,” he said. “But you’ll want a goldsmith for the signet so it can be made into a ring. All I have here are worn letters from the printing press that are waiting to be melted down and recast.”

“Or you could see Nicholas Vallin,” Jacqueline suggested. “He is expert with metals, Mistress Roydon, and also makes fine clocks.”

“Just down the lane?” I said, pointing over my shoulder.

“He is not a goldsmith,” Field protested. “We do not want to cause Monsieur Vallin trouble.”

Jacqueline was unperturbed. “There are benefits to living in the Blackfriars, Richard. Working outside the regulations of the guilds is one of them. Besides, the Goldsmiths Company will not bother anyone here for something as insignificant as a woman’s ring. If you want sealing wax, Mistress Roydon, you will need to go to the apothecary.”

Soap was on my list of purchases, too. And apothecaries used distillation apparatus. Even though my focus was necessarily shifting from alchemy to magic, there was no need to forgo an opportunity to learn something more useful.

“Where is the nearest apothecary?”

Pierre coughed. “Perhaps you should consult with Master Roydon.”

Matthew would have all sorts of opinions, most of which would involve sending Françoise or Pierre to fetch what I required. The Fields awaited my reply with interest.

“Perhaps,” I said, staring at Pierre indignantly. “But I would like Mistress Field’s recommendation all the same.”

“John Hester is highly regarded,” Jacqueline said with a touch of mischief, pulling the toddler free of her skirts. “He provided a tincture for my son’s ear that cured its aching.” John Hester, if memory served, was interested in alchemy, too. Perhaps he knew a witch. Even better, he might be a witch, which would suit my real intentions admirably. I was not simply out shopping today. I was out to be seen. Witches were a curious bunch. If I offered myself up as bait, one would bite.

“It is said that even the Countess of Pembroke seeks his advice for the young lord’s megraines,” her husband added. So the entire neighborhood knew I’d been to Baynard’s Castle, too. Mary was right: We were being watched.

“Master Hester’s shop is near Paul’s Wharf, marked with the sign of a still,” she continued.

“Thank you, Mistress Field.” Paul’s Wharf must be near St. Paul’s Churchyard, and I could go there that afternoon. I redrew my mental map of today’s excursion.

After we said our farewells, Françoise and Pierre turned down the lane toward home.

“I’m going on to the cathedral,” I said, heading in the other direction.

Impossibly, Pierre was standing before me. “Milord will not be pleased.”

“Milord is not here. Matthew left strict instructions that I wasn’t to go there without you. He didn’t say I was a prisoner in my own house.” I thrust the book and the buns at Françoise. “If Matthew returns before I do, tell him where we are and that I’ll be back soon.”

Françoise took the parcels, exchanged a long look with Pierre, and proceeded down Water Lane.

“Prenez garde, madame,” Pierre murmured as I passed him.

“I’m always careful,” I said calmly, stepping straight into a puddle.

Two coaches had collided and were jammed in the street leading to St. Paul’s. The lumbering vehicles resembled enclosed wagons and were nothing like the dashing carriages in Jane Austen films. I skirted them with Pierre on my heels, dodging the irritated horses and the no-less-irritated occupants, who stood in the middle of the street and shouted about who was to blame. Only the coachmen seemed unconcerned, chatting to each other quietly from their perches above the fray.

“Does this happen often?” I asked Pierre, pulling back my hood so that I could see him.

“These new conveyances are a nuisance,” he said sourly. “It was much better when people walked or rode horses. But it is no matter. They will never catch on.”

That’s what they told Henry Ford, I thought.

“How far is Paul’s Wharf?”

“Milord does not like John Hester.”

“That’s not what I asked, Pierre.”

“What does madame wish to purchase in the churchyard?” Pierre’s distraction technique was familiar to me from years in the classroom. But I had no intention of telling anyone the real reason we were picking our way across London. “Books,” I said shortly.

We entered the precincts of St. Paul’s, where every inch not taken up by paper was occupied by someone selling a good or service. A kindly middleaged man sat on a stool, inside a lean-to affixed to a shed, which was itself built up against one of the cathedral walls. This was by no means an unusual office environment for the place. A huddle of people gathered around his stall. If I were lucky, there would be a witch among them.

I made my way through the crowd. They all seemed to be human. What a disappointment.

The man looked up, startled, from a document he was carefully transcribing for a waiting customer. A scrivener. Please, let this not be William Shakespeare, I prayed.

“Can I help you, Mistress Roydon?” he said in a French accent. Not Shakespeare. But how did he know my identity?

“Do you have sealing wax? And red ink?”

“I am not an apothecary, Mistress Roydon, but a poor teacher.” His customers began to mutter about the scandalous profits enjoyed by grocers, apothecaries, and other extortionists.

“Mistress Field tells me that John Hester makes excellent sealing wax.” Heads turned in my direction.

“Rather expensive, though. So is his ink, which he makes from iris flowers.” The man’s assessment was confirmed by murmurs from the crowd.

“Can you point me in the direction of his shop?”

Pierre grabbed my elbow. “Non,” he hissed in my ear. As this only earned us more human attention, he quickly dropped it again.

The scrivener’s hand rose and pointed east. “You will find him at Paul’s Wharf. Go to the Bishop’s Head and then turn south. But Monsieur Cornu knows the way.”

I glanced back at Pierre, who was staring fixedly at a spot somewhere above my head. “Does he? Thank you.”

“That’s Matthew Roydon’s wife?” someone said with a chuckle as we stepped out of the throng. “Mon dieu. No wonder he looks exhausted.”

I didn’t move immediately in the direction of the apothecary. Instead, with my eyes fixed on the cathedral, I began a slow circumnavigation of its enormous bulk. It was surprisingly graceful given its size, but that unfortunate lightning strike had ruined its appearance forever.

“This is not the fastest way to the Bishop’s Head.” Pierre was one step behind me instead of his usual three and therefore ran into me when I stopped to look up.

“How tall was the spire?”

“Almost as tall as the building is long. Milord was always fascinated by how they managed to build it so high.” The missing spire would have made the whole building soar, with the slender pinnacle echoing the delicate lines of the buttresses and the tall Gothic windows.

I felt a surge of energy that reminded me of the temple to the goddess near Sept-Tours. Deep under the cathedral, something sensed my presence. It responded with a whisper, a slight stirring beneath my feet, a sigh of acknowledgment—and then it was gone. There was power here—the kind that was irresistible to witches.

Pushing my hood from my face, I slowly surveyed the buyers and sellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Daemons, witches, and vampires sent flickers of attention my way, but there was too much activity for me to stand out. I needed a more intimate situation.

I continued past the north side of the cathedral and rounded its eastern end. The noise increased. Here all attention was focused on a man in a raised, open-air pulpit covered by a cross-topped roof. In the absence of an electric public-address system, the man kept his audience engaged by shouting, making dramatic gestures, and conjuring up images of fire and brimstone.

There was no way that one witch could compete with so much hell and damnation. Unless I did something dangerously conspicuous, any witch who spotted me would think I was nothing more than a fellow creature out shopping. I smothered a sigh of frustration. My plan had seemed infallible in its simplicity. In the Blackfriars there were no witches. But here in St. Paul’s, there were too many. And Pierre’s presence would deter any curious creature who might approach me.

“Stay here and don’t move,” I ordered, giving him a stern look. My chances of catching the eye of a friendly witch might increase if he weren’t standing by radiating vampire disapproval. Pierre leaned against the upright support of a bookstall and fixed his eyes on me without comment.

I waded into the crowd at the foot of Paul’s Cross, looking from left to right as if to locate a lost friend. I waited for a witch’s tingle. They were here. I could feel them.

“Mistress Roydon?” a familiar voice called. “What brings you here?”

George Chapman’s ruddy face poked out between the shoulders of two dour-looking gentlemen who were listening to the preacher blame the ills of the world on an unholy cabal of Catholics and merchant adventurers.

There was no witch to be found, but the members of the School of Night were, as usual, everywhere.

“I’m looking for ink. And sealing wax.” The more I repeated this, the more inane it sounded.

“You’ll need an apothecary, then. Come, I’ll take you to my own man.” George held out his elbow. “He is quite reasonable, as well as skilled.”

“It is getting late, Master Chapman,” Pierre said, materializing from nowhere.

“Mistress Roydon should take the air while she has the opportunity. The watermen say the rain will return soon, and they are seldom wrong. Besides, John Chandler’s shop is just outside the walls, on Red Cross Street. It’s not half a mile.”

Meeting up with George now seemed fortuitous rather than exasperating. Surely we would pass a witch on our stroll.

“Matthew would not object to my walking with Master Chapman— especially not with you accompanying me, too,” I told Pierre, taking George’s arm. “Is your apothecary anywhere near Paul’s Wharf?”

“Quite the opposite,” George said. “But you don’t want to shop on Paul’s Wharf. John Hester is the only apothecary there, and his prices are beyond the bounds of good sense. Master Chandler will do you a better service, at half the cost.”

I put John Hester on my to-do list for another day and took George’s arm. We strolled out of St. Paul’s Churchyard to the north, passing grand houses and gardens.

“That’s where Henry’s mother lives,” George said, gesturing at a particularly imposing set of buildings to our left. “He hates the place and lived around the corner from Matt until Mary convinced him that his lodgings were beneath an earl’s dignity. Now he’s moved into a house on the Strand. Mary is pleased, but Henry finds it gloomy, and the damp disagrees with his bones.”

The city walls were just beyond the Percy family house. Built by the Romans to defend Londinium from invaders, they still marked its official boundaries. Once we’d passed through Aldersgate and over a low bridge, there were open fields and houses clustered around churches. My gloved hand rose to my nose at the smell that accompanied this pastoral view.

“The city ditch,” George said apologetically, gesturing at a river of sludge beneath our feet. “It is, alas, the most direct route. We will be in better air soon.” I wiped at my watering eyes and sincerely hoped so.

George steered me along the street, which was broad enough to accommodate passing coaches, wagons full of food, and even a team of oxen. While we walked, he chatted about his visit with his publisher, William Ponsonby. Chapman was crushed that I didn’t recognize the name. I knew little about the nuances of the Elizabethan book trade and so drew him out about the subject. George was happy to gossip about the many playwrights Ponsonby snubbed, including Kit. Ponsonby preferred to work with the serious literary set, and his stable of authors was illustrious indeed: Edmund Spenser, the Countess of Pembroke, Philip Sidney.

“Ponsonby would publish Matt’s poetry as well, but he has refused.” George shook his head, perplexed.

“His poetry?” That brought me to a sudden halt. I knew that Matthew admired poetry, but not that he wrote it.

“Yes. Matt insists his verses are fit only for the eyes of friends. We are all fond of his elegy for Mary’s brother, Philip Sidney. ‘But eies and eares and ev’ry thought / Were with his sweete perfections caught.’” George smiled. “It is marvelous work. But Matthew has little use for the press and complains that it has only resulted in discord and ill-considered opinions.”

In spite of his modern laboratory, Matthew was an old fuddy-duddy with his fondness for antique watches and vintage automobiles. I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling at this latest evidence of his traditionalism. “What are his poems about?”

“Love and friendship for the most part, though recently he and Walter have been exchanging verses about . . . darker subjects. They seem to think out of a single mind these days.”

“Darker?” I frowned.

“He and Walter do not always approve of what happens around them,” George said in a low voice, his eyes darting over the faces of passersby. “They can be prone to impatience—Walter especially—and often give the lie to those in positions of power. It is a dangerous tendency.”

“Give the lie,” I said slowly. There was a famous poem called “The Lie.” It was anonymous, but attributed to Walter Raleigh. “‘Say to the court, it glows / And shines like rotten wood’?”

“So Matt has shared his verses with you.” George sighed once more. “He manages to convey in a few words a full range of feeling and meaning. It is a talent I envy.”

Though the poem was familiar, Matthew’s relationship to it was not. But there would be plenty of time in the evenings ahead to pursue my husband’s literary efforts. I dropped the subject and listened while George offered his opinions on whether writers were now required to publish too much in order to survive, and the need for decent copy editors to keep errors from creeping into printed books.

“There is Chandler’s shop,” George said, pointing to the intersection where an off-kilter cross sat on a raised platform. A gang of boys was busy chipping one of the rough cobbles out of the base. It didn’t take a witch to foresee that the stone might soon be launched through a shop window.

The closer we got to the apothecary’s place of business, the colder the air felt. Just as at St. Paul’s, there was another surge of power, but an oppressive atmosphere of poverty and desperation hung over the neighborhood. An ancient tower crumbled on the northern side of the street, and the houses around it looked as though a gust of wind might carry them away. Two youths shuffled closer, eyeing us with interest, until a low hiss from Pierre stopped them in their tracks.

John Chandler’s shop suited the neighborhood’s Gothic atmosphere perfectly. It was dark, pungent, and unsettling. A stuffed owl hung from the ceiling, and the toothy jaws of some unfortunate creature were tacked above a diagram of a body with severed and broken limbs, pierced through with weapons. A carpenter’s awl entered the poor fellow’s left eye at a jaunty angle.

A stooped man emerged from behind a curtain, wiping his hands on the sleeves of his rusty black bombazine coat. It bore a resemblance to the academic gowns worn by Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates and was just as rumpled. Bright hazel eyes met mine without a trace of hesitation, and my skin tingled with recognition. Chandler was a witch. After crossing most of London, I’d finally located one of my own people.

“The streets around you grow more dangerous with every passing week, Master Chandler.” George peered out the door at the gang hovering nearby.

“That pack of boys runs wild,” Chandler said. “What can I do for you today, Master Chapman? Are you in need of more tonic? Have your headaches returned?”

George made a detailed accounting of his many aches and pains. Chandler murmured sympathetically every now and then and drew a ledger closer. The men pored over it, giving me a chance to examine my surroundings.

Elizabethan apothecary shops were evidently the general stores of the period, and the small space was stuffed to the rafters with merchandise. There were piles of vividly illustrated broadsides, like the one of the wounded man tacked up on the wall, and jars of candied fruit. Used books sat on one table, along with a few newer titles. A set of pottery crocks offered a splash of brightness in the otherwise dim room, all of them labeled with the names of medicinal spices and herbs. Specimens from the animal kingdom on display included not only the stuffed owl and jawbone but also some wizened rodents tied up by their tails. I spotted pots of ink, quill pens, and spools of string, too.

The shop was organized in loose thematic groupings. The ink was near the quills and the used books, under the wise old owl. The mice hung above a crock labeled “Ratbane,” which sat next to a book promising not only to help you catch fish but to build “sundrie Engines and trappes to take Polcats, Buzzards, rattes, mice, and all other kindes of Vermin and beasts.” I had been wondering how to get rid of the unwanted guests in Matthew’s attic. The detailed plans in the pamphlet exceeded my handywoman skills, but I’d find someone who could execute them. If the brace of mice in Chandler’s shop was any indication, the traps certainly worked.

“Excuse me, mistress,” Chandler murmured, reaching past me. Fascinated, I watched as he took the mice to his workbench and sliced the ears off with delicate precision.

“What are they for?” I asked George.

“Powdered mouse ears are effective against warts,” he explained earnestly while Chandler wielded his pestle.

Relieved that I did not suffer from this particular complaint, I drifted over to the owl guarding the stationery department. I found a pot of red ink, deep and rich.

Your wearh friend will not appreciate having to carry that bottle home, mistress. It is made from hawk’s blood and is used for writing out love spells.

So Chandler had the power of silent speech. I returned the ink to its place and picked up a dog-eared pamphlet. The images on the first sheet showed a wolf attacking a small child and a man being horribly tortured and then executed. It reminded me of the tabloids at the cash registers in modern grocery stores. When I flipped the page over, I was startled to read about someone named Stubbe Peter, who appeared in the shape of a wolf and fed off the blood of men, women, and children until they were dead. It was not only Scottish witches who were in the public eye. So were vampires.

My eyes raced across the page. I noted with relief that Stubbe lived in far-off Germany. The anxiety returned when I saw that the uncle of one of his victims ran the brewery between our house and Baynard’s Castle. I was aghast at the gruesome details of the killings, as well as the lengths humans would go to in order to cope with the creatures in their midst. Here Stubbe Peter was depicted as a witch, and his strange behavior was attributed to a pact with the devil that made it possible for him to change shape and satisfy his unnatural taste for blood. But it was far more likely that the man was a vampire. I slid the pamphlet underneath my other book and made my way to the counter.

“Mistress Roydon requires some supplies,” George explained to the apothecary as I drew near.

Chandler’s mind went carefully blank at the mention of my name.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Red ink, if you have it. And some scented soap, for washing.”

“Aye.” The wizard searched through some small pewter vessels. When he found the right one, he put it on the counter. “And do you require sealing wax to match the ink?”

“Whatever you have will be fine, Master Chandler.”

“I see you have one of Master Hester’s books,” George said, picking up a nearby volume. “I told Mistress Roydon that your ink is as good as Hester’s and half the price.”

The apothecary smiled weakly at George’s compliment and put several sticks of carnation-colored wax and two balls of sweet-smelling soap on the table next to my ink. I dropped the pest-control manual and the pamphlet about the German vampire onto the surface. Chandler’s eyes rose to mine. They were wary.

“Yes,” Chandler said, “the printer across the way left a few copies with me, as it dealt with a medical subject.”

“That will be of interest to Mistress Roydon, too,” George said, plunking it onto my pile. I wondered, not for the first time, how humans could be so oblivious to what happened around them.

“But I am not sure this treatise is appropriate for a lady. . . .” Chandler trailed off, looking meaningfully at my wedding ring.

George’s quick response drowned out my own silent retort. “Oh, her husband will not mind. She is a student of alchemy.”

“I’ll take it,” I said decidedly.

As Chandler wrapped our purchases, George asked him if he could recommend a spectacle maker.

“My publisher, Master Ponsonby, is worried my eyes will fail me before my translation of Homer is complete,” he explained self-importantly. “I have a receipt from my mother’s servant, but it has not resulted in a cure.”

The apothecary shrugged. “These old wives’ remedies sometimes help, but mine is more reliable. I will send around a poultice made from egg whites and rose water. Soak flax pads in it and apply them to the eyes.”

While George and Chandler bargained over the price of the medicine and made arrangements for its delivery, Pierre gathered the packages and stood by the door.

“Farewell, Mistress Roydon,” Chandler said with a bow.

“Thank you for your assistance, Master Chandler,” I replied. I am new in town and looking for a witch to help me.

“You are welcome,” he said smoothly, “though there are excellent apothecaries in the Blackfriars.” London is a dangerous place. Have care from whom you request assistance.

Before I could ask the apothecary how he knew where I lived, George was shepherding me out onto the street with a cheerful good-bye. Pierre was so close behind that I could feel his occasional cool breaths.

The touch of eyes was unmistakable as we made our progress back to town. An alert had been issued while I was in Chandler’s shop, and word that a strange witch was near had spread throughout the neighborhood. At last I had achieved my objective for the afternoon. Two witches came out onto their front step, arms linked at the elbows, and scrutinized me with tingling hostility. They were so similar in face and body that I wondered if they were twins.

“Wearh,” one mumbled, spitting at Pierre and forking her fingers in a sign against the devil.

“Come, mistress. It is late,” Pierre said, his fingers gripping my forearm.

Pierre’s desire to get me away from St. Giles as quickly as possible and George’s desire for a cup of wine made our return to the Blackfriars far quicker than the journey out. Once we were safely back in the Hart and Crown, there was still no sign of Matthew, and Pierre disappeared in search of him. Soon thereafter Françoise made pointed remarks about the lateness of the hour and my need for rest. Chapman took the hint and said his farewells.

Françoise sat by the fireplace, her sewing at her side, and watched the door. I tried out my new ink by ticking items off my shopping list and adding “rat trappe.” I turned next to John Hester’s book. The blank sheet of paper folded discreetly around it masked the salacious contents. It enumerated cures for venereal diseases, most of them involving toxic concentrations of mercury. No wonder Chandler had objected to selling a copy to a married woman. I had just started the second fascinating chapter when I heard murmurs coming from Matthew’s study. Françoise’s mouth tightened, and she shook her head.

“He will need more wine tonight than we have in the house,” she observed, heading for the stairs with one of the empty jugs that sat by the door.

I followed the sound of my husband’s voice. Matthew was still in his study, peeling his clothes off and flinging them into the fire.

“He is an evil man, milord,” Pierre said grimly, unbuckling Matthew’s sword.

“‘Evil’ doesn’t do that fiend justice. The word that does hasn’t been coined yet. After today I’d swear before judges he is the devil himself.” Matthew’s long fingers loosened the ties of his close-fitting breeches. They dropped to the floor, and he bent to catch them up. They flew through the air and into the fire, but not fast enough to hide the spots of blood. A musty smell of wet stone, age, and filth evoked in me sudden memories of being held captive at La Pierre. The gorge rose in my throat. Matthew spun around.

“Diana.” He took in my distress with one deep breath and ripped the shirt above his head before stepping over his discarded boots and coming to my side in nothing but a pair of linen drawers. The firelight played off his shoulders, and one of his many scars—this one long and deep, just over his shoulder joint—winked in and out of sight.

“Are you hurt?” I struggled to get the words out of my constricted throat, and my eyes were glued to the clothes burning in the fireplace. Matthew followed my gaze and swore softly.

“That isn’t my blood.” That Matthew had someone else’s blood on him was not much comfort. “The queen ordered me to be present when a prisoner was . . . questioned.” His slight hesitation told me that “tortured” was the word he was avoiding. “Let me wash, and I’ll join you for supper.” Matthew’s words were warm, but he looked tired and angry. And he was careful not to touch me.

“You’ve been underground.” There was no mistaking the smell.

“I’ve been at the Tower.”

“And your prisoner—is he dead?”

“Yes.” His hand passed over his face. “I’d hoped to arrive early enough to stop it—this time—but I miscalculated the tides. All I could do, once again, was insist that his suffering end.”

Matthew had been through the man’s death once before. Today he could have remained at home and not concerned himself with a lost soul in the Tower. A lesser creature would have. I reached out to touch him, but he stepped away.

“The queen will have my hide when she discovers that the man died before revealing his secrets, but I no longer care. Like most humans, Elizabeth finds it easy to turn a blind eye when it suits her,” he said.

“Who was he?”

“A witch,” Matthew said flatly. “His neighbors reported him for having a poppet with red hair. They feared that it was an image of the queen. And the queen feared that the behavior of the Scottish witches, Agnes Sampson and John Fian, was encouraging English witches to act against her. No, Diana.” Matthew gestured for me to stay where I was when I stepped forward to comfort him. “That’s as close as you will ever be to the Tower and what happens there. Go to the parlor. I’ll join you shortly.”

It was difficult to leave him, but honoring his request was all I could do for him now. The wine, bread, and cheese waiting on the table were unappetizing, but I took a piece of one of the buns I’d purchased that morning and slowly reduced it to crumbs.

“Your appetite is off.” Matthew slipped into the room, silent as a cat, and poured himself some wine. He drank it down in one long draft and replenished the cup.

“So is yours,” I said. “You’re not feeding regularly.” Gallowglass and Hancock kept inviting him to join them on their nocturnal hunts, but Matthew always refused.

“I don’t want to talk about that. Tell me about your day instead.” Help me to forget. Matthew’s unspoken words whispered around the room.

“We went shopping. I picked up the book you’d ordered from Richard Field and met his wife, Jacqueline.”

“Ah.” Matthew’s smile widened, and a bit of stress lifted from his mouth. “The new Mrs. Field. She outlived her first husband and is now leading her second husband in a merry dance. The two of you will be fast friends by the end of next week. Did you see Shakespeare? He’s staying with the Fields.”

“No.” I added more crumbs to the growing pile on the table. “I went to the cathedral.” Matthew pitched slightly forward. “Pierre was with me,” I said hastily, dropping the bun on the table. “And I ran into George.”

“He was no doubt hanging around the Bishop’s Head waiting for William Ponsonby to say something nice to him.” Matthew’s shoulders lowered as he chuckled.

“I never reached the Bishop’s Head,” I confessed. “George was at Paul’s Cross, listening to a sermon.”

“The crowds that gather to hear the preachers can be unpredictable,” he said softly. “Pierre knows better than to let you linger there.” As if by magic, his servant appeared.

“We didn’t stay long. George took me to his apothecary. I bought a few more books and some supplies. Soap. Sealing wax. Red ink.” I pressed my lips together.

“George’s apothecary lives in Cripplegate.” Matthew’s voice went flat. He looked up at Pierre. “When Londoners complain about crime, the sheriff goes there and picks up everyone who looks idle or peculiar. He has an easy time of it.”

“If the sheriff targets Cripplegate, why are there so many creatures by the Barbican Cross and so few here in the Blackfriars?” The question took Matthew by surprise.

“The Blackfriars was once Christian holy ground. Daemons, witches, and vampires got into the habit of living elsewhere long ago and haven’t yet moved back. The Barbican Cross, however, was put up on land where the Jewish cemetery was hundreds of years ago. After the Jews were expelled from England, city officials used the unconsecrated graveyard for criminals, traitors, and excommunicates instead. Humans consider it haunted and avoid the place.”

“So it was the unhappiness of the dead I felt, not just the living.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Matthew’s eyes narrowed.

Our conversation was not improving his frayed temper, and my uneasiness grew by the minute. “Jacqueline recommended John Hester when I asked after an apothecary, but George said his man was just as good and less expensive. I didn’t ask about the neighborhood.”

“The fact that John Chandler isn’t pushing opiates on his customers like Hester does is rather more important to me than his reasonable rates. Still, I don’t want you in Cripplegate. Next time you need writing supplies, send Pierre or Françoise to fetch them. Better yet, visit the apothecary three doors up on the other side of Water Lane.”

“Mistress Field did not tell madame that there was an apothecary in the Blackfriars. A few months ago, Monsieur de Laune and Jacqueline disagreed about the best treatment for her eldest son’s putrid throat,” Pierre murmured by way of explanation.

“I don’t care if Jacqueline and de Laune pulled swords on each other in the nave of St. Paul’s at the stroke of noon. Diana isn’t to go traipsing across the city.”

“It’s not just Cripplegate that’s dangerous,” I said, pushing the pamphlet about the German vampire across the table. “I bought Hester’s treatise on syphilis from Chandler, and a book about trapping animals. This was for sale, too.”

“You bought what?” Matthew choked on his wine, his attention fixed on the wrong book.

“Forget about Hester. This pamphlet tells the story of a man in league with the devil who changes into a wolf and drinks blood. One of the men involved in its publication is our neighbor, the brewer by Baynard’s Castle.” I tapped my finger on the pamphlet for emphasis.

Matthew drew the loosely bound sheets of paper toward him. His breath hitched when he reached the significant part. He handed it to Pierre, who made a similarly quick study of it.

“Stubbe is a vampire, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I didn’t know that news of his death had traveled this far. Kit’s supposed to tell me about the gossip in the broadsides and popular press so we can cover it up if necessary. Somehow he missed this.” Matthew shot a grim look at Pierre. “Make sure someone else is assigned to the job, and don’t let Kit know.” Pierre tilted his head in acknowledgment.

“So these legends about werewolves are just more pitiful human attempts to deny knowledge of vampires.” I shook my head.

“Don’t be too hard on them, Diana. They’re focused on witches at the moment. It will be the daemons’ turn in another hundred years or so, thanks to the reform of the asylums. After that, humans will get around to vampires, and witches will be nothing more than a wicked fairy tale to frighten children.” Mathew looked worried, in spite of his words.

“Our next-door neighbor is preoccupied with werewolves, not witches. And if you could be mistaken for one, I want you to stop worrying about me and start taking care of yourself. Besides, it shouldn’t be long now before a witch knocks on our door.” I clung to the certainty that it would be dangerous for Matthew to look any further for a witch. My husband’s eyes flashed a warning, but his mouth remained closed until his anger was under control.

“I know you’re itching for independence, but the next time you decide to take matters into your own hands, promise you’ll discuss it with me first.” His response was far milder than I expected.

“Only if you promise to listen. You’re being watched, Matthew. I’m sure of it, and so is Mary Sidney. You take care of the queen’s business and the problem in Scotland, and let me take care of this.”

When he opened his mouth to negotiate further, I shook my head.

“Listen to me. A witch will come. I promise.”

18

Matthew was waiting for me in Mary’s airy solar at Baynard’s Castle the next afternoon, staring out at the Thames with an amused expression. He turned at my approach, grinning at the Elizabethan version of a lab coat that covered my golden brown bodice and skirts. The underlying white sleeves that stuck out from my shoulders were ridiculously padded, but the ruff around my neck was small and unobtrusive, making it one of my more comfortable outfits.

“Mary can’t leave her experiment. She said we should come in time for dinner on Monday.” I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. He reared back.

“Why do you smell of vinegar?”

“Mary washes in it. It cleans your hands better than soap.” “You left my house covered with the sweet scent of bread and honey, and the Countess of Pembroke returns you to me smelling like a pickle.” Matthew’s nose went to the patch of skin behind my ear. He gave a satisfied sigh. “I knew I could find some place the vinegar hadn’t reached.”

“Matthew,” I murmured. The countess’s maid, Joan, was standing right behind us.

“You’re behaving like a prim Victorian rather than a bawdy Elizabethan,” Matthew said, laughing. He straightened with one last caress of my neck. “How was your afternoon?”

“Have you seen Mary’s laboratory?” I exchanged the shapeless gray coat for my cloak before sending Joan away to tend to her other duties. “She’s taken over one of the castle’s towers and painted the walls with images of the philosopher’s stone. It’s like working inside a Ripley scroll! I’ve seen the Beinecke’s copy at Yale, but it’s only twenty feet long. Mary’s murals are twice as big. It made it hard to focus on the work.”

“What was your experiment?”

“We hunted the green lion,” I replied proudly, referring to a stage of the alchemical process that combined two acidic solutions and produced startling color transformations. “We almost caught it, too. But then something went wrong and the flask exploded. It was fantastic!”

“I’m glad you don’t work in my lab. Generally speaking, explosions are to be avoided when working with nitric acid. You two might do something a bit less volatile next time, like distilling rose water.” Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t working with mercury?”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do anything that might harm the baby,” I said defensively.

“Every time I say something about your well-being, you assume my concern lies elsewhere.” His brows drew together in a scowl. Thanks to his dark beard and mustache—which I was still getting used to —Matthew looked even more forbidding. But I didn’t want to argue with him.

“Sorry,” I said quickly before changing the subject. “Next week we’re going to mix up a fresh batch of prima materia. That has mercury in it, but I promise not to touch it. Mary wants to see if it will putrefy into the alchemical toad by the end of January.”

“That sounds like a festive start to the New Year.” Matthew said, settling the cloak over my shoulders.

“What were you looking at?” I peered out the windows.

“Someone’s building a bonfire across the river for New Year’s Eve. Every time they send the wagon for fresh wood, the local residents filch what’s already there. The pile gets smaller by the hour. It’s like watching Penelope ply her needle.”

“Mary said no one will be working tomorrow. Oh, and to be sure to tell Françoise to buy extra manchet—that’s bread, right?—and to soak it in milk and honey to make it soft again for Saturday’s breakfast.” It was Elizabethan French toast in all but name. “I think Mary’s worried I might go hungry in a house run by vampires.”

“Lady Pembroke has a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy when it comes to creatures and their habits,” Matthew observed.

“She certainly never mentioned what happened to her shoes,” I said thoughtfully.

“Mary Sidney survives as her mother did: by turning a blind eye to every inconvenient truth. The women in the Dudley family have had to do so.”

“Dudley?” I frowned. That was a family of notorious troublemakers— nothing at all like the mild-mannered Mary.

“Lady Pembroke’s mother was Mary Dudley, a friend of Her Majesty and sister to the queen’s favorite, Robert.” Matthew’s mouth twisted. “She was brilliant, just like her daughter. Mary Dudley filled her head with ideas so there was no room in it for knowledge of her father’s treason, or her brothers’ missteps. When she caught smallpox from our blessed sovereign, Mary Dudley never acknowledged that both the queen and her own husband thereafter preferred the company of others rather than face her disfigurement.”

I stopped, shocked. “What happened to her?”

“She died alone and embittered, like most Dudley women before her. Her greatest triumph was marrying off her fifteen-year-old namesake to the forty-year-old Earl of Pembroke.”

“Mary Sidney was a bride at fifteen?” The shrewd, vibrant woman ran an enormous household, reared a pack of energetic children, and was devoted to her alchemical experiments, all with no apparent effort. Now I understood how. Lady Pembroke was younger than me by a few years, but by the age of thirty she’d been juggling these responsibilities for half her life.

“Yes. But Mary’s mother provided her all the tools necessary for her survival: iron discipline, a deep sense of duty, the best schooling money could buy, a love of poetry, and her passion for alchemy.”

I touched my bodice, thinking of the life growing within me. What tools would he need to survive in the world?

We talked about chemistry on our way home. Matthew explained that the crystals that Mary brooded over like a hen were oxidized iron ore and that she would later distill them in a flask to make sulfuric acid. I’d always been more interested in the symbolism of alchemy than in its practical aspects, but my afternoon with the Countess of Pembroke had shown me how intriguing the links between the two might be.

Soon we were safely inside the Hart and Crown and I was sipping a warm tisane made from mint and lemon balm. It turned out the Elizabethans did have teas, but they were all herbal. I was chattering on about Mary when I noticed Matthew’s smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“I haven’t seen you like this before,” he commented.

“Like what?”

“So animated—full of questions and reports of what you’ve been doing and all the plans you and Mary have for next week.”

“I like being a student again,” I confessed. “It was difficult at first, not to have all the answers. Over the years I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to have nothing but questions.”

“And you feel free here, in a way that you didn’t in Oxford. Secrets are a lonely business.” Matthew’s eyes were sympathetic as his fingers moved along my jaw.

“I was never lonely.”

“Yes you were. I think you still are,” he said softly.

Before I could shape a response, Matthew had me out of my seat and was backing us toward the wall by the fireplace. Pierre, who was nowhere to be seen only moments before, appeared at the threshold.

Then a knock sounded. Matthew’s shoulder muscles bunched, and a dagger flashed at his thigh. When he nodded, Pierre stepped out onto the landing and flung open the door.

“We have a message from Father Hubbard.” Two male vampires stood there, both dressed in expensive clothes that were beyond the reach of most messengers. Neither was more than fifteen. I’d never seen a teenage vampire and had always imagined there must be prohibitions against it.

“Master Roydon.” The taller of the two vampires tugged at the tip of his nose and studied Matthew with eyes the color of indigo. Those eyes moved from Matthew to me, and my skin smarted from the cold. “Mistress.” Matthew’s hand tightened on his dagger, and Pierre moved to stand more squarely between us and the door.

“Father Hubbard wants to see you,” the smaller vampire said, looking with contempt at the weapon in Matthew’s hand. “Come when the clocks toll seven.”

“Tell Hubbard I’ll be there when it’s convenient,” said Matthew with a touch of venom.

“Not just you,” the taller boy said.

“I haven’t seen Kit,” Matthew said with a touch of impatience. “If he’s in trouble, your master has a better idea where to look for him than I do, Corner.” It was an apt name for the boy. His adolescent frame was all angles and points.

“Marlowe’s been with Father Hubbard all day.” Corner’s tone dripped with boredom.

“Has he?” Matthew said, eyes sharp.

“Yes. Father Hubbard wants the witch,” Corner’s companion said.

“I see.” Matthew’s voice went flat. There was a blur of black and silver, and his polished dagger was quivering, point first, in the doorjamb near Corner’s eye. Matthew strolled in their direction. Both vampires took an involuntary step back. “Thank you for the message, Leonard.” He nudged the door closed with his foot.

Pierre and Matthew exchanged a long, silent look while adolescent vampire feet racketed down the stairs.

“Hancock and Gallowglass,” ordered Matthew.

“At once.” Pierre whirled out of the room, narrowly avoiding Françoise. She pulled the dagger from the doorframe.

“We had visitors,” Matthew explained before she could complain about the state of the woodwork.

“What is this about, Matthew?” I asked.

“You and I are going to meet an old friend.” His voice remained ominously even.

I eyed the dagger, which was now lying on the table. “Is this old friend a vampire?”

“Wine, Françoise.” Matthew grabbed at a few sheets of paper, disordering my carefully arranged piles. I muffled a protest as he picked up one of my quills and wrote with furious speed. He hadn’t looked at me since the knock on the door.

“There is fresh blood from the butcher. Perhaps you should . . .”

Matthew looked up, his mouth compressed into a thin line. Françoise poured him a large goblet of wine without further protest. When she was finished, he handed her two letters.

“Take this to the Earl of Northumberland at Russell House. The other goes to Raleigh. He’ll be at Whitehall.” Françoise went immediately, and Matthew strode to the window, staring up the street. His hair was tangled in his high linen collar, and I had a sudden urge to put it to rights for him. But the set of his shoulders warned me that he wouldn’t welcome such a proprietary gesture.

“Father Hubbard?” I reminded him. But Matthew’s mind was elsewhere.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said roughly, his back still turned. “Ysabeau warned me you have no instinct for self-preservation. How many times does something like this have to happen before you develop one?”

“What have I done now?”

“You wanted to be seen, Diana,” he said harshly. “Well, you were.”

“Stop looking out the window. I’m tired of talking to the back of your head.” I spoke quietly, though I wanted to throttle him. “Who is Father Hubbard?”

“Andrew Hubbard is a vampire. He rules London.”

“What do you mean, he rules London? Do all the vampires in the city obey him?” In the twenty-first century, London’s vampires were renowned for their strong allegiance to the pack, their nocturnal habits, and their loyalty—or so I’d heard from other witches. Not as flamboyant as the vampires in Paris, Venice, or Istanbul, nor as bloodthirsty as those in Moscow, New York, and Beijing, London vampires were a well-organized bunch.

“Not just the vampires. Witches and daemons, too.” Matthew turned on me, his eyes cold. “Andrew Hubbard is a former priest, one with a poor education and enough grasp of theology to cause trouble. He became a vampire when the plague first came to London. It had killed nearly half the city by 1349. Hubbard survived the first wave of the epidemic, caring for the sick and burying the dead, but in time he succumbed.”

“And someone saved him by making him a vampire.”

“Yes, though I’ve never been able to find out who it was. There are plenty of legends, though, most about his supposedly divine resurrection. When he was certain he was going to die, people say he dug a grave for himself in the churchyard and climbed into it to wait for God. Hours later Hubbard rose and walked out among the living.” Matthew paused. “I don’t believe he’s been entirely sane since.

“Hubbard gathers up lost souls,” Matthew continued. “There were too many to count in those days. He took them in—orphans, widows, men who had lost entire families in a single week. Those who fell ill he made into vampires, rebaptizing them and ensuring they had homes, food, and jobs. Hubbard considers them his children.”

“Even the witches and daemons?”

“Yes,” said Matthew tersely. “He takes them through a ritual of adoption, but it’s nothing at all like the one Philippe performed. Hubbard tastes their blood. He claims it reveals the content of their souls and provides proof that God has entrusted them to his care.”

“It reveals their secrets to him, too,” I said slowly.

Matthew nodded. No wonder he wanted me to stay far away from this Father Hubbard. If a vampire tasted my blood, he would know about the baby—and who his father was.

“Philippe and Hubbard reached an agreement that exempted the de Clermonts from his family rituals and obligations. I probably should have told him you were my wife before we entered the city.”

“But you chose not to,” I said carefully, hands clenching. Now I knew why Gallowglass had requested that we dock somewhere other than at the foot of Water Lane. Philippe was right. There were times when Matthew behaved like an idiot—or the most arrogant man alive.

“Hubbard stays out of my way, and I stay out of his. As soon as he knows you’re a de Clermont, he’ll leave you alone, too.” Matthew spotted something in the street below. “Thank God.” Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a minute later Gallowglass and Hancock stood in our parlor. “It took you two long enough.”

“And hello to you, Matthew,” Gallowglass said. “So Hubbard’s demanded an audience at last. And before you suggest it, don’t even think about tweaking his nose by leaving Auntie here. Whatever the plan, she’s going, too.”

Uncharacteristically, Matthew ran his hand through his hair from back to front.

“Shit,” Hancock said, watching the progress of Matthew’s fingers. Making his hair stand up like a cockscomb was apparently another of Matthew’s tells—one that meant his creative well of evasion and half-truths had run dry. “Your only plan was to avoid Hubbard. You don’t have another. We’ve never been certain if you were a brave man or a fool, de Clermont, but I think this might decide the question— and not in your favor.”

“I planned to take Diana to Hubbard on Monday.”

“After she’d been in the city for ten days,” Gallowglass observed.

“There was no need for haste. Diana is a de Clermont. Besides, we aren’t in the city,” Matthew said quickly. At my look of confusion, he continued. “The Blackfriars isn’t really part of London.”

“I’m not going into Hubbard’s den and arguing the geography of the city with him again,” Gallowglass said, slapping his gloves against his thigh. “He didn’t agree when you made this argument so you could station the brotherhood in the Tower after we arrived to help the Lancastrians in 1485, and he’s not going to agree to it now.”

“Let’s not keep him waiting,” said Hancock.

“We have plenty of time.” Matthew’s tone was dismissive.

“You never have understood the tides, Matthew. I assume we’re going by water, since you think the Thames isn’t really part of the city either. If so, we may already be too late. Let’s move.” Gallowglass jerked his thumb in the direction of the front door.

Pierre was waiting for us there, tugging black leather over his hands. He’d swapped his usual brown cloak for a black one that was far too long to be fashionable. A silver device covered his right arm: a snake circling a cross with a crescent moon tucked into the upper quadrant. This was Philippe’s crest, distinct from Matthew’s only by the absence of the star and fl e u r - d e - l i s.

Once Gallowglass and Pierre were similarly outfitted, Françoise settled a matching cloak on Matthew’s shoulders. Its heavy folds swept the floor, making him look taller and even more imposing. When the four of them stood together, it was an intimidating sight, one that provided a plausible inspiration for every human account of darkly cloaked vampires ever written.

At the bottom of Water Lane, Gallowglass surveyed the available vessels. “That one might hold us all,” he said, pointing to a long rowboat and letting out an ear-piercing whistle. When the man standing by it asked where we were headed, the vampire embarked on a complicated set of instructions regarding our route, which of the city’s many docks we were going to put in to, and who would be rowing. After Gallowglass growled at him, the poor man huddled near the lamp in the bow of his boat and looked nervously over his shoulder every now and again.

“Frightening every boatman we meet is not going to improve relations with our neighbors,” I commented as Matthew boarded, looking pointedly at the brewery next door. Hancock picked me up without ceremony and handed me off to my husband. Matthew’s arm tightened around me as the boat shot out into the river. Even the waterman gasped at the speed.

“There’s no need to draw attention to ourselves, Gallowglass,” Matthew said sharply.

“Do you want to row and I’ll keep your wife warm?” When Matthew didn’t reply, Gallowglass shook his head. “Thought not.”

The soft glow of lamps from London Bridge penetrated the gloom ahead of us, and the crashing sound of fast-moving water became louder with each stroke that Gallowglass took. Matthew eyed the shoreline. “Put in at the Old Swan Stairs. I want to be back in this boat and headed upstream before the tide ebbs.”

“Quiet.” Hancock’s whisper had a sharp edge. “We’re supposed to be sneaking up on Hubbard. We might as well have proceeded down Cheapside with trumpets and banners for all the noise you’re making.”

Gallowglass turned back toward the stern and gave two powerful pulls with his left hand. A few more pulls put us at the landing—nothing more than a rickety set of steps, really, attached to some listing pylons —where several men waited. The boatman waved them off with a few terse words, hopping out of the boat as soon as he was able.

We climbed to street level and wended through winding lanes in silence, darting between houses and across small gardens. The vampires moved with the stealth of cats. I moved less surely, stumbling on loose stones and stepping into waterlogged potholes. At last we turned in to a broad street. Laughter came from the far end, and light spilled into the street from wide windows. I rubbed my hands together, drawn to the warmth. Perhaps that was our destination. Perhaps this would be simple, and we could meet Andrew Hubbard, show him my wedding ring, and return home.

Matthew led us across the street instead and into a desolate churchyard whose gravestones tipped toward each other as if the dead sought comfort from one another. Pierre had a solid metal ring full of keys, and Gallowglass fitted one into the lock of the door next to the bell tower. We walked through the ramshackle nave and passed through a wooden door to the left of the altar. Narrow stone stairs twisted down into the darkness. With my limited warmblooded sight, there was no way to keep my bearings as we twisted and turned through narrow passageways and crossed expanses that smelled of wine, must, and human decay. The experience was straight out of the tales that humans told to discourage people from lingering in church basements and graveyards.

We moved deeper into a warren of tunnels and subterranean rooms and entered a dimly lit crypt. Hollow eyes stared out from the heaped skulls in a small ossuary. A vibration in the stone floor and the muffled sound of bells indicated that somewhere above us the clocks were striking seven. Matthew hurried us along into another tunnel that showed a soft glow in the distance.

At the end we stepped into a cellar used to store wine unloaded from ships on the Thames. A few barrels stood by the walls, and the fresher scent of sawdust competed with the smell of old wine. I spied the source of the former aromas: neatly stacked coffins, arranged by size from long boxes capable of holding Gallowglass to minuscule caskets for infants. Shadows moved and flickered in the deep corners, and in the center of the room a ritual of some kind was taking place amid a throng of creatures.

“My blood is yours, Father Hubbard.” The man who spoke was frightened. “I give it willingly, that you might know my heart and number me among your family.” There was silence, a cry of pain. Then the air filled with a taut sense of expectation.

“I accept your gift, James, and promise to protect you as my child,” a rough voice answered. “In exchange you will honor me as your father. Greet your brothers and sisters.”

Amid the hubbub of welcome, my skin registered a sensation of ice.

“You’re late.” The rumble of sound cut through the chatter and set the hair on my neck prickling. “And traveling with a full retinue, I see.”

“That’s impossible, since we had no appointment.” Matthew gripped my elbow as dozens of glances nudged, tingled, and chilled my skin.

Soft steps approached, circled. A tall, thin man appeared directly before me. I met his stare without flinching, knowing better than to show fear to a vampire. Hubbard’s eyes were deep-set under a heavy brow bone with veins of blue, green, and brown radiating through the slate-colored iris.

The vampire’s eyes were the only colorful thing about him. Otherwise he was preternaturally pale, with white-blond hair cropped close to his skull, nearly invisible eyebrows and lashes, and a wide horizontal slash of lips set in a clean-shaven face. His long black coat, which looked like a cross between a scholar’s gown and a cleric’s cassock, accentuated his cadaverous build. There was no mistaking the strength in his broad, slightly stooped shoulders, but the rest of him was practically skeletal.

There was a blur of motion as blunt, powerful fingers took my chin and jerked my head to the side. In the same instant, Matthew’s hand wrapped around the vampire’s wrist.

Hubbard’s cold glance touched my neck, taking in the scar there. For once I wished Françoise had outfitted me with the largest ruff she could find. He exhaled in an icy gust smelling of cinnabar and fir before his wide mouth tightened, the edges of his lips turning from pale peach to white.

“We have a problem, Master Roydon,” said Hubbard.

“We have several, Father Hubbard. The first is that you have your hands on something that belongs to me. If you don’t remove them, I’ll tear this den to pieces before sunrise. What happens afterward will make every creature in the city—daemon, human, wearh, and witch—think the end of days is upon us.” Matthew’s voice vibrated with fury.

Creatures emerged from the shadows. I saw John Chandler, the apothecary from Cripplegate, who met my eyes defiantly. Kit was there, too, standing next to another daemon. When his friend’s arm slid through the crook in his elbow, Kit pulled away slightly.

“Hello, Kit,” Matthew said, his voice dead. “I thought you would have run off and hidden by now.”

Hubbard held my chin for a few moments longer, pulling my head back until I faced him once more. My anger at Kit and the witch who had betrayed us must have shown, and he shook his head in warning.

“‘Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart,’” he murmured, releasing me. Hubbard’s eyes swept the room. “Leave us.”

Matthew’s hands cupped my face, and his fingers smoothed the skin of my chin to erase Hubbard’s scent. “Go with Gallowglass. I’ll see you shortly.”

“She stays,” Hubbard said.

Matthew’s muscles twitched. He wasn’t used to being countermanded. After a considerable pause, he ordered his friends and family to wait outside. Hancock was the only one not to obey immediately.

“Your father says a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop. Let’s hope he’s right,” Hancock muttered, “because this is one hell of a hole you’ve put us in tonight.” With one last look, he followed Gallowglass and Pierre through a break in the far wall. A heavy door closed, and there was silence.

The three of us stood so close that I could hear the next soft expulsion of air from Matthew’s lungs. As for Hubbard, I wondered if the plague had done more than drive him mad. His skin was waxy rather than porcelain, as though he still suffered the lingering effect of illness.

“May I remind you, Monsieur de Clermont, you are here under my sufferance.” Hubbard sat in the chamber’s grand, solitary chair. “Even though you represent the Congregation, I permit your presence in London because your father demands it. But you have flouted our customs and allowed your wife to enter the city without introducing her to me and to my flock. And then there is the matter of your knights.”

“Most of the knights who accompanied me have lived in this city longer than you have, Andrew. When you insisted they join your ‘flock’ or leave the city boundaries, they resettled outside the walls. You and my father agreed that the de Clermonts would not bring more of the brotherhood into the city. I haven’t.”

“And you think my children care about these subtleties? I saw the rings they wore and the devices on their cloaks.” Hubbard leaned forward, his eyes menacing. “I was led to believe you were halfway to Scotland. Why are you still here?”

“Perhaps you don’t pay your informants enough,” Matthew suggested. “Kit’s very short on funds these days.”

“I don’t buy love and loyalty, nor do I resort to intimidation and torment to have my way. Christopher willingly does what I ask, like all godly children do when they love their father.”

“Kit has too many masters to be faithful to any one of them.”

“Couldn’t the same be said of you?” After delivering his challenge to Matthew, Hubbard turned to me and deliberately drank in my scent. He made a soft, sorrowful sound. “But let us speak of your marriage. Some of my children believe that relationships between a witch and a wearh are abhorrent. But the Congregation and its covenant are no more welcome in my city than are your father’s vengeful knights. Both interfere with God’s wish that we live as one family. Also, your wife is a time spinner,” Hubbard said. “I do not approve of time spinners, for they tempt men and women with ideas that do not belong here.”

“Ideas like choice and freedom of thought?” I interjected. “What are you afraid—”

“Next,” Hubbard interrupted, his focus still on Matthew as though I were invisible, “there is the matter of your feeding on her.” His eyes moved to the scar that Matthew had left on my neck. “When the witches discover it, they will demand an inquiry. If your wife is found guilty of willingly offering her blood to a vampire, she will be shunned and cast out of London. If you are found guilty of taking it without her consent, you will be put to death.”

“So much for family sentiment,” I muttered.

“Diana,” Matthew warned.

Hubbard tented his fingers and studied Matthew once more. “And finally, she is breeding. Will the child’s father come looking for her?”

That brought my responses to a halt. Hubbard had not yet ferreted out our biggest secret: that Matthew was the father of my child. I fought down the panic. Think—and stay alive. Maybe Philippe’s advice would get us out of this predicament.

“No,” Matthew said shortly.

“So the father is dead—from natural causes or by your hand,” Hubbard said, casting a long look at Matthew. “In that case the witch’s child will be brought into my flock when it is born. His mother will become one of my children now.”

“No,” Matthew repeated, “she will not.”

“How long do you imagine the two of you will survive outside London when the rest of the Congregation hears of these offenses?” Hubbard shook his head. “Your wife will be safe here so long as she is a member of my family and there is no more sharing of blood between you.”

“You will not put Diana through that perverted ceremony. Tell your ‘ children’ that she belongs to you if you must, but you will not take her blood or that of her child.”

“I will not lie to the souls in my care. Why is it, my son, that secrets and war are the only responses you have when God puts a challenge before you? They only lead to destruction.” Hubbard’s throat worked with emotion. “God reserves salvation for those who believe in something greater than themselves, Matthew.”

Before Matthew could shoot back a reply, I put my hand on his arm to quiet him.

“Excuse me, Father Hubbard,” I said. “If I understand correctly, the de Clermonts are exempt from your governance?”

“That is correct, Mistress Roydon. But you are not a de Clermont. You are merely married to one.”

“Wrong,” I retorted, keeping my husband’s sleeve in a tight grip. “I am Philippe de Clermont’s blood-sworn daughter, as well as Matthew’s wife. I’m a de Clermont twice over, and neither I nor my child will ever call you father.”

Andrew Hubbard looked stunned. As I heaped silent blessings on Philippe for always staying three steps ahead of the rest of us, Matthew’s shoulders finally relaxed. Though far away in France, his father had ensured our safety once more.

“Check if you like. Philippe marked my forehead here,” I said, touching the spot between my brows where my witch’s third eye was located. It was slumbering at the moment, unconcerned with vampires.

“I believe you, Mistress Roydon,” Hubbard said finally. “No one would have the temerity to lie about such a thing in a house of God.”

“Perhaps you can help me, then. I’m in London to seek help with some finer points of magic and witchcraft. Who among your children would you recommend for the task?” My request erased Matthew’s grin.

“Diana,” he growled.

“My father would be very pleased if you could assist me,” I said, calmly ignoring him.

“And what form would this pleasure take?” Andrew Hubbard was a Renaissance prince, too, and interested in gaining whatever strategic advantage he could.

“First, my father would be pleased to hear about our quiet evening at home on the eve of the New Year,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Everything else I tell him in my next letter will depend on the witch you send to the Hart and Crown.”

Hubbard considered my request. “I will discuss your needs with my children and decide who might best serve you.”

“Whoever he sends will be a spy,” Matthew warned.

“You’re a spy, too,” I pointed out. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“Our business here is done, Hubbard. I trust that Diana, like all de Clermonts, is in London with your approval.” Matthew turned to leave without waiting for an answer.

“Even de Clermonts must be careful in the city,” Hubbard called after us. “See that you remember it, Mistress Roydon.”

Matthew and Gallowglass spoke in low voices on our row home, but I was silent. I refused help getting out of the boat and began the climb up Water Lane without waiting for them. Even so, Pierre was ahead of me by the time I reached the passage into the Hart and Crown, and Matthew was at my elbow. Inside, Walter and Henry were waiting for us. They shot to their feet.

“Thank God,” Walter said.

“We came as soon as we heard that you were in need. George is sick abed, and neither Kit nor Tom could be found,” Henry explained, eyes darting anxiously between me and Matthew.

“I’m sorry to have called you. My alarm was premature,” Matthew said, his cloak swirling around his feet as he took it from his shoulders.

“If it concerns the order—” Walter began, eyeing the cloak.

“It doesn’t,” Matthew assured him.

“It concerns me,” I said. “And before you come up with some other disastrous scheme, understand this: The witches are my concern. Matthew is being watched, and not just by Andrew Hubbard.”

“He’s used to it,” Gallowglass said gruffly. “Pay the gawpers no mind, Auntie.”

“I need to find my own teacher, Matthew,” I said. My hand fluttered down to where the point of my bodice covered the top of my belly. “No witch is going to part with her secrets so long as any of you are involved. Everyone who enters this house is either a wearh, a philosopher, or a spy. Which means, in the eyes of my people, that any one of you could turn us into the authorities. Berwick may seem far away, but the panic is spreading.”

Matthew’s gaze was frosty, but at least he was listening.

“If you order a witch here, one will come. Matthew Roydon always gets his way. But instead of help, I’ll get another performance like the one Widow Beaton gave. That’s not what I need.”

“You need Hubbard’s help even less,” Hancock said sourly.

“We don’t have much time,” I reminded Matthew. Hubbard didn’t know that the baby was Matthew’s, and Hancock and Gallowglass hadn’t perceived the changes to my scent—yet. But this evening’s events had driven home our precarious position.

“All right, Diana. We’ll leave the witches to you. But no lies,” Matthew said, “and no secrets either. One of the people in this room has to know where you are at all times.”

“Matthew, you cannot—” Walter protested.

“I trust my wife’s judgment,” Matthew said firmly.

“That’s what Philippe says about Granny,” Gallowglass muttered under his breath. “Just before all hell breaks loose.”

19

“If this is what hell looks like,” Matthew murmured the week after our encounter with Hubbard, “Gallowglass is going to be sadly disappointed.”

There was, in truth, very little fire and brimstone about the fourteenyear-old witch standing before us in the parlor.

“Hush,” I said, mindful of how sensitive a child that age could be. “Did Father Hubbard explain why you are here, Annie?”

“Yes, mistress,” Annie replied miserably. It was difficult to tell if the girl’s pallor was due to her natural coloring or some combination of fear and poor nutrition. “I’m to serve you and accompany you about the city on your business.”

“No, that wasn’t our agreement,” Matthew said impatiently, his booted feet landing heavily on the wooden floor. Annie flinched. “Do you have any power or knowledge to speak of, or is Hubbard playing some joke?”

“I have a little skill,” Annie stammered, her pale blue eyes contrasting with her white skin. “But I need a place, and Father Hubbard said—”

“Oh, I can imagine what Father Hubbard said,” Matthew snorted contemptuously. The look I gave him held sufficient warning that he blinked and was quiet.

“Allow her a chance to explain,” I told him sharply before giving the girl an encouraging smile. “Go on, Annie.”

“As well as serving you, Father Hubbard said I’m to take you to my aunt when she returns to London. She is at a lying-in at present and refused to leave while the woman still had need of her.”

“Your aunt is a midwife as well as a witch?” I asked gently.

“Yes, mistress. A fine midwife and a powerful witch,” Annie said proudly, straightening her spine. When she did so, her too-short skirts exposed her skinny ankles to the cold. Andrew Hubbard outfitted his sons in warm, well-fitting clothes, but his daughters received no such consideration. I smothered my irritation. Françoise would have to get her needles out.

“And how did you come to be part of Father Hubbard’s family?”

“My mother was not a virtuous woman,” Annie murmured, twisting her hands in her thin cloak. “Father Hubbard found me in the undercroft of St. Anne’s Church near Aldersgate, my mother dead beside me. My aunt was newly married and soon had babes of her own. I was six years old. Her husband did not want me raised among his sons for fear I would corrupt them with my sinfulness.”

So Annie, now a teenager, had been with Hubbard for more than half her life. The thought was chilling, and the idea that a six-year-old could corrupt anyone was beyond comprehension, but this story explained both her abject look and the girl’s peculiar name: Annie Undercroft.

“While Françoise gets you something to eat, I can show you where you will sleep.” I’d been up to the third floor that morning to inspect the small bed, three-legged stool, and worn chest set aside to hold the witch’s belongings. “I’ll help carry your things.”

“Mistress?” Annie said, confused.

“She brought nothing,” Françoise said, casting disapproving looks at the newest member of the household.

“Never mind. She’ll have belongings soon enough.” I smiled at Annie, who looked uncertain.

Françoise and I spent the weekend making sure that Annie was clean as a whistle, clothed and shod properly, and that she knew enough basic math to make small purchases for me. To test her I sent her to the nearby apothecary for a penny’s worth of quill pens and half a pound of sealing wax (Philippe was right: Matthew went through office supplies at an alarming pace), and she came back promptly with change to spare.

“He wanted a shilling!” Annie complained. “That wax isn’t even good for candles, is it?”

Pierre took a shine to the girl and made it his business to elicit a rare, sweet smile from Annie whenever he could. He taught her how to play cat’s cradle and volunteered to walk with her on Sunday when Matthew dropped broad hints that he would like us to be alone for a few hours.

“He won’t . . . take advantage of her?” I asked Matthew as he unbuttoned my favorite item of clothing: a sleeveless boy’s jerkin made of fine black wool. I wore it with a set of skirts and a smock when we were at home.

“Pierre? Good Christ no.” Matthew looked amused.

“It’s a fair question.” Mary Sidney had not been much older when she was married off to the highest bidder.

“And I gave you a truthful answer. Pierre doesn’t bed young girls.” His hands stilled after he freed the last button. “This is a pleasant surprise. You’re not wearing a corset.”

“It’s uncomfortable, and I’m blaming it on the baby.”

He lifted the jerkin away from my body with an appreciative sound.

“And he’ll keep other men from bothering her?”

“Can this conversation possibly wait until later?” Matthew said, his exasperation showing. “Given the cold, they won’t be gone for long.”

“You’re very impatient in the bedroom,” I observed, sliding my hands into the neck of his shirt.

“Really?” Matthew arched his aristocratic brows in mock disbelief. “And here I thought the problem was my admirable restraint.”

He spent the next few hours showing me just how limitless his patience could be in an empty house on a Sunday. By the time everybody returned, we were both pleasantly exhausted and in a considerably better frame of mind.

Everything returned to normal on Monday, however. Matthew was distracted and irritable as soon as the first letters arrived at dawn, and he sent his apologies to the Countess of Pembroke when it became clear that the obligations of his many jobs wouldn’t allow him to accompany me to our midday meal.

Mary listened without surprise as I explained the reason for Matthew’s absence, blinked at Annie like a mildly curious owl, and sent her off to the kitchens in the care of Joan. We shared a delicious meal, during which Mary offered detailed accounts of the private lives of everyone within shouting distance of the Blackfriars. After lunch we withdrew to her laboratory with Joan and Annie to assist us.

“And how is your husband, Diana?” the countess asked, rolling up her sleeves, her eyes fixed on the book before her.

“In good health,” I said. This, I had learned, was the Elizabethan equivalent of “Fine.”

“That is welcome news.” Mary turned and stirred something that looked noxious and smelled worse. “Much depends on it, I fear. The queen relies on him more than on any other man in the kingdom except Lord Burghley.”

“I wish his good humor was more reliable. Matthew is mercurial these days. He’s possessive one moment and ignores me as if I were a piece of furniture the next.”

“Men treat their property that way.” She picked up a jug of water. “I am not his property,” I said flatly.

“What you and I know, what the law says, and how Matthew himself feels are three entirely separate issues.”

“They shouldn’t be,” I said quickly, ready to argue the point. Mary silenced me with a gentle, resigned smile.

“You and I have an easier time with our husbands than other women do, Diana. We have our books and the leisure to indulge our passions, thank God. Most do not.” Mary gave everything in her beaker a final stir and decanted the contents into another glass vessel.

I thought of Annie: a mother who’d died alone in a church cellar, an aunt who couldn’t take her in because of her husband’s prejudices, a life that promised little in the way of comfort or hope. “Do you teach your female servants how to read?”

“Certainly,” Mary responded promptly. “They learn to write and reckon, too. Such skills will make them more valuable to a good husband—one who likes to earn money as well as spend it.” She beckoned to Joan, who helped her move the fragile glass bubble full of chemicals to the fire.

“Then Annie shall learn as well,” I said, giving the girl a nod. She clung to the shadows, looking ghostly with her pale face and silver-blond hair. Education would increase her confidence. She’d had a definite lilt in her step ever since haggling with Monsieur de Laune over the price of sealing wax.

“She will have reason in future to thank you for it,” said Mary. Her face was serious. “We women own nothing absolutely, save what lies between our ears. Our virtue belongs first to our father and then to our husband. We dedicate our duty to our family. As soon as we share our thoughts with another, put pen to paper or thread a needle, all that we do and make belongs to someone else. So long as she has words and ideas, Annie will always possess something that is hers alone.”

“If only you were a man, Mary,” I said with a shake of my head. The Countess of Pembroke could run rings around most creatures, regardless of their sex.

“ “Were I a man, I would be on my estates now, or paying court to Her Majesty like Henry, or seeing to matters of state like Matthew. Instead I am here in my laboratory with you. Weighing it all in the balance, I believe we are the better off—even if we are sometimes put on a pedestal or mistaken for a kitchen stool.” Mary’s round eyes twinkled.

I laughed. “You may be right.”

“Had you ever been to court, you would have no doubts on this score. Come,” Mary said, turning to her experiment. “Now we wait while the prima materia is exposed to the heat. If we have done well, this is what will generate the philosopher’s stone. Let us review the next steps of the process in hopes that the experiment will succeed.”

I always lost track of time while there were alchemical manuscripts around, and I looked up, dazed, when Matthew and Henry walked in to the laboratory. Mary and I had been deep in conversation about the images in a collection of alchemical texts known as the Pretiosa Margarita Novella—the New Pearl of Great Price. Was it already late afternoon?

“It can’t be time to go. Not yet,” I protested. “Mary has this manuscript—”

“Matthew knows the book, for his brother gave it to me. Now that Matthew has a learned wife, he may regret having done so,” Mary said with a laugh. “There are refreshments waiting in the solar. I had hoped to see you both today.” At this, Henry gave Mary a conspiratorial wink.

“That is kind, Mary,” Matthew said, kissing me on the cheek in greeting. “Apparently you two haven’t reached the vinegar stage yet. You still smell of vitriol and magnesia.”

I put down the book reluctantly and washed while Mary finished making notes of the day’s work. Once we were settled in the solar, Henry could no longer curb his excitement.

“Is it time now, Mary?” he asked the countess, shifting in his chair.

“You have the same enthusiasm for giving presents as young William does,” she replied with a laugh. “Henry and I have a gift in honor of the New Year and your marriage.”

But we had nothing to give them in return. I looked at Matthew, uncomfortable with this one-way exchange.

“I wish you luck, Diana, if you hope to stay ahead of Mary and Henry when it comes to gifts,” he said ruefully.

“Nonsense,” Mary replied. “Matthew saved my brother Philip’s life and Henry’s estates. No gifts can repay such debts. Do not ruin our pleasure with such talk. It is a tradition to give gifts to those newly wed, and it is New Year. What did you give the queen, Matthew?”

“After she sent poor King James another clock to remind him to bide his time quietly, I considered giving her a crystal hourglass. I thought it might be a useful reminder of her relative mortality,” he said drily. Henry looked at him with horror. “No. Not really.”

“It was an idle thought in a moment of frustration,” Matthew reassured him. “I gave her a covered cup, of course, like everyone else.”

“Don’t forget our gift, Henry,” said Mary, now equally impatient.

Henry drew out a velvet pouch and presented it to me. I fumbled with the strings and finally drew out a heavy gold locket on an equally weighty chain. Its face was golden filigree studded with rubies and diamonds, Matthew’s moon and star in its center. I flipped the locket over, gasping at the brilliant enamelwork with its flowers and scrolling vines. Carefully I opened the clasp at the bottom, and a miniature rendering of Matthew looked up at me.

“Master Hilliard made the preliminary sketches when he was here. With the holidays he was so busy that his assistant, Isaac, had to help with the painting,” Mary explained.

I cupped the miniature in my hand, tilting it this way and that. Matthew was painted as he looked at home when he was working late at night in his study off the bedroom. His shirt open at the neck and trimmed with lace, he met the viewer’s gaze with a lift of his right eyebrow in a familiar combination of seriousness and mocking humor. Black hair was swept back from his forehead in its typically disordered fashion, and the long fingers of his left hand held a locket. It was a surprisingly frank and erotic image for the time.

“Is it to your liking?” Henry asked.

“I love it,” I said, unable to stop staring at my new treasure.

“Isaac is rather more . . . daring in his composition than his master is, but when I told him it was a wedding gift, he convinced me that such a locket would remain a wife’s special secret and could reveal the private man rather than the public.” Mary looked over my shoulder. “It is a good likeness, but I do wish Master Hilliard would learn how to better capture a person’s chin.”

“It’s perfect, and I will treasure it always.”

“This one is for you,” Henry said, handing Matthew an identical bag. “Hilliard felt you might show it to others and wear it at court, so it is somewhat more . . . er, circumspect.”

“Is that the locket Matthew is holding in my miniature?” I said, pointing to the distinctive milky stone set in a simple gold frame.

“I believe so,” Matthew said softly. “Is it a moonstone, Henry?” “An ancient specimen,” Henry said proudly. “It was among my curiosities, and I wanted you to have it. The intaglio is of the goddess Diana, you see.”

The miniature within was more respectable, but startling nonetheless in its informality. I was wearing the russet gown trimmed with black velvet. A delicate ruff framed my face without covering the shining pearls at my throat. But it was the arrangement of my hair that signaled that this was an intimate gift appropriate for a new husband. It flowed freely over my shoulders and down my back in a wild riot of red-gold curls.

“The blue background emphasizes Diana’s eyes. And the set of her mouth is so true to life.” Matthew, too, was overwhelmed by the gift.

“I had a frame made,” Mary said, gesturing at Joan, “to display them when they are not being worn.” It was more a shallow box, with two oval niches lined in black velvet. The two miniatures fit perfectly inside and gave the effect of a pair of portraits.

“It was thoughtful of Mary and Henry to give us such a gift,” Matthew said later, when we were back at the Hart and Crown. He slid his arms around me from behind and laced his hands over my belly. “I haven’t even had time to take your picture. I never imagined my first likeness of you would be by Nicholas Hilliard.”

“The portraits are beautiful,” I said, covering his hands with mine.

“But . . . ?” Matthew drew back and tilted his head.

“Miniatures by Nicholas Hilliard are sought after, Matthew. These won’t disappear when we do. And they’re so exquisite I couldn’t bear to destroy them before we go.” Time was like my ruff: It started out as a smooth, flat, tightly woven fabric. Then it was twisted and cut and made to double back on itself. “We keep touching the past in ways that are bound to leave smudges on the present.”

“Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” Matthew suggested. “Perhaps the future depends on it.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Not now. But it is possible that we’ll look back one day and discover that it was the miniatures that made all the difference.” He smiled.

“Imagine what finding Ashmole 782 would do, then.” I looked up at him. Seeing Mary’s illuminated alchemical books had brought the mysterious volume and our frustrated search for it vividly back to mind. “George had no luck finding it in Oxford, but it must be somewhere in England. Ashmole acquired our manuscript from somebody. Rather than looking for the manuscript, we should look for the person who sold it to him.”

“These days there’s a steady traffic in manuscripts. Ashmole 782 could be anywhere.”

“Or it could be right here,” I insisted.

“You may be right,” Matthew agreed. But I could tell that his mind was on more immediate concerns than our elusive tome. “I’ll send George out to make inquiries among the booksellers.”

All thoughts of Ashmole 782 fled the next morning, however, when a note arrived from Annie’s aunt, the prosperous midwife. She was back in London.

“The witch will not come to the house of a notorious wearh and spy,” Matthew reported after he had read its contents. “Her husband objects to the plan, for fear it will ruin his reputation. We are to go to her house near St. James’s Church on Garlic Hill.” When I didn’t react, Matthew scowled and continued. “It’s on the other side of town, within spitting distance of Andrew Hubbard’s den.”

“You are a vampire,” I reminded him. “She is a witch. We aren’t supposed to mix. This witch’s husband is right to be cautious.”

Matthew insisted on accompanying Annie and me across town anyway. The area surrounding St. James’s Church was far more prosperous than the Blackfriars, with spacious, well-kept streets, large houses, busy shops, and a tidy churchyard. Annie led us into an alley across from the church. Though dark, it was as neat as a pin.

“There, Master Roydon,” the girl said. She directed Matthew’s attention to the sign with a windmill on it before darting ahead with Pierre to alert the household to our arrival.

“You don’t have to stay,” I told Matthew. This visit was nerve-racking enough without him hovering and glowering.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied grimly.

We were met at the door by a round-faced woman with a snub nose, a gentle chin, and rich brown hair and eyes. Her face was serene, although her eyes snapped with irritation. She had stopped Pierre in his tracks. Only Annie had been admitted to the house and stood to one side in the doorway looking dismayed at the impasse.

I also stopped in my tracks, my mouth open in surprise. Annie’s aunt was the spitting image of Sophie Norman, the young daemon to whom we’d waved good-bye at the Bishop house in Madison.

“Dieu,” Matthew murmured, looking down at me in amazement. “My aunt, Susanna Norman,” Annie whispered. Our reaction had unsettled her. “She says—”

“Susanna Norman?” I asked, unable to take my eyes from her face. Her name and strong resemblance to Sophie couldn’t be a coincidence.

“As my niece said. You appear to be out of your element, Mistress Roydon,” Mistress Norman said. “And you are not welcome here, wearh.”

“Mistress Norman,” Matthew said with a bow.

“Did you not get my letter? My husband wants nothing to do with you.” Two boys shot out of the door. “Jeffrey! John!”

“Is this him?” the elder said. He studied Matthew with interest, then turned his attention on me. The child had power. Though he was still on the brink of adolescence, his abilities could already be felt in the crackle of undisciplined magic that surrounded him.

“Use the talents God gave you, Jeffrey, and don’t ask idle questions.” The witch looked at me appraisingly. “You certainly made Father Hubbard sit up and take notice. Very well, come inside.” When we moved to do so, Susanna held up her hand. “Not you, wearh. My business is with your wife. The Golden Gosling has decent wine, if you are determined to remain nearby. But it would be better for all concerned if you were to let your man see Mistress Roydon home.”

“Thank you for the advice, mistress. I’m sure I’ll find something satisfactory at the inn. Pierre will wait in the courtyard. He doesn’t mind the cold.” Matthew gave her a wolfish smile.

Susanna looked sour and turned smartly. “Come along, Jeffrey,” she called over her shoulder. Jeffrey commandeered his younger brother, cast one more interested glance at Matthew, and followed. “When you are ready, Mistress Roydon.”

“I can’t believe it,” I whispered as soon as the Normans were out of sight. “She has to be Sophie’s great-grandmother many times over.”

“Sophie must be descended through either Jeffrey or John.” Matthew pulled thoughtfully on his chin. “One of those boys is the missing link in our chain of circumstances that leads from Kit and the silver chess piece to the Norman family and on to North Carolina.”

“The future really is taking care of itself,” I said.

“I thought it would. As for the present, Pierre will be right here and I’ll be close by.” The fine lines around his eyes deepened. He didn’t want to be more than six inches away from me at the best of times.

“I’m not sure how long this will take,” I said, squeezing his arm.

“It doesn’t matter,” Matthew assured me, brushing my lips with his. “Stay as long as you need.”

Inside, Annie hastily took my cloak and returned to the fire, where she had been stooped over something on the hearth.

“Have a care, Annie,” Susanna said, sounding harassed. Annie was carefully lifting a shallow saucepan from a metal stand set over the embers of the fire. “Widow Hackett’s daughter requires that draft to help her sleep, and the ingredients are costly.”

“I can’t figure her out, Mama,” Jeffrey said, looking at me. His eyes were disconcertingly wise for one so young.

“Nor I, Jeffrey, nor I. But that’s probably why she’s here. Take your brother into the other room. And be quiet. Your father is sleeping, and he needs to remain so.”

“Yes, Mama.” Jeffrey scooped up two wooden soldiers and a ship from the table. “This time I’ll let you be Walter Raleigh so you can win the battle,” he promised his brother.

Susanna and Annie stared at me in the silence that followed. Annie’s faint pulses of power were already familiar. But I was not prepared for the steady current of inquiry that Susanna turned my way. My third eye opened. Finally someone had roused my witch’s curiosity.

“That’s uncomfortable,” I said, turning my head to break the intensity of Susanna’s gaze.

“It should be,” she said calmly. “Why do you require my help, mistress?”

“I was spellbound. It’s not what you think,” I said when Annie took an immediate step away from me. “Both of my parents were witches, but neither one understood the nature of my talents. They didn’t want me to come to any harm, so they bound me. The bindings have loosened, however, and strange things are happening.”

“Such as?” Susanna said, pointing Annie to a chair.

“I’ve summoned witchwater a few times, though not recently. Sometimes I see colors surrounding people, but not always. And I touched a quince and it shriveled.” I was careful not to mention my more spectacular outbreaks of magic. Nor did I mention the odd threads of blue and amber in the corners or the way handwriting had started to escape from Matthew’s books and animals flee from Mary Sidney’s shoes.

“Was your mother or father a waterwitch?” Susanna asked, trying to make sense of my story.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “They died when I was young.”

“Perhaps you are better suited to the craft, then. Though many wish to possess the rough magics of water and fire, they are not easy to come by,” said Susanna with a touch of pity. My Aunt Sarah thought witches who relied on elemental magic were dilettantes. Susanna, on the other hand, was inclined to see spells as a lesser form of magical knowledge. I smothered a sigh at these bizarre prejudices. Weren’t we all witches?

“My aunt was not able to teach me many spells. Sometimes I can light a candle. I have been able to call objects to me.”

“But you are a grown woman!” Susanna said, her hands settling on her hips. “Even Annie has more skills than that, and she is but fourteen. Can you concoct philters from plants?”

“No.” Sarah had wanted me to learn how to make potions, but I had declined.

“Are you a healer?”

“No.” I was beginning to understand Annie’s browbeaten expression.

Susanna sighed. “Why Andrew Hubbard requires my assistance, I do not know. I have quite enough to do with my patients, an infirm husband, and two growing sons.” She took a chipped bowl from the shelf and a brown egg from a rack by the window. She placed both on the table before me and pulled out a chair. “Sit, and tuck your hands beneath your legs.”

Mystified, I did as she requested.

“Annie and I are going to Widow Hackett’s house. While we’re gone, you are to get the contents of that egg into the bowl without using your hands. It requires two spells: a motion spell and a simple opening charm. My son John is eight, and he can already do it without thinking.”

“But—”

“If the egg isn’t in the bowl when I return, no one can help you, Mistress Roydon. Your parents may have been right to bind you if your power is so weak that you cannot even crack an egg.”

Annie gave me an apologetic look as she lifted the pan into her arms. Susanna clapped a lid on it. “Come, Annie.”

Sitting alone in the Normans’ gathering room, I considered the egg and the bowl.

“What a nightmare,” I whispered, hoping the boys were too far away to hear.

I took a deep breath and gathered my energy. I knew the words to both spells, and I wanted the egg to move—wanted it badly. Magic was nothing more than desire made real, I reminded myself.

I focused my desires on the egg. It hopped on the table, once, then subsided. Silently I repeated the spell. And again. And again.

Minutes later the only result of my efforts was a thin skim of perspiration on my forehead. All I had to do was lift the egg and crack it. And I had failed.

“Sorry,” I murmured to my flat stomach. “With any luck you’ll take after your father.” My stomach flopped over. Nerves and rapidly changing hormones were hell on the digestion.

Did chickens get morning sickness? I tilted my head and looked at the egg. Some poor hen had been robbed of her unhatched chick to feed the Norman family. My nausea increased. Perhaps I should consider vegetarianism, at least during the pregnancy.

But maybe there was no chick at all, I comforted myself. Not every egg was fertilized. My third eye peered under the surface of the shell, through the thickening layers of albumen to the yolk. Traces of life ran in thin streaks of red across the yolk’s surface.

“Fertile,” I said with a sigh. I shifted on my hands. Em and Sarah had kept hens for a while. It took a hen only three weeks to hatch an egg. Three weeks of warmth and care, and there was a baby chicken. It didn’t seem fair that I had to wait months before our child saw the light of day.

Care and warmth. Such simple things, yet they ensured life. What had Matthew said? All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land. The same was true for chicks. I imagined what it would feel like to be surrounded in a mother hen’s feathery warmth, safely cocooned from bumps and bruises. Would our child feel like that, floating in the depths of my womb? If not, was there a spell for it? One woven from responsibility, that would wrap the baby in care and warmth and love yet be gentle enough to give him both safety and freedom?

“That’s my real desire,” I whispered.

Peep.

I looked around. Many households had a few chickens pecking around the hearth.

Peep. It was coming from the egg on the table. There was a crack, then a beak. A bewildered set of black eyes blinked at me from a feathered head slicked down with moisture.

Someone behind me gasped. I turned. Annie’s hand was clapped over her mouth, and she was staring at the chick on the table.

“Aunt Susanna,” Annie said, dropping her hand. “Is that . . . ?” She trailed off and pointed wordlessly at me.

“Yes. That’s the glaem left over from Mistress Roydon’s new spell. Go. Fetch Goody Alsop.” Susanna spun her niece around and sent her back the way she came.

“I didn’t get the egg into the bowl, Mistress Norman,” I apologized. “The spells didn’t work.”

The still-wet chick set up a protest, one indignant peep after another.

“Didn’t work? I am beginning to think you know nothing about being a witch,” said Susanna incredulously.

I was beginning to think she was right.

20

Phoebe found the quiet at Sotheby’s Bond Street offices unsettling this Tuesday night. Though she’d been working at the London auction house for two weeks, she was still not accustomed to the building. Every sound— the buzzing of the overhead lights, the security guard pulling on the doors to make sure they were locked, the distant sound of recorded laughter on a television—made her jump.

As the junior person in the department, it had fallen on Phoebe to wait behind a locked door for Dr. Whitmore to arrive. Sylvia, her supervisor, had been adamant that someone needed to see the man after hours. Phoebe suspected that this request was highly irregular but was too new in the job to make more than a weak protest.

“Of course you will stay. He’ll be here by seven o’clock,” Sylvia had said smoothly, fingering her strand of pearls before picking up her ballet tickets from the desk. “Besides, you don’t have anywhere else to be, do you?” Sylvia was right. Phoebe had nowhere else to be.

“But who is he?” Phoebe asked. It was a perfectly legitimate question, but Sylvia had looked affronted.

“He’s from Oxford and an important client of this firm. That’s all you need to know,” Sylvia replied. “Sotheby’s values confidentiality, or did you miss that part of your training?”

And so Phoebe was still at her desk. She waited well beyond the promised hour of seven. To pass the time, she went through the files to find out more about the man. She didn’t like meeting people without knowing as much about their background as possible. Sylvia might think all she needed was his name and a vague sense of his credentials, but Phoebe knew different. Her mother had taught her what a valuable weapon such personal information could be when wielded against guests at cocktail parties and formal dinners. Phoebe hadn’t been able to find any Whitmores in the Sotheby archives, however, and his customer number led to a simple card in a locked file cabinet that said “ de Clermont Family—inquire with the president.”

At five minutes to nine, she heard someone outside the door. The man’s voice was gruff yet strangely musical.

“This is the third wild-goose chase you’ve sent me on in as many days, Ysabeau. Please try to remember that I have things to do. Send Alain next time. There was a brief pause. “You think I’m not busy? I’ll call you after I see them.” The man made a muffled oath. “Tell your intuition to take a break, for God’s sake.”

The man sounded strange: half American and half British, with blurred edges to his accent suggesting that these weren’t the only languages he knew. Phoebe’s father had been in the queen’s diplomatic service, and his voice was similarly ambiguous, as though he hailed from everywhere and nowhere.

The bell rang, another shrill sound that made her flinch, despite the fact that Phoebe was expecting it. She pushed away from her desk and strode across the room. She was wearing her black heels, which had cost a fortune but made her look taller and, Phoebe told herself, more authoritative. It was a trick she’d learned from Sylvia at her first interview, when she had worn flats. Afterward she’d vowed never to appear “adorably petite” again.

She looked through the peephole to see a smooth forehead, scruffy blond hair, and a pair of brilliant blue eyes. Surely this wasn’t Dr. Whitmore.

A sudden rap on the door startled her. Whoever this man was, he had no manners. Irritated, Phoebe punched the button on the intercom. “Yes?” she said impatiently.

“Marcus Whitmore here to see Ms. Thorpe.”

Phoebe looked through the peephole once more. Impossible. No one this young would warrant Sylvia’s attention. “Might I see some identification?” she said crisply.

“Where is Sylvia?” The blue eyes narrowed.

“At the ballet. Coppélia, I believe.” Sylvia’s tickets were the best in the house, the extravagance claimed as a business expense. The man on the other side of the door slapped an identification card flat against the peephole. Phoebe reared back. “If you would be so kind as to step away? I can’t see anything at that distance.” The card moved a few inches from the door.

“Really, Miss . . . ?”

“Taylor.”

“Miss Taylor, I am in a hurry.” The card disappeared, replaced by those twin blue beacons. Phoebe drew back again in surprise, but not before she’d made out the name on the card and his affiliation with a scientific research project in Oxford.

It was Dr. Whitmore. What business did a scientist have with Sotheby’s? Phoebe pushed the release for the door.

As soon as the click sounded, Whitmore pushed his way through. He was dressed for a club in Soho, with his black jeans, vintage gray U2 Tshirt, and a ridiculous pair of high-top Converse trainers (also gray). A leather cord circled his neck, and a handful of ornaments of dubious provenance and little worth hung down from it. Phoebe straightened the hem of her impeccably clean white blouse and looked at him with annoyance.

“Thank you,” Whitmore said, standing far closer to her than was normal in polite society. “Sylvia left a package for me.”

“If you would be seated, Dr. Whitmore.” She gestured to the chair in front of her desk.

Whitmore’s blue eyes moved from the chair to her. “Must I? This won’t take long. I’m only here to confirm that my grandmother isn’t seeing zebras where there are only horses.”

“Excuse me?” Phoebe inched toward her desk. There was a security alarm under the desk’s surface, next to the drawer. If the man continued to misbehave, she would use it.

“The package.” Whitmore kept his gaze directed at her. There was a spark of interest there. Phoebe recognized it and crossed her arms in an effort to deflect it. He pointed to the padded box on the desk without looking at it. “I’m guessing that’s it.”

“Please sit down, Dr. Whitmore. It’s long past closing time, I’m tired, and there is paperwork to be filled out before I can let you examine whatever it is that Sylvia set aside.” Phoebe reached up and rubbed at the back of her neck. It was cricked from looking up at him. Whitmore’s nostrils flared, and his eyelids drifted down. Phoebe noticed that his eyelashes were darker than his blond hair, and longer and thicker than hers. Any woman would kill for lashes like those.

“I really think you had better give me the box and let me be on my way, Miss Taylor.” The gruff voice smoothed out, deepened into a warning, though Phoebe couldn’t understand why. What was he going to do, steal the box? Again she considered sounding the alarm but thought better of it. Sylvia would be furious if she offended a client by calling the guards.

Instead Phoebe stepped to the desk, picked up a paper and a pen, and returned to thrust them at the visitor. “Fine. I’m happy to do this standing up if you prefer, Dr. Whitmore, though it’s a great deal less comfortable.”

“That’s the best offer I’ve had in some time.” Whitmore’s mouth twitched. “If we’re going to proceed according to Hoyle, though, I think you should call me Marcus.”

“Hoyle?” Phoebe flushed and drew herself up to her full height. Whitmore wasn’t taking her seriously. “I don’t think he works here.”

“I certainly hope not.” He scrawled a signature. “Edmond Hoyle’s been dead since 1769.”

“I’m fairly new at Sotheby’s. You’ll have to forgive me for not understanding the reference.” Phoebe sniffed. Once again she was too far from the hidden button underneath her desk to use it. Whitmore might not be a thief, but she was beginning to think he was mad.

“Here’s your pen,” Marcus said politely, “and your form. See?” He leaned closer. “I did exactly what you asked me to. I’m really very well behaved. My father made sure of it.”

Phoebe took the pen and paper from him. As she did, her fingers brushed against the back of Whitmore’s hand. Its coldness made her shiver. There was a heavy gold signet on his pinkie finger, she noticed. It looked medieval, but no one walked around London with such a rare and valuable ring on his finger. It must be a fake—though a good one.

She inspected the form as she returned to the desk. It all seemed to be in order, and if this man turned out to be some kind of criminal—which wouldn’t surprise her a bit—at least she wouldn’t be guilty of breaking the rules. Phoebe lifted the lid of the box, prepared to surrender it to the odd Dr. Whitmore for his examination. She hoped that then she could go home.

“Oh.” Her voice caught in surprise. She’d expected to see a fabulous diamond necklace or a Victorian set of emeralds in fussy gold filigree— something her own grandmother would like.

Instead the box contained two oval miniatures, set into niches that had been formed to adhere perfectly to their edges and protect them from damage. One was of a woman with long golden hair tinged with red. An opennecked ruff framed her heart-shaped face. Her pale eyes looked out at the viewer with calm assurance, and her mouth curved in a gentle smile. The background was the vivid blue common to the work of the Elizabethan limner Nicholas Hilliard. The other miniature depicted a man with a shock of black hair brushed back from his forehead. A straggling beard and mustache made him look younger than his black eyes suggested, and his white linen shirt was also open at the neck, showing flesh that was milkier than the cloth. Long fingers held a jewel suspended from a thick chain. Behind the man, golden flames burned and twisted, a symbol of passion.

A soft breath tickled her ear. “Holy Christ.” Whitmore looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they? This must be the set of miniatures that just arrived. An old couple in Shropshire found them hidden in the back of their silver chest when they were looking for a place to store some new pieces. Sylvia reckons they’ll fetch a good price.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt about that.” Marcus pushed a button on his phone.

“Oui?” said an imperious French voice at the other end of the line. This was the problem with cell phones, Phoebe thought. Everybody shouted on them, and you could hear private conversations.

“You were right about the miniatures, Grand-mère.”

A self-satisfied sound drifted out of the phone. “Do I have your complete attention now, Marcus?”

“No. And thank God for it. My complete attention isn’t good for anybody.” Whitmore eyed Phoebe and smiled. The man was charming, Phoebe reluctantly admitted. “But give me a few days before you send me on another errand. Just how much are you willing to pay for them, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“N’ importe quel prix.”

The price doesn’t matter. These were words that made auction houses happy. Phoebe stared down at the miniatures. They really were extraordinary.

Whitmore and his grandmother concluded their conversation, and the man’s fingers immediately flew across his phone, transmitting another message.

“Hilliard believed that his portrait miniatures were best viewed in private,” Phoebe mused aloud. “He felt that the art of limning put too many of his subjects’ secrets on display. You can see why. These two look like they kept all kinds of secrets.”

“You’re right there,” Marcus murmured. His face was very close, giving Phoebe an opportunity to examine his eyes more closely. They were bluer than she had first realized, bluer even than the azurite-and ultramarineenriched pigments Hilliard used.

The phone rang. When Phoebe reached to answer it, she thought his hand drifted down, just for a moment, to her waist.

“Give the man his miniatures, Phoebe.” It was Sylvia.

“I don’t understand,” she said numbly. “I’m not authorized—”

“He’s purchased them outright. Our obligation was to get the highest possible price for their pieces. We’ve done that. The Taverners will be able to spend their autumn years in Monte Carlo if they choose. And you can tell Marcus that if I’ve missed the danse de fête, I’ll be enjoying his family’s box seats for next season’s performances.” Sylvia disconnected the line.

The room was silent. Marcus Whitmore’s finger rested gently on the gold case that circled the miniature of the man. It looked like a gesture of longing, an attempt to connect to someone long dead and anonymous.

“I almost believe that, were I to speak, he might hear me,” Marcus said wistfully.

Something was off. Phoebe couldn’t identify what it was, but there was more at stake here than the acquisition of two sixteenth-century miniatures.

“Your grandmother must have a very healthy bank account, Dr. Whitmore, to pay so handsomely for two unidentifiable Elizabethan portraits. As you are also a Sotheby’s client, I feel I should tell you that you surely overpaid for them. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from this period might go for six figures with the right buyers in the room, but not these.” The identity of the sitter was crucial to such valuations. “We’ll never know who these two were. Not after so many centuries of obscurity. Names are important.”

“That’s what my grandmother says.”

“Then she is aware that without a definite attribution the value of these miniatures will probably not increase.”

“To be honest,” Marcus said, “my grandmother doesn’t need to make a return on her investment. And Ysabeau would prefer it if no one else knows who they are.”

Phoebe frowned at the odd phrasing. Did his grandmother think she did know?

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Phoebe, even if we did do it standing up. This time.” Marcus paused, smiled his charming smile. “You don’t mind my calling you Phoebe?”

Phoebe did mind. She rubbed at her neck in exasperation, pushing aside her black, collar-length hair. Marcus’s eyes lingered on the curve of her shoulders. When she made no reply, he closed the box, tucked the miniatures under his arm, and backed away.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said mildly, seemingly unaware of Phoebe’s clear signals of uninterest. “We can celebrate the Taverners’ good fortune, as well as the sizable commission that you will be splitting with Sylvia.”

Sylvia? Split a commission? Phoebe’s mouth gaped in disbelief. The chances that her boss might do such a thing were less than nil. Marcus’s expression darkened.

“It was a condition of the deal. My grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.” His voice was gruff. “Dinner?”

“I don’t go out with strange men after dark.”

“Then I’ll ask you out to dinner tomorrow, after we’ve had lunch. Once you’ve spent two hours in my company, I won’t be ‘strange’ any longer.”

“Oh, you’ll still be strange,” Phoebe muttered, “and I don’t take lunch. I eat at my desk.” She looked away in confusion. Had she said the first part aloud?

“I’ll pick you up at one,” said Marcus, his smile widening. Phoebe’s heart sank. She had said it aloud. “And don’t worry, we won’t go far.”

“Why not?” Did he think she was afraid of him or couldn’t keep up with his strides? God, she hated being short.

“I just wanted you to know that you could wear those shoes again without fearing you’d break your neck,” Marcus said innocently. His eyes traveled slowly from her toes over her black leather pumps, lingered on her ankles, and then crawled up the curve of her calf. “I like them.”

Break her neck? Who did this man think he was? He was behaving like an eighteenth-century rake. Phoebe took decisive steps toward the door, her heels making satisfyingly sharp clicks. She pushed the button to release the lock and held the door open. Marcus made an appreciative sound as he strolled toward her.

“I shouldn’t be so forward. My grandmother disapproves of that almost as much as she disapproves of being cut out of a business deal. But here’s the thing, Phoebe.” Whitmore lowered his mouth until it was inches from her ear and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Unlike the men who have taken you out to dinner and perhaps gone back to your flat for something afterward, your propriety and fine manners don’t frighten me off. Quite the contrary. And I can’t help imagining what you’re like when that icy control melts.”

Phoebe gasped.

Marcus took her hand. His lips pressed against her flesh as he stared into her eyes “Until tomorrow. And make sure the door locks behind me. You’re in enough trouble.” Dr. Whitmore walked backward out of the room, gave her another bright smile, turned, and whistled his way out of sight.

Phoebe’s hand was trembling. That man—that strange man with no grasp of proper etiquette and startling blue eyes—had kissed her. At her place of work. Without her permission.

And she hadn’t slapped him, which is what well-bred daughters of diplomats were taught to do as a last resort against unwanted advances at home and abroad.

She was indeed in trouble.

21

“Was I right to call you, Goody Alsop?” Susanna twisted her hands in her apron and looked at me anxiously. “I nearly sent her home,” she said weakly. “If I had . . .”

“But you didn’t, Susanna.” Goody Alsop was so old and thin that her skin clung to the bones of her hands and wrists. The witch’s voice was strangely hearty for someone so frail, however, and intelligence snapped in her eyes. The woman might be an octogenarian, but no one would dare call her infirm.

Now that Goody Alsop had arrived, the main room in the Norman apartments was full to bursting. With some reluctance Susanna allowed Matthew and Pierre to stand just inside the door, provided they didn’t touch anything. Jeffrey and John divided their attention between the vampires and the chick, now safely nestled inside John’s cap by the fire. Its feathers were beginning to fluff in the warm air, and it had, mercifully, stopped peeping. I sat on a stool by the fire next to Goody Alsop, who occupied the room’s only chair.

“Let me have a look at you, Diana.” When Goody Alsop reached her fingers toward my face, just as Widow Beaton and Champier had, I flinched. The witch stopped and frowned. “What is it, child?”

“A witch in France tried to read my skin. It felt like knives,” I explained in a whisper.

“It will not be entirely comfortable—what examination is?—but it should not hurt.” Her fingers explored my features. Her hands were cool and dry, the veins standing out against mottled skin and crawling over bent joints. I felt a slight digging sensation, but it was nothing like the pain I’d experienced at Champier’s hands.

“Ah,” she breathed when she reached the smooth skin of my forehead. My witch’s eye, which had lapsed into its typical frustrating inactivity the moment Susanna and Annie found me with the chick, opened fully. Goody Alsop was a witch worth knowing.

Looking into Goody Alsop’s third eye, I was plunged into a world of color. Try as I might, the brightly woven threads refused to resolve into something recognizable, though I felt once more the tantalizing prospect that they could be put to some use. Goody Alsop’s touch tingled as she probed my body and mind with her second sight, energy pulsing around her in a purple-tinged orange. In my limited experience, no one had ever manifested that particular combination of colors. She tutted here and there, made an approving sound or two.

“She’s a strange one, isn’t she?” Jeffrey whispered, peering over Goody Alsop’s shoulder.

“Jeffrey!” Susanna gasped, embarrassed at her son’s behavior. “Mistress Roydon, if you please.”

“Very well. Mistress Roydon’s a strange one,” said Jeffrey, unrepentant. He shifted his hands to his knees and bent closer.

“What do you see, young Jeffrey?” Goody Alsop asked.

“She—Mistress Roydon—is all the colors of a rainbow. Her witch’s eye is blue, even though the rest of her is green and silver, like the goddess. And why is there a rim of red and black there?” Jeffrey pointed to my forehead.

“That’s a wearh’s mark,” Goody Alsop said, smoothing it with her fingers. “It tells us she belongs to Master Roydon’s family. Whenever you see this, Jeffrey—and it is quite rare—you must heed it as a warning. The wearh who made it will not take it kindly if you meddle with the warmblood he has claimed.”

“Does it hurt?” the child wondered.

“Jeffrey!” Susanna cried again. “You know better than to pester Goody Alsop with questions.”

“We face a dark future if children stop asking questions, Susanna,” Goody Alsop remarked.

“A wearh’s blood can heal, but it doesn’t harm,” I told the boy before Goody Alsop could answer. There was no need for another witch to grow up fearing what he didn’t understand. My eyes shifted to Matthew, whose claim on me went far deeper than his father’s blood oath. Matthew was willing to let Goody Alsop’s examination continue—for now—but his eyes never left the woman. I mustered a smile, and his mouth tightened a fraction in response.

“Oh.” Jeffrey sounded mildly interested at this piece of intelligence. “Can you make the glaem again, Mistress Roydon?” To their chagrin, the boys had missed that manifestation of magical energy.

Goody Alsop rested a gnarled finger in the indentation over Jeffrey’s lip, effectively silencing the boy. “I need to talk to Annie now. After we’re through, Master Roydon’s man is going to take all three of you to the river. When you get back, you can ask me whatever you’d like.”

Matthew inclined his head toward the door, and Pierre rounded up his two young charges and, after a wary look at the old woman, took them downstairs to wait. Like Jeffrey, Pierre needed to overcome his fear of other creatures.

“Where is the girl?” Goody Alsop asked, turning her head.

Annie crept forward. “Here, Goody.”

“Tell us true, Annie,” Goody Alsop said in a firm tone. “What have you promised Andrew Hubbard?”

“N-nothing,” Annie stammered, her eyes shifting to mine.

“Don’t lie, Annie. ’Tis a sin,” Goody Alsop chided. “Out with it.”

“I’m to send word if Master Roydon plans to leave London again. And Father Hubbard sends one of his men when the mistress and master are still abed to question me about what goes on in the house.” Annie’s words tumbled out. When through, she clapped her hands over her mouth as though she couldn’t believe she’d revealed so much.

“We must abide by the letter of Annie’s agreement with Hubbard, if not its spirit.” Goody Alsop thought for a moment. “If Mistress Roydon leaves the city for any reason, Annie will send word to me first. Wait an hour before you let Hubbard know, Annie. And if you speak a word to anyone of what happens here, I’ll clap a binding spell on your tongue that thirteen witches won’t be able to break.” Annie looked justifiably terrified at the prospect. “Go and join the boys, but open all the doors and windows before you leave. I will send for you when it is time to return.”

Annie’s expression while she opened the shutters and doors was full of apology and dread, and I gave her an encouraging nod. The poor child was in no position to stand up to Hubbard and had done what she had to in order to survive. With one more frightened look at Matthew, whose attitude toward her was distinctly chilly, she left.

At last, the house quiet and drafts swirling around my ankles and shoulders, Matthew spoke. He was still propped up against the door, his black clothes absorbing what little light there was in the room.

“Can you help us, Goody Alsop?” His courteous tone bore no resemblance to his high-handed treatment of Widow Beaton.

“I believe so, Master Roydon,” Goody Alsop replied.

“Please take your ease,” Susanna said, gesturing Matthew toward a nearby stool. There was, alas, little chance of a man of Matthew’s size being comfortable on a small three-legged stool, but he straddled it without complaint. “My husband is sleeping in the next room. He mustn’t overhear the wearh, or our conversation.”

Goody Alsop plucked at the gray wool and pearly linen that covered her neck and drew her fingers away, pulling something insubstantial with them. The witch stretched out her hand and flicked her wrist, releasing a shadowy figure into the room. Her exact replica walked off into Susanna’s bedchamber.

“What was that?” I asked, hardly daring to breathe.

“My fetch. She will watch over Master Norman and make sure we are not disturbed.” Goody Alsop’s lips moved, and the drafts stopped. “Now that the doors and windows are sealed, we will not be overheard either. You can rest easy on that score, Susanna.”

Here were two spells that might prove useful in a spy’s household. I opened my mouth to ask Goody Alsop how she’d managed them, but before I could utter a word, she held up her hand and chuckled.

“You are very curious for a grown woman. I fear you’ll try Susanna’s patience even more than Jeffrey does.” She sat back and regarded me with a pleased expression. “I have waited a long time for you, Diana.”

“Me?” I said doubtfully.

“Without question. It has been many years since the first auguries foretold your arrival, and with the passing of time some among us gave up hope. But when our sisters told us of the portents in the north, I knew to expect you.” Goody Alsop was referring to Berwick and the strange occurrences in Scotland. I sat forward, ready to question her further, but Matthew shook his head slightly. He still wasn’t sure the witch could be trusted. Goody Alsop saw my husband’s silent request and chuckled again.

“So I was right, then,” Susanna said, relieved.

“Yes, child. Diana is indeed a weaver.” Goody Alsop’s words reverberated in the room, potent as any spell.

“What’s that?” I whispered.

“There is much we don’t understand about our present situation, Goody Alsop.” Matthew took my hand. “Perhaps you should treat us both like Jeffrey and explain it as you would to a child.”

“Diana is a maker of spells,” Goody Alsop said. “We weavers are rare creatures. That is why the goddess sent you to me.”

“No, Goody Alsop. You’re mistaken,” I protested with a shake of my head. “I’m terrible with spells. My Aunt Sarah has great skill, but not even she has been able to teach me the craft of the witch.”

“Of course you cannot perform the spells of other witches. You must devise your own.” Goody Alsop’s pronouncement went against everything I’d been taught. I looked at her in amazement.

“Witches learn spells. We don’t invent them.” Spells were passed from generation to generation, within families and among coven members. We jealously guarded that knowledge, recording words and procedures in grimoires along with the names of the witches who mastered their accompanying magic. More experienced witches trained the younger members of the coven to follow in their footsteps, mindful of the nuances of each spell and every witch’s past experience with it.

“Weavers do,” Goody Alsop replied.

“I’ve never heard of a weaver,” Matthew said carefully.

“Few have. We are a secret, Master Roydon, one that few witches discover, let alone wearhs. You are familiar with secrets and how to keep them, I think.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

“I’ve lived many years, Goody Alsop. I find it hard to believe that witches could keep the existence of weavers from other creatures all that time.” He scowled. “Is this another of Hubbard’s games?”

“I am too old for games, Monsieur de Clermont. Oh, yes, I know who you really are and what position you occupy in our world,” Goody Alsop said when Matthew looked surprised. “Perhaps you cannot hide the truth from witches as well as you think.”

“Perhaps not,” Matthew purred in warning. His growling further amused the old woman.

“That trick might frighten children like Jeffrey and John and moontouched daemons like your friend Christopher, but it does not scare me.” Her voice turned serious. “Weavers hide because once we were sought out and murdered, just like your father’s knights. Not everyone approved of our power. As you well know, it can be easier to survive when your enemies think you are already dead.”

“But who would do such a thing, and why?” I hoped that the answer wouldn’t lead us back to the long-standing enmity between vampires and witches.

“It wasn’t the wearhs or the daemons who hunted us down, but other witches,” Goody Alsop said calmly. “They fear us because we are different. Fear breeds contempt, then hate. It is a familiar story. Once witches destroyed whole families lest the babes grew to be weavers, too. The few weavers who survived sent their own children into hiding. A parent’s love for a child is powerful, as you will both soon discover.”

“You know about the baby,” I said, my hands moving protectively over my belly.

“Yes.” Goody Alsop nodded gravely. “You are already making a powerful weaving, Diana. You will not be able to keep it hidden from other witches for long.”

“A child?” Susanna’s eyes were huge. “Conceived between a witch and a wearh?”

“Not just any witch. Only weavers can work such magic. There is a reason the goddess chose you for this task, Susanna, just as there is a reason she called me. You are a midwife, and all your skills will be needed in the days ahead.”

“I have no experience that will help Mistress Roydon,” Susanna protested.

“You have been assisting women in childbirth for years,” Goody Alsop observed.

“Warmblooded women, Goody, with warmblooded babes!” Susanna said indignantly. “Not creatures like—”

“Wearhs have arms and legs, just like the rest of us,” Goody Alsop interrupted. “I cannot imagine this child will be any different.”

“Just because it has ten fingers and ten toes does not mean it has a soul,” Susanna said, eyeing Matthew with suspicion.

“I’m surprised at you, Susanna. Master Roydon’s soul is as clear to me as your own. Have you been listening to your husband again, and his prattle about the evil in wearhs and daemons?”

Susanna’s mouth tightened. “What if I have, Goody?”

“Then you are a fool. Witches see the truth plainly—even if their husbands are full of nonsense.”

“It is not such an easy matter as you make it out to be,” Susanna muttered.

“Nor does it need to be so difficult. The long-awaited weaver is among us, and we must make plans.”

“Thank you, Goody Alsop,” Matthew said. He was relieved that someone agreed with him at last. “You are right. Diana must learn what she needs to know quickly. She cannot have the child here.”

“That isn’t entirely your decision, Master Roydon. If the child is meant to be born in London, then that is where it will be born.”

“Diana doesn’t belong here,” Matthew said, adding quickly, “in London.”

“Bless us, that is clear enough. But as she is a time spinner, merely moving her to another place will not help. Diana would be no less conspicuous in Canterbury or York.”

“So you know another of our secrets.” Matthew gave the old woman a cold stare. “As you know so much, you must have also divined that Diana will not be returning to her own time alone. The child and I will be going with her. You will teach her what she needs in order to do it.” Matthew was taking charge, which meant that things were about to take their usual turn for the worse.

“Your wife’s education is my business now, Master Roydon—unless you think you know more about what it means to be a weaver than I do,” Goody Alsop said mildly.

“He knows that this is a matter between witches,” I told Goody Alsop, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Matthew won’t interfere.”

“Everything about my wife is my business, Goody Alsop,” said Matthew. He turned to me. “And this is not a matter solely between witches. Not if the witches here might turn against my mate and my child.”

“So it was a witch and not a wearh who injured you,” Goody Alsop said softly. “I felt the pain and knew that a witch was part of it but hoped that was because the witch was healing the damage done to you rather than causing it. What has the world come to that one witch would do such a thing to another?”

Matthew fixed his attention on Goody Alsop. “Maybe the witch also realized that Diana was a weaver.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Satu might have known. Given what Goody Alsop had told me about my fellow witches’ attitude toward weavers, the idea that Peter Knox and his cronies in the Congregation might suspect me of harboring such a secret sent my blood racing. Matthew sought my hand, taking it between both of his.

“It is possible, but I cannot say for certain,” Goody Alsop told us regretfully. “Nevertheless we must do what we can in the time the goddess provides to prepare Diana for her future.”

“Stop,” I said, slapping my palm on the table. Ysabeau’s ring chimed against the hard wood. “You’re all talking as though this weaving business makes sense. But I can’t even light a candle. My talents are magical. I have wind, water—even fire—in my blood.”

“If I can see your husband’s soul, Diana, you will not be surprised that I have also seen your power. But you are not a firewitch or a waterwitch, no matter what you believe. You cannot command these elements. If you were foolish enough to attempt it, you would be destroyed.”

“But I nearly drowned in my own tears,” I said stubbornly. “And to save Matthew I killed a wearh with an arrow of witchfire. My aunt recognized the smell.”

“A firewitch has no need of arrows. The fire leaves her and arrives at its target in an instant.” Goody Alsop shook her head. “These were but simple weavings, my child, fashioned from grief and love. The goddess has given you her blessing to borrow the powers you need but not to command any of them absolutely.”

“Borrow them.” I thought over the frustrating events of the past months and the glimmers of magic that would never behave as they were supposed to do. “So that’s why these abilities come and go. They were never really mine.”

“No witch could hold so much power within her without upsetting the balance of the worlds. A weaver selects carefully from the magic around her and uses it to shape something new.”

“But there must be thousands of spells in existence—not to mention charms and potions. Nothing I make could possibly be original.” I drew my hand across my forehead, and the spot where Philippe had made his blood oath seemed cold to the touch.

“All spells came from somewhere, Diana: a moment of need, a longing, a challenge that could not be met any other way. And they came from someone, too.”

“The first witch,” I whispered. Some creatures believed that Ashmole 782 was the first grimoire, a book that contained the original enchantments and charms devised by our people. Here was another connection between me and the mysterious manuscript. I looked at Matthew.

“The first weaver,” Goody Alsop corrected gently, “as well as those who followed. Weavers are not simply witches, Diana. Susanna is a great witch, with more knowledge about the magic of the earth and its lore than any of her sisters in London. For all her gifts, though, she cannot weave a new spell. You can.”

“I can’t even imagine how to begin,” I said.

“You hatched that chick,” Goody Alsop said, pointing to the sleepy yellow ball of fluff.

“But I was trying to crack an egg!” I protested. Now that I understood marksmanship, I was aware this was a problem. My magic, like my arrows, had missed its target.

“Obviously not. If you were trying simply to crack an egg, we would be enjoying some of Susanna’s excellent custard. You had something else in mind.” The chick concurred, emitting a particularly loud and clear peep.

She was right. I had indeed had other things on my mind: our child, whether we could nurture him properly, how we might keep him safe.

Goody Alsop nodded. “I thought so.”

“I spoke no words, performed no ritual, concocted nothing.” I was clinging to what Sarah had taught me about the craft. “All I did was ask some questions. They weren’t even particularly good questions.”

“Magic begins with desire. The words come much, much later,” Goody Alsop explained. “Even then a weaver cannot always reduce a spell to a few lines for another witch to use. Some weavings resist, no matter how hard we try. They are for our use alone. It is why we are feared.”

“‘It begins with absence and desire,’” I murmured. Past and present clashed again as I repeated the first line of the verse that had accompanied the single page of Ashmole 782 someone once sent to my parents. On this occasion, when the corners lit up and illuminated the dust motes in shades of blue and gold, I didn’t look away. Neither did Goody Alsop. Matthew’s and Susanna’s eyes followed ours, but neither saw anything out of the ordinary.

“Exactly. See there, how time feels your absence and wants you back to weave yourself into your former life.” She beamed, clapping her hands together as though I’d made her a particularly fine crayon drawing of a house and she planned to display it on her refrigerator door. “Of course, time is not ready for you now. If it were, the blue would be much brighter.”

“You make it sound as though it’s possible to combine magic and the craft, but they’re separate,” I said, still confused. “Witchcraft uses spells, and magic is an inherited power over an element, like air or fire.”

“Who taught you such nonsense?” Goody Alsop snorted, and Susanna looked appalled. “Magic and witchcraft are but two paths that cross in the wood. A weaver is able to stand at the crossroads with one foot placed on each path. She can occupy the place between, where the powers are the greatest.”

Time protested this revelation with a loud cry.

“‘A child between, a witch apart,’” I murmured in wonder. The ghost of Bridget Bishop had warned me of the dangers associated with such a vulnerable position. “Before we came here, the ghost of one of my ancestors— Bridget Bishop—told me that was my fate. She must have known I was a weaver.”

“So did your parents,” Goody Alsop said. “I can see the last remaining threads of their binding. Your father was a weaver, too. He knew you would follow his path.”

“Her father?” Matthew asked.

“Weavers are seldom men, Goody Alsop,” Susanna cautioned.

“Diana’s father was a weaver of great talent but no training. His spell was pieced together rather than properly woven. Still, it was made with love and served its purpose for a time, rather like the chain that binds you to your wearh, Diana.” The chain was my secret weapon, providing the comforting sensation that I was anchored to Matthew in my darkest moments.

“Bridget told me something else that same night: ‘There is no path forward that does not have him in it.’ She must have known about Matthew, too,” I confessed.

“You never told me about this conversation, mon coeur,” Matthew said, sounding more curious than annoyed.

“Crossroads and paths and vague prophecies didn’t seem important then. With everything that happened afterward, I forgot.” I looked at Goody Alsop. “Besides, how could I have been making spells without knowing it?”

“Weavers are surrounded by mystery,” Goody Alsop told me. “We haven’t the time to seek answers to all your questions now but must focus instead on teaching you to manage the magic as it moves through you.”

“My powers have been misbehaving,” I admitted, thinking of the shriveled quinces and Mary’s ruined shoes. “I never know what’s going to happen next.”

“That’s not unusual for a weaver first coming into her power. But your brightness can be seen and felt, even by humans.” Goody Alsop sat back in her chair and studied me. “If witches see your glaem like young Annie did, they might use the knowledge for their own purposes. We will not let you or the child fall into Hubbard’s clutches. I trust you can manage the Congregation?” she said, looking at Matthew. Goody Alsop construed Matthew’s silence as consent.

“Very well, then. Come to me on Mondays and Thursdays, Diana. Mistress Norman will see to you on Tuesdays. I shall send for Marjorie Cooper on Wednesdays and Elizabeth Jackson and Catherine Streeter on Fridays. Diana will need their help to reconcile the fire and water in her blood, or she will never produce more than a vapor.”

“Perhaps it is not wise to make all those witches privy to this particular secret, Goody,” Matthew said.

“Master Roydon is right. There are already too many whispers about the witch. John Chandler has been spreading news of her to ingratiate himself with Father Hubbard. Surely we can teach her ourselves,” said Susanna.

“And when did you become a firewitch?” Goody Alsop retorted. “The child’s blood is full of flame. My talents are dominated by witchwind, and yours are grounded in the earth’s power. We are not sufficient to the task.”

“Our gathering will draw too much attention if we proceed with your plan. We are but thirteen witches, yet you propose to involve five of us in this business. Let some other gathering take on the problem of Mistress Roydon—the one in Moorgate, perhaps, or Aldgate.”

“The Aldgate gathering has grown too large, Susanna. It cannot govern its own affairs, never mind take on the education of a weaver. Besides, it is too far for me to travel, and the bad air by the city ditch worsens my rheumatism. We will train her in this parish, as the goddess intended.”

“I cannot—” Susanna began.

“I am your elder, Susanna. If you wish to protest further, you will need to seek a ruling from the Rede.” The air thickened uncomfortably.

“Very well, Goody. I will send my request to Queenhithe.” Susanna seemed startled by her own announcement.

“Who is Queen Hithe?” I asked Matthew, my voice low.

“Queenhithe is a place, not a person,” he murmured. “But what is this about a reed?”

“I have no idea,” I confessed.

“Stop whispering,” Goody Alsop said, shaking her head in annoyance. “With the charm on the windows and the doors, your muttering stirs the air and hurts my ears.”

Once the air quieted, Goody Alsop continued. “Susanna has challenged my authority in this matter. As I am the leader of the Garlickhythe gathering—and the Vintry’s ward elder as well—Mistress Norman must present her case to the other ward elders in London. They will decide on our course of action, as they do whenever there are disagreements between witches. There are twenty-six elders, and together we are known as the Rede.”

“So this is just politics?” I said.

“Politics and prudence. Without a way to settle our own disputes, Father Hubbard would have his wearh fingers in even more of our affairs,” said Goody Alsop. “I am sorry if I offend you, Master Roydon.”

“No offense taken, Goody Alsop. But if you take this matter to your elders, Diana’s identity will be known across London.” Matthew stood. “I can’t allow that.”

“Every witch in the city has already heard about your wife. News travels quickly here, no small thanks to your friend Christopher Marlowe,” Goody Alsop said, craning her neck to meet his eyes. “Sit down, Master Roydon. My old bones no longer bend that way.” To my surprise, Matthew sat.

“The witches of London still do not know you are a weaver, Diana, and that is the important thing,” Goody Alsop continued. “The Rede will have to be told, of course. When other witches hear that you’ve been called before the elders, they will assume you are being disciplined for your relationship with Master Roydon, or that you are being bound in some fashion to keep him from gaining access to your blood and power.”

“Whatever they decide, will you still be my teacher?” I was used to being the object of other witches’ scorn and knew better than to hope that the witches of London would approve of my relationship with Matthew. It mattered little to me whether Marjorie Cooper, Elizabeth Jackson, and Catherine Streeter (whoever they were) participated in Goody Alsop’s educational regimen. But Goody Alsop was different. This was one witch whose friendship and help I wanted to have.

“I am the last of our kind in London and one of only three known weavers in this part of the world. The Scottish weaver Agnes Sampson lies in a prison in Edinburgh. No one has seen or heard from the Irish weaver for years. The Rede has no choice but to let me guide you,” Goody Alsop assured me.

“When will the witches meet?” I asked.

“As soon as it can be arranged,” Goody Alsop promised.

“We will be ready for them,” Matthew assured her.

“There are some things that your wife must do for herself, Master Roydon. Carrying the babe and seeing the Rede are among them,” Goody Alsop replied. “Trust is not an easy business for a wearh, I know, but you must try for her sake.”

“I trust my wife. You felt what witches have done to her, so you will not be surprised that I don’t trust any of your kind with her,” Matthew said.

“You must try,” Goody Alsop repeated. “You cannot offend the Rede. If you do, Hubbard will have to intervene. The Rede will not suffer that additional insult and will insist on the Congregation’s involvement. No matter our other disagreements, no one in this room wants the Congregation’s attention focused on London, Master Roydon.”

Matthew took Goody Alsop’s measure. Finally he nodded. “Very well, Goody.”

I was a weaver.

Soon I would be a mother.

A child between, a witch apart, whispered the ghostly voice of Bridget Bishop.

Matthew’s sharp inhalation told me that he had detected some change in my scent. “Diana is tired and needs to go home.”

“She is not tired but fearful. The time for that has passed, Diana. You must face who you truly are,” Goody Alsop said with mild regret.

But my anxiety continued to rise even after we were safely back in the Hart and Crown. Once there, Matthew took off his quilted jacket. He wrapped it around my shoulders, trying to ward off the chilly air. The fabric retained his smell of cloves and cinnamon, along with traces of smoke from Susanna’s fire and the damp air of London.

“I’m a weaver.” Perhaps if I kept saying it, this fact would begin to make sense. “But I don’t know what that means or who I am anymore.”

“You are Diana Bishop—a historian, a witch.” He took me by the shoulders. “No matter what else you have been before or might one day be, this is who you are. And you are my life.”

“Your wife,” I corrected him.

“My life,” he repeated. “You are not just my heart but its beating. Before I was only a shadow, like Goody Alsop’s fetch.” His accent was stronger, his voice rough with emotion.

“I should be relieved to have the truth at last,” I said through chattering teeth as I climbed into bed. The cold seemed to have taken root in the marrow of my bones. “All my life I wondered why I was different. Now I know, but it doesn’t help.”

“One day it will,” Matthew promised, joining me under the coverlet. He folded his arms around me. We twined our legs like the roots of a tree, each clinging to the other for support as we worked our bodies closer. Deep within me the chain that I had somehow forged out of love and longing for someone I had yet to meet flexed between us and became fluid. It was thick and unbreakable, filled with a life-giving sap that flowed continuously from witch to vampire and back to witch. Soon I no longer felt between but blissfully, completely centered. I took a deep breath, then another. When I tried to draw away, Matthew refused.

“I’m not ready to let you go yet,” he said, pulling me closer.

“You must have work to do—for the Congregation, Philippe, Elizabeth. I’m fine, Matthew,” I insisted, though I wanted to stay exactly where I was for as long as possible.

“Vampires reckon time differently than warmbloods do,” he said, still unwilling to release me.

“How long is a vampire minute, then?” I asked, snuggling under his chin.

“It’s hard to say,” Matthew murmured. “Some length of time between an ordinary minute and forever.”

22

Assembling the twenty-six most powerful witches in London was no small feat. The Rede did not take place as I had imagined—in a single, courtroom-style meeting with witches arrayed in neat rows and me standing before them. Instead it unfolded over several days in shops, taverns, and parlors all over the city. There were no formal introductions, and no time was wasted on other social niceties. I saw so many unfamiliar witches that soon they all blurred together.

Some aspects of the experience stood out, however. For the first time I felt the unquestionable power of a firewitch. Goody Alsop hadn’t misled me—there was no mistaking the burning intensity of the redheaded witch’s gaze or touch. Though the flames in my blood leaped and danced when she was near, I was clearly no firewitch. This was confirmed when I met two more firewitches in a private room at the Mitre, a tavern in Bishopsgate.

“She’ll be a challenge,” one observed after she’d finished reading my skin.

“A time-spinning weaver with plenty of water and fire in her,” the other agreed. “Not a combination I thought to see in my lifetime.”

The Rede’s windwitches convened at Goody Alsop’s house, which was more spacious than its modest exterior suggested. Two ghosts wandered the rooms, as did Goody Alsop’s fetch, who met visitors at the door and glided about silently making sure that everyone was comfortable.

The windwitches were a less fearsome lot than the firewitches, their touches light and dry as they quietly assessed my strengths and shortcomings.

“A stormy one,” murmured a silver-haired witch of fifty or so. She was petite and lithe and moved with a speed that suggested gravity did not have the same hold on her as on the rest of us.

“Too much direction,” another said, frowning. “She needs to let matters take their own course, or every draft she makes is likely to become a fullblown gale.”

Goody Alsop accepted their comments with thanks, but when they all left, she seemed relieved.

“I will rest now, child,” she said weakly, rising from her chair and moving toward the rear of the house. Her fetch trailed after her like a shadow.

“Are there any men among the Rede, Goody Alsop?” I asked, taking her elbow.

“Only a handful remain. All the young wizards have gone off to university to study natural philosophy,” she said with a sigh. “These are strange times, Diana. Everyone is in such a rush for something new, and witches think books will teach them better than experience. I’ll take my leave of you now. My ears are ringing from all that talking.”

A solitary waterwitch came to the Hart and Crown on Thursday morning. I was lying down, exhausted from traipsing all over town the previous day. Tall and supple, the waterwitch did not so much step as flow into the house. She met a solid obstacle, however, in the wall of vampires in the entrance hall.

“It’s all right, Matthew,” I said from the door of our bedchamber, beckoning her forward.

When we were alone, the waterwitch surveyed me from head to toe. Her glance tingled like salt water on my skin, as bracing as a dip in the ocean on a summer day.

“Goody Alsop was right,” she said in a low, musical voice. “There is too much water in your blood. We cannot meet with you in groups for fear of causing a deluge. You must see us one at a time. It will take all day, I’m afraid.”

So instead of my going to the waterwitches, the waterwitches came to me. They trickled in and out of the house, driving Matthew and Françoise mad. But there was no denying my affinity with them, or the undertow that I felt in a waterwitch’s presence.

“The water did not lie,” one waterwitch murmured after sliding her fingertips over my forehead and shoulders. She turned my hands over to examine the palms. She was scarcely older than me, with striking coloring: white skin, black hair, and eyes the color of the Caribbean.

“What water?” I asked as she traced the tributaries leading away from my lifeline.

“Every waterwitch in London collected rainwater from midsummer to Mabon, then poured it into the Rede’s scrying bowl. It revealed that the long-awaited weaver would have water in her veins.” The waterwitch let out a sigh of relief and released my hands. “We are in need of new spells after helping turn back the Spanish fleet. Goody Alsop has been able to replenish the windwitches’ supply, but the Scottish weaver was gifted with earth, so she could not help us—even if she had wished to. You are a true daughter of the moon, though, and will serve us well.”

On Friday morning a messenger came to the house with an address on Bread Street and instructions for me to go there at eleven o’clock to meet the last remaining members of the Rede: the two earthwitches. Most witches had some degree of earth magic within them. It was the foundation for the craft, and in modern covens earthwitches had no special distinction. I was curious to see if the Elizabethan earthwitches were any different.

Matthew and Annie went with me, as Pierre was occupied on an errand for Matthew and Françoise was out shopping. We were just clearing St. Paul’s Churchyard when Matthew turned on an urchin with a filthy face and painfully thin legs. Matthew’s blade was at the child’s ear in a flash. “Move that finger so much as a hair, lad, and I’ll take your ear off,” he said softly.

I looked down with surprise to see the child’s fingers brushing against the bag I wore at my waist.

There was always a hint of potential violence about Matthew, even in my own time, but in Elizabeth’s London it was much closer to the surface. Still, there was no need for him to turn his venom on one so small.

“Matthew,” I warned, noting the terror on the child’s face, “stop it.”

“Another man would have your ear or have you before the bailiffs.” Matthew narrowed his eyes, and the child blanched further.

“Enough,” I said shortly. I touched the child’s shoulder, and he flinched. In a flash my witch’s eye saw a man’s heavy hand striking the child and driving him into a wall. Beneath my fingers, concealed by a rough shirt that was all the boy had to keep out the cold, blood suffused his skin in an ugly bruise. “What’s your name?”

“Jack, my lady,” the boy whispered. Matthew’s knife was still pressed to his ear, and we were beginning to attract attention.

“Put the dagger away, Matthew. This child is no danger to either of us.”

Matthew withdrew his knife with a hiss.

“Where are your parents?”

Jack shrugged. “Haven’t any, my lady.”

“Take the boy home, Annie, and have Françoise get him some food and clothes. Introduce him to warm water, if you can, and put him in Pierre’s bed. He looks tired.”

“You cannot adopt every stray in London, Diana.” Matthew drove his dagger into its sheath for emphasis.

“Françoise could use someone to run errands for her.” I smoothed the boy’s hair back from his forehead. “Will you work for me, Jack?”

“Aye, mistress.” Jack’s stomach gave an audible gurgle, and his wary eyes held a trace of hope. My witch’s third eye opened wide, seeing into his cavernous stomach and hollow, trembling legs. I drew a few coins from my purse.

“Buy him a slice of pie from Master Prior on the way, Annie. He’s ready to drop from hunger, but that should hold him until Françoise can make him a proper meal.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Annie said. She gripped Jack around the arm and towed him in the direction of the Blackfriars.

Matthew frowned at their departing backs and then at me. “You’re doing that child no favors. This Jack—if that’s his real name, which I sincerely doubt—won’t live out the year if he continues to steal.”

“The child won’t live out the week unless an adult takes responsibility for him. What is that you said? Love, a grown-up to care for them, and a soft place to land?”

“Don’t turn my words against me, Diana. That was about our child, not some homeless waif.” Matthew, who had met more witches in the past few days than most vampires did in a lifetime, was spoiling for a fight.

“I was a homeless waif once.”

My husband drew back as if I’d slapped him.

“Not so easy to turn him away now, is it?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “If Jack doesn’t come with us, we might as well take him straight to Andrew Hubbard. There he’ll either be fitted for a coffin or had for supper. Either way he’ll be looked after better than he would be out here on the streets.”

“We have servants enough,” Matthew said coolly.

“And you have money to spare. If you can’t afford it, I’ll pay his wages out of my own funds.”

“You’d better come up with a fairy tale to tuck him into bed with while you’re at it.” Matthew gripped my elbow. “Do you think he won’t notice he’s living with three wearhs and two witches? Human children always see more clearly into the world of creatures than adults do.”

“Do you think Jack will care what we are if he has a roof over his head, food in his belly, and a bed where he can sleep the night in safety?” A woman stared at us in confusion from across the street. A vampire and a witch shouldn’t be having such a heated discussion in public. I pulled the hood closer around my face.

“The more creatures we let into our lives here, the trickier this all becomes,” Matthew said. He noticed the woman watching us and released my arm. “And that goes double for the humans.”

After visiting the two solid, grave earthwitches, Matthew and I retreated to opposite ends of the Hart and Crown until our tempers cooled. Matthew attacked his mail, bellowing for Pierre and letting out a voluble stream of curses against Her Majesty’s government, his father’s whims, and the folly of King James of Scotland. I spent the time talking to Jack about his duties. While the boy had a fine skill set when it came to picking locks, pockets, and country bumpkins who could be fleeced of all their possessions in confidence games, he could not read, write, cook, sew, or do anything else that might assist Françoise and Annie. Pierre, however, took a serious interest in the boy, especially after he recovered his lucky charm from the inner pocket of the boy’s secondhand doublet.

“Come with me, Jack,” Pierre said, holding open the door and jerking his head toward the stairs. He was on his way out to collect the latest missives from Matthew’s informants, and he clearly planned on taking advantage of our young charge’s familiarity with London’s underworld.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said, his voice eager. He already looked better after just one meal.

“Nothing dangerous,” I warned Pierre.

“Of course not, madame,” the vampire said innocently.

“I mean it,” I retorted. “And have him back before dark.”

I was sorting through papers on my desk when Matthew came out from his study. Françoise and Annie had gone to Smithfield to see the butchers for meat and blood, and we had the house to ourselves.

“I’m sorry, mon coeur,” Matthew said, sliding his hands around my waist from behind. He dropped a kiss on my neck. “Between the Rede and the queen, it’s been a long week.”

“I’m sorry, too. I understand why you don’t want Jack here, Matthew, but I couldn’t ignore him. He was hurt and hungry.”

“I know,” Matthew said, drawing me in tightly so that my back fit against his chest.

“Would your reaction have been different if we’d found the boy in modern Oxford?” I asked, staring into the fire rather than meeting his eyes. Ever since the incident with Jack, I had been preoccupied with the question of whether Matthew’s behavior was rooted in vampire genetics or Elizabethan morals.

“Probably not. It’s not easy for vampires to live among warmbloods, Diana. Without an emotional bond, warmbloods are nothing more than a source of nourishment. No vampire, however civilized and well mannered, can remain in close proximity to one without feeling the urge to feed on them.” His breath was cool against my neck, tickling the sensitive spot where Miriam had used her blood to heal the wound Matthew had made there.

“You don’t seem to want to feed on me.” There had been no indication that Matthew wrestled with such an urge, and he had flatly refused his father’s suggestions that he take my blood.

“I can manage my cravings far better than when we first met. Now my desire for your blood is not so much about nourishment as control. To feed from you would primarily be an assertion of dominance now that we’re mated.”

“And we have sex for that,” I said matter-of-factly. Matthew was a generous and creative lover, but he definitely considered the bedroom his domain.

“Excuse me?” he said, his eyebrows drawn into a scowl.

“Sex and dominance. It’s what modern humans think vampire relationships are all about,” I said. “Their stories are full of crazed alpha-male vampires throwing women over their shoulders before dragging them off for dinner and a date.”

“Dinner and a date?” Matthew was aghast. “Do you mean . . . ?”

“Uh-huh. You should see what Sarah’s friends in the Madison coven read. Vampire meets girl, vampire bites girl, girl is shocked to find out there really are vampires. The sex, blood, and overprotective behavior all come quickly thereafter. Some of it is pretty explicit.” I paused. “There’s no time for bundling, that’s for sure. I don’t remember much poetry or dancing either.”

Matthew swore. “No wonder your aunt wanted to know if I was hungry.”

“You really should read this stuff, if only to see what humans think. It’s a public-relations nightmare. Far worse than what witches have to overcome.” I turned around to face him. “You’d be surprised how many women seem to want a vampire boyfriend anyway, though.”

“What if their vampire boyfriends were to behave like callous bastards in the street and threaten starving orphans?”

“Most fictional vampires have hearts of gold, barring the occasional jealous rage and consequent dismemberment.” I smoothed the hair away from his eyes.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Matthew said.

“Why? Vampires read books about witches. The fact that Kit’s Doctor Faustus is pure fantasy doesn’t stop you from enjoying a good supernatural yarn.”

“Yes, but all that manhandling and then making love . . .” Matthew shook his head.

“You’ve manhandled me, as you so charmingly put it. I seem to recall being hoisted into your arms at Sept-Tours on more than one occasion,” I pointed out.

“Only when you were injured!” Matthew said indignantly. “Or tired.”

“Or when you wanted me in one spot and I was in another. Or when the horse was too tall, or the bed was too high, or the seas were too rough. Honestly, Matthew. You have a very selective memory when it suits you. As for making love, it’s not always the tender act that you describe. Not in the books I’ve seen. Sometimes it’s just a good, hard—”

Before I could finish my sentence, a tall, handsome vampire flung me over his shoulder.

“We will continue this conversation in private.”

“Help! I think my husband is a vampire!” I laughed and pounded on the backs of his thighs.

“Be quiet,” he growled. “Or you’ll have Mistress Hawley to contend with.”

“If I were a human woman and not a witch, that growly sound you just made would make me swoon. I’d be all yours, and you could have your way with me.” I giggled.

“You’re already all mine,” Matthew reminded me, depositing me on the bed. “I’m changing this ridiculous plot, by the way. In the interests of originality—not to mention verisimilitude—we’re skipping dinner and moving right on to the date.”

“Readers would love a vampire who said that!” I said.

Matthew seemed not to care about my editorial contributions. He was too busy lifting my skirts. We were going to make love fully clothed. How deliciously Elizabethan.

“Wait a minute. At least let me take off my bum roll.” Annie had informed me that this was the proper name for the doughnut-shaped thing that kept my skirts respectably full and flouncy.

But Matthew was not inclined to wait.

“To hell with the bum roll.” He loosened the front ties on his breeches, grabbed my hands, and pinned them over my head. With one thrust he was inside me.

“I had no idea that talking about popular fiction would have this effect on you,” I said breathlessly as he started to move. “Remind me to discuss it with you more often.”

We were just sitting down to supper when I was called to Goody Alsop’s house.

The Rede had made its ruling.

When Annie and I arrived with our two vampire escorts and Jack trailing behind, we found her in the front parlor with Susanna and three unfamiliar witches. Goody Alsop sent the men to the Golden Gosling and steered me toward the group by the fire.

“Come, Diana, and meet your teachers.” Goody Alsop’s fetch pointed me to an empty chair and withdrew into her mistress’s shadow. All five witches studied me. They looked like a bunch of prosperous city matrons, with their thick woolen gowns in dark, wintry colors. Only their tingling glances gave them away as witches.

“So the Rede agreed with your initial plan,” I said slowly, trying to meet their eyes. It was never good to show a teacher fear.

“They did,” Susanna said with resignation. “You will forgive me, Mistress Roydon. I have two boys to think of, and a husband too ill to provide for us. A neighbor’s goodwill can be lost overnight.”

“Let me introduce you to the others,” Goody Alsop said, turning slightly toward the woman to her right. She was around sixty, short in stature, round of face, and, if her smile was any indication, generous of spirit. “This is Marjorie Cooper.”

“Diana,” Marjorie said with a nod that set her small ruff rustling. “Welcome to our gathering.”

While meeting the Rede, I’d learned that Elizabethan witches used the term “gathering” much as modern witches used the word “coven” to indicate a recognized community of witches. Like everything else in London, the city’s gatherings coincided with parish boundaries. Though it was strange to think of witches’ covens and Christian churches fitting so neatly together, it made sound organizational sense and provided an extra measure of safety, since it kept the witches’ affairs among close neighbors.

There were, therefore, more than a hundred gatherings in London proper and a further two dozen in the suburbs. Like the parishes, the gatherings were organized into larger districts known as wards. Each ward sent one of its elders to the Rede, which oversaw all of the witches’ affairs in the city.

With panics and witch-hunts brewing, the Rede was worried that the old system of governance was breaking down. London was bursting with creatures already, and more poured in every day. I had heard muttering about the size of the Aldgate gathering—which included more than sixty witches instead of the normal thirteen to twenty—as well as the large gatherings in Cripplegate and Southwark. To avoid the notice of humans, some gatherings had started “hiving off” and splitting into different septs. But new gatherings with inexperienced leaders were proving problematic in these difficult times. Witches in the Rede who were gifted with second sight foresaw troubles ahead.

“Marjorie is gifted with the magic of earth, like Susanna. Her specialty is remembering,” Goody Alsop explained.

“I have no need of grimoires or these new almanacs all the booksellers are peddling,” Marjorie said proudly.

“Marjorie perfectly remembers every spell she has ever mastered and can recall the exact configuration of the stars for every year she has been alive—and for many years when she was not yet born.”

“Goody Alsop feared you would not be able to write down all you learn here and take it with you. Not only will I help you find the right words so that another witch might use the spells you devise, but I’ll teach you how to be at one with those words so that none can ever take them from you.” Marjorie’s eyes sparkled, and her voice lowered conspiratorially. “And my husband is a vintner. He can get you much better wine than you are drinking now. I understand wine is important to wearhs.”

I laughed aloud at this, and the other witches joined in. “Thank you, Mistress Cooper. I will pass your offer on to my husband.”

“Marjorie. We are sisters here.” For once I didn’t cringe at being called another witch’s sister.

“I am Elizabeth Jackson,” said the elderly woman on the other side of Goody Alsop. She was somewhere between Marjorie and Goody Alsop in age.

“You’re a waterwitch.” I felt the affinity as soon as she spoke.

“I am.” Elizabeth had steely gray hair and eyes and was as tall and straight as Marjorie was short and round. While many of the waterwitches in the Rede had been sinuous and flowing, Elizabeth had the brisk clarity of a mountain stream. I sensed she would always tell me the truth, even when I didn’t want to hear it.

“Elizabeth is a gifted seer. She will teach you the art of scrying.”

“My mother was known for her second sight,” I said hesitantly. “I would like to follow in her footsteps.”

“But she had no fire,” Elizabeth said decidedly, beginning her truthtelling immediately. “You may not be able to follow your mother in everything, Diana. Fire and water are a potent mix, provided they don’t extinguish each other.”

“We will see to it that doesn’t happen,” the last witch promised, turning her eyes to me. Until then she’d been studiously avoiding my gaze. Now I could see why: There were golden sparks in her brown eyes, and my third eye shot open in alarm. With that extra sight, I could see the nimbus of light that surrounded her. This must be Catherine Streeter.

“You’re even . . . even more powerful than the firewitches in the Rede,” I stammered.

“Catherine is a special witch,” Goody Alsop admitted, “a firewitch born of two firewitches. It happens rarely, as though nature herself knows that such a light cannot be hidden.”

When my third eye closed, dazzled by the sight of the thrice-blessed firewitch, Catherine seemed to fade. Her brown hair dulled, her eyes dimmed, and her face was handsome but unmemorable. Her magic sprang to life again, however, as soon as she spoke.

“You have more fire than I expected,” she said thoughtfully.

“’Tis a pity she was not here when the Armada came,” Elizabeth said.

“So it’s true? The famous ‘English wind’ that blew the Spanish ships away from England’s shores was raised by witches?” I asked. It was part of witches’ lore, but I’d always dismissed it as a myth.

“Goody Alsop was most useful to Her Majesty,” Elizabeth said proudly. “Had you been here, I think we might have been able to make burning water—or fiery rain at the very least.”

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” Goody Alsop said, holding up one hand. “Diana has not yet made her weaver’s forspell.”

“Forspell?” I asked. Like gatherings and the Rede, this was not a term I knew.

“A forspell reveals the shape of a weaver’s talents. Together we will form a blessed circle. There we will temporarily turn your powers loose to find their own way, unencumbered by words or desires,” Goody Alsop replied. “It will tell us much about your talents and what we must do to train them, as well as reveal your familiar.”

“Witches don’t have familiars.” This was another human conceit, like worshipping the devil.

“Weavers do,” Goody Alsop said serenely, motioning toward her fetch. “This is mine. Like all familiars, she is an extension of my talents.”

“I’m not sure having a familiar is such a good idea in my case,” I said, thinking about the blackened quinces, Mary’s shoes, and the chick. “I have enough to worry about.”

“That is the reason you cast a forspell—to face your deepest fears so that you can work your magic freely. Still, it can be a harrowing experience. There have been weavers who entered the circle with hair the color of a raven’s wing and left it with tresses as white as snow,” Goody Alsop admitted.

“But it will not be as heartbreaking as the night the wearh left Diana and the waters rose in her,” Elizabeth said softly.

“Or as lonely as the night she was closed in the earth,” Susanna said with a shiver. Marjorie nodded sympathetically.

“Or as frightening as the time the firewitch tried to open you,” Catherine assured me, her fingers turning orange with fury.

“The moon will be full dark on Friday. Candlemas is but a few weeks away. And we are entering a period that is propitious for spells inclining children toward study,” Marjorie remarked, her face creased with concentration as she recalled the relevant information from her astonishing memory.

“I thought this was the week for snakebite charms?” Susanna said, drawing a small almanac out of her pocket.

While Marjorie and Susanna discussed the magical intricacies of the schedule, Goody Alsop, Elizabeth, and Catherine stared at me intently.

“I wonder . . .” Goody Alsop looked at me with open speculation and tapped a finger against her lips.

“Surely not,” Elizabeth said, voice hushed.

“We are not getting ahead of ourselves, remember?” Catherine said. “The goddess has blessed us enough.” As she said it, her brown eyes sparked green, gold, red, and black in rapid succession. “But perhaps . . .”

“Susanna’s almanac is all wrong. But we have decided it will be more auspicious if Diana weaves her forspell next Thursday, under the waxing crescent moon,” Marjorie said, clapping her hands with delight.

“Oof,” Goody Alsop said, poking her finger in her ear to shield it from the disturbance in the air. “Gently, Marjorie, gently.”

With my new obligations to the St. James Garlickhythe gathering and my ongoing interest in Mary’s alchemical experiments, I found myself spending more time outside the house while the Hart and Crown continued to serve as a center for the School of Night and the hub for Matthew’s work. Messengers came and went with reports and mail, George often stopped by for a free meal and to tell us about his latest futile efforts to find Ashmole 782, and Hancock and Gallowglass dropped off their laundry downstairs and whiled away the hours by my fire, scantily clad, until it was returned to them. Kit and Matthew had reached an uneasy truce after the business with Hubbard and John Chandler, which meant that I often found the playwright in the front parlor, staring moodily into the distance and then writing furiously. The fact that he helped himself to my supply of paper was an additional source of annoyance.

Then there were Annie and Jack. Integrating two children into the household was a full-time business. Jack, whom I supposed to be about seven or eight (he had no idea of his actual age), delighted in deviling the teenage girl. He followed her around and mimicked her speech. Annie would burst into tears and pelt upstairs to fling herself on her bed. When I chastised Jack for his behavior, he sulked. Desperate for a few quiet hours, I found a schoolmaster willing to teach them reading, writing, and reckoning, but the two of them quickly drove the recent Cambridge graduate away with their blank stares and studied innocence. Both preferred shopping with Françoise and running around London with Pierre to sitting quietly and doing their sums.

“If our child behaves like this, I’ll drown him,” I told Matthew, seeking a moment of respite in his study.

“She will behave like this, you can be certain of it. And you won’t drown her,” Matthew said, putting down his pen. We still disagreed about the baby’s sex.

“I’ve tried everything. I’ve reasoned, cajoled, pleaded—hell, I even bribed them.” Master Prior’s buns had only ratcheted up Jack’s energy level.

“Every parent makes those mistakes,” he said with a laugh. “You’re trying to be their friend. Treat Jack and Annie like pups. The occasional sharp nip on the nose will establish your authority better than a mince pie will.”

“Are you giving me parenting tips from the animal kingdom?” I was thinking of his early research into wolves.

“As a matter of fact, I am. If this racket continues, they’ll have me to contend with, and I don’t nip. I bite.” Matthew glowered at the door as a particularly loud crash echoed through our rooms, followed by an abject “Sorry, mistress.”

“Thanks, but I’m not desperate enough to resort to obedience training. Yet,” I said, backing out of the room.

Two days of using my teacher voice and administering time-outs instilled some degree of order, but the children required a great deal of activity to keep their exuberance in check. I abandoned my books and papers and took them on long walks down Cheapside and into the suburbs to the west. We went to the markets with Françoise and watched the boats unloading their cargo at the docks in the Vintry. There we imagined where the goods came from and speculated about the origins of the crews.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a tourist and started feeling as though Elizabethan London was my home.

We were shopping Saturday morning at the Leadenhall Market, London’s premier emporium for fine groceries, when I saw a one-legged beggar. I was fishing a penny out of my bag for him when the children disappeared into a hatmaker’s shop. They could wreak havoc—expensive havoc—in such a place.

“Annie! Jack!” I called, dropping the penny in the man’s palm. “Keep your hands to yourselves!”

“You are far from home, Mistress Roydon,” a deep voice said. The skin on my back registered an icy stare, and I turned to find Andrew Hubbard.

“Father Hubbard,” I said. The beggar inched away.

Hubbard looked around. “Where is your woman?”

“If you are referring to Françoise, she is in the market,” I said tartly. “Annie is with me, too. I haven’t had a chance to thank you for sending her to us. She is a great help.”

“I understand you have met with Goody Alsop.”

I made no reply to this blatant fishing expedition.

“Since the Spanish came, she does not stir from her house unless there is good reason.”

Still I was silent. Hubbard smiled.

“I am not your enemy, mistress.”

“I didn’t say you were, Father Hubbard. But who I see and why is not your concern.”

“Yes. Your father-in-law—or do you think of him as your father?—made that quite clear in his letter. Philippe thanked me for assisting you, of course. With the head of the de Clermont family, the thanks always precede the threats. It is a refreshing change from your husband’s usual behavior.”

My eyes narrowed. “What is it that you want, Father Hubbard?”

“I suffer the presence of the de Clermonts because I must. But I am under no obligation to continue doing so if there is trouble.” Hubbard leaned toward me, his breath frosty. “And you are causing trouble. I can smell it. Taste it. Since you’ve come, the witches have been . . . difficult.”

“That’s an unfortunate coincidence,” I said, “but I’m not to blame. I’m so unschooled in the arts of magic that I can’t even crack an egg into a bowl.” Françoise came out of the market. I dropped Hubbard a curtsy and moved to step past him. His hand shot out and grabbed me around the wrist. I looked down at his cold fingers.

“It’s not just creatures who emit a scent, Mistress Roydon. Did you know that secrets have their own distinct odor?”

“No,” I said, drawing my wrist from his grasp.

“Witches can tell when someone lies. Wearhs can smell a secret like a hound can scent a deer. I will run your secret to ground, Mistress Roydon, no matter how you try to conceal it.”

“Are you ready, madame?” Françoise asked, frowning as she drew closer. Annie and Jack were with her, and when the girl spotted Hubbard, she blanched.

“Yes, Françoise,” I said, finally looking away from Hubbard’s uncanny, striated eyes. “Thank you for your counsel, Father Hubbard, and the information.”

“If the boy is too much for you, I would be happy to take care of him,” Hubbard murmured as I walked by. I turned and strode back to him.

“Keep your hands off what’s mine.” Our eyes locked, and this time it was Hubbard who looked away first. I returned to my huddle of vampire, witch, and human. Jack looked anxious and was now shifting from one foot to the other as if considering bolting. “Let’s go home and have some gingerbread,” I said, taking hold of his arm.

“Who is that man?” he whispered.

“That’s Father Hubbard” was Annie’s hushed reply.

“The one in the songs?” Jack said, looking over his shoulder. Annie nodded.

“Yes, and when he—”

“Enough, Annie. What did you see in the hat shop?” I asked, gripping Jack more tightly. I extended my hand toward the overflowing basket of groceries. “Let me take that, Françoise.”

“It will not help, madame,” Françoise said, though she handed me the basket. “Milord will know you have been with that fiend. Not even the cabbage’s scent will hide it.” Jack’s head turned in interest at this morsel of information, and I gave Françoise a warning look.

“Let’s not borrow trouble,” I said as we turned toward home.

Back at the Hart and Crown, I divested myself of basket, cloak, gloves, and children and took a cup of wine in to Matthew. He was at his desk, bent over a sheaf of paper. My heart lightened at the now-familiar sight.

“Still at it?” I asked, reaching over his shoulder to put the wine before him. I frowned. His paper was covered with diagrams, X’s and O’s, and what looked like modern scientific formulas. I doubted that it had anything to do with espionage or the Congregation, unless he was devising a code. “What are you doing?”

“Just trying to figure something out,” Matthew said, sliding the paper away.

“Something genetic?” The X’s and O’s reminded me of biology and Gregor Mendel’s peas. I drew the paper back. There weren’t just X’s and O’s on the page. I recognized initials belonging to members of Matthew’s family: YC, PC, MC, MW. Others belonged to my own: DB, RB, SB, SP. Matthew had drawn arrows between individuals, and lines crisscrossed from generation to generation.

“Not strictly speaking,” Matthew said, interrupting my examination. It was a classic Matthew nonanswer.

“I suppose you’d need equipment for that.” At the bottom of the page, a circle surrounded two letters: B and C—Bishop and Clairmont. Our child. This had something to do with the baby.

“In order to draw any conclusions, certainly.” Matthew picked up the wine and carried it toward his lips.

“What’s your hypothesis, then? You don’t need a laboratory to come up with a theory,” I observed. “If it involves the baby, I want to know what it is.”

Matthew froze, his nostrils flaring. He put the wine carefully on the table and took my hand, pressing his lips to my wrist in a seeming gesture of affection. His eyes went black.

“You saw Hubbard,” he said accusingly.

“Not because I sought him out.” I pulled away. That was a mistake.

“Don’t,” Matthew rasped, his fingers tightening. He drew another shuddering breath. “Hubbard touched you on the wrist. Only the wrist. Do you know why?”

“Because he was trying to get my attention,” I said.

“No. He was trying to capture mine. Your pulse is here,” Matthew said, his thumb sweeping over the vein. I shivered. “The blood is so close to the surface that I can see it as well as smell it. Its heat magnifies any foreign scent placed there.” His fingers circled my wrist like a bracelet. “Where was Françoise?”

“In Leadenhall Market. I had Jack and Annie with me. There was a beggar, and—” I felt a brief, sharp pain. When I looked down, my wrist was torn and blood welled from a set of shallow, curved nicks. Teeth marks.

“That’s how fast Hubbard could have taken your blood and known everything about you.” Matthew’s thumb pressed firmly into the wound.

“But I didn’t see you move,” I said numbly.

His black eyes gleamed. “Nor would you have seen Hubbard, if he’d wanted to strike.”

Perhaps Matthew wasn’t as overprotective as I thought.

“Don’t let him get close enough to touch you again. Are we clear?”

I nodded, and Matthew began the slow business of managing his anger. Only when he was in control of it did he answer my initial question.

“I’m trying to determine the likelihood of passing my blood rage to our child,” he said, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Benjamin has the affliction. Marcus doesn’t. I hate the fact that I could curse an innocent child with it.”

“Do you know why Marcus and your brother Louis were resistant, when you, Louisa, and Benjamin were not?” I carefully avoided assuming that this accounted for all his children. Matthew would tell me more when—if—he was able.

His shoulders lost their sharp edge. “Louis and Louisa died long before it was possible to run blood tests. I have only my blood, Marcus’s blood, and Ysabeau’s blood to work with—and that’s not enough to draw any reliable conclusions.”

“You have a theory, though,” I said, thinking of his diagrams.

“I’ve always thought of blood rage as a kind of infection and supposed Marcus and Louis had a natural resistance to it. But when Goody Alsop told us that only a weaver could bear a wearh child, it made me wonder if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps it’s not something in Marcus that’s resistant but something in me that’s receptive, just as a weaver is receptive to a wearh’s seed, unlike any other warmblooded woman.”

“A genetic predisposition?” I asked, trying to follow his reasoning.

“Perhaps. Possibly something recessive that seldom shows up in the population unless both parents carry the gene. I keep thinking of your friend Catherine Streeter and your description of her as ‘thrice-blessed,’ as though her genetic whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.”

Matthew was quickly lost in the intricacies of his intellectual puzzle. “Then I started wondering whether the fact that you are a weaver is sufficient to explain your ability to conceive. What if it’s a combination of recessive genetic traits—not only yours but mine as well?” When his hands drove through his hair in frustration, I took it as a sign that the last of the blood rage was gone and heaved a silent sigh of relief.

“When we get back to your lab, you’ll be able to test your theory.” I dropped my voice. “And once Sarah and Em hear they’re going to be aunts, you’ll have no problem getting them to give you a blood sample—or to baby-sit. They both have bad cases of granny lust and have been borrowing the neighbors’ children for years to satisfy it.”

That conjured a smile at last.

“Granny lust? What a rude expression.” Matthew approached me. “Ysabeau’s probably developed a dire case of it, too, over the centuries.”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” I said with a mock shudder.

It was in these moments—when we talked about the reactions of others to our news rather than analyzing our own responses to it—that I felt truly pregnant. My body had barely registered the new life it was carrying, and in the day-to-day busyness at the Hart and Crown it was easy to forget that we would soon be parents. I could go for days without thinking about it, only to be reminded of my condition when Matthew came to me, deep in the night, to rest his hands on my belly in silent communion while he listened for the signs of new life.

“Nor can I bear to think of you in harm’s way.” Matthew took me in his arms. “Be careful, ma lionne,” he whispered against my hair.

“I will. I promise.”

“You wouldn’t recognize danger if it came to you with an engraved invitation.” He drew away so that he could look into my eyes. “Just remember: Vampires are not like warmbloods. Don’t underestimate how lethal we can be.”

Matthew’s warning echoed long after he delivered it. I found myself watching the other vampires in the household for the small signs that they were thinking of moving or that they were hungry or tired, restless or bored. The signs were subtle and easy to miss. When Annie walked past Gallowglass, his lids dropped to shutter the avid expression in his eyes, but it was over so quickly I might have imagined it, just as I might have imagined the flaring of Hancock’s nostrils when a group of warmbloods passed by on the street below.

I was not imagining the extra laundry charges to clean the blood from their linen, however. Gallowglass and Hancock were hunting and feeding in the city, though Matthew did not join them. He confined himself to what Françoise could procure from the butchers.

When Annie and I went to Mary’s on Monday afternoon, as was our custom, I remained more alert to my surroundings than I had been since our arrival. This time it wasn’t to absorb the details of Elizabethan life but to make sure we weren’t being watched or followed. I kept Annie safely within arm’s reach, and Pierre retained a firm grip on Jack. We had learned the hard way that it was the only hope we had of keeping the boy from “magpie-ing,” as Hancock called it. In spite of our efforts, Jack still managed to commit numerous acts of petty theft. Matthew instituted a new household ritual in an effort to combat it. Jack had to empty his pockets every night and confess how he’d come by his extraordinary assortment of shiny objects. So far it hadn’t put a damper on his activities.

Given his light fingers, Jack could not yet be trusted in the Countess of Pembroke’s well-appointed home. Annie and I took our leave of Pierre and Jack, and the girl’s expression brightened considerably at the prospect of a long gossip with Mary’s maid, Joan, and a few hours of freedom from Jack’s unwanted attentions.

“Diana!” Mary cried when I crossed the threshold of her laboratory. No matter how many times I entered, it never failed to take my breath away, with its vivid murals illustrating the making of the philosopher’s stone. “Come, I have something to show you.”

“Is this your surprise?” Mary had been hinting that she would soon delight me with a display of her alchemical proficiency.

“Yes,” Mary replied, drawing her notebook from the table. “See here, it is now the eighteenth of January, and I began the work on the ninth of December. It has taken exactly forty days, just as the sages promised.”

Forty was a significant number in alchemical work, and Mary could have been undertaking any number of experiments. I looked through her laboratory entries in an effort to figure out what she’d been doing. Over the past two weeks, I’d learned Mary’s shorthand and the symbols she used for the various metals and substances. If I understood correctly, she began this process with an ounce of silver dissolved in aqua fortis—the “strong water” of the alchemists, known in my own time as nitric acid. To this, Mary added distilled water.

“Is this your mark for mercury?” I asked, pointing to an unfamiliar glyph.

“Yes—but only the mercury I obtain from the finest source in Germany.” Mary spared no expense when it came to her laboratory, chemicals, or equipment. She drew me toward another example of her commitment to quality at any price: a large glass flask. It was free of imperfections and clear as crystal, which meant it had come from Venice. The English glass made in Sussex was marred with tiny bubbles and faint shadows. The Countess of Pembroke preferred the Venetian stuff—and could afford it.

When I saw what was inside, a premonitory finger brushed against my shoulders.

A silver tree grew from a small seed in the bottom of the flask. Branches had sprouted from the trunk, forking out and filling the top of the vessel with glittering strands. Tiny beads at the ends of the branches suggested fruit, as though the tree were ripe and ready for harvesting.

“The arbor Dianæ,” Mary said proudly. “It is as though God inspired me to make it so that it would be here to welcome you. I have tried to grow the tree before, but it has never taken root. No one could see such a thing and doubt the truth and power of the alchemical art.”

Diana’s tree was a sight to behold. It gleamed and grew before my eyes, sending out new shoots to fill the remaining space in the vessel. Knowing that it was nothing more than a dendritic amalgam of crystallized silver did little to diminish my wonder at seeing a lump of metal go through what looked like a vegetative process.

On the wall opposite, a dragon sat over a vessel similar to the one Mary had used to house the arbor Dianæ. The dragon held his tail in his mouth, and drops of his blood fell into the silvery liquid below. I sought out the next image in the series: the bird of Hermes who flew toward the chemical marriage. The bird reminded me of the illustration of the wedding from Ashmole 782.

“I think it might be possible to devise a quicker method to achieve the same result,” Mary said, drawing back my attention. She pulled a pen from her upswept hair, leaving a black smudge over her ear. “What do you imagine would happen if we filed the silver before dissolving it in the aqua fortis?”

We spent a pleasant afternoon discussing new ways to make the arbor Dianæ, but it was over all too soon.

“Will I see you Thursday?” Mary asked.

“I’m afraid I have another obligation,” I said. I was expected at Goody Alsop’s before sunset.

Mary’s face fell. “Friday, then?”

“Friday,” I agreed.

“Diana,” Mary said hesitantly, “are you well?”

“Yes,” I said in surprise. “Do I seem ill?”

“You are pale and look tired,” she admitted. “Like most mothers I am prone to— Oh.” Mary stopped abruptly and turned bright pink. Her eyes dropped to my stomach, then flew back to my face. “You are with child.”

“I will have many questions for you in the weeks ahead,” I said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.

“How far along are you?” she asked.

“Not far,” I said, keeping my answer deliberately vague.

“But the child cannot be Matthew’s. A wearh is not able to father a child.” Mary said, her hand rising to her cheek in wonder. “Matthew welcomes the babe, even though it is not his?”

Though Matthew had warned me that everybody would assume the child belonged to another man, we hadn’t discussed how to respond. I would have to punt.

“He considers it his own blood,” I said firmly. My answer only seemed to increase her concern.

“You are fortunate that Matthew is so selfless when it comes to protecting those who are in need. And you—can you love the child, though you were taken against your will?”

Mary thought I’d been raped—and perhaps that Matthew had married me only to shield me from the stigma of being pregnant and single.

“The child is innocent. I cannot refuse it love.” I was careful neither to deny nor confirm Mary’s suspicions. Happily, she was satisfied with my response, and, characteristically, she probed no further. “As you can imagine,” I added, “we are eager to keep this news quiet for as long as possible.”

“Of course,” Mary agreed. “I will have Joan make you a soft custard that fortifies the blood yet is very soothing to the stomach if taken at night before you sleep. It was a great help to me in my last pregnancy and seemed to lessen my sickness in the morning.”

“I have been blessedly free of that complaint so far,” I said, drawing on my gloves. “Matthew promises me it will come any day now.”

“Hmm,” Mary mused, a shadow crossing her face. I frowned, wondering what was worrying her now. She saw my expression and smiled brightly. “You should guard against fatigue. When you are here on Friday, you must not stand so long but take your ease on a stool while we work.” Mary fussed over the arrangement of my cloak. “Stay out of drafts. And have Françoise make a poultice for your feet if they start to swell. I will send a receipt for it with the custard. Shall I have my boatman take you to Water Lane?”

“It’s only a five-minute walk!” I protested with a laugh. Finally Mary let me leave on foot, but only after I assured her that I would avoid not only drafts but also cold water and loud noises.

That night I dreamed I slept under the limbs of a tree that grew from my womb. Its branches shielded me from the moonlight while, high above, a dragon flew through the night. When it reached the moon, the dragon’s tail curled around it and the silver orb turned red.

I awoke to an empty bed and blood-soaked sheets.

“Françoise!” I cried, feeling a sudden, sharp cramp.

Matthew came running instead. The devastated look on his face when he reached my side confirmed what I already knew.

23

“We have all lost babes, Diana,” Goody Alsop said sadly. “It is a pain most women know.”

“All?” I looked around Goody Alsop’s keeping room at the witches of the Garlickhythe gathering.

The stories tumbled out, of babies lost in childbirth and others who died at six months or six years. I didn’t know any women who had miscarried— or I didn’t think I did. Had one of my friends suffered such a loss, without my knowing it?

“You are young and strong,” Susanna said. “There is no reason to think you cannot conceive another child.”

No reason at all, except for the fact that my husband wouldn’t touch me again until we were back in the land of birth control and fetal monitors.

“Maybe,” I said with a noncommittal shrug.

“Where is Master Roydon?” Goody Alsop said quietly. Her fetch drifted around the parlor as if she thought she might find him in the window-seat cushions or sitting atop the cupboard.

“Out on business,” I said, drawing my shawl tighter. It was Susanna’s, and it smelled like burned sugar and chamomile, just as she did.

“I heard he was at the Middle Temple Hall with Christopher Marlowe last night. Watching a play, by all accounts.” Catherine passed the box of comfits she’d brought to Goody Alsop.

“Ordinary men can pine terribly for a lost child. I am not surprised that a wearh would find it especially difficult. They are possessive, after all.” Goody Alsop reached for something red and gelatinous. “Thank you, Catherine.”

The women waited in silence, hoping I’d take Goody Alsop and Catherine up on their circumspect invitation to tell them how Matthew and I were faring.

“He’ll be fine,” I said tightly.

“He should be here,” Elizabeth said sharply. “I can see no reason why his loss should be more painful than yours!”

“Because Matthew has endured a thousand years of heartbreak and I’ve only endured thirty-three,” I said, my tone equally sharp. “He is a wearh, Elizabeth. Do I wish he were here rather than out with Kit? Of course. Will I beg him to stay at the Hart and Crown for my sake? Absolutely not.” My voice was rising as my hurt and frustration spilled over. Matthew had been unfailingly sweet and tender with me. He’d comforted me as I faced the hundreds of fragile dreams for the future that had been destroyed when I miscarried our child.

It was the hours he was spending elsewhere that had me concerned.

“My head tells me Matthew must have a chance to grieve in his own way,” I said. “My heart tells me he loves me even though he prefers to be with his friends now. I just wish he could touch me without regret.” I could feel it whenever he looked at me, held me, took my hand. It was unbearable.

“I am sorry, Diana,” Elizabeth said, her face contrite.

“It’s all right,” I assured her.

But it wasn’t all right. The whole world felt discordant and wrong, with colors that were too bright and sounds so loud they made me jump. My body felt hollow, and no matter what I tried to read, the words failed to keep my attention.

“We will see you tomorrow, as planned,” Goody Alsop said briskly as the witches departed.

“Tomorrow?” I frowned. “I’m in no mood to make magic, Goody Alsop.”

“I’m in no mood to go to my grave without seeing you weave your first spell, so I shall expect you when the bells ring six.”

That night I stared into the fire as the bells rang six, and seven, and eight, and nine, and ten. When the bells rang three, I heard a sound on the stairs. Thinking it was Matthew, I went to the door. The staircase was empty, but a clutch of objects sat on the stairs: an infant’s sock, a sprig of holly, a twist of paper with a man’s name written on it. I gathered them all up in my lap as I sank onto one of the worn treads, clutching my shawl tight around me.

I was still trying to figure out what the offerings meant and how they had gotten there when Matthew shot up the stairs in a soundless blur. He stopped abruptly.

“Diana.” He drew the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes green and glassy.

“At least you’ll feed when you’re with Kit,” I said, getting to my feet. “It’s nice to know that your friendship includes more than poetry and chess.”

Matthew put his boot on the tread next to my feet. He used his knee to press me toward the wall, effectively trapping me. His breath was sweet and slightly metallic.

“You’re going to hate yourself in the morning,” I said calmly, turning my head away. I knew better than to run when the tang of blood was still on his lips. “Kit should have kept you with him until the drugs were out of your system. Does all the blood in London have opiates in it?” It was the second night in a row Matthew had gone out with Kit and come home high as a kite.

“Not all,” Matthew purred, “but it is the easiest to come by.”

“What are these?” I held up the sock, the holly, and the scroll.

“They’re for you,” Matthew said. “More arrive every night. Pierre and I collect them before you are awake.”

“When did this start?” I didn’t trust myself to say more.

“The week before— The week you met with the Rede. Most are requests for help. Since you— Since Saturday there have been gifts for you and the baby, too.” Matthew held out his hand. “I’ll take care of them.”

I drew my hand closer to my heart. “Where are the rest?”

Matthew’s mouth tightened, but he showed me where he was keeping them—in a box in the attic, shoved under one of the benches. I picked through the contents, which were somewhat similar to what Jack pulled out of his pockets each night: buttons, bits of ribbon, a piece of broken crockery. There were locks of hair, too, and dozens of pieces of paper inscribed with names. Though they were invisible to most eyes, I could see the jagged threads that hung from every treasure, all waiting to be tied off, joined up, or otherwise mended.

“These are requests for magic.” I looked up at Matthew. “You shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

“I don’t want you performing spells for every creature in the city of London,” Matthew said, his eyes darkening.

“Well, I don’t want you to eat out every night before going drinking with your friends! But you’re a vampire, so sometimes that’s what you need to do,” I retorted. “I’m a witch, Matthew. Requests like this have to be handled carefully. My safety depends on my relations with our neighbors. I can’t go stealing boats like Gallowglass or growling at people.”

“Milord.” Pierre stood at the far end of the attics, where a narrow stair twirled down to a hidden exit behind the laundresses’ giant washtubs.

“What?” Matthew said impatiently.

“Agnes Sampson is dead.” Pierre looked frightened. “They took her to Castlehill in Edinburgh on Monday, garroted her, and then burned the body.” It was that night that I’d lost the baby, I realized with a touch of panic.

“Christ.” Matthew paled.

“Hancock said she was fully dead before the wood was lit. She wouldn’t have felt anything,” Pierre went on. It was a small mercy, one not always afforded to a convicted witch. “They refused to read your letter, milord. Hancock was told to leave Scottish politics to the Scottish king or they’d put the screws to him the next time he showed his face in Edinburgh.”

“Why can’t I fix this?” Matthew exploded.

“So it’s not just the loss of the baby that’s driven you toward Kit’s darkness. You’re hiding from the events in Scotland, too.”

“No matter how hard I try to set things right, I cannot seem to break this cursed pattern,” Matthew said. “Before, as the queen’s spy, I delighted in the trouble in Scotland. As a member of the Congregation, I considered Sampson’s death an acceptable price to pay to maintain the status quo. But now . . .”

“Now you’re married to a witch,” I said. “And everything looks different.”

“Yes. I’m caught between what I once believed and what I now hold most dear, what I once proudly defended as gospel truth and the magnitude of what I no longer know.”

“I will go back into the city,” Pierre said, turning toward the door. “There may be more to discover.”

I studied Matthew’s tired face. “You can’t expect to understand all of life’s tragedies, Matthew. I wish we still had the baby, too. And I know it seems hopeless right now, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a future to look forward to—one in which our children and family are safe.”

“A miscarriage this early in pregnancy is almost always a sign of a genetic anomaly that makes the fetus nonviable. If that happened once . . .” His voice trailed off.

“There are genetic anomalies that don’t compromise the baby,” I pointed out. “Take me, for instance.” I was a chimera, with mismatching DNA. “I can’t bear losing another child, Diana. I just . . . can’t.”

“I know.” I was bone weary and wanted the blessed oblivion of sleep as much as he did. I had never known my child as he had known Lucas, and the pain was still unbearable. “I have to be at Goody Alsop’s house at six tonight.” I looked up at him. “Will you be out with Kit?”

“No,” Matthew said softly. He pressed his lips to mine—briefly, regretfully. “I’ll be with you.”

Matthew was true to his word, and escorted me to Goody Alsop’s before going to the Golden Gosling with Pierre. In the most courteous way possible, the witches explained that wearhs were not welcome. Taking a weaver safely through her forspell required a considerable mobilization of supernatural and magical energy. Wearhs would only get in the way.

My Aunt Sarah would have paid close attention to how Susanna and Marjorie readied the sacred circle. Some of the substances and equipment they used were familiar—like the salt they sprinkled on the floorboards to purify the space—but others were not. Sarah’s witch’s kit consisted of two knives (one with a black handle and one with a white), the Bishop grimoire, and various herbs and plants. Elizabethan witches required a greater variety of objects to work their magic, including brooms. I’d never seen a witch with a broom except on Halloween when they were de rigueur, along with pointed hats.

Each of the witches of the Garlickhythe gathering brought a unique broom with her to Goody Alsop’s house. Marjorie’s was fashioned from a cherry branch. At the top of the staff, someone had carved glyphs and symbols. Instead of the usual bristles, Marjorie had tied dried herbs and twigs to the bottom where the central limb forked into thinner branches. She told me that the herbs were important to her magic— agrimony to break enchantments, lacy feverfew with the white-and-yellow flowers still attached for protection, the sturdy stems of rosemary with their glaucous leaves for purification and clarity. Susanna’s broom was made from elm, which was symbolic of the phases of life from birth to death and related to her profession as a midwife. So, too, were the plants tied to the staff: the fleshy green leaves of adder’s tongue for healing, boneset’s frothy white flower heads for protection, the spiky leaves of groundsel for good health.

Marjorie and Susanna carefully swept the salt in a clockwise direction until the fine grains had traveled over every inch of the floor. The salt would not only cleanse the space, Marjorie explained, but also ground it so that my power wouldn’t spill over into the world once it was fully unbound.

Goody Alsop stopped up the windows, the doors—even the chimney. The house ghosts were given the option of staying out of the way amid the roof beams or finding temporary refuge with the family who lived downstairs. Not wishing to miss anything, and slightly jealous of the fetch who had no choice but to stay by her mistress, the ghosts flitted among the rafters and gossiped about whether any of the residents of Newgate Street would get a moment’s peace now that the specters of medieval Queen Isabella and a murderess named Lady Agnes Hungerford had resumed their squabbling.

Elizabeth and Catherine settled my nerves—and drowned out the gruesome details of Lady Agnes’s terrible deeds and death—by sharing some of their early magical adventures and drawing me out about my own. Elizabeth was impressed by how I’d channeled the water from under Sarah’s orchard, pulling it into my palms drop by drop. And Catherine crowed with delight when I shared how a bow and arrow rested heavy in my hands just before the witchfire flew.

“The moon has risen,” Marjorie said, her round face pink with anticipation. The windows were sealed, but none of the other witches questioned her.

“It is time, then,” Elizabeth said briskly, all business.

Each witch went from one corner of the room to the next, breaking off a twig from her broom and placing it there. But these were not random piles. They’d arranged the twigs so as to overlap and form a pentacle, the witch’s five-pointed star.

Goody Alsop and I took up our positions at the center of the circle. Though its boundaries were invisible, that would change when the other witches took their appointed places. Once they had, Catherine murmured a spell and a curved line of fire traveled from witch to witch, binding the circle.

Power surged in its center. Goody Alsop had warned me that what we were doing this night invoked ancient magics. Soon the buffeting wave of energy was replaced by something that tingled and snapped like a thousand witchy glances.

“Look around you with your witch’s sight,” Goody Alsop said, “and tell me what you see.”

When my third eye opened, I half expected to find that the air itself had come to life, every particle charged with possibility. Instead the room was filled with filaments of magic.

“Threads,” I said, “as though the world is nothing more than a tapestry.”

Goody Alsop nodded. “To be a weaver is to be tied to the world around you and see it in strands and hues. While some ties fetter your magic, others yoke the power in your blood to the four elements and the great mysteries that lie beyond them. Weavers learn how to release the ties that bind and use the rest.”

“But I don’t know how to tell them apart.” Hundreds of strands brushed against my skirts and bodice.

“Soon you will test them, like a bird tests its wings, to discover what secrets they hold for you. Now, we will simply cut them all away, so that they can return to you unbound. As I snip the threads, you must resist the temptation to grab at the power around you. Because you are a weaver, you will want to mend the broken threads. Leave your thoughts free and your mind empty. Let the power do as it will.”

Goody Alsop released my arm and began to weave her spell with sounds that bore no resemblance to speech but were strangely familiar. With each utterance I saw the filaments fall away from me, coiling and twisting. A roaring filled my ears. My arms heeded the sound as if it were a command, rising up and stretching out until I was standing in the same T-shaped position that Matthew had placed me in at the Bishop house when I drew the water from underneath Sarah’s old orchard.

The strands of magic—all those threads of power that I could borrow but not hold—crept back toward me as if they were made of iron filings and I were a magnet. As they came to rest in my hands, I struggled against the urge to close my fists around them. The desire to do so was strong, as Goody Alsop predicted it would be, but I let them slide over my skin like the satin ribbons in the stories my mother told me when I was a child.

So far everything had happened as Goody Alsop had told me it would. But no one could predict what might occur when my powers took shape, and the witches around the circle braced themselves to meet the unknown. Goody Alsop had warned me that not all weavers shaped a familiar in their forspell, so I shouldn’t expect one to appear. But my life these past months has taught me that the unexpected was more likely than not when I was around.

The roaring intensified, and the air stirred. A swirling ball of energy hung directly over my head. It drew energy from the room but kept collapsing into its own center like a black hole. My witch’s eye closed tightly against the dizzying, roiling sight.

Something pulsed in the midst of the storm. It pulled free and took on a shadowy form. As soon as it did so, Goody Alsop fell silent. She gave me one final, long look before she left me, alone, in the center of the circle.

There was a beating of wings, the lash of a barbed tail. A hot, moist breath licked across my cheek. A transparent creature with the reptilian head of a dragon hovered in the air, bright wings striking the rafters and sending the ghosts scuttling for cover. It had only two legs, and the curved talons on its feet looked as deadly as the points along its long tail.

“How many legs does it have?” Marjorie called, unable to see clearly from her position. “Is it just a dragon?”

Just a dragon?

“It’s a firedrake,” Catherine said in wonder. She raised her arms, ready to cast a warding spell if it decided to strike. Elizabeth Jackson’s arms moved, too.

“Wait!” Goody Alsop cried, interrupting their magic. “Diana has not yet completed her weaving. Perhaps she will find a way to tame her.”

Tame her? I looked at Goody Alsop incredulously. I wasn’t even sure if the creature before me was substance or spirit. She seemed real, but I could see right through her.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said, beginning to panic. Every flap of the creature’s wings sent a shower of sparks and drops of fire into the room.

“Some spells begin with an idea, others with a question. There are many ways to think about what comes next: tying a knot, twisting a rope, even forging a chain like the one that you made between you and your wearh,” Goody Alsop said, her tone low and soothing. “Let the power move through you.”

The firedrake roared in impatience, her feet extending toward me. What did she want? A chance to pick me up and carry me from the house? A comfortable place to perch and rest her wings?

The floor underneath me creaked.

“Step aside!” Marjorie cried.

I moved just in time. A moment later a tree sprouted from the place where my feet had recently been planted. The trunk rose up, divided into two stout limbs, and branched out further. Shoots grew into green leaves at the tips, and then came white blossoms, and finally red berries. In a matter of seconds, I was standing beneath a full-grown tree, one that was flowering and fruiting at the same time.

The firedrake’s feet gripped at the tree’s uppermost branches. For a moment she seemed to rest there. A branch creaked and cracked. The firedrake lifted back into the air, a gnarled piece of the tree clutched in her talons. The firedrake’s tongue flicked out in a lash of fire, and the tree burst into flame. There were far too many flammable objects in the room—the wooden floors and furniture, the fabric that clothed the witches. All I could think was that I must stop the fire from spreading. I needed water—and lots of it.

There was a heavy weight in my right hand. I looked down, expecting to see a bucket. Instead I was holding an arrow. Witchfire. But what good was more fire?

“No, Diana! Don’t try to shape the spell!” Goody Alsop warned.

I shook myself free of thoughts of rain and rivers. As soon as I did, instinct took over and my two arms rose in front of me, my right hand drew back, and once my fingers unfurled, the arrow flew into the heart of the tree. The flames shot up high and fast, blinding me. The heat died down, and when my sight returned, I found myself atop a mountain under a vast, starry sky. A huge crescent moon hung low in the heavens.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The goddess’s voice was little more than a breath of wind. She was wearing soft robes, her hair cascading down her back. There was no sign of her usual weapons, but a large dog padded along at her side. He was so big and black he might have been a wolf.

“You.” A sense of dread squeezed around my heart. I had been expecting to see the goddess since I lost the baby. “Did you take my child in exchange for saving Matthew’s life?” My question came out part fury, part despair.

“No. That debt is settled. I have already taken another. A dead child is of no use to me.” The huntress’s eyes were green as the first shoots of willow in spring.

My blood ran cold. “Whose life have you taken?”

“Yours.”

“Mine?” I said numbly. “Am I . . . dead?”

“Of course not. The dead belong to another. It is the living I seek.” The huntress’s voice was now as piercing and bright as a moonbeam. “You promised I could take anyone—anything—in exchange for the life of the one you love. I chose you. And I am not done with you yet.”

The goddess took a step backward. “You gave your life to me, Diana Bishop. It is now time to make use of it.”

A cry overhead alerted me to the presence of the firedrake. I looked up, trying to make her out against the moon. When I blinked, her outline was perfectly visible against Goody Alsop’s ceiling. I was back in the witch’s house, no longer on a barren hilltop with the goddess. The tree was gone, reduced to a heap of ash. I blinked again.

The firedrake blinked back at me. Her eyes were sad and familiar— black, with silver irises rather than white. With another harsh cry, she released her talons. The branch of the tree fell into my arms. It felt like the arrow’s shaft, heavier and more substantial than its size would suggest. The firedrake bobbed her head, smoke coming in wisps from her nostrils. I was tempted to reach up and touch her, wondering if her skin would be warm and soft like a snake, but something told me she wouldn’t welcome it. And I didn’t want to startle her. She might rear back and poke her head through the roof. I was already worried about the condition of Goody Alsop’s house after the tree and the fire.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

The firedrake replied with a quiet moan of fire and song. Her silver-andblack eyes were ancient and wise as she studied me, her tail flicking back and forth pensively. She stretched her wings to their full extent before tightening them around her body and dematerializing.

All that was left of the firedrake was a tingling sensation in my ribs that told me somehow she was inside me, waiting until I needed her. With the weight of this beast heavily inside me, I fell to my knees, and the branch clattered to the floor. The witches rushed forward.

Goody Alsop reached me first, her thin arms reaching around to gather me close. “You did well, child, you did well,” she whispered. Elizabeth cupped her hand and with a few words transformed it into a shallow silver dipper full of water. I drank from it, and when the cup was empty, it went back to being nothing more than a hand.

“This is a great day, Goody Alsop,” Catherine said, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Aye, and a hard one for such a young witch,” Goody Alsop said. “You do nothing by halves, Diana Roydon. First you are no ordinary witch but a weaver. And then you weave a forspell that called forth a rowan tree simply to tame a firedrake. Had I foreseen this, I would not have believed it.”

“I saw the goddess,” I explained as they helped me to my feet, “and a dragon.”

“That was no dragon,” Elizabeth said.

“It had but two legs,” Marjorie explained. “That makes her not only a creature of fire but one of water, too, capable of moving between the elements. The firedrake is a union of opposites.”

“What is true of the firedrake is true of the rowan tree as well,” Goody Alsop said with a proud smile. “It is not every day that a rowan tree pushes its branches into one world while leaving its roots in another.”

In spite of the happy chatter of the women who surrounded me, I felt lost and alone. Matthew was waiting at the Golden Gosling for news. My third eye opened, seeking out a twisted thread of black and red that led from my heart, across the room, through the keyhole, and into the darkness beyond. I gave it a tug, and the chain inside me responded with a sympathetic chime.

“If I’m not very much mistaken, Master Roydon will be around shortly to collect his wife,” Goody Alsop said drily. “Let’s get you on your feet, or he’ll think we cannot be trusted with you.”

“Matthew can be protective,” I said apologetically. “Even more so since . . .”

“I’ve never known a wearh who wasn’t. It’s their nature,” Goody Alsop said, helping me up. The air had gone particulate again, brushing softly against my skin as I moved.

“Master Roydon need not fear in this case,” Elizabeth said. “We will make sure you can find your way back from the darkness, just like your firedrake.”

“What darkness?”

The witches went silent.

“What darkness?” I repeated, pushing my fatigue aside.

Goody Alsop sighed. “There are witches—a very few witches—who can move between this world and the next.”

“Time spinners,” I said with a nod. “Yes, I know. I’m one of them.”

“Not between this time and the next, Diana, but between this world and the next.” Marjorie gestured at the branch by my feet. “Life—and death. You can be in both worlds. That is why the rowan chose you, not the alder or the birch.”

“We did wonder if this might be the case. You were able to conceive a wearh’s child, after all.” Goody Alsop looked at me intently. The blood had drained from my face. “What is it, Diana?”

“The quinces. And the flowers.” My knees weakened again but I remained standing. “Mary Sidney’s shoe. And the oak tree in Madison.”

“And the wearh,” Goody Alsop said softly, understanding without my telling her. “So many signs pointing to the truth.”

A muffled thumping rose from outdoors.

“He mustn’t know,” I said urgently, grabbing at Goody Alsop’s hand. “Not now. It’s too soon after the baby, and Matthew doesn’t want me meddling with matters of life and death.”

“It is a bit late for that,” she said sadly.

“Diana!” Matthew’s fist pounded on the door.

“The wearh will split the wood in two,” Marjorie observed. “Master Roydon won’t be able to break the binding spell and enter, but the door will make a fearsome crash when it gives way. Think of your neighbors, Goody Alsop.”

Goody Alsop gestured with her hand. The air thickened, then relaxed.

Matthew was standing before me in the space of a heartbeat. His gray eyes raked over me. “What happened here?”

“If Diana wants you to know, she will tell you,” said Goody Alsop. She turned to me. “In light of what happened tonight, I think you should spend time with Catherine and Elizabeth tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Goody,” I murmured, grateful that she had not revealed my secrets.

“Wait.” Catherine went to the branch from the rowan tree and snapped off a thin twig. “Take this. You should have a piece with you at all times for a talisman.” Catherine dropped the bit of wood into my palm.

Not only Pierre but Gallowglass and Hancock were waiting for us in the street. They hustled me into a boat that waited at the bottom of Garlic Hill. After we arrived back at Water Lane Matthew sent everyone away, and we were left in the blissful quiet of our bedchamber.

“I don’t need to know what happened,” Matthew said roughly, closing the door behind him. “I just need to know that you’re truly all right.”

“I’m truly fine.” I turned my back to him so that he could loosen the laces on my bodice.

“You’re afraid of something. I can smell it.” Matthew spun me around to face him.

“I’m afraid of what I might find out about myself.” I met his eyes squarely.

“You’ll find your truth.” He sounded so sure, so unconcerned. But he didn’t know about the dragon and the rowan and what they meant for a weaver. Matthew didn’t know that my life belonged to the goddess either, nor that it was because of the bargain I’d made to save him.

“What if I become someone else and you don’t like her?”

“Not possible,” he assured me, drawing me closer.

“Even if we find out that the powers of life and death are in my blood?”

Matthew pulled away.

“Saving you in Madison wasn’t a fluke, Matthew. I breathed life into Mary’s shoes, too—just as I sucked the life out of the oak tree at Sarah’s and the quinces here.”

“Life and death are big responsibilities.” Matthew’s gray-green eyes were somber. “But I will love you regardless. You forget, I have power over life and death, too. What is it you told me that night I went hunting in Oxford? You said there was no difference between us. ‘Occasionally I eat partridge. Occasionally you feed on deer.’

“We are more similar, you and I, than either of us imagined,” Matthew continued. “But if you can believe good of me, knowing what you do of my past deeds, then you must allow me to believe the same of you.”

Suddenly I wanted to share my secrets. “There was a firedrake and a tree—”

“And the only thing that matters is that you are safely home,” he said, quieting me with a kiss.

Matthew held me so long and so tightly that for a few blissful moments I—almost—believed him.

The next day I went to Goody Alsop’s house to meet with Elizabeth Jackson and Catherine Streeter as promised. Annie accompanied me, but she was sent over to Susanna’s house to wait until my lesson was done.

The rowan branch was propped up in the corner. Otherwise the room looked perfectly ordinary and not at all like the kind of place where witches drew sacred circles or summoned firedrakes. Still, I expected some more visible signs that magic was about to be performed—a cauldron, perhaps, or colored candles to signify the elements.

Goody Alsop gestured to the table, where four chairs were arranged. “Come, Diana, and sit. We thought we might begin at the beginning. Tell us about your family. Much is revealed by following a witch’s bloodline.”

“But I thought you would teach me how to weave spells with fire and water.”

“What is blood, if not fire and water?” Elizabeth said.

Three hours later I was talked out and exhausted from dredging up memories of my childhood—the feeling of being watched, Peter Knox’s visit to the house, my parents’ death. But the three witches didn’t stop there. I relived every moment of high school and college, too: the daemons who followed me, the few spells I could perform without too much trouble, the strange occurrences that began only after I met Matthew. If there was a pattern to any of it, I failed to see it, but Goody Alsop sent me off with assurances that they would soon have a plan.

I dragged myself to Baynard’s Castle. Mary tucked me into a chair and refused my help, insisting I rest while she figured out what was wrong with our batch of prima materia. It had gone all black and sludgy, with a thin film of greenish goo on top.

My thoughts drifted while Mary worked. The day was sunny, and a beam of light sliced through the smoky air and fell on the mural depicting the alchemical dragon. I sat forward in my chair.

“No,” I said. “It can’t be.”

But it was. The dragon was not a dragon for it had only two legs. It was a firedrake and carried its barbed tail in its mouth, like the ouroboros on the de Clermont banner. The firedrake’s head was tilted to the sky, and it held a crescent moon in its jaws. A multipointed star rose above it. Matthew’s emblem. How had I not noticed before?

“What is it, Diana?” asked a frowning Mary.

“Would you do something for me, Mary, even if the request is strange?” I was already untying the silk cord at my wrists in anticipation of her answer.

“Of course. What is it you need?”

The firedrake dripped squiggly blobs of blood into the alchemical vessel below its wings. There the blood swam in a sea of mercury and silver.

“I want you to take my blood and put it in a solution of aqua fortis, silver, and mercury,” I said. Mary’s glance moved from me to the firedrake and back. “For what is blood but fire and water, a conjunction of opposites, and a chemical wedding?”

“Very well, Diana,” Mary agreed, sounding mystified. But she asked no more questions.

I flicked my finger confidently over the scar on my inner arm. I had no need for a knife this time. The skin parted, as I knew it would, and the blood welled up simply because I had need of it. Joan rushed forward with a small bowl to catch the red liquid. On the wall above, the silver and black eyes of the firedrake followed the drops as they fell.

“‘It begins with absence and desire, it begins with blood and fear,’” I whispered.

“‘It began with a discovery of witches,’” time responded, in a primeval echo that set alight the blue and amber threads that flickered against the room’s stone walls.

24

“Is it going to keep doing that?” I stood, frowning, hands on my hips, and stared up at Susanna’s ceiling.

“‘She,’ Diana. Your firedrake is female,” Catherine said. She was also looking at the ceiling, her expression bemused.

“She. It. That.” I pointed up. I had been trying to weave a spell when my dragon escaped confinement within my rib cage. Again. She was now plastered to the ceiling, breathing out gusts of smoke and chattering her teeth in agitation. “I can’t have it—her—flying around the room whenever she feels the urge.” The repercussions would be serious should she become loose at Yale among the students.

“That your firedrake broke free is merely a symptom of a much more serious problem.” Goody Alsop extended a bunch of brightly colored silken strands, knotted together at the top. The ends flowed free like the ribbons on a maypole and numbered nine in all, in shades of red, white, black, silver, gold, green, brown, blue, and yellow. “You are a weaver and must learn to control your power.”

“I am well aware of that, Goody Alsop, but I still don’t see how this— embroidery floss—will help,” I said stubbornly. The dragon squawked in agreement, waxing more substantial with the sound and then waning into her typical smoky outlines.

“And what do you know about being a weaver?” Goody Alsop asked sharply.

“Not much,” I confessed.

“Diana should sip this first.” Susanna approached me with a steaming cup. The scents of chamomile and mint filled the air. My dragon cocked her head in interest. “It is a calming draft and may soothe her beast.”

“I am not so concerned with the firedrake,” Catherine said dismissively.

“Getting one to obey is always difficult—like trying to curb a daemon who is intent on making mischief.” It was, I thought, easy for her to say. She didn’t have to persuade the beast to climb back inside her.

“What plants went into the tisane?” I asked, taking a sip of Susanna’s brew. After Marthe’s tea I was a bit suspicious of herbal concoctions. No sooner was the question out of my mouth than the cup began to bloom with sprigs of mint, the straw-scented flowers of chamomile, foamy Angelica, and some stiff, glossy leaves that I couldn’t identify. I swore.

“You see!” Catherine said, pointing to the cup. “It’s as I said. When Diana asks a question, the goddess answers it.”

Susanna looked at her beaker with alarm as it cracked under the pressure of the swelling roots. “I think you are right, Catherine. But if she is to weave rather than break things, she will need to ask better questions.” Goody Alsop and Catherine had figured out the secret to my power: It was inconveniently tied to my curiosity. Now certain events made better sense: my white table and its brightly colored puzzle pieces that came to my rescue whenever I faced a problem, the butter flying out of Sarah’s refrigerator in Madison when I wondered if there was more. Even the strange appearance of Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian Library could be explained:

When I filled out the call slip, I’d wondered what might be in the volume.

Earlier today my simple musings about who might have written one of the spells in Susanna’s grimoire had caused the ink to unspool from the page and re-form on the table next to it in an exact likeness of her dead grandmother.

I promised Susanna to put the words back as soon as I figured out how. And so I discovered that the practice of magic was not unlike the practice of history. The trick to both wasn’t finding the correct answers but formulating better questions.

“Tell us again about calling witchwater, Diana, and the bow and arrow that appear when someone you love is in trouble,” Susanna suggested. “Perhaps that will provide some method we can follow.”

I rehearsed the events of the night Matthew had left me at Sept-Tours when the water had come out of me in a flood and the morning in Sarah’s orchard when I’d seen the veins of water underground. And I carefully accounted for every time the bow had appeared—even when there was no arrow or when there was but I didn’t shoot it. When I finished, Catherine drew a satisfied sigh.

“I see the problem now. Diana is not fully present unless she is protecting someone or when forced to face her fears,” Catherine observed. “She is always puzzling over the past or wondering about the future. A witch must be entirely in the here and now to work magic.”

My firedrake flapped her wings in agreement, sending warm gusts of air around the room.

“Matthew always thought there was a connection between my emotions, my needs, and my magic,” I told them.

“Sometimes I wonder if that wearh is not part witch,” Catherine said.

The others laughed at the ridiculous notion of Ysabeau de Clermont’s son having even a drop of witch’s blood.

“I think it’s safe to leave the firedrake to her own devices for the time being and return to the matter of Diana’s disguising spell,” Goody Alsop said, referring to my need to shield the surfeit of energy that was released whenever I used magic. “Are you making any progress?”

“I felt wisps of smoke form around me,” I said hesitantly.

“You need to focus on your knots,” Goody Alsop said, looking pointedly at the cords in my lap. Each shade could be found in the threads that bound the worlds, and manipulating the cords—twisting and tying them—worked a sympathetic magic. But first I needed to know which strands to use. I took hold of the colorful cords by the topknot. Goody Alsop had taught me how to blow gently on the strands while focusing my intentions. That was supposed to loosen the appropriate cords for whatever spell I was trying to weave.

I blew into the strands so that they shimmered and danced. The yellow and brown cords worked themselves loose and dropped into my lap, along with the red, blue, silver, and white. I ran my fingers down the nine-inch lengths of twisted silk. Six strands meant six different knots, each one more complex than the last.

My knot-making skills were still clumsy, but I found this part of weaving oddly soothing. When I practiced the elaborate twistings and crossings with ordinary string, the result was something reminiscent of ancient Celtic knotwork. There was a hierarchical order to the knots. The first two were single and double slipknots. Sarah used them sometimes, when she was making a love spell or some other binding. But only weavers could make the intricate knots that involved as many as nine distinct crossings and ended with the two free ends of the cord magically fused to make an unbreakable weaving.

I took a deep breath and refocused my intentions. A disguise was a form of protection, and purple was its color. But there was no purple cord. Without delay the blue and red cords rose up and spun together so tightly that the final result looked exactly like the mottled purple candles that my mother used to set in the windows on the nights when the moon was dark.

“With knot of one, the spell’s begun,” I murmured, looping the purple cord into the simple slipknot. The firedrake crooned an imitation of my words.

I looked up at her and was struck once again by the firedrake’s changeable appearance. When she breathed out, she faded into a blurred smudge of smoke. When she breathed in, her outlines sharpened. She was a perfect balance of substance and spirit, neither one nor the other. Would I ever feel that coherent?

“With knot of two, the spell be true.” I made a double knot along the same purple cord. Wondering if there was a way I could fade into gray obscurity whenever I wished, the way the firedrake did, I ran the yellow cord through my fingers. The third knot was the first true weaver’s knot I had to make. Though it involved only three crossings, it was still a challenge.

“With knot of three, the spell is free.” I looped and twisted the cord into a trefoil shape, then drew the ends together. They fused to form the weaver’s unbreakable knot.

Sighing with relief, I dropped it into my lap, and from my mouth came a gray mist finer than smoke. It hung around me like a shroud. I gasped in surprise, letting out more of the eerie, transparent fog. I looked up. Where had the firedrake gone? The brown cord leaped into my fingers. “With knot of four, the power is stored.” I loved the pretzel-like shape of the fourth knot, with its sinuous bends and twists.

“Very good, Diana,” Goody Alsop said. This was the moment in my spells when everything tended to go wrong. “Now, remain in the moment and bid the dragon to stay with you. If she is so inclined, she will hide you from curious eyes.”

The firedrake’s cooperation seemed too much to hope for, but I made the pentacle-shaped knot anyway, using the white cord. “With knot of five, the spell will thrive.”

The firedrake swooped down and nestled her wings against my ribs. “Will you stay with me?” I silently asked her.

The firedrake wrapped me in a fine gray cocoon. It dulled the black of my skirts and jacket, turning them a deep charcoal. Ysabeau’s ring glittered less brightly, the fire at the heart of the diamond dimmed. Even the silver cord in my lap looked tarnished. I smiled at the firedrake’s silent answer. “With knot of six, this spell I fix,” I said. My final knot was not as symmetrical as it should have been, but it held nonetheless.

“You are indeed a weaver, child,” Goody Alsop said, letting out her breath.

I felt marvelously inconspicuous on my walk home, wrapped in my firedrake muffler, but came to life again when my feet crossed over the threshold of the Hart and Crown. A package waited for me there, along with Kit. Matthew was still spending too much time with the mercurial daemon. Marlowe and I exchanged cool greetings, and I had started unpicking the package’s protective wrappings when Matthew let out a mighty roar.

“Good Christ!” Where moments before there was empty space, there was now Matthew, staring at a piece of paper in disbelief.

“What does the Old Fox want now?” Kit asked sourly, jamming his pen into a pot of ink.

“I just received a bill from Nicholas Vallin, the goldsmith up the lane,” Matthew said, scowling. I looked at him innocently. “He charged me fifteen pounds for a mousetrap.” Now that I better understood the purchasing power of a pound—and that Mary’s servant Joan earned only five pounds a year—I could see why Matthew was shocked.

“Oh. That.” I returned my attention to the package. “I asked him to make it.”

“You had one of the finest goldsmiths in London make you a mousetrap?” Kit was incredulous. “If you have any more funds to spare, Mistress Roydon, I hope you will allow me to undertake an alchemical experiment for you. I will transmute your silver and gold into wine at the Cardinal’s Hat!”

“It’s a rat trap, not a mousetrap,” I muttered.

“Might I see this rat trap?” Matthew’s tone was ominously even.

I removed the last of the wrappings and held out the article in question.

“Silver gilt. And engraved, too,” Matthew said, turning it over in his hand. After looking more closely at it, he swore. “‘Ars longa, vita brevis.’ Art is long, but life is short. Indeed.”

“It’s supposed to be very effective.” Monsieur Vallin’s cunning design resembled a watchful feline, with a pair of finely worked ears on the hinge, a wide set of eyes carved into the cross brace. The edges of the trap resembled a mouth, complete with lethal teeth. It reminded me a bit of Sarah’s cat, Tabitha. Vallin had provided an added bit of whimsy by perching a silver mouse on the cat’s nose. The tiny creature bore no resemblance to the long-toothed monsters that prowled around our attics. The mere thought of them munching their way through Matthew’s papers while we slept made me shudder.

“Look. He’s engraved the bottom of it, too,” Kit said, following the romping mice around the base of the trap. “It bears the rest of Hippocrates’ aphorism—and in Latin, no less. ‘Occasio præceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.’”

“It may be an excessively sentimental inscription, given the instrument’s purpose,” I admitted.

“Sentimental?” Matthew’s eyebrow shot up. “From the viewpoint of the rat, it sounds quite realistic: Opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgment difficult.” His mouth twitched.

“Vallin took advantage of you, Mistress Roydon,” Kit pronounced. “You should refuse payment, Matt, and send the trap back.”

“No!” I protested. “It’s not his fault. We were talking about clocks, and Monsieur Vallin showed me some beautiful examples. I shared my pamphlet from John Chandler’s shop in Cripplegate—the one with the instructions on how to catch vermin—and told Monsieur Vallin about our rat problem. One thing led to another.” I looked down at the trap. It really was an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship, with its tiny gears and springs.

“All of London has a rat problem,” Matthew said, struggling for control. “Yet I know of no one who requires a silver-gilt toy to resolve it. A few affordable cats normally suffice.”

“I’ll pay him, Matthew.” Doing so would probably empty out my purse, and I would be forced to ask Walter for more funds, but it couldn’t be helped. Experience was always valuable. Sometimes it was costly, too. I held out my hand for the trap.

“Did Vallin design it to strike the hours? If so, and it is the world’s only combined timepiece and pest-control device, perhaps the price is fair after all.” Matthew was trying to frown, but his face broke into a grin. Instead of giving me the trap, he took my hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it. “I’ll pay the bill, mon coeur, if only to have the right to tease you about it for the next sixty years.”

At that moment George hurried into the front hall. A blast of cold air entered with him.

“I have news!” He flung his cloak aside and struck a proud pose.

Kit groaned and put his head in his hands. “Don’t tell me. That idiot Ponsonby is pleased with your translation of Homer and wants to publish it without further corrections.”

“Not even you will dim my pleasure in today’s achievements, Kit.” George looked around expectantly. “Well? Are none of you the least bit curious?”

“What is your news, George?” Matthew said absently, tossing the trap into the air and catching it again.

“I found Mistress Roydon’s manuscript.”

Matthew’s grip on the rat trap tightened. The mechanism sprang open. When he released his fingers, it fell to the table with a clatter as it snapped shut again. “Where?”

George took an instinctive step backward. I’d been on the receiving end of my husband’s questions and understood how disconcerting a full blast of vampiric attention could be.

“I knew you were the man to find it,” I told George warmly, putting my hand on Matthew’s sleeve to slow him down. George was predictably mollified by this remark and returned to the table, where he pulled out a chair and sat.

“Your confidence means a great deal to me, Mistress Roydon,” George said, taking off his gloves. He sniffed. “Not everyone shares it.”

“Where. Is. It?” Matthew asked slowly, his jaw clenched.

“It is in the most obvious place imaginable, hiding in plain sight. I am rather surprised we did not think of it straightaway.” He paused once more to make sure he had everyone’s full attention. Matthew emitted a barely audible growl of frustration.

“George,” Kit warned. “Matthew has been known to bite.”

“Dr. Dee has it,” George blurted out when Matthew shifted his weight.

“The queen’s astrologer.” George was right: We should have thought of the man long before this. Dee was an alchemist, too—and had the largest library in England. “But he’s in Europe.”

“Dr. Dee returned from Europe over a year ago. He’s living outside London now.”

“Please tell me he isn’t a witch, daemon, or vampire,” I said.

“He’s just a human—and an utter fraud,” Marlowe said. “I wouldn’t trust a thing he says, Matt. He used poor Edward abominably, forcing him to peer into crystal stones and talk to angels about alchemy day and night. Then Dee took all the credit!”

“‘Poor Edward’?” Walter scoffed, opening the door without invitation or ceremony and stepping inside. Henry Percy was with him. No member of the School of Night could be within a mile of the Hart and Crown and not be drawn irresistibly to my hearth. “Your daemon friend led him by the nose for years. Dr. Dee is well rid of him, if you ask me.” Walter picked up the rat trap. “What’s this?”

“The goddess of the hunt has turned her attention to smaller prey,” Kit said with a smirk.

“Why, that’s a mousetrap. But no one would be foolish enough to make a mousetrap out of silver gilt,” Henry said, looking over Walter’s shoulder. “It looks like Nicholas Vallin’s work. He made Essex a handsome watch when he became a Knight of the Garter. Is it a child’s toy of some sort?”

A vampire’s fist crashed onto my table, splitting the wood.

“George,” Matthew ground out, “do tell us about Dr. Dee.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course. There is not much to tell. I did w-what you asked,” George stammered. “I visited the bookstalls, but there was no information to be had. There was talk of a volume of Greek poetry for sale that sounded most promising for my translation—but I digress.” George stopped and gulped. “Widow Jugge suggested I talk to John Hester, the apothecary at Paul’s Wharf. Hester sent me to Hugh Plat—you know, the vintner who lives in St. James Garlickhythe.” I followed this complicated intellectual pilgrimage closely, hoping I might reconstruct George’s route when I next visited Susanna. Perhaps she and Plat were neighbors.

“Plat is as bad as Will,” Walter said under his breath, “forever writing things down that are none of his concern. The fellow asked after my mother’s method for making pastry.”

“Master Plat said that Dr. Dee has a book from the emperor’s library. No man can read it, and there are strange pictures in it, too,” George explained. “Plat saw it last year when he went to Dr. Dee for alchemical guidance.”

Matthew and I exchanged looks.

“It’s possible, Matthew,” I said in a low voice. “Elias Ashmole tracked down what was left of Dee’s library after his death, and he was particularly interested in the alchemical books.”

“Dee’s death. And how did the good doctor meet his end, Mistress Roydon?” Marlowe asked softly, his brown eyes nudging me. Henry, who hadn’t heard Kit’s question, spoke before I could answer.

“I will ask to see it,” Henry said, nodding decidedly. “It will be easy enough to arrange on my way back to Richmond and the queen.”

“You might not recognize it, Hal,” Matthew said, prepared to ignore Kit as well, even though he had heard him. “I’ll go with you.”

“You didn’t see it either.” I shook my head, hoping to loosen Marlowe’s prodding stare. “Besides, if there’s a visit being paid to John Dee, I’m going.”

“You needn’t give me that fierce look, ma lionne. I know perfectly well that nothing will convince you to leave this to me. Not if there are books and an alchemist involved.” Matthew held up an admonishing finger. “But no questions. Understood?” He had seen the magical mayhem that could result.

I nodded, but my fingers were crossed in the fold of my skirt in that age-old charm to ward off the evil consequences that came from knotting up the truth.

“No questions from Mistress Roydon?” Walter muttered. “I wish you luck with that, Matt.”

Mortlake was a small hamlet on the Thames located between London and the queen’s palace at Richmond. We made the trip in the Earl of Northumberland’s barge, a splendid vessel with eight oarsmen, padded seats, and curtains to keep out the drafts. It was a far more comfortable—not to mention more sedate—journey than I was accustomed to when Gallowglass wielded the oars.

We’d sent a letter ahead warning Dee of our intention to visit him. Mrs. Dee, Henry explained with great delicacy, did not appreciate guests who dropped in unannounced. Though I could sympathize, it was unusual at a time when open-door hospitality was the rule.

“The household is somewhat . . . er, irregular because of Dr. Dee’s pursuits,” Henry explained, turning slightly pink. “And they have a prodigious number of children. It is often rather . . . chaotic.”

“So much so that the servants have been known to throw themselves down the well,” Matthew observed pointedly.

“Yes. That was unfortunate. I doubt any such thing will happen during our visit,” Henry muttered.

I didn’t care what state the household was in. We were on the brink of being able to answer so many questions: why this book was so sought after, if it could tell us more about how we creatures had come into being. And of course Matthew believed that it might shed light on why we otherworldly creatures were going extinct in our modern times.

Whether for propriety’s sake or to avoid his disorderly brood, Dr. Dee was strolling in his brick-walled garden as if it were high summer and not the end of January. He was wearing the black robes of a scholar, and a tight-fitting hood covered his head and extended down his neck, topped with a flat cap. A long white beard jutted from his chin, and his arms were clasped behind his back as he made his slow progress around the barren garden.

“Dr. Dee?” Henry called over the wall.

“Lord Northumberland! I trust you are in good health?” Dee’s voice was quiet and raspy, though he took care (as most did) to alter it slightly for Henry’s benefit. He removed his cap and swept a bow.

“Passable for the time of year, Dr. Dee. We are not here about my health, though. I have friends with me, as I explained in my letter. Let me introduce you.”

“Dr. Dee and I are already acquainted.” Matthew gave Dee a wolfish smile and a low bow. He knew every other strange creature of the time. Why not Dee?

“Master Roydon,” Dee said warily.

“This is my wife, Diana,” Matthew said, inclining his head in my direction. “She is a friend to the Countess of Pembroke and joins her ladyship in alchemical pursuits.”

“The Countess of Pembroke and I have corresponded on alchemical matters.” Dee forgot all about me and focused instead on his own close connection to a peer of the realm. “Your message indicated you wanted to see one of my books, Lord Northumberland. Are you here on Lady Pembroke’s behalf?”

Before Henry could respond, a sharp-faced, ample-hipped woman came out of the house in a dark brown gown trimmed with fur that had seen better days. She looked irritated, then spotted the Earl of Northumberland and plastered a welcoming look over her face.

“And here is my own dear wife,” Dee said uneasily. “The Earl of Northumberland and Master Roydon are arrived, Jane,” he called out.

“Why haven’t you asked them inside?” Jane scolded, wringing her hands in distress. “They will think we are not prepared to receive guests, which of course we are, at all times. Many seek out my husband’s counsel, my lord.”

“Yes. That is what brings us here, too. You are in good health I see, Mistress Dee. And I understand from Master Roydon that the queen recently graced your house with a visit.”

Jane preened. “Indeed. John has seen Her Majesty three times since November. The last two times she happened upon us at our far gate, as she rode along the Richmond road.”

“Her Majesty was generous to us this Christmas,” Dee said. He twisted the cap in his hands. Jane looked at him sourly. “We had thought . . . but it is no matter.”

“Delightful, delightful,” Henry said quickly, rescuing Dee from any potential awkwardness. “But enough small talk. There is a particular book we wished to see—”

“My husband’s library is esteemed more than he is!” Jane said sullenly. “Our expenses while visiting the emperor were extreme, and we have many mouths to feed. The queen said she would help us. She did give us a small reward but promised more.”

“No doubt the queen was distracted by more pressing concerns.” Matthew had a small, heavy pouch in his hands. “I have the balance of her gift here. And I value your husband, Mistress Dee, not just his books. I’ve added to Her Majesty’s purse for his pains on our behalf.”

“I . . . I thank you, Master Roydon,” Dee stammered, exchanging glances with his wife. “It is kind of you to see to the queen’s business. Matters of state must always take precedence over our difficulties, of course.”

“Her Majesty does not forget those who have given her good service,” Matthew said. It was a blatant untruth, as everyone standing in the snowy garden knew, but it went unchallenged.

“You must all take your ease inside by the fire,” Jane said, her interest in hospitality sharply increased. “I will bring wine and see that you are not disturbed.” She dropped a curtsy to Henry, an even lower one to Matthew, then bustled back in the direction of the door. “Come, John. They’ll turn to ice if you keep them out here any longer.”

Twenty minutes spent inside the Dees’ house proved that its master and mistress were representatives of that peculiar breed of married people who bickered incessantly over perceived slights and unkindnesses, all the while remaining devoted. They exchanged barbed comments while we admired the new tapestries (a gift from Lady Walsingham), the new wine ewer (a gift from Sir Christopher Hatton), and the new silver salt (a gift from the Marchioness of Northampton). The ostentatious gifts and invective having run their course, we were—at long last—ushered into the library.

“I’m going to have a hell of a time getting you out of here,” Matthew whispered, grinning at the expression of wonder on my face.

John Dee’s library was nothing like what I had expected. I’d imagined it would look much like a spacious private library belonging to a well-heeled gentleman of the nineteenth century—for reasons that now struck me as completely indefensible. This was no genteel space for smoking pipes and reading by the fire. With only candles for illumination, the room was surprisingly dark on this winter day. A few chairs and a long table awaited readers by a south-facing bay of windows. The walls of the room were hung with maps, celestial charts, anatomical diagrams, and the broadside almanac sheets that could be had at every apothecary and bookshop in London for pennies. Decades of them were on display, presumably maintained as a reference collection for when Dee was drawing up a horoscope or making other heavenly calculations.

Dee owned more books than any of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges, and he required a working library—not one for show. Not surprisingly, the most precious commodity was not light or seating but shelf space. To maximize what was available, Dee’s bookshelves were freestanding and set perpendicular to the walls. The simple oak bookshelves were doublefaced, with the shelves set at varied heights to hold the different sizes of Elizabethan books. Two sloped reading surfaces topped the shelves, making it possible to study a text and then accurately return it.

“My God,” I murmured. Dee turned in consternation at my oath.

“My wife is overwhelmed, Master Dee,” Matthew explained. “She has never been in such a grand library.”

“There are many libraries that are far more spacious and boast more treasures than mine, Mistress Roydon.”

Jane Dee arrived on cue, just when it was possible to divert the conversation to the poverty of the household.

“The Emperor Rudolf’s library is very fine,” Jane said, heading past us with a tray holding wine and sweetmeats. “Even so, he was not above stealing one of John’s best books. The emperor took advantage of my husband’s generosity, and we have little hope of compensation.”

“Now, Jane,” John chided, “His Majesty did give us a book in return.”

“Which book was that?” Matthew said carefully.

“A rare text,” Dee said unhappily, watching his wife’s retreating form as she headed for the table.

“Nothing but gibberish!” Jane retorted.

It was Ashmole 782. It had to be.

“Master Plat told us about just such a book. It is why we are here. Perhaps we might enjoy your wife’s hospitality first and then see the emperor’s book?” Matthew suggested, smooth as a cat’s whisker. He held out his arm to me, and I took it with a squeeze.

While Jane fussed and poured and complained about the cost of nuts over the holiday season and how she had been brought to near bankruptcy by the grocer, Dee went in search of Ashmole 782. He scanned the shelves of one bookcase and pulled a volume free.

“That’s not it,” I murmured to Matthew. It was too small.

Dee plunked the book on the table in front of Matthew and lifted the limp vellum cover.

“See. There is naught in it but meaningless words and lewd pictures of women in their bath.” Jane harrumphed out of the room, muttering and shaking her head.

This was not Ashmole 782, but it was nonetheless a book I knew: the Voynich manuscript, otherwise known as Yale University’s Beinecke MS 408. The manuscript’s contents were a mystery. No code breaker or linguist had yet figured out what the text said, and botanists hadn’t been able to identify the plants. Theories abounded to explain its mysteries, including one suggesting that it had been written by aliens. I let out a disappointed sound.

“No?” Matthew asked. I shook my head and bit my lip in frustration. Dee mistook my expression for annoyance with Jane, and he rushed to explain.

“Please forgive my wife. Jane finds this book most distressing, for it was she who discovered it among our boxes when we returned from the emperor’s lands. I had taken another book with me on the journey—a treasured book of alchemy that once belonged to the great English magician Roger Bacon. It was larger than this, and contained many mysteries.”

I pitched forward in my seat.

“My assistant, Edward, could understand the text with divine assistance, though I could not,” Dee continued. “Before we left Edward in Prague, Emperor Rudolf expressed an interest in the work. Edward had told him some of the secrets contained therein—about the generation of metals and a secret method for obtaining immortality.”

So Dee had once possessed Ashmole 782 after all. And his daemonic helper, Edward Kelley, could read the text. My hands were shaking with excitement, and I concealed them in the folds of my skirt.

“Edward helped Jane pack up my books when we were ordered home. Jane believes that Edward stole the book away, replacing it with this item from His Majesty’s collection.” Dee hesitated, looked sorrowful. “I do not like to think ill of Edward, for he was my trusted companion and we spent much time together. He and Jane were never on good terms, and at first I dismissed her theory.”

“But now you think it has merit,” Matthew observed.

“I go over the events of our last days, Master Roydon, trying to recall a detail that might exonerate my friend. But everything I remember only points the finger of blame more decidedly in his direction.” Dee sighed. “Still, this text may yet prove to contain secrets of worth.”

Matthew flipped through the pages. “These are chimeras,” he said, studying the images of plants. “The leaves and stems and flowers don’t match but have been assembled from different plants.”

“What do you make of these?” I said, turning to the astrological roundels that followed. I peered at the writing in the center. Funny. I’d seen the manuscript many times before and never paid any attention to the notes.

“These inscriptions are written in the tongue of ancient Occitania,” Matthew said quietly. “I knew someone once with handwriting very like this. Did you happen to meet a gentleman from Aurillac while you were at the emperor’s court?”

Did he mean Gerbert? My excitement turned to anxiety. Had Gerbert mistaken the Voynich manuscript for the mysterious book of origins? At my question the handwriting in the center of the astrological diagram began to quiver. I clapped the book shut to keep it from dancing off the page.

“No, Master Roydon,” Dee said with a frown. “Had I done so, I would have asked him about the famed magician from that place who became pope. There are many truths hidden in old tales told around the fire.”

“Yes,” Matthew agreed, “if only we are wise enough to recognize them.”

“That is why I so regret the loss of my book. It was once owned by Roger Bacon, and I was told by the old woman who sold it to me that he prized it for holding divine truths. Bacon called it the Verum Secretum Secretorum.” Dee looked wistfully at the Voynich manuscript. “It is my dearest wish to have it returned.”

“Perhaps I can be of some use,” Matthew said.

“You, Master Roydon?”

“If you would permit me to take this book, I could try to have it put back where it belongs—and have your book restored to its rightful owner.” Matthew pulled the manuscript toward him.

“I would be forever in your debt, sir,” Dee said, agreeing to the deal without further negotiation.

The minute we pulled away from the public landing in Mortlake, I started peppering Matthew with questions.

“What are you thinking, Matthew? You can’t just pack up the Voynich manuscript and send it to Rudolf with a note accusing him of doubledealing. You’ll have to find someone crazy enough to risk his life by breaking into Rudolf’s library and stealing Ashmole 782.”

“If Rudolf has Ashmole 782, it won’t be in his library. It will be in his cabinet of curiosities,” Matthew said absently, staring at the water.

“So this . . . Voynich was not the book you were seeking?” Henry had been following our exchange with polite interest. “George will be so disappointed not to have solved your mystery.”

“George may not have solved it, Hal, but he’s shed considerable light on the situation,” Matthew said. “Between my father’s agents and my own, we’ll get Dee’s lost book.”

We’d caught the tide back to town, which sped our return. The torches were lit on the Water Lane landing in anticipation of our arrival, but two men in the Countess of Pembroke’s livery waved us off.

“Baynard’s Castle, if you please, Master Roydon!” one called across the water.

“Something must be wrong,” Matthew said, standing in the prow of the barge. Henry directed the oarsmen to proceed the extra distance down the river, where the countess’s landing was similarly ablaze with beacons and lanterns.

“Is it one of the boys?” I asked Mary when she rushed down the hall to meet us.

“No. They are well. Come to the laboratory. At once,” she called over her shoulder, already heading back in the direction of the tower.

The sight that greeted us there was enough to make both Matthew and me gasp.

“It is an altogether unexpected arbor Dianæ,” Mary said, crouching down so that she was at eye level with the bulbous chamber at the alembic’s base that held the roots of a black tree. It wasn’t like the first arbor Dianæ, which was entirely silver and far more delicate in its structure. This one, with its stout, dark trunk and bare limbs, reminded me of the oak tree in Madison that had sheltered us after Juliette’s attack. I’d pulled the vitality out of that tree to save Matthew’s life.

“Why isn’t it silver?” Matthew asked, wrapping his hands around the countess’s fragile glass alembics.

“I used Diana’s blood,” Mary replied. Matthew straightened and gave me an incredulous look.

“Look at the wall,” I said, pointing at the bleeding firedrake.

“It’s the green dragon—the symbol for aqua regia or aqua fortis,” he said after giving it a cursory glance.

“No, Matthew. Look at it. Forget what you think it depicts and try to see it as if it were the first time.”

“Dieu.” Matthew sounded shocked. “Is that my insignia?”

“Yes. And did you notice that the dragon has its tail in its mouth? And that it’s not a dragon at all? Dragons have four legs. That’s a firedrake.”

“A firedrake. Like . . .” Matthew swore again.

“There have been dozens of different theories about what ordinary substance was the crucial first ingredient required to make the philosopher’s stone. Roger Bacon—who owned Dr. Dee’s missing manuscript—believed it was blood.” I was confident this piece of information would get Matthew’s attention. I crouched down to look at the tree.

“And you saw the mural and followed your instincts.” After a momentary pause, Matthew ran his thumb along the vessel’s wax seal, cracking the wax. Mary gasped in horror as he ruined her experiment.

“What are you doing?” I asked, shocked.

“Following a hunch of my own and adding something to the alembic.” Matthew lifted his wrist to his mouth, bit down on it, and held it over the narrow opening. His dark, thick blood dripped into the solution and fell into the bottom of the vessel. We stared into the depths.

Just when I thought nothing was going to happen, thin streaks of red began to work their way up the tree’s skeletal trunk. Then golden leaves sprouted from the branches.

“Look at that,” I said, amazed.

Matthew smiled at me. It was a smile still tinged with regret, but there was some hope in it, too.

Red fruits appeared among the leaves, sparkling like tiny rubies. Mary began to murmur a prayer, her eyes wide.

“My blood made the structure of the tree, and your blood made it bear fruit,” I said slowly. My hand went to my hollow belly.

“Yes. But why?” Matthew replied.

If anything could tell us about the mysterious transformation that occurred when witch and wearh combined their blood, it would be Ashmole 782’s strange pictures and mysterious text.

“How long did you say it would take you to get Dee’s book back?” I asked Matthew.

“Oh, I don’t imagine it will take very long,” he murmured. “Not once I put my mind to it.”

“The sooner the better,” I said mildly, twining my fingers though his as we watched the ongoing miracle that our blood had wrought.

25

The strange tree continued to grow and develop the next day and the next: Its fruit ripened and fell among the tree’s roots in the mercury and prima materia. New buds formed, blossomed, and flowered. Once a day the leaves turned from gold to green and back to gold. Sometimes the tree put out new branches or a new root stretched out to seek sustenance. “I have yet to find a good explanation for it,” Mary said, gesturing at the piles of books that Joan had pulled down from the shelves. “It is as if we have created something entirely new.”

In spite of the alchemical distractions, I hadn’t forgotten my witchier concerns. I wove and rewove my invisible gray cloak, and each time I did it faster and the results were finer and more effective. Marjorie promised me that I would soon be able to put my weaving to words so other witches could perform the spell.

After walking back home from St. James Garlickhythe a few days later, I climbed the stairs to our rooms at the Hart and Crown, shedding my disguising spell as I did so. Annie was across the courtyard fetching the clean linen from the washerwomen. Jack was with Pierre and Matthew. I wondered what Françoise had procured for dinner. I was famished.

“If someone doesn’t feed me in the next five minutes, I’m going to start screaming.” My announcement as I crossed the threshold was punctuated by the sound of pins scattering on the wooden floorboards as I pulled free the stiff, embroidered panel on the front of my dress. I tossed the stomacher onto the table. My fingers reached underneath to loosen the laces that held my bodice together.

A gentle cough came from the direction of the fireplace.

I whirled around, my fingers clutching at the fabric covering my breasts. “Screaming will do little good, I fear.” A voice as raspy as sand swirling in a glass came from the depths of the chair that was drawn up to the fireplace. “I sent your servant for wine, and my old limbs do not move fast enough to meet your needs.”

Slowly I came around the bulk of the chair. The stranger in my house lifted one gray eyebrow, and his gaze flickered over the site of my immodesty. I frowned at his bold glance.

“Who are you?” The man was not daemon, witch, or vampire but merely a wrinkled human.

“I believe that your husband and his friends call me the Old Fox. I am also, for my sins, the lord high treasurer.” The shrewdest man in England, and certainly one of its most ruthless, allowed his words to sink in. His kindly expression did nothing to diminish the sharpness of his gaze.

William Cecil was sitting in my parlor. Too stunned to dip into the appropriately deep curtsy, I gawped at him instead.

“I am somewhat familiar to you, then. I am surprised my reputation has reached so far, for it is clear to me and many others that you are a stranger here.” When I opened my mouth to reply, Cecil’s hand came up. “It is wise policy, madam, not to share overmuch with me.”

“What can I do for you, Sir William?” I felt like a schoolgirl sent to the principal’s office.

“My reputation precedes me, but not my title. ‘Vanitatis vanitatum, omnis vanitas,’” Cecil said drily. “I am called Lord Burghley now, Mistress Roydon. The queen is a generous mistress.”

I swore silently. I’d never taken any interest in the dates when members of the aristocracy were elevated to even higher levels of rank and privilege. When I needed to know, I looked it up in the Dictionary of National Biography. Now I’d insulted Matthew’s boss. I would atone by flattering him in Latin.

“‘Honor virtutis praemium,’” I murmured, gathering my wits about me. Esteem is the reward of virtue. One of my neighbors at Oxford was a graduate of the Arnold School. He played rugby and celebrated New College victories by shouting this phrase at the top of his lungs in the Turf, to the delight of his teammates.

“Ah, the Shirley motto. Are you a member of that family?” Lord Burghley tented his fingers before him and looked at me with greater interest. “They are known for their propensity to wander.”

“No,” I said. “I’m a Bishop . . . not an actual bishop.” Lord Burghley inclined his head in silent acknowledgment of my obvious statement. I felt an absurd desire to bare my soul to the man—that or run as far and fast in the opposite direction as possible.

“Her Majesty accepts a married clergy, but female bishops are, thanks be to God, outside the scope of her imagination.”

“Yes. No. Is there something I can do for you, my lord?” I repeated, a deplorable note of desperation creeping into my tone. I gritted my teeth.

“I think not, Mistress Roydon. But perhaps I can do something for you. I advise you to return to Woodstock. Without delay.”

“Why, my lord?” I felt a flicker of fear.

“Because it is winter and the queen is insufficiently occupied at present.” Burghley looked at my left hand. “And you are married to Master Roydon. Her Majesty is generous, but she doesn’t approve when one of her favorites marries without her permission.”

“Matthew isn’t the queen’s favorite—he’s her spy.” I clapped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late to recall the words.

“Favorites and spies are not mutually exclusive—except where Walsingham was concerned. The queen found his strict morality maddening and his sour expression unendurable. But Her Majesty is fond of Matthew Roydon. Some would say dangerously so. And your husband has many secrets.” Cecil hauled himself to his feet, using a staff for leverage. He groaned. “Go back to Woodstock, mistress. It is best for all concerned.”

“I won’t leave my husband.” Elizabeth might eat courtiers for breakfast, as Matthew had warned, but she was not going to run me out of town. Not when I was finally getting settled, finding friends, and learning magic. And certainly not when Matthew dragged himself home every day looking as if he’d been pulled backward through a knothole, only to spend all night answering correspondence sent to him by the queen’s informants, his father, and the Congregation.

“Tell Matthew that I called.” Lord Burghley made his slow way to the door. There he met Françoise, who was carrying a large jug of wine and looking disgruntled. At the sight of me, her eyes widened. She was not pleased to find me home, entertaining, with my bodice undone. “Thank you for the conversation, Mistress Roydon. It was most illuminating.”

The lord high treasurer of England crept down the stairs. He was too old to be traveling about in the late afternoon, alone, in January. I followed him to the landing, watching his progress with concern.

“Go with him, Françoise,” I urged her, “and make sure Lord Burghley finds his own servants.” They were probably at the Cardinal’s Hat getting inebriated with Kit and Will, or waiting in the crush of coaches at the top of Water Lane. I didn’t want to be the last person to see Queen Elizabeth’s chief adviser alive.

“No need, no need,” Burghley said over his shoulder. “I am an old man with a stick. The thieves will ignore me in favor of someone with an earring and a slashed doublet. The beggars I can beat off, if need be. And my men are not far from here. Remember my advice, mistress.”

With that he disappeared into the dusk.

“Dieu.” Françoise crossed herself, then forked her fingers against the evil eye for good measure. “He is an old soul. I do not like the way he looked at you. It is a good thing milord is not yet home. He would not have liked it either.”

“William Cecil is old enough to be my grandfather, Françoise,” I retorted, returning to the warmth of the parlor and, finally, loosening my laces. I groaned as the constriction lessened.

“Lord Burghley did not look at you as though he wanted to bed you.” Françoise glanced pointedly at my bodice.

“No? How did he look at me, then?” I poured myself some wine and plopped down in my chair. The day was taking a decided turn for the worse.

“Like you were a lamb ready for slaughter and he was weighing the price you would bring.”

“Who is threatening to eat Diana for dinner?” Matthew had arrived with the stealth of a cat and was taking off his gloves.

“Your visitor. You just missed him.” I took a sip of wine. As soon as I swallowed, Matthew was there to lift it from my hands. I made an exasperated sound. “Can you wave or something to let me know you’re about to move? It’s disconcerting when you just appear before me like that.”

“As you’ve divined that looking out the window is one of my tells, I feel honor bound to share that changing the subject is one of yours.” Matthew took a sip of wine and set the cup on the table. He rubbed tiredly at his face. “What visitor?”

“William Cecil was waiting by the fire when I came home.”

Matthew went eerily still.

“He’s the scariest grandfatherly person I’ve ever met,” I continued, reaching for the wine again. “Burghley may look like Father Christmas, with his gray hair and beard, but I wouldn’t turn my back on him.”

“That’s very wise,” Matthew said quietly. He regarded Françoise. “What did he want?”

She shrugged. “I do not know. He was here when I came home with madame’s pork pie. Lord Burghley asked for wine. That daemon drank everything in the house earlier today. I went out for more.”

Matthew disappeared. He returned at a more sedate pace, looking relieved. I shot to my feet. The attics—and all the secrets hidden there.

“Did he—”

“No,” Matthew interrupted. “Everything is exactly as I left it. Did William say why he was here?”

“Lord Burghley told me to tell you he called.” I hesitated. “And he told me to leave the city.”

Annie entered the room, along with a chattering Jack and a grinning Pierre, but after one look at Matthew’s face, Pierre’s smile dissolved. I took the linens from Annie.

“Why don’t you take the children to the Cardinal’s Hat, Françoise?” I said. “Pierre will go, too.”

“Huzzah!” Jack shouted, delighted at the prospect of a night out. “Master Shakespeare is teaching me to juggle.”

“So long as he doesn’t try to improve your penmanship, I have no objection,” I said, catching Jack’s hat as he tossed it in the air. The last thing we needed was the boy adding forgery to his list of skills. “Go and have your supper. And try to remember what your handkerchief is for.”

“I will,” Jack said, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“Why did Lord Burghley come all the way to the Blackfriars to see you?” I asked when we were alone.

“Because I received intelligence from Scotland today.”

“What now?” I said, my throat closing. It was not the first time the Berwick witches had been discussed in my presence, but somehow Burghley’s presence made it seem as though the evil was creeping over our threshold.

“King James continues to question the witches. William wanted to discuss what—if anything—the queen should do in response.” He frowned at the change in my scent as the fear took hold. “You don’t need to know what’s happening in Scotland.”

“Not knowing doesn’t keep it from happening.”

“No,” Matthew said, his fingers gentle on my neck as he tried to rub the tension away. “Neither does knowing.”

The next day I came home from Goody Alsop’s carrying a small wooden spell box—a place to let my written spells incubate until they were ready for another witch to use. Finding a way to put my magic to words was the next step in my evolution as a weaver. Right now the box held only my weaver’s cords. Marjorie didn’t think my disguising spell was quite ready for other witches yet.

A wizard on Thames Street made the box from the limb from the rowan that the firedrake gave me the night I made my forspell. He’d carved a tree on its surface, the roots and branches weirdly intertwined so that you couldn’t tell them apart. Not a single nail held the box together. Instead there were nearly invisible joints. The wizard was proud of his work, and I couldn’t wait to show it to Matthew.

The Hart and Crown was oddly quiet. Neither the fire nor the candles in the parlor were lit. Matthew was in his study, alone. Three wine jugs stood on the table before him. Two of them were, presumably, empty. Matthew didn’t normally drink so heavily. “What’s wrong?”

He picked up a sheet of paper. Thick red wax clung to its folds. The seal was cracked across the middle. “We are called to court.”

I sank into the chair opposite. “When?”

“Her Majesty has graciously permitted us to wait until tomorrow.” Matthew snorted. “Her father was not half so forgiving. When Henry wanted people to attend him, he sent for them even if they were in their bed and a gale was blowing.”

I had been eager to meet the queen of England—when I was back in Madison. After meeting the shrewdest man in the kingdom, I no longer had any desire to meet the canniest woman. “Must we go?” I asked, half hoping Matthew would dismiss the royal command.

“In her letter the queen took pains to remind me of her statute against conjurations, enchantments, and witchcrafts.” Matthew tossed the paper onto the table. “It would seem Mr. Danforth wrote a letter to his bishop. Burghley buried the complaint, but it resurfaced.” Matthew swore.

“Then why are we going to court?” I clutched at my spell box. The cords inside were slithering around, eager to help answer my question.

“Because if we are not in the audience chamber at Richmond Palace by two in the afternoon tomorrow, Elizabeth will arrest us both.” Matthew’s eyes looked like chips of sea glass. “It won’t take long for the Congregation to learn the truth about us then.”

The household was thrown into an uproar at our news. Their anticipation was shared by the neighborhood the next morning when the Countess of Pembroke arrived shortly after dawn with enough garments to outfit the parish. She traveled by river, having taken her barge to the Blackfriars—although the actual distance was no more than a few hundred feet. Her appearance on the Water Lane landing was treated as a public spectacle of enormous importance, and for a few moments a hush fell over our normally raucous street.

Mary looked serene and unperturbed when she finally stepped into the parlor, allowing Joan and a line of lesser servants to file in behind her.

“Henry tells me you are expected at court this afternoon. You have nothing suitable to wear.” With an imperious finger, Mary directed still more of her crew in the direction of our bedchamber.

“I was going to wear the gown I was married in,” I protested.

“But it is French!” Mary said, aghast. “You cannot wear that!”

Embroidered satins, luscious velvets, sparkling silks interwoven with real gold and silver thread, and piles of diaphanous material of unknown purpose passed by my nose.

“This is too much, Mary. Whatever are you thinking?” I said, narrowly avoiding collision with still one more servant.

“No one goes into battle without proper armor,” Mary said with her characteristic blend of airiness and tartness. “And Her Majesty, may God preserve her, is a formidable opponent. You will require all the protection my wardrobe can afford.”

Together we picked through the options. How we were going to make the necessary alterations so that Mary’s clothes would fit me was a mystery, but I knew better than to inquire. I was Cinderella, and the birds of the forest and the fairies of the wood would be called upon if the Countess of Pembroke felt it necessary.

We finally settled on a black gown thickly embroidered with silver fl e u r s - d e - l i s and roses. It was a design from last year, Mary said, and lacked the large cartwheel-shaped skirts now in vogue. Elizabeth would be pleased by my frugal disregard for the whims of fashion.

“And silver and black are the queen’s colors. That’s why Walter is always wearing them,” Mary explained, smoothing the puffed sleeves.

But my favorite garment by far was the white satin petticoat that would be visible at the front of the divided skirts. It was embroidered, too, with mainly flora and fauna, accompanied by bits of classical architecture, scientific instruments, and female personifications of the arts and sciences. I recognized the same hand at work as that of the genius who’d created Mary’s shoes. I avoided touching the embroidery to make sure, not wanting Lady Alchemy to walk off the petticoat before I’d had the opportunity to wear it.

It took four women two hours to get me dressed. First I was laced into my clothes, which were padded and puffed to ridiculous proportions, with thick quilting and a wide farthingale that was just as unwieldy as I had imagined. My ruff was suitably large and ostentatious, though not, Mary assured me, as large as the queen’s would be. Mary clipped an ostrich fan to my waist. It hung down like a pendulum and swayed when I walked. With its feathery plumes and ruby- and pearl-studded handle, the accessory was easily worth ten times what my mousetrap cost, and I was glad that it was literally attached to me at the hip.

The subject of jewelry proved controversial. Mary had her coffer with her and pulled out one priceless item after another. But I insisted on wearing Ysabeau’s earrings rather than the ornate diamond drops that Mary suggested. They went surprisingly well with the rope of pearls Joan slung over my shoulder. To my horror, Mary dismembered the chain of broom blossoms that Philippe had given me for my wedding and pinned one of the floral links to the center of my bodice. She caught the pearls up with a red bow and tied it to the pin. After a long discussion, Mary and Françoise settled on a simple pearl choker to fill my open neckline. Annie affixed my gold arrow to my ruff with another jeweled pin, and Françoise dressed my hair so that it framed my face in a puffed-out heart shape. For the final touch, Mary settled a pearl-studded coif on the back of my head, covering the braided knots that Françoise piled there.

Matthew, who had been in an increasingly foul mood as the hour of doom approached, managed to smile and look suitably impressed.

“I feel like I’m in a stage costume,” I said ruefully.

“You look lovely—formidably so,” he assured me. He looked splendid, too, in his solid black velvet suit of clothes with tiny touches of white at the wrists and collar. And he was wearing my portrait miniature around his neck. The long chain was looped up on a button so that the moon faced outward and my image was close to his heart.

My first glimpse of Richmond Palace was the top of a creamy stone tower, the royal standard snapping in the breeze. More towers soon appeared, sparkling in the crisp winter air like those of a castle out of a fairy story. Then the vast sprawl of the palace complex came into view: the strange rectangular arcade to the southeast, the three-storied main building to the southwest, surrounded by a wide moat, and the walled orchard beyond. Behind the main building were still more towers and peaks, including a pair of buildings that reminded me of Eton College. An enormous crane rose up into the air beyond the orchard, and swarms of men unloaded boxes and parcels for the palace’s kitchens and storerooms. Baynard’s Castle, which had always seemed very grand to me, appeared in retrospect a slightly down-at-the-heels former royal residence.

The oarsmen directed the barge to a landing. Matthew ignored the stares and questions, preferring to let Pierre or Gallowglass respond for him. To the casual observer, Matthew looked slightly bored. But I was close enough to see him scanning the riverbank, alert and on guard.

I looked across the moat to the two-storied arcade. The ground floor’s arches were open to the air, but the upper floor was glazed with leaded windows. Eager faces peered out, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new arrivals and obtain a morsel of gossip. Matthew quickly put his bulk between the barge and the curious courtiers, obscuring me from easy view.

Liveried servants, each one bearing a sword or a pike, led us through a simple guard chamber and into the main part of the palace. The warren of ground-floor rooms was as hectic and bustling as any modern office building, with servants and court officers rushing to meet requests and obey orders. Matthew turned to the right; our guards politely blocked his way.

“She’ll not see you in private before you’ve been draped over tenterhooks in public,” Gallowglass muttered under his breath. Matthew swore.

We obediently followed our escorts to a grand staircase. It was thronged with people, and the clash of human, floral, and herbal scents was dizzying. Everybody was wearing perfume in an effort to ward off unpleasant odors, but I had to wonder if the result was worse. When the crowd spotted Matthew, there were whispers as the sea of people parted. He was taller than most and gave off the same brutal air as most of the other male aristocrats I’d met. The difference was that Matthew really was lethal—and on some level the warmbloods recognized it.

After passing through a series of three antechambers, each filled to bursting with padded, scented, and jeweled courtiers of both sexes and all ages, we finally arrived at a closed door. There we waited. The whispers around us rose to murmurs. A man shared a joke, and his companions tittered. Matthew’s jaw clenched.

“Why are we waiting?” I said, my voice pitched so that only Matthew and Gallowglass could hear.

“To amuse the queen—and to show the court that I am no more than a servant.”

When at last we were admitted to the royal presence, I was surprised to find that this room, too, was full of people. “Private” was a relative term in the court of Elizabeth. I searched for the queen, but she was nowhere in sight. Fearing that we were going to have to wait again, my heart sank.

“Why is it that for every year I grow older, Matthew Roydon seems to look two years younger?” said a surprisingly jovial voice from the direction of the fireplace. The most lavishly dressed, heavily scented, and thickly painted creatures in the room turned slightly to study us. Their movement revealed Elizabeth, the queen bee seated at the center of the hive. My heart skipped a beat. Here was a legend brought to life.

“I see no great change in you, Your Majesty,” Matthew said, inclining slightly at the waist. “ ‘Semper eadem,’ as the saying goes.” The same words were painted in the banner under the royal crest that ornamented the fireplace. Always the same.

“Even my lord treasurer can manage a deeper bow than that, sir, and he suffers from a rheum.” Black eyes glittered from a mask of powder and rouge. Beneath her sharply hooked nose, the queen compressed her thin lips into a hard line. “And I prefer a different motto these days: Video et taceo.”

I see and am silent. We were in trouble.

Matthew seemed not to notice and straightened as though he were a prince of the realm and not the queen’s spy. With his shoulders thrown back and his head erect, he was easily the tallest man in the room. There were only two people remotely close to him in height: Henry Percy, who was standing against the wall looking miserable, and a long-legged man of about the earl’s age with a mop of curly hair and an insolent expression, who stood at the queen’s elbow.

“Careful,” Burghley murmured as he passed by Matthew, camouflaging his admonishment with regular thumps of his staff. “You called for me, Your Majesty?”

“Spirit and Shadow in the same place. Tell me, Raleigh, does that not violate some dark principle of philosophy?” the queen’s companion drawled out. His friends pointed at Lord Burghley and Matthew and laughed.

“If you had gone to Oxford and not Cambridge, Essex, you would know the answer and be spared the ignominy of having to ask.” Raleigh casually shifted his weight and placed his hand conveniently near the hilt of his sword.

“Now, Robin,” the queen said with an indulgent pat on his elbow. “You know that I do not like it when others use my pet names. Lord Burghley and Master Roydon will forgive you for doing so this time.”

“I take it the lady is your wife, Roydon.” The Earl of Essex turned his brown eyes on me. “We did not know you were wed.”

“Who is this ‘we’?” the queen retorted, giving him a smack this time. “It is no business of yours, my Lord Essex.”

“At least Matt isn’t afraid to be seen around town with her.” Walter stroked his chin. “You’re recently married, too, my lord. Where is your wife on this fine winter’s day?” Here we go, I thought as Walter and Essex jockeyed for position.

“Lady Essex is on Hart Street, in her mother’s house, with the earl’s newborn heir at her side,” Matthew replied on Essex’s behalf. “Congratulations, my lord. When I called on the countess, she told me he was to be named after you.”

“Yes. Robert was baptized yesterday,” Essex said stiffly. He looked a bit alarmed at the thought that Matthew had been around his wife and child.

“He was, my lord.” Matthew gave the earl a truly terrifying smile. “Strange. I did not see you at the ceremony.”

“Enough squabbling!” Elizabeth shouted, angry that the conversation was no longer under her control. She tapped her long fingers on the upholstered arm of her chair. “I gave neither of you permission to wed. You are both ungrateful, grasping wretches. Bring the girl to me.”

Nervous, I smoothed my skirts and took Matthew’s arm. The dozen steps between the queen and me seemed to stretch on to infinity. When at last I reached her side, Walter looked sharply at the floor. I sank into a curtsy and remained there.

“She has manners at least,” Elizabeth conceded. “Raise her up.”

When I met her eyes, I learned that the queen was extremely nearsighted. Even though I was no more than three feet from her, she squinted as though she couldn’t make out my features.

“Hmph,” Elizabeth pronounced when her inspection was through. “Her face is coarse.”

“If you think so, then it is fortunate that you are not wed to her,” Matthew said shortly.

Elizabeth peered at me some more. “There is ink on her fingers.”

I hid the offending digits behind my borrowed fan. The stains from the oak-gall ink were impossible to remove.

“And what fortune am I paying you, Shadow, that your wife can afford such a fan?” Elizabeth’s voice had turned petulant.

“If we are going to discuss Crown finances, perhaps the others might take their leave,” Lord Burghley suggested.

“Oh, very well,” Elizabeth said crossly. “You shall stay, William, and Walter, too.”

“And me,” Essex said.

“Not you, Robin. You must see to the banquet. I wish to be entertained this evening. I am tired of sermonizing and history lessons, as though I were a schoolgirl. No more tales of King John or adventures of a lovelorn shepherdess pining for her shepherd. I want Symons to tumble. If there must be a play, let it be the one with the necromancer and the brass head that divines the future.” Elizabeth rapped her knuckles on the table. “‘Time is, time was, time is past.’ I do love that line.”

Matthew and I exchanged looks.

“I believe the play is called Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Your Majesty,” a young woman whispered into her mistress’s ear.

“That’s the one, Bess. See to it, Robin, and you shall sit by me.” The queen was quite an actress herself. She could go from furious to petulant to wheedling without missing a beat.

Somewhat mollified, the Earl of Essex withdrew, but not before shooting Walter a withering stare. Everyone flurried after him. Essex was now the most important person in their proximity, and, like moths to a flame, the other courtiers were eager to share his light. Only Henry seemed reluctant to depart, but he was given no choice. The door closed firmly behind them.

“Did you enjoy your visit to Dr. Dee, Mistress Roydon?” The queen’s voice was sharp. There wasn’t a cajoling note in it now. She was all business.

“We did, Your Majesty,” Matthew replied.

“I know full well your wife can speak for herself, Master Roydon. Let her do so.”

Matthew glowered but remained quiet.

“It was most enjoyable, Your Majesty.” I had just spoken to Queen Elizabeth I. Pushing aside my disbelief, I continued. “I am a student of alchemy and interested in books and learning.”

“I know what you are.”

Danger flashed all around me, a firestorm of black threads snapping and crying.

“I am your servant, Your Majesty, like my husband.” My eyes remained resolutely focused on the queen of England’s slippers. Happily, they weren’t particularly interesting and remained inanimate.

“I have courtiers and fools enough, Mistress Roydon. You will not earn a place among them with that remark.” Her eyes glittered ominously. “Not all of my intelligencers report to your husband. Tell me, Shadow, what business did you have with Dr. Dee?”

“It was a private matter,” Matthew said, keeping his temper with difficulty.

“There is no such thing—not in my kingdom.” Elizabeth studied Matthew’s face. “You told me not to trust my secrets to those whose allegiance you had not already tested for me,” she continued quietly. “Surely my own loyalty is not in question.”

“It was a private matter, between Dr. Dee and myself, madam,” Matthew said sticking to his story.

“Very well, Master Roydon. Since you are determined to keep your secret, I will tell you my business with Dr. Dee and see if it loosens your tongue. I want Edward Kelley back in England.”

“I believe he is Sir Edward now, Your Majesty,” Burghley corrected her.

“Where did you hear that?” Elizabeth demanded.

“From me,” Matthew said mildly. “It is, after all, my job to know these things. Why do you need Kelley?”

“He knows how to make the philosopher’s stone. And I will not have it in Hapsburg hands.”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Matthew sounded relieved.

“I am afraid of dying and leaving my kingdom to be fought over like a scrap of meat between dogs from Spain and France and Scotland,” Elizabeth said, rising and advancing on him. The closer she came, the greater their differences in size and strength appeared. She was such a small woman to have survived against impossible odds for so many years. “I am afraid of what will become of my people when I am gone. Every day I pray for God’s help in saving England from certain disaster.”

“Amen,” Burghley intoned.

“Edward Kelley is not God’s answer, I promise you that.”

“Any ruler who possesses the philosopher’s stone will have an inexhaustible supply of riches.” Elizabeth’s eyes glittered. “Had I more gold at my disposal, I could destroy the Spanish.”

“And if wishes were thrushes, beggars would eat birds,” Matthew replied.

“Mind your tongue, de Clermont,” Burghley warned.

“Her Majesty is proposing to paddle in dangerous waters, my lord. It is my job to warn her of that as well.” Matthew was carefully formal. “Edward Kelley is a daemon, as you know. His alchemical work lies perilously close to magic, as Walter can attest. The Congregation is desperate to keep Rudolf II’s fascination for the occult from taking a dangerous turn as it did with King James.”

“James had every right to arrest those witches!” Elizabeth said hotly. “Just as I have every right to claim the benefit should one of my subjects make the stone.”

“Did you strike such a hard bargain with Walter when he went to the New World?” Matthew inquired. “Had he found gold in Virginia, would you have demanded it all be handed over to you?”

“I believe that’s exactly what our arrangement stipulated,” Walter said drily, adding a hasty, “though I would, of course, have been delighted for Her Majesty to have it.”

“I knew you could not be trusted, Shadow. You are in England to serve me—yet you argue for this Congregation of yours as though their wishes were more important.”

“I have the same desire that you do, Your Majesty: to save England from disaster. If you go the way of King James and start persecuting the daemons, witches, and wearhs among your subjects, you will suffer for it, and so will the realm.”

“What do you propose I do instead?” Elizabeth asked.

“I propose we make an agreement—one not far different from the bargain you struck with Raleigh. I will see to it that Edward Kelley returns to England so that you can lock him in the Tower and force him to deliver up the philosopher’s stone—if he can.”

“And in return?” Elizabeth was her father’s daughter, after all, and understood that nothing in this life was free.

“In return you will harbor as many of the Berwick witches as I can get out of Edinburgh until King James’s madness has run its course.”

“Absolutely not!” Burghley said. “Think, madam, what might happen to your relationship with our neighbors to the north if you were to invite scores of Scottish witches over the border!”

“There are not so many witches left in Scotland,” Matthew said grimly, “since you refused my earlier pleas.”

“I did think, Shadow, that one of your occupations while in England was to make sure your people did not meddle in our politics. What if these private machinations are found out? How will you explain your actions?” The queen scrutinized him.

“I will say that misery acquaints every man with strange bedfellows, Your Majesty.”

Elizabeth made a soft sound of amusement. “That is doubly true for women,” she said drily. “Very well. We are agreed. You will go to Prague and get Kelley. Mistress Roydon may attend upon me, here at court, to ensure your speedy return.”

“My wife is not part of our bargain, and there is no need to send me to Bohemia in January. You are determined to have Kelley back. I will see to it that he is delivered.”

“You are not king here!” Elizabeth jabbed at his chest with her finger. “You go where I send you, Master Roydon. If you do not, I will have you and your witch of a wife in the Tower for treason. And worse,” she said, her eyes sparking.

Someone scratched at the door.

“Enter!” Elizabeth bellowed.

“The Countess of Pembroke requests an audience, Your Majesty,” a guard said apologetically.

“God’s teeth,” the queen swore. “Am I never to know a moment’s peace? Show her in.”

Mary Sidney sailed into the room, her veils and ruffs billowing as she moved from the chilly antechamber to the overheated room the queen occupied. She dropped a graceful curtsy midway, floated further into the room, and dropped another perfect curtsy. “Your Majesty,” she said, head bowed.

“What brings you to court, Lady Pembroke?”

“You once granted me a boon, Your Majesty—a guard against future need.”

“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth said testily. “What has your husband done now?”

“Nothing at all.” Mary got to her feet. “I have come to ask for permission to send Mistress Roydon on an important errand.”

“I cannot imagine why,” Elizabeth retorted. “She seems neither useful nor resourceful.”

“I have need of special glasses for my experiments that can only be acquired from Emperor Rudolf’s workshops. My brother’s wife—forgive me, for since Philip’s death she is now remarried and the Countess of Essex— tells me that Master Roydon is being sent to Prague. Mistress Roydon will go with him, with your blessing, and fetch what I require.”

“That vain, foolish boy! The Earl of Essex cannot resist sharing every scrap of intelligence he has with the world.” Elizabeth whirled away in a flurry of silver and gold. “I’ll have the popinjay’s head for this!”

“You did promise me, Your Majesty, when my brother died defending your kingdom, that you would grant me a favor one day.” Mary smiled serenely at Matthew and me.

“And you want to waste such a precious gift on these two?” Elizabeth looked skeptical.

“Once Matthew saved Philip’s life. He is like a brother to me.” Mary blinked at the queen with owlish innocence.

“You can be as smooth as ivory, Lady Pembroke. I wish we saw more of you at court.” Elizabeth threw up her hands. “Very well. I will keep my word. But I want Edward Kelley in my presence by midsummer—and I don’t want this bungled, or for all of Europe to know my business. Do you understand me, Master Roydon?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Matthew said through gritted teeth.

“Get yourself to Prague, then. And take your wife with you, to please Lady Pembroke.”

“Thank you, Majesty.” Matthew looked rather alarmingly as if he wished to rip Elizabeth Tudor’s bewigged head from her body.

“Out of my sight, all of you, before I change my mind.” Elizabeth returned to her chair and slumped against its carved back.

Lord Burghley indicated with a jerk of his head that we were to follow the queen’s instructions. But Matthew couldn’t leave matters where they stood.

“A word of caution, Your Majesty. Do not place your trust in the Earl of Essex.”

“You do not like him, Master Roydon. Nor does William or Walter. But he makes me feel young again.” Elizabeth turned her black eyes on him. “Once you performed that service for me and reminded me of happier times. Now you have found another and I am abandoned.”

“‘My care is like my shadow in the sun / Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, / Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done,’” Matthew said softly. “I am your Shadow, Majesty, and have no choice but to go where you lead.” “And I am tired,” Elizabeth said, turning her head away, “and have no stomach for poetry. Leave me.”

“We’re not going to Prague,” Matthew said once we were back in Henry’s barge and headed toward London. “We must go home.”

“The queen will not leave you in peace just because you flee to Woodstock, Matthew,” Mary said reasonably, burrowing into a fur blanket.

“He doesn’t mean Woodstock, Mary,” I explained. “Matthew means somewhere . . . farther.”

“Ah.” Mary’s brow furrowed. “Oh.” Her face went carefully blank.

“But we’re so close to getting what we wanted,” I said. “We know where the manuscript is, and it may answer all our questions.”

“And it may be nonsense, just like the manuscript at Dr. Dee’s house,” Matthew said impatiently. “We’ll get it another way.”

But later Walter persuaded Matthew that the queen was serious and would have us both in the Tower if we refused her. When I told Goody Alsop, she was as opposed to Prague as Matthew was.

“You should be going to your own time, not traveling to far-off Prague. Even if you were to stay here, it will take weeks to ready a spell that might get you home. Magic has guiding rules and principles that you have yet to master, Diana. All you have now is a wayward firedrake, a glaem that is near to blinding, and a tendency to ask questions that have mischievous answers. You do not have enough knowledge of the craft to succeed with your plan.”

“I will continue to study in Prague, I promise.” I took her hands in mine. “Matthew made a bargain with the queen that might protect dozens of witches. We cannot be separated. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let him go to the emperor’s court without me.”

“No,” she said with a sad smile. “Not while there is breath in your body. Very well. Go with your wearh. But know this, Diana Roydon: You are setting a new course. And I cannot foresee where it might lead.”

“The ghost of Bridget Bishop told me ‘There is no path forward that does not have him in it.’ When I feel our lives spinning into the unknown, I take comfort from those words,” I said, trying to comfort her. “So long as Matthew and I are together, Goody Alsop, our direction does not matter.”

Three days later on the feast of St. Brigid, we set sail on our long journey to see the Holy Roman Emperor, find a treacherous English daemon, and, at long last, catch a glimpse of Ashmole 782.

26

Verin de Clermont sat in her Berlin home and stared down at the newspaper in disbelief.

“What is it, Schatz?” Ernst Neumann put a glass of wine in front of his wife. She looked far too serious for a Tuesday night. This was Verin’s Friday face.

“Nothing,” she murmured, her eyes still fixed on the lines of print before her. “A piece of unfinished family business.”

“Is Baldwin involved? Did he lose a million euros today?” His brotherin-law was an acquired taste, and Ernst didn’t entirely trust him. Baldwin had trained him in the intricacies of international commerce when Ernst was still a young man. Ernst was nearly sixty now, and the envy of his friends with his young wife. Their wedding photos, which showed Verin looking exactly as she did today and a twenty-five-year-old version of himself, were safely hidden from view.

“Baldwin’s never lost a million of anything in his life.” Verin hadn’t actually answered his question, Ernst noticed.

He pulled the English newspaper toward him and read what was printed there. “Why are you interested in an old book?”

“Let me make a phone call first,” she replied cagily. Her hands were steady on the phone, but Ernst recognized the expression in her unusual silver eyes. She was angry, and frightened, and thinking of the past. He’d seen that same look moments before Verin saved his life, wrenching him away from her stepmother.

“Are you calling Mélisande?”

“Ysabeau,” Verin said automatically, punching in numbers.

“Ysabeau, yes,” Ernst said. Understandably, he found it hard to think of Verin’s stepmother by any other name than the one used by the de Clermont family matriarch when she’d killed Ernst’s father after the war.

Verin’s call took an inordinately long time to connect. Ernst could hear strange clicks, almost as though the call were being forwarded again and again. Finally it went through. The phone rang.

“Who is this?” a young voice asked. He sounded American—or English, maybe, but with his accent nearly gone.

Verin hung up immediately. She dropped the phone to the table and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. It’s really happening, just as my father said it would.”

“You’re frightening me, Schatz,” Ernst said. He’d seen many horrors in his life, but none so vivid as those that tormented Verin on those rare occasions when she actually slept. The nightmares about Philippe were enough to unravel his normally composed wife. “Who was that on the phone?”

“It wasn’t who it was supposed to be,” Verin replied, her voice muffled. Gray eyes rose to meet his. “Matthew should have answered, but he can’t. Because he’s not here. He’s there.” She looked at the paper.

“Verin, you are not making any sense,” Ernst said sternly. He’d never met this troublesome stepbrother, the family intellectual and black sheep.

But she was already dialing the phone again. This time the call went straight through.

“You’ve read today’s papers, Auntie Verin. I’ve been expecting your call for hours.”

“Where are you, Gallowglass?” Her nephew was a drifter. In the past he’d sent postcards with nothing but a phone number on them from whatever stretch of road he was traveling at the moment: the autobahn in Germany, Route 66 in the States, Trollstigen in Norway, the Guoliang Tunnel Road in China. She’d received fewer of these terse announcements since the age of international cell phones. With GPS and the Internet, she could locate Gallowglass anywhere. Verin rather missed the postcards, though.

“Somewhere outside Warrnambool,” Gallowglass said vaguely.

“Where the hell is Warrnambool?” Verin demanded.

“Australia,” Ernst and Gallowglass said at the same moment.

“Is that a German accent I hear? Have you found a new boyfriend?” Gallowglass teased.

“Watch yourself, pup,” Verin snapped. “You may be family, but I can still rip your throat out. That’s my husband, Ernst.”

Ernst sat forward in his chair and shook his head in warning. He didn’t like it when his wife took on a male vampire—even though she was stronger than most. Verin waved off his concern.

Gallowglass chuckled, and Ernst decided that this unfamiliar vampire might be all right. “There’s my scary Auntie Verin. It’s good to hear your voice after all these years. And don’t pretend you’re any more surprised to see that story than I was to get your call.”

“Part of me hoped he was raving,” Verin confessed, remembering the night when she and Gallowglass had sat by Philippe’s bed and listened to his ramblings.

“Did you imagine it was contagious and that I was raving, too?” Gallowglass snorted. He sounded very much like Philippe these days, Verin noticed.

“I hoped that was the case, as a matter of fact.” It had been easier to believe than the alternative: that her father’s impossible tale of a timespinning witch was true.

“Will you be keeping your promise anyway?” Gallowglass said softly.

Verin hesitated. It was only a moment, but Ernst saw it. Verin always kept her promises. When he’d been a terrified, cowering boy, Verin had promised him that he would grow to be a man. Ernst had clung to that assurance when he was six, just as he clung to the promises Verin had made since.

“You haven’t seen Matthew with her. Once you do—”

“I’ll think my stepbrother is even more of a problem? Not possible.”

“Give her a chance, Verin. She’s Philippe’s daughter, too. And he had excellent taste in women.”

“The witch isn’t his real daughter,” Verin said quickly.

On a road somewhere near Warrnambool, Gallowglass pressed his lips together and refused to reply. Verin might know more about Diana and Matthew than anyone else in the family, but she didn’t know as much as he did. There would be endless opportunities to discuss vampires and children once the couple was back. There was no need to argue about it now.

“Besides, Matthew isn’t here,” Verin said, looking at the paper. “I called the number. Someone else answered, and it wasn’t Baldwin.” That’s why she had disconnected so quickly. If Matthew wasn’t leading the brotherhood, the telephone number should have been passed on to Philippe’s only surviving full-blooded son. “The number” had been generated in the earliest years of the telephone. Philippe had picked it: 917, for Ysabeau’s birthday in September. With each new technology and every successive change in the national and international telephone system, the number referred seamlessly on to another, more modern iteration.

“You reached Marcus.” Gallowglass had called the number, too.

“Marcus?” Verin was aghast. “The future of the de Clermonts depends upon Marcus?”

“Give him a chance, too, Auntie Verin. He’s a good lad.” Gallowglass paused. “As for the family’s future, that depends on all of us. Philippe knew that, or he wouldn’t have made us promise to return to Sept-Tours.”

Philippe de Clermont had been very specific with his daughter and grandson. They were to watch for signs: stories of a young American witch with great power, the name Bishop, alchemy, and then a rash of anomalous historical discoveries.

Then, and only then, were Gallowglass and Verin to return to the de Clermont family seat. Philippe hadn’t been willing to divulge why it was so important that the family come together, but Gallowglass knew.

For decades Gallowglass had waited. Then he heard stories of a witch from Massachusetts named Rebecca, one of the last descendants of Salem’s Bridget Bishop. Reports of her power spread far and wide, as did news of her tragic death. Gallowglass tracked her surviving daughter to upstate New York. He’d checked on the girl periodically, watching as Diana Bishop played on the monkey bars at the playground, went to birthday parties, and graduated from college. Gallowglass had been as proud as any parent to see her pass her Oxford viva. And he often stood beneath the carillon in Harkness Tower at Yale, the power of the bells’ sound reverberating through his body, while the young professor walked across campus. Her clothing was different, but there was no mistaking Diana’s determined gait or the set of her shoulders, whether she was wearing a farthingale and ruff or a pair of trousers and an unflattering man’s jacket.

Gallowglass tried to keep his distance, but sometimes he had to interfere—like the day her energy drew a daemon to her side and the creature began to follow her. Still, Gallowglass prided himself on the hundreds of other times he’d refrained from rushing down the stairs of Yale’s bell tower, throwing his arms around Professor Bishop, and telling her how glad he was to see her after so many years.

When Gallowglass learned that Baldwin had been called to Sept-Tours at Ysabeau’s behest for some unspecified emergency involving Matthew, the Norseman knew it was only a matter of time before the historical anomalies appeared. Gallowglass had seen the announcement about the discovery of a pair of previously unknown Elizabethan miniatures. By the time he’d managed to reach Sotheby’s, they had already been purchased. Gallowglass had panicked, thinking they might have fallen into the wrong hands. But he’d underestimated Ysabeau. When he talked to Marcus this morning, Matthew’s son confirmed that they were sitting safely on Ysabeau’s desk at Sept-Tours. It had been more than four hundred years since Gallowglass had secreted the pictures away in a house in Shropshire. It would be good to see them—and the two creatures they depicted—once more.

Meanwhile he was preparing for the gathering storm as he always did: by traveling as far and fast as he could. Once it had been the seas and then the rails, but now Gallowglass took to the roads, motorcycling around as many hairpin turns and mountainsides as he could. With the wind streaming through his shaggy hair and his leather jacket fastened tight around his neck to hide the fact that his skin never showed any hint of tan, Gallowglass readied himself for the call of duty to fulfill the promise he’d made so long ago to defend the de Clermonts no matter what the cost.

“Gallowglass? Are you still there?” Verin’s voice crackled through the phone, pulling her nephew from his reveries.

“Still here, Auntie.”

“When are you going?” Verin sighed and rested her head in her hand. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Ernst yet. Poor Ernst, who had knowingly married a vampire and, in doing so, had unwittingly involved himself in a tangled tale of blood and desire that looped and swirled through the centuries. But she’d promised her father, and even though Philippe was dead, Verin had no intention of disappointing him now, and for the first time.

“I told Marcus to expect me the day after tomorrow.” Gallowglass would no more admit he was relieved by his aunt’s decision than Verin would admit that she’d had to consider whether to stand by her oath.

“We’ll see you there.” That would give Verin some time to break the news to Ernst that he was going to have to share her stepmother’s roof. He wasn’t going to be pleased.

“Travel safe, Auntie Verin,” Gallowglass managed to get out before she hung up.

Gallowglass put the phone in his pocket and stared out to sea. He’d been shipwrecked once on this stretch of Australia’s coast. He was fond of the sites where he’d been washed ashore, a merman coming aground in a tempest to find he could live on solid ground after all. He reached for his cigarettes. Like riding a motorcycle without a helmet, smoking was a way of thumbing his nose at the universe that had given him immortality with one hand but with the other taken away everyone he loved.

“And you’ll take these from me, too, won’t you?” he asked the wind. It sighed out a reply. Matthew and Marcus had very decided opinions about secondhand smoke. Just because it wouldn’t kill them, they argued, that didn’t mean they should go about exterminating everybody else.

“If we kill them all, what will we eat?” Marcus had pointed out with infallible logic. It was a curious notion for a vampire, but Marcus was known for them, and Matthew wasn’t much better. Gallowglass attributed this tendency to too much education.

He finished his cigarette and reached back into his pocket for a small leather pouch. It contained twenty-four disks an inch across and a quarter of an inch thick. They were cut from a branch he’d pulled from an ash tree that grew near his ancestral home. Each one had a mark burned into the surface, an alphabet for a language that no one spoke anymore.

He had always possessed a healthy respect for magic, even before he met Diana Bishop. There were powers abroad on the earth and the seas that no creature understood, and Gallowglass knew well enough to look the other way when they approached. But he couldn’t resist the runes. They helped him to navigate the treacherous waters of his fate.

He sifted his fingers through the smooth wooden circles, letting them fall through his hand like water. He wanted to know which way the tide was running—with the de Clermonts or against them?

When his fingers stilled, he drew out the rune that would tell him where matters stood now. Nyd, the rune for absence and desire. Gallowglass dipped his hand into the bag again to better understand what he wanted the future to hold. Odal, the glyph for home, family, and inheritance. He drew out the final rune, the one that would show him how to fulfill his gnawing wish to belong.

Rad. It was a confusing rune, one that stood for both an arrival and a departure, a journey’s beginning and its ending, a first meeting as well as a long-awaited reunion. Gallowglass’s hand closed around the bit of wood. This time its meaning was clear.

“You travel safely, too, Auntie Diana. And bring that uncle of mine with you,” Gallowglass said to the sea and the sky before he climbed back onto his bike and headed into a future he could no longer imagine nor postpone.