I traced the writing with my finger. This was my specialty—turning the scribbles of scientists into something sensible to everyone else. In his last note, Matthew had used a familiar technique to hide his thoughts. He’d written in a combination of French and Latin—and used an archaic abbreviation for daemons for good measure in which the consonants save the first and last had been replaced with lines over the vowels. That way no one paging through his book would see the word “daemons” and stop for a closer look.

“How are daemons made?” Matthew had wondered in 1859. He was still looking for the answer a century and a half later.

When Darwin began discussing the affinities between species, Matthew’s pen had been unable to stop racing across the page, making it nearly impossible to read the printed text. Against a passage explaining, “From the first dawn of life, all organic beings are found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups,” Matthew had written “ORIGINS” in large black letters. A few lines down, another passage had been underlined twice: “The existence of groups would have been of simple signification, if one group had been exclusively fitted to inhabit the land, and another the water; one to feed on flesh, another on vegetable matter, and so on; but the case is widely different in nature; for it is notorious how commonly members of even the same subgroup have different habits.”

The vampire believed that monogenesis explained everything—or at least he had in 1859. Matthew thought it was possible that daemons, humans, vampires, and witches shared common ancestors. Our considerable differences were matters of descent, habit, and selection. He had evaded me in his laboratory when I asked whether we were one species or four, but he couldn’t do so in his library.

Matthew remained fixated on his computer. Closing the covers of Aurora Consurgens to protect its pages and abandoning my search for a more ordinary Bible, I carried his copy of Darwin to the fire and curled up on the sofa. I opened it, intending to try to make sense of the vampire based on the notes he’d made in his book.

He was still a mystery to me—perhaps even more so here at Sept-Tours. Matthew in France was different from Matthew in England. He’d never lost himself in his work this way. Here his shoulders weren’t fiercely squared but relaxed, and he’d caught his lower lip in his slightly elongated, sharp cuspid as he typed. It was a sign of concentration, as was the crease between his eyes. Matthew was oblivious to my attention, his fingers flying over the keys, clattering on the computer with a considerable amount of force. He must go through laptops at quite a rate, given their delicate plastic parts. He reached the end of a sentence, leaned back in his chair, and stretched Then he yawned.

I’d never seen him yawn before. Was his yawn, like his lowered shoulders, a sign of relaxation? The day after we’d first met, Matthew had told me that he liked to know his environment. Here he knew every inch of the place—every smell was familiar, as was every creature who roamed nearby. And then there was his relationship with his mother and Marthe. They were a family, this odd assortment of vampires, and they had taken me in for Matthew’s sake.

I turned back to Darwin. But the bath, the warm fire, and the constant background noise of his clacking fingers lulled me to sleep. I woke up covered with a blanket, On the Origin of Species lying on the floor nearby, neatly closed with a slip of paper marking my place.

I flushed.

I’d been caught snooping.

“Good evening,” Matthew said from the sofa opposite. He slid a piece of paper into the book that he was reading and rested it on his knee. “Can I interest you in some wine?”

Wine sounded very, very good. “Yes, please.”

Matthew went to a small eighteenth-century table near the landing. There was a bottle with no label, the cork pulled and lying at its side. He poured two glasses and carried one to me before he sat down. I sniffed, anticipating his first question.

“Raspberries and rocks.”

“For a witch you’re really quite good at this.” Matthew nodded in approval.

“What is it that I’m drinking?” I asked, taking a sip. “Is it ancient? Rare?”

Matthew put his head back and laughed. “Neither. It was probably put in the bottle about five months ago. It’s local wine, from vineyards down the road. Nothing fancy, nothing special.”

It may not have been fancy or special, but it was fresh and tasted woody and earthy like the air around Sept-Tours.

“I see that you gave up your search for a Bible in favor of something more scientific. Were you enjoying Darwin?” he asked mildly after watching me drink for a few moments.

“Do you still believe that creatures and humans are descended from common parents? Is it really possible that the differences between us are merely racial?”

He made a small sound of impatience. “I told you in the lab that I didn’t know.”

“You were sure in 1859. And you thought that drinking blood might be simply a dietary habit, not a mark of differentiation.”

“Do you know how many scientific advances have taken place between Darwin’s time and today? It’s a scientist’s prerogative to change his mind as new information comes to light.” He drank some wine and rested the glass against his knee, turning it this way and that so the firelight played on the liquid inside. “Besides, there’s no longer much scientific evidence for human notions of racial distinctions. Modern research suggests that most ideas about race are nothing more than an outmoded human method for explaining easily observable differences between themselves and someone else.”

“The question of why you’re here—how we’re all here—really does consume you,” I said slowly. “I could see it on every page of Darwin’s book.”

Matthew studied his wine. “It’s the only question worth asking.”

His voice was soft, but his profile was stern, with its sharp lines and heavy brow. I wanted to smooth the lines and lift his features into a smile but remained seated while the firelight danced over his white skin and dark hair. Matthew picked up his book again, cradling it in one set of long fingers while his wineglass rested in the other.

I stared at the fire as the light dimmed. When a clock on the desk struck seven, Matthew put down his book. “Should we join Ysabeau in the salon before dinner?”

“Yes,” I replied, squaring my shoulders slightly. “But let me change first.” My wardrobe couldn’t hold a candle to Ysabeau’s, but I didn’t want Matthew to be completely ashamed of me. As ever, he looked ready for a boardroom or a Milan catwalk in a simple pair of black wool trousers and a fresh selection from his endless supply of sweaters. My recent close encounters with them had convinced me they were all cashmere—thick and luscious.

Upstairs, I rooted through the items in my duffel bag and selected a gray pair of trousers and a sapphire blue sweater made out of finely spun wool with a tight, funnel-shaped neck and bell-shaped sleeves. My hair had a wave in it thanks to my earlier bath and the fact that it had finished drying scrunched under my head on the sofa.

With the minimum conditions of presentability met, I slid on my loafers and started down the stairs. Matthew’s keen ears had picked up the sound of my movements, and he met me on the landing. When he saw me, his eyes lit up and his smile was wide and slow.

“I like you in blue as much as I like you in black. You look beautiful,” he murmured, kissing me formally on both cheeks. The blood moved toward them as Matthew lifted my hair around my shoulders, the strands falling through his long white fingers. “Now, don’t let Ysabeau get under your skin no matter what she says.”

“I’ll try,” I said with a little laugh, looking up at him uncertainly.

When we reached the salon, Marthe and Ysabeau were already there. His mother was surrounded by newspapers written in every major European language, as well as one in Hebrew and another in Arabic. Marthe, on the other hand, was reading a paperback murder mystery with a lurid cover, her black eyes darting over the lines of print with enviable speed.

“Good evening, Maman,” Matthew said, moving to give Ysabeau a kiss on each cold cheek. Her nostrils flared as he moved his body from one side to the other, and her cold eyes fixed on mine angrily.

I knew what had earned me such a black look.

Matthew smelled like me.

“Come, girl,” Marthe said, patting the cushion next to her and shooting Matthew’s mother a warning glance. Ysabeau closed her eyes. When they opened again, the anger was gone, replaced by something like resignation.

“Gab es einen anderen Tod,” Ysabeau murmured to her son as Matthew picked up Die Welt and began scanning the headlines with a sound of disgust.

“Where?” I asked. Another bloodless corpse had been found. If Ysabeau thought she was going to shut me out of the conversation with German, she’d better think again.

“Munich,” Matthew said, his face buried in the pages. “Christ, why doesn’t someone do something about this?”

“We must be careful what we wish for, Matthew,” Ysabeau said. She changed the subject abruptly. “How was your ride, Diana?”

Matthew peered warily at his mother over Die Welt ’s headlines.

“It was wonderful. Thank you for letting me ride Rakasa,” I replied, sitting back next to Marthe and forcing myself to meet Ysabeau’s eyes without blinking.

“She is too willful for my liking,” she said, shifting her attention to her son, who had the good sense to put his nose back in his paper. “Fiddat is much more biddable. As I get older, I find that quality admirable in horses.”

In sons, too, I thought.

Marthe smiled encouragingly at me and got up to fuss at a sideboard. She carried a large goblet of wine to Ysabeau and a much smaller one to me. Marthe returned to the table and came back with another glass for Matthew. He sniffed it appreciatively.

“Thank you, Maman,” he said, raising his glass in tribute.

“Hein, it’s not much,” Ysabeau said, taking a sip of the same wine.

“No, not much. Just one of my favorites. Thank you for remembering.” Matthew savored the wine’s flavors before swallowing the liquid down.

“Are all vampires as fond of wine as you are?” I asked Matthew, smelling the peppery wine. “You drink it all the time, and you never get the slightest bit tipsy.”

Matthew grinned. “Most vampires are much fonder of it. As for getting drunk, our family has always been known for its admirable restraint, hasn’t it, Maman?”

Ysabeau gave a most unladylike snort. “Occasionally. With respect to wine, perhaps.”

“You should be a diplomat, Ysabeau. You’re very good with a quick non-answer,” I said.

Matthew shouted with laughter. “Dieu, I never thought the day would come when my mother would be thought diplomatic. Especially not with her tongue. Ysabeau’s always been much better with the diplomacy of the sword.”

Marthe snickered in agreement.

Ysabeau and I both looked indignant, which only made him shout again.

The atmosphere at dinner was considerably warmer than it had been last night. Matthew sat at the head of the table, with Ysabeau to his left and me at his right. Marthe traveled incessantly from kitchen to fireside to table, sitting now and again to take a sip of wine and make small contributions to the conversation.

Plates full of food came and went—everything from wild mushroom soup to quail to delicate slices of beef. I marveled aloud that someone who no longer ate cooked food could have such a deft hand with spices. Marthe blushed and dimpled, swatting at Matthew when he tried to tell stories of her more spectacular culinary disasters.

“Do you remember the live pigeon pie?” He chortled. “No one ever explained that you had to keep the birds from eating for twenty-four hours before you baked it or the inside would resemble a birdbath.” That earned him a sharp tap on the back of his skull.

“Matthew,” Ysabeau warned, wiping the tears from her eyes after a prolonged bout of laughter, “you shouldn’t bait Marthe. You have had your share of disasters over the years, too.”

“And I have seen them all,” Marthe pronounced, carrying over a salad. Her English got stronger by the hour, as she switched into the language whenever she talked in front of me. She returned to the sideboard and fetched a bowl of nuts, which she put between Matthew and Ysabeau. “When you flooded the castle with your idea for capturing water on the roof, for one,” she said, ticking it off on her fingers. “When you forgot to collect the taxes, two. It was spring, you were bored, and so you got up one morning and went to Italy to make war. Your father had to beg forgiveness from the king on his knees. And then there was New York!” she shouted triumphantly.

The three vampires continued to swap reminiscences. None of them talked about Ysabeau’s past, though. When something came up that touched on her, or Matthew’s father, or his sister, the conversation slid gracefully away. I noticed the pattern and wondered about the reasons for it but said nothing, content to let the evening develop as they wished it to and strangely comforted to be part of a family again—even a family of vampires.

After dinner we returned to the salon, where the fire was larger and more impressive than before. The castle’s chimneys were heating up with each log thrown into the grate. The fires burned hotter, and the room almost felt warm as a result. Matthew made sure that Ysabeau was comfortable, getting her yet another glass of wine, and fiddled with a nearby stereo. Marthe made me tea instead, thrusting the cup and saucer into my hands.

“Drink,” she instructed, her eyes attentive. Ysabeau watched me drink, too, and gave Marthe a long look. “It will help you sleep.”

“Did you make this?” It tasted of herbs and flowers. Normally I didn’t like herbal tea, but this one was fresh and slightly bitter.

“Yes,” she answered, turning up her chin at Ysabeau’s stare. “I have made it for a long time. My mother taught me. I will teach you as well.”

The sound of dance music filled the room, lively and rhythmic. Matthew adjusted the position of the chairs by the fireplace, clearing a spot on the floor.

“Vтles danзar amb ieu?” Matthew asked his mother, holding out both hands.

Ysabeau’s smile was radiant, transforming her lovely, cold features into something indescribably beautiful. “Тc,” she said, putting her tiny hands into his. The two of them took their places in front of the fire, waiting for the next song to start.

When Matthew and his mother began to dance, they made Astaire and Rogers look clumsy. Their bodies came together and drew apart, turned in circles away from each other and then dipped and turned. The slightest touch from Matthew sent Ysabeau reeling, and the merest hint of an undulation or a hesitation from Ysabeau caused a corresponding response in him.

Ysabeau dipped into a graceful curtsy, and Matthew swept into a bow at the precise moment the music drew to its close.

“What was that?” I asked.

“It started out as a tarantella,” Matthew said, escorting his mother back to her chair, “but Maman never can stick to one dance. So there were elements of the volta in the middle, and we finished with a minuet, didn’t we?” Ysabeau nodded and reached up to pat him on the cheek.

“You always were a good dancer,” she said proudly.

“Ah, but not as good as you—and certainly not as good as Father was,” Matthew said, settling her in her chair. Ysabeau’s eyes darkened, and a heartbreaking look of sadness crossed her face. Matthew picked up her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. Ysabeau managed a small smile in return.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said, coming to me.

“I don’t like to dance, Matthew,” I protested, holding up my hands to fend him off.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said, taking my right hand in his left and drawing me close. “You contort your body into improbable shapes, skim across the water in a boat the width of a feather, and ride like the wind. Dancing should be second nature.”

The next song sounded like something that might have been popular in Parisian dance halls in the 1920s. Notes of trumpet and drum filled the room.

“Matthew, be careful with her,” Ysabeau warned as he moved me across the floor.

“She won’t break, Maman.” Matthew proceeded to dance, despite my best efforts to put my feet in his way at every opportunity. With his right hand at my waist, he gently steered me into the proper steps.

I started to think about where my legs were in an effort to help the process along, but this only made things worse. My back stiffened, and Matthew clasped me tighter.

“Relax,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re trying to lead. Your job is to follow.”

“I can’t,” I whispered back, gripping his shoulder as if he were a life preserver.

Matthew spun us around again. “Yes you can. Close your eyes, stop thinking about it, and let me do the rest.”

Inside the circle of his arms, it was easy to do what he instructed. Without the whirling shapes and colors of the room coming at me from all directions, I could relax and stop worrying that we were about to crash. Gradually the movement of our bodies in the darkness became enjoyable. Soon it was possible for me to concentrate not on what I was doing but on what his legs and arms were telling me he was about to do. It felt like floating.

“Matthew.” Ysabeau’s voice held a note of caution. “Le chatoiement.”

“I know,” he murmured. The muscles in my shoulders tensed with concern. “Trust me,” he said quietly into my ear. “I’ve got you.”

My eyes remained tightly closed, and I sighed happily. We continued to swirl together. Matthew gently released me, spinning me out to the end of his fingers, then rolled me back along his arm until I came to rest, my back tight against his chest. The music stopped.

“Open your eyes,” he said softly.

My eyelids slowly lifted. The feeling of floating remained. Dancing was better than I had expected it to be—at least it was with a partner who’d been dancing for more than a millennium and never stepped on your toes.

I tilted my face up to thank him, but his was much closer than expected.

“Look down,” Matthew said.

Turning my head in the other direction revealed that my toes were dangling several inches above the floor. Matthew released me. He wasn’t holding me up.

I was holding me up.

The air was holding me up.

With that realization the weight returned to the lower half of my body. Matthew gripped both elbows to keep my feet from smashing into the floor.

From her seat by the fire, Marthe hummed a tune under her breath. Ysabeau’s head whipped around, eyes narrowed. Matthew smiled at me reassuringly, while I concentrated on the uncanny feeling of the earth under my feet. Had the ground always seemed so alive? It was as if a thousand tiny hands were waiting under the soles of my shoes to catch me or give me a push.

“Was it fun?” Matthew asked as the last notes of Marthe’s song faded, eyes gleaming.

“It was,” I answered, laughing, after considering his question.

“I hoped it would be. You’ve been practicing for years. Now maybe you’ll ride with your eyes open for a change.” He caught me up in an embrace full of happiness and possibility.

Ysabeau began to sing the same song Marthe had been humming.

“Whoever sees her dance,

And her body move so gracefully,

Could say, in truth,

That in all the world she has no equal, our joyful queen.

Go away, go away, jealous ones,

Let us, let us,

Dance together, together.”

“Go away, go away, jealous ones,” Matthew repeated as the final echo of his mother’s voice faded, “let us dance together.”

I laughed again. “With you I’ll dance. But until I figure out how this flying business works, there will be no other partners.”

“Properly speaking, you were floating, not flying,” Matthew corrected me.

“Floating, flying—whatever you call it, it would be best not to do it with strangers.”

“Agreed,” he said.

Marthe had vacated the sofa for a chair near Ysabeau. Matthew and I sat together, our hands still entwined.

“This was her first time?” Ysabeau asked him, her voice genuinely puzzled.

“Diana doesn’t use magic, Maman, except for little things,” he explained.

“She is full of power, Matthew. Her witch’s blood sings in her veins. She should be able to use it for big things, too.”

He frowned. “It’s hers to use or not.”

“Enough of such childishness,” she said, turning her attention to me. “It is time for you to grow up, Diana, and accept responsibility for who you are.”

Matthew growled softly.

“Do not growl at me, Matthew de Clermont! I am saying what needs to be said.”

“You’re telling her what to do. It’s not your job.”

“Nor yours, my son!” Ysabeau retorted.

“Excuse me!” My sharp tone caught their attention, and the de Clermonts, mother and son, stared at me. “It’s my decision whether—and how—to use my magic. But,” I said, turning to Ysabeau, “it can’t be ignored any longer. It seems to be bubbling out of me. I need to learn how to control my power, at the very least.”

Ysabeau and Matthew continued to stare. Finally Ysabeau nodded. Matthew did, too.

We continued to sit by the fire until the logs burned down. Matthew danced with Marthe, and each of them broke into song occasionally when a piece of music reminded them of another night, by another fire. But I didn’t dance again, and Matthew didn’t press me.

Finally he stood. “I am taking the only one of us who needs her sleep up to bed.”

I stood as well, smoothing my trousers against my thighs. “Good night, Ysabeau. Good night, Marthe. Thank you both for a lovely dinner and a surprising evening.”

Marthe gave me a smile in return. Ysabeau did her best but managed only a tight grimace.

Matthew let me lead the way and put his hand gently against the small of my back as we climbed the stairs.

“I might read for a bit,” I said, turning to face him when we reached his study.

He was directly behind me, so close that the faint, ragged sound of his breath was audible. He took my face in his hands.

“What spell have you put on me?” He searched my face. “It’s not simply your eyes—though they do make it impossible for me to think straight—or the fact you smell like honey.” He buried his face in my neck, the fingers of one hand sliding into my hair while the other drifted down my back, pulling my hips toward him.

My body softened into his, as if it were meant to fit there.

“It’s your fearlessness,” he murmured against my skin, “and the way you move without thinking, and the shimmer you give off when you concentrate—or when you fly.”

My neck arched, exposing more flesh to his touch. Matthew slowly turned my face toward him, his thumb seeking out the warmth of my lips.

“Did you know that your mouth puckers when you sleep? You look as though you might be displeased with your dreams, but I prefer to think you wish to be kissed.” He sounded more French with each word that he spoke.

Aware of Ysabeau’s disapproving presence downstairs, as well as her acute, vampiric hearing, I tried to pull away. It wasn’t convincing, and Matthew’s arms tightened.

“Matthew, your mother—”

He gave me no chance to complete my sentence. With a soft, satisfied sound, he deliberately fitted his lips to mine and kissed me, gently but thoroughly, until my entire body—not just my hands—was tingling. I kissed him back, feeling a simultaneous sense of floating and falling until I had no clear awareness of where my body ended and his began. His mouth drifted to my cheeks and eyelids. When it brushed against my ear, I gasped. Matthew’s lips curved into a smile, and he pressed them once more against my own.

“Your lips are as red as poppies, and your hair is so alive,” he said when he was quite finished kissing me with an intensity that left me breathless.

“What is it with you and my hair? Why anyone with a head of hair like yours would be impressed with this,” I said, grabbing a fistful of it and pulling, “is beyond me. Ysabeau’s hair looks like satin, so does Marthe’s. Mine is a mess—every color of the rainbow and badly behaved as well.”

“That’s why I love it,” Matthew said, gently freeing the strands. “It’s imperfect, just like life. It’s not vampire hair, all polished and flawless. I like that you’re not a vampire, Diana.”

“And I like that you are a vampire, Matthew.”

A shadow flitted across his eyes, gone in a moment.

“I like your strength,” I said, kissing him with the same enthusiasm as he had kissed me. “I like your intelligence. Sometimes I even like your bossiness. But most of all”—I rubbed the tip of my nose gently against his—“I like the way you smell.”

“You do?”

“I do.” My nose went into the hollow between his collarbones, which I was fast learning was the spiciest, sweetest part of him.

“It’s late. You need your rest.” He released me reluctantly.

“Come to bed with me.”

His eyes widened with surprise at the invitation, and the blood coursed to my face.

Matthew brought my hand to his heart. It beat once, powerfully. “I will come up,” he said, “but not to stay. We have time, Diana. You’ve known me for only a few weeks. There’s no need to rush.”

Spoken like a vampire.

He saw my dejection and drew me closer for another lingering kiss. “A promise,” he said, when he was finished, “of what’s to come. In time.”

It was time. But my lips were alternately freezing and burning, making me wonder for a fleeting second if I was as ready as I thought.

Upstairs, the room was ablaze with candles and warm from the fire. How Marthe had managed to get up here, change dozens of candles, and light them so that they would still be burning at bedtime was a mystery, but the room didn’t have a single electrical outlet, so I was doubly grateful for her efforts.

Changing in the bathroom behind a partially closed door, I listened to Matthew’s plans for the next day. These involved a long walk, another long ride, and more work in the study.

I agreed to all of it—provided that the work came first. The alchemical manuscript was calling to me, and I was eager to get a closer look at it.

I got into Matthew’s vast four-poster, and he tightened the sheets around my body before pinching out the candles.

“Sing to me,” I said, watching his long fingers fearlessly move through the flames. “An old song—one Marthe likes.” Her wicked fondness for love songs had not gone unnoticed.

He was quiet for a few moments while he walked through the room, snuffing the candles and trailing shadows behind him as the room fell into darkness. He began to sing in his rich baritone.

“Ni muer ni viu ni no guaris,

Ni mal no·m sent e si l’ai gran,

Quar de s’amor no suy devis,

Ni no sai si ja n’aurai ni quan,

Qu’en lieys es tota le mercйs

Que·m pot sorzer o decazer.”

The song was full of yearning, and teetered on the edge of sadness. By the time he returned to my side, the song was finished. Matthew left one candle burning next to the bed.

“What do the words mean?” I reached for his hand.

“‘Not dying nor living nor healing, there is no pain in my sickness, for I am not kept from her love.’” He leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “‘I don’t know if I will ever have it, for all the mercy that makes me flourish or decay is in her power.’ ”

“Who wrote that?” I asked, struck by the aptness of the words when sung by a vampire.

“My father wrote it for Ysabeau. Someone else took the credit, though,” Matthew said, his eyes gleaming and his smile bright and content. He hummed the song under his breath as he went downstairs. I lay in his bed, alone, and watched the last candle burn until it guttered out.

A vampire holding a breakfast tray greeted me the next morning after my shower.

“I told Marthe you wanted to work this morning,” Matthew explained, lifting the cover that was keeping the food warm.

“You two are spoiling me.” I unfolded the napkin waiting on a nearby chair.

“I don’t think your character is in any real danger.” Matthew stooped and gave me a lingering kiss, his eyes smoky. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Very well.” I took the plate from his hands, my cheeks reddening at the memory of the invitation I’d extended to him last night. There was still a twinge of hurt when I recalled his gentle rebuff, but this morning’s kiss confirmed that we had slipped past the limits of friendship and were moving in a new direction.

After my breakfast we headed downstairs, turned on our computers, and got to work. Matthew had left a perfectly ordinary nineteenth-century copy of an early English translation of the Vulgate Bible on the table next to his manuscript.

“Thank you,” I called over my shoulder, holding it up.

“I found it downstairs. Apparently the one I have isn’t good enough for you.” He grinned.

“I absolutely refuse to treat a Gutenberg Bible as a reference book, Matthew.” My voice came out more sternly than anticipated, making me sound like a schoolmarm.

“I know the Bible backwards and forwards. If you have a question, you could just ask me,” he suggested.

“I’m not using you as a reference book either.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug and another smile.

With my computer at my side and an alchemical manuscript before me, I was soon absorbed in reading, analyzing, and recording my ideas. There was one distracting incident when I asked Matthew for something to weight down the book’s pages while I typed. He rummaged around and found a bronze medal with the likeness of Louis XIV on it and a small wooden foot that he claimed came from a German angel. He wouldn’t surrender the two objects without sureties for their return. Finally he was satisfied by several more kisses.

Aurora Consurgens was one of the most beautiful texts in the alchemical tradition, a meditation on the female figure of Wisdom as well as an exploration of the chemical reconciliation of opposing natural forces. The text in Matthew’s copy was nearly identical to the copies I’d consulted in Zurich, Glasgow, and London. But the illustrations were quite different.

The artist, Bourgot Le Noir, had been a true master of her craft. Each illumination was precise and beautifully executed. But her talent did not lie simply in technical mastery. Her depictions of the female characters showed a different sensibility. Bourgot’s Wisdom was full of strength, but there was a softness to her as well. In the first illumination, where Wisdom shielded the personification of the seven metals in her cloak, she bore an expression of fierce, maternal pride.

There were two illuminations—just as Matthew had promised—that weren’t included in any known copy of Aurora Consurgens. Both appeared in the final parable, devoted to the chemical wedding of gold and silver. The first accompanied words spoken by the female principle in alchemical change. Often represented as a queen dressed in white with emblems of the moon to show her association with silver, she had been transformed by Bourgot into a beautiful, terrifying creature with silvery snakes instead of hair, her face shadowed like a moon eclipsed by the sun. Silently I read the accompanying text, translating the Latin into English: “Turn to me with all your heart. Do not refuse me because I am dark and shadowed. The fire of the sun has altered me. The seas have encompassed me. The earth has been corrupted because of my work. Night fell over the earth when I sank into the miry deep, and my substance was hidden.”

The Moon Queen held a star in one outstretched palm. “From the depths of the water I cried out to you, and from the depths of the earth I will call to those who pass by me,” I continued. “Watch for me. See me. And if you find another who is like me, I will give him the morning star.” My lips formed the words, and Bourgot’s illumination bought the text to life in the Moon Queen’s expression that showed both her fear of rejection and her shy pride.

The second unique illumination came on the next page and accompanied the words spoken by the male principle, the golden Sun King. The hair on my neck rose at Bourgot’s depiction of a heavy stone sarcophagus, its lid open just enough to reveal a golden body lying within. The king’s eyes were closed peacefully, and there was a look of hope on his face as if he were dreaming of his release. “I will rise now and go about the city. In its streets I will seek out a pure woman to marry,” I read, “her face beautiful, her body more beautiful, her raiment most beautiful. She will roll away the stone from the entrance of my tomb and give me the wings of a dove so that I might fly with her to the heavens to live forever and be at rest.” The passage reminded me of Matthew’s badge from Bethany and Lazarus’s tiny silver coffin. I reached for the Bible.

“Mark 16, Psalms 55, and Deuteronomy 32, verse 40.” Matthew’s voice cut through the quiet, spouting references like an automated biblical concordance.

“How did you know what I was reading?” I twisted in my chair to get a better view of him.

“Your lips were moving,” he replied, staring fixedly at his computer screen, his fingers clattering on the keys.

“Find it?” Matthew inquired mildly.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The room grew silent once more.

“Where’s the verse about the morning star?” Sometimes my pagan background was a serious professional liability.

“Revelation 2, verse 28.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” A smothered laugh came from the other desk. I bent my head to the manuscript and ignored it.

After two hours of reading tiny, Gothic handwriting and searching for corresponding biblical references, I was more than ready to go riding when Matthew suggested it was time for a break. As an added bonus, he promised to tell me over lunch how he knew the seventeenth-century physiologist William Harvey.

“It’s not a very interesting story,” Matthew had protested.

“Maybe not to you. But to a historian of science? It’s the closest thing I’ll get to meeting the man who figured out that the heart is a pump.”

We hadn’t seen the sun since we’d arrived at Sept-Tours, but neither of us minded. Matthew seemed more relaxed, and I was surprisingly happy to be out of Oxford. Gillian’s threats, the picture of my parents, even Peter Knox—they all receded with each hour that passed.

As we walked out into the gardens, Matthew chatted animatedly about a problem at work that involved a missing strand of something that should have been present in a blood sample but wasn’t. He sketched out a chromosome in the air in an effort to explain, pointing to the offending area, and I nodded even though what was at stake remained mysterious. The words continued to roll out of his mouth, and he put an arm around my shoulder, drawing me close.

We rounded a line of hedges. A man in black stood outside the gate we’d passed through yesterday on our ride. The way he leaned against a chestnut tree, with the elegance of a leopard on the prowl, suggested he was a vampire.

Matthew scooped me behind him.

The man pulled himself gracefully away from the tree’s rough trunk and strolled toward us. The fact that he was a vampire was now confirmed by his unnaturally white skin and huge, dark eyes, emphasized by his black leather jacket, jeans, and boots. This vampire didn’t care who knew he was different. His wolfish expression was the only imperfection in an otherwise angelic face, with symmetrical features and dark hair worn curling low onto his collar. He was smaller and slighter than Matthew, but the power he exuded was undeniable. His eyes sent coldness deep under my skin, where it spread like a stain.

“Domenico,” Matthew said calmly, though his voice was louder than usual.

“Matthew.” The glance the vampire turned on Matthew was full of hate.

“It’s been years.” Matthew’s casual tone suggested that the vampire’s sudden appearance was an everyday occurrence.

Domenico looked thoughtful. “When was that? In Ferrara? We were both fighting the pope—though for different reasons, as I remember. I was trying to save Venice. You were trying to save the Templars.”

Matthew nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the other vampire. “I think you must be right.”

“After that, my friend, you seemed to disappear. We shared so many adventures in our youth: on the seas, in the Holy Land. Venice was always full of amusements for a vampire such as you, Matthew.” Domenico shook his head in apparent sorrow. The vampire inside the chвteau gate did look Venetian—or like some unholy cross between an angel and a devil. “Why did you not come and visit me when you passed between France and one of your other haunts?”

“If I caused offense, Domenico, it was surely too long ago to be of any concern to us now.”

“Perhaps, but one thing hasn’t changed in all these years. Whenever there’s a crisis, there’s a de Clermont nearby.” He turned to me, and something avaricious bloomed on his face. “This must be the witch I’ve heard so much about.”

“Diana, go back to the house,” Matthew said sharply.

The sense of danger was palpable, and I hesitated, not wanting to leave him alone.

“Go,” he said again, his voice as keen edged as a sword.

Our vampire visitor spotted something over my shoulder and smiled. An icy breeze brushed past me and a cold, hard arm linked through mine.

“Domenico,” chimed Ysabeau’s musical voice. “What an unexpected visit.”

He bowed formally. “My lady, it is a pleasure to see you in such good health. How did you know I was here?”

“I smelled you,” Ysabeau said contemptuously. “You come here, to my house, uninvited. What would your mother say if she knew you behaved in such a fashion?”

“If my mother was still alive, we could ask her,” Domenico said with barely concealed savagery.

“Maman, take Diana back to the house.”

“Of course, Matthew. We will leave the two of you to talk.” Ysabeau turned, tugging me along with her.

“I’ll be gone more quickly if you let me deliver my message,” Domenico warned. “If I have to come back, I won’t be alone. Today’s visit was a courtesy to you, Ysabeau.”

“She doesn’t have the book,” Matthew said sharply.

“I’m not here about the witches’ damned book, Matthew. Let them keep it. I’ve come from the Congregation.”

Ysabeau exhaled, soft and long, as if she’d been holding her breath for days. A question burbled to my lips, but she silenced it with a warning look.

“Well done, Domenico. I’m surprised you have the time to call on old friends, with all your new responsibilities.” Matthew’s voice was scornful. “Why is the Congregation wasting time paying official visits on the de Clermont family when there are vampires leaving bloodless corpses all over Europe for humans to find?”

“It’s not forbidden for vampires to feed on humans—though the carelessness is regrettable. As you know, death follows vampires wherever we go.” Domenico shrugged off the brutality, and I shivered at his casual disregard for frail, warmblooded life. “But the covenant clearly forbids any liaison between a vampire and a witch.”

I turned and stared at Domenico. “What did you say?”

“She can speak!” Domenico clasped his hands in mock delight. “Why not let the witch take part in this conversation?”

Matthew reached around and drew me forward. Ysabeau remained entwined through my other arm. We stood in a short, tight line of vampire, witch, and vampire.

“Diana Bishop.” Domenico bowed low. “It’s an honor to meet a witch of such ancient, distinguished lineage. So few of the old families are still with us.” Every word he uttered—no matter how formally phrased—sounded like a threat.

“Who are you?” I asked. “And why are you concerned with whom I spend time?”

The Venetian looked at me with interest before his head fell back and he howled with laughter. “They said you were argumentative like your father, but I didn’t believe them.”

My fingers tingled slightly, and Ysabeau’s arm grew fractionally tighter.

“Have I made your witch angry?” Domenico’s eyes were fixed on Ysabeau’s arm.

“Say what you came to say and get off our land.” Matthew’s voice was entirely conversational.

“My name is Domenico Michele. I have known Matthew since I was reborn, and Ysabeau nearly as long. I know neither of them so well as I knew the lovely Louisa, of course. But we should not speak lightly of the dead.” The Venetian crossed himself piously.

“You should try not to speak of my sister at all.” Matthew sounded calm, but Ysabeau looked murderous, her lips white.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said, drawing Domenico’s attention once more.

The Venetian’s eyes glittered with frank appraisal.

“Diana,” Matthew said, unable to stop the rumble in his throat. It was as close as he’d ever been to growling at me. Marthe came out of the kitchens, a look of alarm on her face.

“She is more fiery than most of her kind, I see. Is that why you’re risking everything to keep her with you? Does she amuse you? Or do you intend to feed on her until you get bored and then discard her, as you have with other warmbloods?”

Matthew’s hands strayed to Lazarus’s coffin, evident only as a bump under his sweater. He hadn’t touched it since we’d arrived in Sept-Tours.

Domenico’s keen eyes noticed the gesture, too, and his answering smile was vindictive. “Feeling guilty?”

Furious at the way Domenico was baiting Matthew, I opened my mouth to speak.

“Diana, go back to the house immediately.” Matthew’s tone suggested that we would have a serious, unpleasant talk later. He pushed me slightly in Ysabeau’s direction and put himself even more squarely between his mother, me, and the dark Venetian. By that time Marthe was nearby, her arms crossed over her sturdy body in a striking imitation of Matthew.

“Not before the witch hears what I have to say. I have come to serve you with a warning, Diana Bishop. Relationships between witches and vampires are forbidden. You must leave this house and no longer associate with Matthew de Clermont or any of his family. If you don’t, the Congregation will take whatever steps are necessary to preserve the covenant.”

“I don’t know your Congregation, and I agreed to no such covenant,” I said, still furious. “Besides, covenants aren’t enforceable. They’re voluntary.”

“Are you a lawyer as well as a historian? You modern women with your fine educations are so fascinating. But women are no good at theology,” Domenico continued sorrowfully, “which is why we never thought it worth educating you in the first place. Do you think we adhered to the ideas of that heretic Calvin when we made these promises to one another? When the covenant was sworn, it bound all vampires, daemons, and witches—past, present, and future. This is not a path you can follow or not as you please.”

“You’ve delivered your warning, Domenico,” Matthew said in a voice like silk.

“That’s all I have to say to the witch,” the Venetian replied. “I have more to say to you.”

“Then Diana will return to the house. Get her out of here, Maman,” he said tersely.

This time his mother did what he asked immediately, and Marthe followed. “Don’t,” Ysabeau hissed when I turned to look back at Matthew.

“Where did that thing come from?” Marthe asked once we were safely inside.

“From hell, presumably,” said Ysabeau. She touched my face briefly with her fingertips, drawing them back hastily when they met the warmth of my angry cheeks. “You are brave, girl, but what you did was reckless. You are not a vampire. Do not put yourself at risk by arguing with Domenico or any of his allies. Stay away from them.”

Ysabeau gave me no time to respond, speeding me through the kitchens, the dining room, the salon, and into the great hall. Finally she towed me toward the arch that led to the keep’s most formidable tower. My calves seized up at the thought of the climb.

“We must,” she insisted. “Matthew will be looking for us there.”

Fear and anger propelled me halfway up the stairs. The second half I conquered through sheer determination. Lifting my feet from the final tread, I found myself on a flat roof with a view for miles in every direction. A faint breeze blew, loosening my braided hair and coaxing the mist around me.

Ysabeau moved swiftly to a pole that extended another dozen feet into the sky. She raised a forked black banner adorned with a silver ouroboros. It unfurled in the gloomy light, the snake holding its shimmering tail in its mouth. I ran to the far side of the crenellated walls, and Domenico looked up.

Moments later a similar banner rose over the top of a building in the village and a bell began to toll. Men and women slowly came out of houses, bars, shops, and offices, their faces turned toward Sept-Tours, where the ancient symbol of eternity and rebirth snapped in the wind. I looked at Ysabeau, my question evident on my face.

“Our family’s emblem, and a warning to the village to be on their guard,” she explained. “We fly the banner only when others are with us. The villagers have grown too accustomed to living among vampires, and though they have nothing to fear from us, we have kept it for times such as this. The world is full of vampires who cannot be trusted, Diana. Domenico Michele is one of them.”

“You didn’t need to tell me that. Who the hell is he?”

“One of Matthew’s oldest friends,” Ysabeau murmured, eyes on her son, “which makes him a very dangerous enemy.”

My attention turned to Matthew, who continued to exchange words with Domenico across a precisely drawn zone of engagement. There was a blur of black and gray movement, and the Venetian hurtled backward toward the chestnut tree he’d been leaning against when we first spotted him. A loud crack carried across the grounds.

“Well done,” Ysabeau muttered.

“Where’s Marthe?” I looked over my shoulder toward the stairs.

“In the hall. Just in case.” Ysabeau’s keen eyes remained fixed on her son.

“Would Domenico really come in here and rip my throat open?”

Ysabeau turned her black, glittering gaze on me. “That would be all too easy, my dear. He would play with you first. He always plays with his prey. And Domenico loves an audience.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“You are, if you have as much power as Matthew believes. Witches are very good at protecting themselves, I’ve found, with a little effort and a drop of courage,” Ysabeau said.

“What is this Congregation that Domenico mentioned?” I asked.

“A council of nine—three from each order of daemons, witches, and vampires. It was established during the Crusades to keep us from being exposed to the humans. We were careless and became too involved in their politics and other forms of insanity.” Ysabeau’s voice was bitter. “Ambition, pride, and grasping creatures like Michele who were never content with their lot in life and always wanted more—they drove us to the covenant.”

“And you agreed to certain conditions?” It was ludicrous to think that promises made by creatures in the Middle Ages could affect Matthew and me.

Ysabeau nodded, the breeze catching a few strands of her heavy, honeyed hair and moving them around her face. “When we mixed with one another, we were too conspicuous. When we became involved in human affairs, they grew suspicious of our cleverness. They are not quick, the poor creatures, but they are not entirely stupid either.”

“By ‘mixing,’ you don’t mean dinners and dancing.”

“No dinners, no dancing—and no kissing and singing songs to each other,” Ysabeau said pointedly. “And what comes after the dancing and the kissing was forbidden as well. We were full of arrogance before we agreed to the covenant. There were more of us, and we’d become accustomed to taking whatever we wanted, no matter the cost.”

“What else does this promise cover?”

“No politics or religion. Too many princes and popes were otherworldly creatures. It became more difficult to pass from one life to the next once humans started writing their chronicles.” Ysabeau shuddered. “Vampires found it difficult to feign a good death and move on to a new life with humans nosing around.”

I glanced quickly at Matthew and Domenico, but they were still talking outside the chвteau’s walls. “So,” I repeated, ticking items off my fingers. “No mixing between different types of creatures. No careers in human politics or religion. Anything else?” Apparently my aunt’s xenophobia and fierce opposition to my studying the law derived from her imperfect understanding of this long-ago agreement.

“Yes. If any creature breaks the covenant, it is the responsibility of the Congregation to see that the misconduct is stopped and the oath is upheld.”

“And if two creatures break the covenant?”

The silence stretched taut between us.

“To my knowledge it has never happened,” she said grimly. “It is a very good thing, therefore, that the two of you have not done so.”

Last night I’d made a simple request that Matthew join me in my bed. But he’d known it wasn’t a simple request. It wasn’t me he was unsure of, or his feelings. Matthew wanted to know how far he could go before the Congregation would intervene.

The answer had come quickly. They weren’t going to let us get very far at all.

My relief was quickly replaced by anger. Had no one complained, as our relationship developed, he might never have told me about the Congregation or the covenant. And his silence would have had implications for my relationship with my own family, and with his. I might have gone to my grave believing that my aunt and Ysabeau were bigots. Instead they were living up to a promise made long ago—which was less understandable but somehow more excusable.

“Your son needs to stop keeping things from me.” My temper rose, the tingling mounting in my fingertips. “And you should worry less about the Congregation and more about what I’m going to do when I see him again.”

She snorted. “You won’t get the chance to do much before he takes you to task for questioning his authority in front of Domenico.”

“I’m not under Matthew’s authority.”

“You, my dear, have a great deal to learn about vampires,” she said with a note of satisfaction.

“And you have a great deal to learn about me. So does the Congregation.”

Ysabeau took me by the shoulders, her fingers digging into the flesh of my arms. “This is not a game, Diana! Matthew would willingly turn his back on creatures he has known for centuries to protect your right to be whatever you imagine you want to be in your fleeting life. I’m begging you not to let him do it. They will kill him if he persists.”

“He’s his own man, Ysabeau,” I said coldly. “I don’t tell Matthew what to do.”

“No, but you have the power to send him away. Tell him you refuse to break the covenant for him, for his sake—or that you feel nothing more for him than curiosity—witches are famous for it.” She flung me away. “If you love him, you’ll know what to say.”

“It is over,” Marthe called from the top of the stairs.

We both rushed to the edge of the tower. A black horse and rider streaked out of the stables and cleared the paddock fence before thundering into the forest.

We’d been waiting in the salon, the three of us, since he’d ridden off on Balthasar in the late morning. Now the shadows were lengthening toward twilight. A human would be half dead from the prolonged effort needed to control that enormous horse in the open countryside. However, the events of the morning had reminded me that Matthew wasn’t human, but a vampire—with many secrets, a complicated past, and frightening enemies.

Overhead, a door closed.

“He’s back. He will go to his father’s room, as he always does when he is troubled,” Ysabeau explained.

Matthew’s beautiful young mother sat and stared at the fire, while I wrung my hands in my lap, refusing everything Marthe put in front of me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but my hollowness had nothing to do with hunger.

I felt shattered, surrounded by the broken pieces of my formerly ordered life. My degree from Oxford, my position at Yale, and my carefully researched and written books had long provided meaning and structure to my life. But none of them were of comfort to me in this strange new world of menacing vampires and threatening witches. My exposure to it had left me raw, with a new fragility linked to a vampire and the invisible, undeniable movement of a witch’s blood in my veins.

At last Matthew entered the salon, clean and dressed in fresh clothes. His eyes sought me out immediately, their cold touch fluttering over me as he checked that I was unharmed. His mouth softened in relief.

It was the last hint of comforting familiarity that I detected in him.

The vampire who entered the salon was not the Matthew that I knew. He was not the elegant, charming creature who had slipped into my life with a mocking smile and invitations to breakfast. Nor was he the scientist, absorbed in his work and preoccupied with the question of why he was here. And there was no sign of the Matthew who had swung me into his arms and kissed me with such passionate intensity only the night before.

This Matthew was cold and impassive. The few soft edges he’d once possessed—around his mouth, in the delicacy of his hands, the stillness of his eyes—had been replaced by hard lines and angles. He seemed older than I remembered, a combination of weariness and careful remove reflecting every moment of his nearly fifteen hundred years of age.

A log broke in the fireplace. The sparks caught my eye, burning blood orange as they fell in the grate.

Nothing but the color red appeared at first. Then the red took on a texture, strands of red burnished here and there with gold and silver. The texture became a thing—hair, Sarah’s hair. My fingers caught the strap of a backpack from my shoulder, and I dropped my lunch box on the floor of the family room with the same officious clatter as my father when he dropped his briefcase by the door.

“I’m home.” My child’s voice was high and bright. “Are there cookies?”

Sarah’s head turned, red and orange, catching sparks in the late-afternoon light.

But her face was pure white.

The white overwhelmed the other colors, became silver, and assumed a texture like the scales of a fish. Chain mail clung to a familiar, muscular body. Matthew.

“I’m through.” His white hands tore at a black tunic with a silver cross on the front, rending it at the shoulders. He flung it at someone’s feet, turned, and strode away.

With a single blink of my eyes, the vision was gone, replaced by the warm tones of the salon at Sept-Tours, but the startling knowledge of what had happened lingered. As with the witchwind, there had been no warning when this hidden talent of mine was released. Had my mother’s visions come on so suddenly and had such clarity? I glanced around the room, but the only creature who seemed to have noticed something was odd was Marthe, who looked at me with concern.

Matthew went to Ysabeau and kissed her lightly on both of her flawless white cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Maman,” he murmured.

“Hein, he was always a pig. It’s not your fault.” Ysabeau gave her son’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I am glad you are home.”

“He’s gone. There’s nothing to worry about tonight,” Matthew said, his mouth tight. He drew his fingers through his hair.

“Drink.” Marthe belonged to the sustenance school of crisis management. She handed a glass of wine to Matthew and plunked yet another cup of tea next to me. It sat on the table, untouched, sending tendrils of steam into the room.

“Thank you, Marthe.” Matthew drank deeply. As he did, his eyes returned to mine, but he deliberately looked away as he swallowed. “My phone,” he said, turning toward his study.

He descended the stairs a few moments later. “For you.” He gave me the phone in such a way that our hands didn’t need to touch.

I knew who was on the line. “Hello, Sarah.”

“I’ve been calling for more than eight hours. What on earth is wrong?” Sarah knew something bad was happening—she wouldn’t have called a vampire otherwise. Her tense voice conjured up the image of her white face from my vision. She’d been frightened in it, not just sad.

“There’s nothing wrong,” I said, not wanting her to be scared anymore. “I’m with Matthew.”

“Being with Matthew is what got you into this trouble in the first place.”

“Sarah, I can’t talk now.” The last thing I needed was to argue with my aunt.

She drew in her breath. “Diana, there are a few things you need to know before you decide to throw in your lot with a vampire.”

“Really?” I asked, my temper flaring. “Do you think now is the time to tell me about the covenant? You don’t by any chance know the witches who are among the current members of the Congregation, do you? I have a few things I’d like to say to them.” My fingers were burning, and the skin under my nails was becoming a vivid sky blue.

“You turned your back on your power, Diana, and refused to talk about magic. The covenant wasn’t relevant to your life, nor was the Congregation.” Sarah sounded defensive.

My bitter laugh helped the blue tinge fade from my fingers. “Justify it any way you want, Sarah. After Mom and Dad were killed, you and Em should have told me, and not just hinted at something in mysterious half-truths. But it’s too late now. I need to talk to Matthew. I’ll call you tomorrow.” After severing the connection and flinging the phone onto the ottoman at my feet, I closed my eyes and waited for the tingling in my fingers to subside.

All three vampires were staring at me—I could feel it.

“So,” I said into the silence, “are we to expect more visitors from this Congregation?”

Matthew’s mouth tightened. “No.”

It was a one-word answer, but at least it was the word I wanted to hear. Over the past few days, I’d had a respite from Matthew’s mood changes and had almost forgotten how alarming they could be. His next words wiped away my hope that this latest outburst would soon pass.

“There will be no visits from the Congregation because we aren’t going to break the covenant. We’ll stay here for a few more days, then return to Oxford. Is that all right with you, Maman?”

“Of course,” Ysabeau replied promptly. She sighed with relief.

“We should keep the standard flying,” Matthew continued, his voice businesslike. “The village should know to be on its guard.”

Ysabeau nodded, and her son took a sip of his wine. I stared, first at one and then the other. Neither responded to my silent demand for more information.

“It’s only been a few days since you took me out of Oxford,” I said after no one rose to my wordless challenge.

Matthew’s eyes lifted to mine in forbidding response. “Now you’re going back,” he said evenly. “Meanwhile there will be no walks outside the grounds. No riding on your own.” His present coldness was more frightening than anything Domenico had said.

“And?” I pressed him.

“No more dancing,” Matthew said, his abruptness suggesting that a host of other activities were included in this category. “We’re going to abide by the Congregation’s rules. If we stop aggravating them, they’ll turn their attention to more important matters.”

“I see. You want me to play dead. And you’ll give up your work and Ashmole 782? I don’t believe that.” I stood and moved toward the door.

Matthew’s hand was rough on my arm. It violated all the laws of physics that he could have reached my side so quickly.

“Sit down, Diana.” His voice was as rough as his touch, but it was oddly gratifying that he was showing any emotion at all.

“Why are you giving in?” I whispered.

“To avoid exposing us all to the humans—and to keep you alive.” He pulled me back to the sofa and pushed me onto the cushions. “This family is not a democracy, especially not at a time like this. When I tell you to do something, you do it, without hesitation or question. Understood?” Matthew’s tone indicated that the discussion was over.

“Or what?” I was deliberately provoking him, but his aloofness frightened me.

He put down his wine, and the crystal captured the light from the candles.

I felt myself falling, this time into a pool of water.

The pool became a drop, the drop a tear glistening on a white cheek.

Sarah’s cheeks were covered in tears, her eyes red and swollen. Em was in the kitchen. When she joined us, it was evident that she’ d been crying, too. She looked devastated.

“What?” I said, fear gripping my stomach. “What’s happened?”

Sarah wiped at her eyes, her fingers stained with the herbs and spices she used in her spell casting.

Her fingers grew longer, the stains dissolving.

“What?” Matthew said, his eyes wild, white fingers brushing a tiny, bloodstained tear from an equally white cheek. “What’s happened?”

“Witches. They have your father,” Ysabeau said, her voice breaking.

As the vision faded, I searched for Matthew, hoping his eyes would exert their usual pull and relieve my lingering disorientation. As soon as our glances met, he came and hovered over me. But there was none of the usual comfort associated with his presence.

“I will kill you myself before I let anyone hurt you.” The words caught in his throat. “And I don’t want to kill you. So please do what I tell you.”

“So that’s it?” I asked when I could manage it. “We’re going to abide by an ancient, narrow-minded agreement made almost a thousand years ago. Case closed.”

“You mustn’t be under the Congregation’s scrutiny. You have no control over your magic and no understanding of your relationship to Ashmole 782. At Sept-Tours you may be protected from Peter Knox, Diana, but I’ve told you before that you aren’t safe around vampires. No warmblood is. Ever.”

“You won’t hurt me.” In spite of what had happened over the past several days, on this point I was absolutely certain.

“You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood.”

I made a dismissive gesture. “You’ve killed humans. I know this, Matthew. You’re a vampire, and you’ve lived for hundreds of years. Do you think I imagined you survived on nothing but animals?”

Ysabeau was watching her son closely.

“Saying you know I’ve killed humans and understanding what that means are two different things, Diana. You have no idea what I’m capable of.” He touched his talisman from Bethany and moved away from me with swift, impatient steps.

“I know who you are.” Here was another point of absolute certainty. I wondered what made me so instinctively sure of Matthew as the evidence about the brutality of vampires—even witches—mounted.

“You don’t know yourself. And three weeks ago you’d never heard of me.” Matthew’s gaze was restless and his hands, like mine, were shaking. This worried me less than the fact that Ysabeau had pitched farther forward in her seat. He picked up a poker and gave the fire a vicious thrust before throwing it aside. The metal rang against the stone, gouging the hard surface as if it were butter.

“We will figure this out. Give us some time.” I tried to make my voice low and soothing.

“There’s nothing to figure out.” Matthew was pacing now. “You have too much undisciplined power. It’s like a drug—a highly addictive, dangerous drug that other creatures are desperate to share. You’ll never be safe so long as a witch or vampire is near you.”

My mouth opened to respond, but the place where he’d been standing was empty. Matthew’s icy fingers were on my chin, lifting me to my feet.

“I’m a predator, Diana.” He said it with the seductiveness of a lover. The dark aroma of cloves made me dizzy. “I have to hunt and kill to survive.” He turned my face away from him with a savage twist, exposing my neck. His restless eyes raked over my throat.

“Matthew, put Diana down.” Ysabeau sounded unconcerned, and my own faith in him remained unshaken. He wanted to frighten me off for some reason, but I was in no real danger—not as I had been with Domenico.

“She thinks she knows me, Maman,” he purred. “But Diana doesn’t know what it’s like when the craving for a warmblood tightens your stomach so much that you’re mad with need. She doesn’t know how much we want to feel the blood of another heart pulsing through our veins. Or how difficult it is for me to stand here, so close, and not taste her.”

Ysabeau rose but remained where she was. “Now is not the time to teach her, Matthew.”

“You see, it’s not just that I could kill you outright,” he continued, ignoring his mother. His black eyes were mesmerizing. “I could feed on you slowly, taking your blood and letting it replenish, only to begin again the next day.” His grip moved from my chin to circle my neck, and his thumb stroked the pulse at my throat as if he were gauging just where to sink his teeth into my flesh.

“Stop it,” I said sharply. His scare tactics had gone on long enough.

Matthew dropped me abruptly on the soft carpet. By the time I felt the impact, the vampire was across the room, his back to me and his head bowed.

I stared at the pattern on the rug beneath my hands and knees.

A swirl of colors, too many to distinguish, moved before my eyes.

They were leaves dancing against the sky—green, brown, blue, gold.

“It’s your mom and dad,” Sarah was explaining, her voice tight. “They’ve been killed. They’re gone, honey.”

I dragged my eyes from the carpet to the vampire standing with his back to me.

“No.” I shook my head.

“What is it, Diana?” Matthew turned, concern momentarily pushing the predator away.

The swirl of colors captured my attention again—green, brown, blue, gold. They were leaves, caught in an eddy on a pool of water, falling onto the ground around my hands. A bow, curved and polished, rested next to a scattering of arrows and a half-empty quiver.

I reached for the bow and felt the taut string cut into my flesh.

“Matthew,” Ysabeau warned, sniffing the air delicately.

“I know, I can smell it, too,” he said grimly.

He’s yours, a strange voice whispered. You mustn’t let him go.

“I know,” I murmured impatiently.

“What do you know, Diana?” Matthew took a step toward me.

Marthe shot to my side. “Leave her,” she hissed. “The child is not in this world.”

I was nowhere, caught between the terrible ache of losing my parents and the certain knowledge that soon Matthew, too, would be gone.

Be careful, the strange voice warned.

“It’s too late for that.” I raised my hand from the floor and smashed it into the bow, snapping it in two. “Much too late.”

“What’s too late?” Matthew asked.

“I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“You can’t have,” he said numbly. The room was utterly silent, except for the crackling of the fire. “It’s too soon.”

“Why do vampires have such a strange attitude toward time?” I mused aloud, still caught in a bewildering mix of past and present. The word “love” had sent feelings of possessiveness through me, however, drawing me to the here and now. “Witches don’t have centuries to fall in love. We do it quickly. Sarah says my mother fell in love with my father the moment she saw him. I’ve loved you since I decided not to hit you with an oar on the City of Oxford’s dock.” The blood in my veins began to hum. Marthe looked startled, suggesting she could hear it, too.

“You don’t understand.” It sounded as if Matthew, like the bow, might snap in two.

“I do. The Congregation will try to stop me, but they won’t tell me who to love.” When my parents were taken from me, I was a child with no options and did what people told me. I was an adult now, and I was going to fight for Matthew.

“Domenico’s overtures are nothing compared to what you can expect from Peter Knox. What happened today was an attempt at rapprochement, a diplomatic mission. You aren’t ready to face the Congregation, Diana, no matter what you think. And if you did stand up to them, what then? Bringing these old animosities to the surface could spin out of control, expose us to humans. Your family might suffer.” Matthew’s words were brutal, meant to make me stop and reconsider. But nothing he said outweighed what I felt for him.

“I love you, and I’m not going to stop.” Of this, too, I was certain.

“You are not in love with me.”

“I decide who I love, and how, and when. Stop telling me what to do, Matthew. My ideas about vampires may be romantic, but your attitudes toward women need a major overhaul.”

Before he could respond, his phone began to hop across the ottoman. He swore an oath in Occitan that must have been truly awe-inspiring, because even Marthe looked shocked. He reached down and snagged the phone before it could skitter onto the floor.

“What is it?” he said, his eyes fixed on me.

There were faint murmurs on the other end of the line. Marthe and Ysabeau exchanged worried glances.

“When?” Matthew’s voice sounded like a gunshot. “Did they take anything?” My forehead creased at the anger in his voice. “Thank God. Was there damage?”

Something had happened in Oxford while we were gone, and it sounded like a robbery. I hoped it wasn’t the Old Lodge.

The voice on the other end of the phone continued. Matthew passed a hand over his eyes.

“What else?” he asked, his voice rising.

There was another long silence. He turned away and walked to the fireplace, his right hand splayed flat against the mantel.

“So much for diplomacy.” Matthew swore under his breath. “I’ll be there in a few hours. Can you pick me up?”

We were going back to Oxford. I stood.

“Fine. I’ll call before I land. And, Marcus? Find out who else besides Peter Knox and Domenico Michele are members of the Congregation.”

Peter Knox? The pieces of the puzzle began to click into place. No wonder Matthew had come back to Oxford so quickly when I’d told him who the brown wizard was. It explained why he was so eager to push me away now, too. We were breaking the covenant, and it was Knox’s job to enforce it.

Matthew stood silently for a few moments after the line went dead, one hand clenched as if he were resisting the urge to beat the stone mantel into submission.

“That was Marcus. Someone tried to break in to the lab. I need to go back to Oxford.” He turned, his eyes dead.

“Is everything all right?” Ysabeau shot a worried look in my direction.

“They didn’t make it through the security controls. Still, I need to talk to the university officials and make sure whoever it was doesn’t succeed the next time.” Nothing that Matthew was saying made sense. If the burglars had failed, why wasn’t he relieved? And why was he shaking his head at his mother?

“Who were they?” I asked warily.

“Marcus isn’t sure.”

That was odd, given a vampire’s preternaturally sharp sense of smell. “Was it humans?”

“No.” We were back to the monosyllabic answers.

“I’ll get my things.” I turned toward the stairs.

“You aren’t coming. You’re staying here.” Matthew’s words brought me to a standstill.

“I’d rather be in Oxford,” I protested, “with you.”

“Oxford’s not safe at the moment. I’ll be back when it is.”

“You just told me we should return there! Make up your mind, Matthew. Where is the danger? The manuscript and the witches? Peter Knox and the Congregation? Or Domenico Michele and the vampires?”

“Were you listening? I am the danger.” Matthew’s voice was sharp.

“Oh, I heard you. But you’re keeping something from me. It’s a historian’s job to uncover secrets,” I promised him softly. “And I’m very good at it.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him. “No more excuses or false explanations. Go to Oxford. I’ll stay here.”

“Do you need anything from upstairs?” Ysabeau asked. “You should take a coat. Humans will notice if you’re wearing only a sweater.”

“Just my computer. My passport’s in the bag.”

“I’ll get them.” Wanting a respite from all the de Clermonts for a moment, I pelted up the stairs. In Matthew’s study I looked around the room that held so much of him.

The armor’s silvery surfaces winked in the firelight, holding my attention while a jumble of faces flashed through my mind, the visions as swift as comets through the sky. There was a pale woman with enormous blue eyes and a sweet smile, another woman whose firm chin and square shoulders exuded determination, a man with a hawkish nose in terrible pain. There were other faces, too, but the only one I recognized was Louisa de Clermont, holding dripping, bloody fingers in front of her face.

Resisting the vision’s pull helped the faces fade, but it left my body shaking and my mind bewildered. The DNA report had indicated that visions were likely to come. But there’d been no more warning of their arrival than there had been last night when I floated in Matthew’s arms. It was as if someone had pulled the stopper on a bottle and my magic—released at last—was rushing to get out.

Once I was able to jerk the cord from the socket I slid it into Matthew’s bag, along with the computer. His passport was in the front pocket, as he’d said it would be.

When I returned to the salon, Matthew was alone, his keys in his hands and a suede barn jacket draped across his shoulders. Marthe muttered and paced in the great hall.

I handed him his computer and stood far away to better resist the urge to touch him once more. Matthew pocketed his keys and took the bag.

“I know this is hard.” His voice was hushed and strange. “But you need to let me take care of it. And I need to know that you’re safe while I’m doing that.”

“I’m safe with you, wherever we are.”

He shook his head. “My name should have been enough to protect you. It wasn’t.”

“Leaving me isn’t the answer. I don’t understand all of what’s happened today, but Domenico’s hatred goes beyond me. He wants to destroy your family and everything else you care about. Domenico might decide this isn’t the right time to pursue his vendetta. But Peter Knox? He wants Ashmole 782, and he thinks I can get it for him. He won’t be put off so easily.” I shivered.

“He’ll make a deal if I offer him one.”

“A deal? What do you have to trade?”

The vampire fell silent.

“Matthew?” I insisted.

“The manuscript,” he said flatly. “I’ll leave it—and you—alone if he promises the same. Ashmole 782 has been undisturbed for a century and a half. We’ll let it remain that way.”

“You can’t make a deal with Knox. He can’t be trusted.” I was horrified. “Besides, you have all the time you need to wait for the manuscript. Knox doesn’t. Your deal won’t appeal to him.”

“Just leave Knox to me,” he said gruffly.

My eyes snapped with anger. “Leave Domenico to you. Leave Knox to you. What do you imagine I’m going to do? You said I’m not a damsel in distress. So stop treating me like one.”

“I suppose I deserved that,” he said slowly, his eyes black, “but you have a lot to learn about vampires.”

“So your mother tells me. But you may have a few things to learn about witches, too.” I pushed the hair out of my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Go to Oxford. Sort out what happened there.” Whatever happened that you won’t share with me. “But for God’s sake, Matthew, don’t negotiate with Peter Knox. Decide how you feel about me—not because of what the covenant forbids, or the Congregation wants, or even what Peter Knox and Domenico Michele make you afraid of.”

My beloved vampire, with a face that would make an angel envious, looked at me with sorrow. “You know how I feel about you.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t. When you’re ready, you’ll tell me.”

Matthew struggled with something and left it unsaid. Wordlessly he walked toward the door into the hall. When he reached it, he gave me a long look of snowflakes and frost before walking through.

Marthe met him in the hall. He kissed her softly on both cheeks and said something in rapid Occitan.

“Compreni, compreni,” she said, nodding vehemently and looking past him at me.

“Mercйs amb tot meu cтr,” he said quietly.

“Al rebиire. Mиfi.”

“T’afortissi.” Matthew turned to me. “And you’ll promise me the same thing—that you’ll be careful. Listen to Ysabeau.”

He left without a glance or a final, reassuring touch.

I bit my lip and tried to swallow the tears, but they spilled out. After three slow steps toward the watchtower stairs, my feet began to run, tears streaming down my face. With a look of understanding, Marthe let me go.

When I came out into the cold, damp air, the de Clermont standard was snapping gently to and fro and the clouds continued to obscure the moon. Darkness pressed on me from every direction, and the one creature who kept it at bay was leaving, taking the light with him.

Peering down over the tower’s ramparts, I saw Matthew standing by the Range Rover, talking furiously to Ysabeau. She looked shocked and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket as if to stop him from getting in the car.

His hand was a white blur as he pulled his arm free. His fist pounded, once, into the car’s roof. I jumped. Matthew had never used his strength on anything bigger than a walnut or an oyster shell when he was around me, and the dent he’d left in the metal was alarmingly deep.

He hung his head. Ysabeau touched him lightly on the cheek, his sad features gleaming in the dim light. He climbed into the car and said a few more words. His mother nodded and looked briefly at the watchtower. I stepped back, hoping neither of them had seen me. The car turned over, and its heavy tires crunched across the gravel as Matthew pulled away.

The Range Rover’s lights disappeared below the hill. With Matthew gone, I slid down the stone wall of the keep and gave in to the tears.

It was then that I discovered what witchwater was all about.

Before I met Matthew, there didn’t seem to be room in my life for a single additional element—especially not something as significant as a fifteen-hundred-year-old vampire. But he’d slipped into unexplored, empty places when I wasn’t looking.

Now that he’d left, I was terribly aware of his absence. As I sat on the roof of the watchtower, my tears softened my determination to fight for him. Soon there was water everywhere. I was sitting in a puddle of it, and the level just kept rising.

It wasn’t raining, despite the cloudy skies.

The water was coming out of me.

My tears fell normally but swelled as they dropped into globules the size of snowballs that hit the stone roof of the watchtower with a splash. My hair snaked over my shoulders in sheets of water that poured over the curves of my body. I opened my mouth to take a breath because the water streaming down my face was blocking my nose, and water gushed out in a torrent that tasted of the sea.

Through a film of moisture, Marthe and Ysabeau watched me. Marthe’s face was grim. Ysabeau’s lips were moving, but the roar of a thousand sea-shells made it impossible to hear her.

I stood, hoping the water would stop. It didn’t. I tried to tell the two women to let the water carry me away along with my grief and the memory of Matthew—but all that produced was another gush of ocean. I reached out, thinking that would help the water drain from me. Even more water cascaded from my fingertips. The gesture reminded me of my mother’s arm reaching toward my father, and the waves increased.

As the water poured forth, my control slipped further. Domenico’s sudden appearance had frightened me more than I’d been willing to admit. Matthew was gone. And I had vowed to fight for him against enemies I couldn’t identify and didn’t understand. It was now clear that Matthew’s past was not composed simply of homely elements of firelight, wine, and books. Nor had it unfolded solely within the limits of a loyal family. Domenico had alluded to something darker that was full of enmity, danger, and death.

Exhaustion overtook me, and the water pulled me under. A strange sense of exhilaration accompanied the fatigue. I was poised between mortality and something elemental that held within it the promise of a vast, incomprehensible power. If I surrendered to the undertow, there would be no more Diana Bishop. Instead I would become water—nowhere, everywhere, free of my body and the pain.

“I’m sorry, Matthew.” My words were nothing more than a burble as the water began its inexorable work.

Ysabeau stepped toward me, and a sharp crack sounded in my brain. My warning to her was lost in a roar like a tidal wave coming ashore. The winds rose around my feet, whipping the water into a hurricane. I raised my arms to the sky, water and wind shaping themselves into a funnel that encircled my body.

Marthe grabbed Ysabeau’s arm, her mouth moving rapidly. Matthew’s mother tried to pull away, her own mouth shaping the word “no,” but Marthe held on, staring at her fixedly. After a few moments, Ysabeau’s shoulders slumped. She turned toward me and started to sing. Haunting and yearning, her voice penetrated the water and called me back to the world.

The winds began to die down. The de Clermont standard, which had been whipping around, resumed its gentle swaying. The cascade of water from my fingertips slowed to a river, then to a trickle, and stopped entirely. The waves flowing from my hair subsided into swells, and then they, too, disappeared. At last nothing came out of my mouth but a gasp of surprise. The balls of water falling from my eyes were the last vestige of the witchwater to disappear, just as they had been the first sign of its power moving through me. The remains of my deluge sluiced toward small holes at the base of the crenellated walls. Far, far below, water splashed onto the courtyard’s thick bed of gravel.

When the last of the water left me, I felt scooped out like a pumpkin, and freezing cold, too. My knees buckled, banging painfully on the stone.

“Thank God,” Ysabeau murmured. “We almost lost her.”

I was shaking violently from exhaustion and cold. Both women flew at me and lifted me to my feet. They each gripped an elbow and supported me down the curving flight of stairs with a speed that made me shiver. Once in the hall, Marthe headed toward Matthew’s rooms and Ysabeau pulled in the opposite direction.

“Mine are closer,” Matthew’s mother said sharply.

“She will feel safer closer to him,” Marthe said.

With a sound of exasperation, Ysabeau conceded.

At the bottom of Matthew’s staircase, Ysabeau blurted out a string of colorful phrases that sounded totally incongruous coming from her delicate mouth. “I’ll carry her,” she said when she was finished cursing her son, the forces of nature, the powers of the universe, and many other unspecified individuals of questionable parentage who’d taken part in building the tower. Ysabeau lifted my much larger body easily. “Why he had to make these stairs so twisting—and in two separate flights—is beyond my understanding.”

Marthe tucked my wet hair into the crook of Ysabeau’s elbow and shrugged. “To make it harder, of course. He has always made things harder. For him. For everyone else, too.”

No one had thought to come up in the late afternoon to light the candles, but the fire still smoldered and the room retained some of its warmth. Marthe disappeared into the bathroom, and the sound of running water made me examine my fingers with alarm. Ysabeau threw two enormous logs onto the grate as if they were kindling, snapping a long splinter off one before it caught. She stirred the coals into flames with it and then used it to light a dozen candles in the space of a few seconds. In their warm glow, she surveyed me anxiously from head to foot.

“He will never forgive me if you become ill,” she said, picking up my hands and examining my nails. They were bluish again, but not from electricity. Now they were blue with cold and wrinkled from witchwater. She rubbed them vigorously between her palms.

Still shaking so much that my teeth were chattering, I withdrew my hands to hug myself in an attempt to conserve what little warmth was left in my body. Ysabeau picked me up again without ceremony and swept me into the bathroom.

“She needs to be in there now,” Ysabeau said brusquely. The room was full of steam, and Marthe turned from the bath to help strip off my clothes. Soon I was naked and the two of them were lifting me into the hot water, one cold, vampiric hand in each armpit. The shock of the water’s heat on my frigid skin was extreme. Crying out, I struggled to pull myself from Matthew’s deep bathtub.

“Shh,” Ysabeau said, holding my hair away from my face while Marthe pushed me back into the water. “It will warm you. We must get you warm.”

Marthe stood sentinel at one end of the tub, and Ysabeau remained at the other, whispering soothing sounds and humming softly under her breath. It was a long time before the shaking stopped.

At one point Marthe murmured something in Occitan that included the name Marcus.

Ysabeau and I said no at the same moment.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t tell Marcus what happened. Matthew mustn’t know about the magic. Not now,” I said through chattering teeth.

“We just need some time to warm you.” Ysabeau sounded calm, but she looked concerned.

Slowly the heat began to reverse the changes the witchwater had worked on my body. Marthe kept adding fresh hot water to the tub as my body cooled it down. Ysabeau grabbed a beat-up tin pitcher from under the window and dipped it into the bath, pouring hot water over my head and shoulders. Once my head was warm, she wrapped it in a towel and pushed me slightly lower in the water.

“Soak,” she commanded.

Marthe bustled between the bathroom and the bedroom, carrying clothes and towels. She tutted over my lack of pajamas and the old yoga clothes I’d brought to sleep in. None of them met her requirements for warmth.

Ysabeau felt my cheeks and the top of my head with the back of her hand. She nodded.

They let me get myself out of the tub. The water falling off my body reminded me of the watchtower roof, and I dug my toes into the floor to resist the element’s insidious pull.

Marthe and Ysabeau bundled me into towels fresh from the fireside that smelled faintly of wood smoke. In the bedroom they somehow managed to dry me without ever exposing an inch of my flesh to the air, rolling me this way and that inside the towels until I could feel heat radiating from my body. Rough strokes of another towel scratched against my hair before Marthe’s fingers raked through the strands and twisted them into a tight braid against my scalp. Ysabeau tossed the damp towels onto a chair near the fire as I shed them to dress, seemingly unconcerned by their contact with antique wood and fine upholstery.

Now fully clothed, I sat down and stared mindlessly at the fire. Marthe disappeared without a word into the lower regions of the chвteau and returned with a tray of tiny sandwiches and a steaming pot of her herbal tea.

“You will eat. Now.” It was not a request but a command.

I brought one of the sandwiches to my mouth and nibbled around the edges.

Marthe’s eyes narrowed at this sudden change in my eating habits. “Eat.”

The food tasted like sawdust, but my stomach rumbled nonetheless. After I’d swallowed two of the tiny sandwiches, Marthe thrust a mug into my hands. She didn’t need to tell me to drink. The hot liquid slid down my throat, carrying away the water’s salty vestiges.

“Was that witchwater?” I shivered at the memory of all that water coming out of me.

Ysabeau, who had been standing by the window looking out into the darkness, walked toward the opposite sofa. “Yes,” she said. “It has been a long time, though, since we have seen it come forth like that.”

“Thank God that wasn’t the usual way,” I said faintly, swallowing another sip of tea.

“Most witches today are not powerful enough to draw on the witchwater as you did. They can make waves on ponds and cause rain when there are clouds. They do not become the water.” Ysabeau sat across from me, studying me with evident curiosity.

I had become the water. Knowing that this was no longer common made me feel vulnerable—and even more alone.

A phone rang.

Ysabeau reached into her pocket and pulled out a small red phone that seemed uncharacteristically bright and high-tech against her pale skin and classic, buff-colored clothes.

“Oui? Ah, good. I am glad that you are there and safe.” She spoke English out of courtesy to me and nodded in my direction. “Yes, she is fine. She is eating.” She stood and handed me the phone. “Matthew would like to speak with you.”

“Diana?” Matthew was barely audible.

“Yes?” I didn’t trust myself to say much for fear that more than words would tumble out.

He made a soft sound of relief. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Your mother and Marthe are taking good care of me.” And I didn’t flood the castle, I thought.

“You’re tired.” The distance between us was making him anxious, and he was tuned into every nuance of our exchange.

“I am. It’s been a long day.”

“Sleep, then,” he said, his tone unexpectedly gentle. My eyes closed against the sudden sting of tears. There would be little sleep for me tonight. I was too worried about what he might do in some half-baked, heroic attempt to protect me.

“Have you been to the lab?”

“I’m headed there now. Marcus wants me to go over everything carefully and make sure we’ve taken all the necessary precautions. Miriam’s checked the security at the house as well.” He told the half-truth with smooth conviction, but I knew it for what it was. The silence stretched out until it became uncomfortable.

“Don’t do it, Matthew. Please don’t try to negotiate with Knox.”

“I’ll make sure you’re safe before you return to Oxford.”

“Then there’s nothing more to say. You’ve decided. So have I.” I returned the phone to Ysabeau.

She frowned, her cold fingers pulling it from my grip. Ysabeau said good-bye to her son, his reply audible only as a staccato burst of unintelligible sound.

“Thank you for not telling him about the witchwater,” I said quietly after she’d disconnected the line.

“That is your tale to tell, not mine.” Ysabeau drifted toward the fireplace.

“It’s no good trying to tell a story you don’t understand. Why is the power coming out now? First it was the wind, then the visions, and now the water, too.” I shuddered.

“What kind of visions?” Ysabeau asked, her curiosity evident.

“Didn’t Matthew tell you? My DNA has all this . . . magic,” I said, stumbling over the word, “in it. The tests warned there might be visions, and they’ve begun.”

“Matthew would never tell me what your blood revealed—certainly not without your permission, and probably not with your permission either.”

“I’ve seen them here in the chвteau.” I hesitated. “How did you learn to control them?”

“Matthew told you that I had visions before I became a vampire.” Ysabeau shook her head. “He should not have.”

“Were you a witch?” That might explain why she disliked me so much.

“A witch? No. Matthew wonders if I was a daemon, but I’m sure I was an ordinary human. They have their visionaries, too. It’s not only creatures who are blessed and cursed in this way.”

“Did you ever manage to control your second sight and anticipate it?”

“It gets easier. There are warning signs. They can be subtle, but you will learn. Marthe helped me as well.”

It was the only piece of information I had about Marthe’s past. Not for the first time, I wondered how old these two women were and what workings of fate had brought them together.

Marthe stood with her arms crossed. “Тc,” she said, giving Ysabeau a tender, protective look. “It is easier if you let the visions move through you without fighting.”

“I’m too shocked to fight,” I said, thinking back to the salon and the library.

“Shock is your body’s way of resisting,” Ysabeau said. “You must try to relax.”

“It’s difficult to let go when you see knights in armor and the faces of women you’ve never met mixed up with scenes from your own past.” My jaw cracked with a yawn.

“You are too exhausted to think about this now.” Ysabeau rose to her feet.

“I’m not ready to sleep.” I smothered another yawn with the back of my hand.

She eyed me speculatively, like a beautiful falcon scrutinizing a field mouse. Ysabeau’s glance turned mischievous. “Get into bed, and I will tell you how I made Matthew.”

Her offer was too tempting to resist. I did as she told me while she pulled up a chair and Marthe busied herself with dishes and towels.

“So where do I begin?” She drew herself straighter in the chair and stared into the candles’ flames. “I cannot begin simply with my part of the story but must start with his birth, here in the village. I remember him as a baby, you know. His father and mother came when Philippe decided to build on this land back when Clovis was king. That’s the only reason the village is here—it was where the farmers and craftsmen who built the church and castle lived.”

“Why did your husband pick this spot?” I leaned against the pillows, my knees folded close to my chest under the bedclothes.

“Clovis promised him the land in hopes it would encourage Philippe to fight against the king’s rivals. My husband was always playing both sides against the middle.” Ysabeau smiled wistfully. “Very few people caught him at it, though.”

“Was Matthew’s father a farmer?”

“A farmer?” Ysabeau looked surprised. “No, he was a carpenter, as was Matthew—before he became a stonemason.”

A mason. The tower’s stones all fit together so smoothly they didn’t seem to require mortar. And there were the oddly ornate chimneys at the Old Lodge gatehouse that Matthew just had to let some craftsman try his hand at constructing. His long, slender fingers were strong enough to twist open an oyster shell or crack a chestnut. Another piece of Matthew fell into place, fitting perfectly next to the warrior, the scientist, and the courtier.

“And they both worked on the chвteau?”

“Not this chвteau,” Ysabeau said, looking around her. “This was a present from Matthew, when I was sad over being forced to leave a place that I loved. He tore down the fortress his father had built and replaced it with a new one.” Her green-and-black eyes glittered with amusement. “Philippe was furious. But it was time for a change. The first chвteau was made of wood, and even though there had been stone additions over the years, it was a bit ramshackle.”

My mind tried to take in the time line of events, from the construction of the first fortress and its village in the sixth century to Matthew’s tower in the thirteenth century.

Ysabeau’s nose crinkled in distaste. “Then he stuck this tower onto the back when he returned home and didn’t want to live so close to the family. I never liked it—it seemed a romantic trifle—but it was his wish, and I let him.” She shrugged. “Such a funny tower. It didn’t help defend the castle. He had already built far more towers here than we needed.”

Ysabeau continued to spin her tale, seeming only partially in the twenty-first century.

“Matthew was born in the village. He was always such a bright child, so curious. He drove his father mad, following him to the chвteau and picking up tools and sticks and stones. Children learned their trades early then, but Matthew was precocious. By the time he could hold a hatchet without injuring himself, he was put to work.”

An eight-year-old Matthew with gangly legs and gray-green eyes ran around the hills in my imagination.

“Yes.” She smiled, agreeing with my unspoken thoughts. “He was indeed a beautiful child. A beautiful young man as well. Matthew was unusually tall for the time, though not as tall as he became once he was a vampire.

“And he had a wicked sense of humor. He was always pretending that something had gone wrong or that instructions had not been given to him regarding this roof beam or that foundation. Philippe never failed to believe the tall tales Matthew told him.” Ysabeau’s voice was indulgent. “Matthew’s first father died when he was in his late teens, and his first mother had been dead for years by then. He was alone, and we worried about him finding a woman to settle down with and start a family.

“And then he met Blanca.” Ysabeau paused, her look level and without malice. “You cannot have imagined that he was without the love of women.” It was a statement, not a question. Marthe shot Ysabeau an evil look but kept quiet.

“Of course not,” I said calmly, though my heart felt heavy.

“Blanca was new to the village, a servant to one of the master masons Philippe had brought in from Ravenna to construct the first church. She was as pale as her name suggested, with white skin, eyes the color of a spring sky, and hair that looked like spun gold.”

A pale, beautiful woman had appeared in my visions when I went to fetch Matthew’s computer. Ysabeau’s description of Blanca fit her perfectly.

“She had a sweet smile, didn’t she?” I whispered.

Ysabeau’s eyes widened. “Yes, she did.”

“I know. I saw her when Matthew’s armor caught the light in his study.”

Marthe made a warning sound, but Ysabeau continued.

“Sometimes Blanca seemed so delicate that I feared she would break when drawing water from the well or picking vegetables. My Matthew was drawn to that delicacy, I suppose. He has always liked fragile things.” Ysabeau’s eyes flicked over my far-from-fragile form. “They were married when Matthew turned twenty-five and could support a family. Blanca was just nineteen.

“They were a beautiful couple, of course. There was such a strong contrast between Matthew’s darkness and Blanca’s pale prettiness. They were very much in love, and the marriage was a happy one. But they could not seem to have children. Blanca had miscarriage after miscarriage. I cannot imagine what it was like inside their house, to see so many children of your body die before they drew breath.” I wasn’t sure if vampires could cry, though I remembered the bloodstained tear on Ysabeau’s cheek from my earlier visions in the salon. Even without the tears, however, she looked now as though she were weeping, her face a mask of regret.

“Finally, after so many years of trying and failing, Blanca was with child. It was 531. Such a year. There was a new king to the south, and the battles had started all over again. Matthew began to look happy, as if he dared to hope this baby would survive. And it did. Lucas was born in the autumn and was baptized in the unfinished church that Matthew was helping to build. It was a hard birth for Blanca. The midwife said that he would be the last child she bore. For Matthew, though, Lucas was enough. And he was so like his father, with his black curls and pointed chin—and those long legs.”

“What happened to Blanca and Lucas?” I asked softly. We were only six years from Matthew’s transformation into a vampire. Something must have happened, or he would never have let Ysabeau exchange his life for a new one.

“Matthew and Blanca watched their son grow and thrive. Matthew had learned to work in stone rather than wood, and he was in high demand among the lords from here to Paris. Then fever came to the village. Everyone fell ill. Matthew survived. Blanca and Lucas did not. That was in 536. The year before had been strange, with very little sunshine, and the winter was cold. When spring came, the sickness came, too, and carried Blanca and Lucas away.”

“Didn’t the villagers wonder why you and Philippe remained healthy?”

“Of course. But there were more explanations then than there would be today. It was easier to think God was angry with the village or that the castle was cursed than to think that the manjasang were living among them.”

“Manjasang?” I tried to roll the syllables around my mouth as Ysabeau had.

“It is the old tongue’s word for vampire—‘blood eater.’ There were those who suspected the truth and whispered by the fireside. But in those days the return of the Ostrogoth warriors was a far more frightening prospect than a manjasang overlord. Philippe promised the village his protection if the raiders came back. Besides, we made it a point never to feed close to home,” she explained primly.

“What did Matthew do after Blanca and Lucas were gone?”

“He grieved. Matthew was inconsolable. He stopped eating. He looked like a skeleton, and the village came to us for help. I took him food”—Ysabeau smiled at Marthe—“and made him eat and walked with him until he wasn’t so restless. When he could not sleep, we went to church and prayed for the souls of Blanca and Lucas. Matthew was very religious in those days. We talked about heaven and hell, and he worried about where their souls were and if he would be able to find them again.”

Matthew was so gentle with me when I woke up in terror. Had the nights before he’d become a vampire been as sleepless as those that came after?

“By autumn he seemed more hopeful. But the winter was difficult. People were hungry, and the sickness continued. Death was everywhere. The spring could not lift the gloom. Philippe was anxious about the church’s progress, and Matthew worked harder than ever. At the beginning of the second week in June, he was found on the floor beneath its vaulted ceiling, his legs and back broken.”

I gasped at the thought of Matthew’s soft, human body plummeting to the hard stones.

“There was no way he could survive the fall, of course,” Ysabeau said softly. “He was a dying man. Some of the masons said he’d slipped. Others said he was standing on the scaffolding one moment and gone the next. They thought Matthew had jumped and were already talking about how he could not be buried in the church because he was a suicide. I could not let him die fearing he might not be saved from hell. He was so worried about being with Blanca and Lucas—how could he go to his death wondering if he would be separated from them for all eternity?”

“You did the right thing.” It would have been impossible for me to walk away from him no matter what the state of his soul. Leaving his body broken and hurting was unthinkable. If my blood would have saved him, I would have used it.

“Did I?” Ysabeau shook her head. “I have never been sure. Philippe told me it was my decision whether to make Matthew one of our family. I had made other vampires with my blood, and I would make others after him. But Matthew was different. I was fond of him, and I knew that the gods were giving me a chance to make him my child. It would be my responsibility to teach him how a vampire must be in the world.”

“Did Matthew resist you?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“No,” she replied. “He was out of his mind with pain. We told everyone to leave, saying we would fetch a priest. We didn’t, of course. Philippe and I went to Matthew and explained we could make him live forever, without pain, without suffering. Much later Matthew told us that he thought we were John the Baptist and the Blessed Mother come to take him to heaven to be with his wife and child. When I offered him my blood, he thought I was the priest offering him last rites.”

The only sounds in the room were my quiet breathing and the crackle of logs in the fireplace. I wanted Ysabeau to tell me the particulars of how she had made Matthew, but I was afraid to ask in case it was something that vampires didn’t talk about. Perhaps it was too private, or too painful. Ysabeau soon told me without prompting.

“He took my blood so easily, like he was born to it,” she said with a rustling sigh. “Matthew was not one of those humans who turn their face from the scent or sight. I opened my wrist with my own teeth and told him my blood would heal him. He drank his salvation without fear.”

“And afterward?” I whispered.

“Afterward he was . . . difficult,” Ysabeau said carefully. “All new vampires are strong and full of hunger, but Matthew was almost impossible to control. He was in a rage at being a vampire, and his need to feed was endless. Philippe and I had to hunt all day for weeks to satisfy him. And his body changed more than we expected. We all get taller, finer, stronger. I was much smaller before I became a vampire. But Matthew developed from a reed-thin human into a formidable creature. My husband was larger than my new son, but in the first flush of my blood Matthew was a handful even for Philippe.”

I forced myself not to shrink from Matthew’s hunger and rage. Instead my eyes remained fixed on his mother, not closing my eyes for an instant against the knowledge of him. This was what Matthew feared, that I would come to understand who he had been—who he still was—and feel revulsion.

“What calmed him?” I asked.

“Philippe took him hunting,” Ysabeau explained, “once he thought that Matthew would no longer kill everything in his path. The hunt engaged his mind, and the chase engaged his body. He soon craved the hunt more than the blood, which is a good sign in young vampires. It meant he was no longer a creature of pure appetite but was once again rational. After that, it was only a matter of time before his conscience returned and he began to think before he killed. Then all we had to fear were his black periods, when he felt the loss of Blanca and Lucas again and turned to humans to dull his hunger.”

“Did anything help Matthew then?”

“Sometimes I sang to him—the same song I sang to you tonight, and others as well. That often broke the spell of his grief. Other times Matthew would go away. Philippe forbade me to follow or to ask questions when he returned.” Ysabeau’s eyes were black as she looked at me. Our glances confirmed what we both suspected: that Matthew had been lost with other women, seeking solace in their blood and the touch of hands that belonged to neither his mother nor his wife.

“He’s so controlled,” I mused aloud, “it’s hard to imagine him like that.”

“Matthew feels deeply. It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”

There was a threat in Ysabeau’s voice. My chin went up in defiance, my fingers tingling. “Then I’ll have to make sure my love never leaves him,” I said tightly.

“And how will you do that?” Ysabeau taunted. “Would you become a vampire, then, and join us in our hunting?” She laughed, but there was neither joy nor mirth in the sound. “No doubt that’s what Domenico suggested. One simple bite, the draining of your veins, the exchange of our blood for yours. The Congregation would have no grounds to intrude on your business then.”

“What do you mean?” I asked numbly.

“Don’t you see?” Ysabeau snarled. “If you must be with Matthew, then become one of us and put him—and yourself—out of danger. The witches may want to keep you as their own, but they cannot object to your relationship if you are a vampire, too.”

A low rumble started in Marthe’s throat.

“Is that why Matthew went away? Did the Congregation order him to make me a vampire?”

“Matthew would never make you a manjasang,” Marthe said scornfully, her eyes snapping with fury.

“No.” Ysabeau’s voice was softly malicious. “He has always loved fragile things, as I told you.”

This was one of the secrets that Matthew was keeping. If I were a vampire, there would be no prohibitions looming over us and thus no reason to fear the Congregation. All I had to do was become something else.

I contemplated the prospect with surprisingly little panic or fear. I could be with Matthew, and I might even be taller. Ysabeau would do it. Her eyes glittered as she took in the way my hand moved to my neck.

But there were my visions to consider, not to mention the power of the wind and the water. I didn’t yet understand the magical potential in my blood. And as a vampire I might never solve the mystery of Ashmole 782.

“I promised him,” Marthe said, her voice rough. “Diana must stay as she is—a witch.”

Ysabeau bared her teeth slightly, unpleasantly, and nodded.

“Did you also promise not to tell me what really happened in Oxford?”

Matthew’s mother scrutinized me closely. “You must ask Matthew when he returns. It is not my tale to tell.”

I had other questions as well—questions that Matthew might have been too distracted to mark as off-limits.

“Can you tell me why it matters that it was a creature who tried to break in to the lab, rather than a human?”

There was silence while Ysabeau considered my words. Finally, she replied.

“Clever girl. I did not promise Matthew to remain silent about appropriate rules of conduct, after all.” She looked at me with a touch of approval. “Such behavior is not acceptable among creatures. We must hope it was a mischievous daemon who does not realize the seriousness of what he has done. Matthew might forgive that.”

“He has always forgiven daemons,” Marthe muttered darkly.

“What if it wasn’t a daemon?”

“If it was a vampire, it represents a terrible insult. We are territorial creatures. A vampire does not cross into another vampire’s house or land without permission.”

“Would Matthew forgive such an insult?” Given the look on Matthew’s face when he’d thrown a punch at the car, I suspected that the answer was no.

“Perhaps,” Ysabeau said doubtfully. “Nothing was taken, nothing was harmed. But it is more likely Matthew would demand some form of retribution.”

Once more I’d been dropped into the Middle Ages, with the maintenance of honor and reputation the primary concern.

“And if it was a witch?” I asked softly.

Matthew’s mother turned her face away. “For a witch to do such a thing would be an act of aggression. No apology would be adequate.”

Alarm bells sounded.

I flung the covers aside and swung my legs out of bed. “The break-in was meant to provoke Matthew. He went to Oxford thinking he could make a good-faith deal with Knox. We have to warn him.”

Ysabeau’s hands were firm on my knees and shoulder, stopping my motion.

“He already knows, Diana.”

That information settled in my mind. “Is that why he wouldn’t take me to Oxford with him? Is he in danger?”

“Of course he is in danger,” Ysabeau said sharply. “But he will do what he can to put an end to this.” She lifted my legs back onto the bed and tucked the covers tightly around me.

“I should be there,” I protested.

“You would be nothing but a distraction. You will stay here, as he told you.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” I asked for what seemed like the hundredth time since I came to Sept-Tours.

“No,” both women said at the same moment.

“You really do have a lot to learn about vampires,” Ysabeau said once again, but this time she sounded mildly regretful.

I had a lot to learn about vampires. This I knew.

But who was going to teach me? And when?

From afar I beheld a black cloud covering the earth. It absorbed the earth and covered my soul as the seas entered, becoming putrid and corrupted at the prospect of hell and the shadow of death. A tempest had overwhelmed me,’” I read aloud from Matthew’s copy of Aurora Consurgens.

Turning to my computer, I typed notes about the imagery my anonymous author had used to describe nigredo, one of the dangerous steps in alchemical transformation. During this part of the process, the combination of substances like mercury and lead gave off fumes that endangered the alchemist’s health. Appropriately, one of Bourgot Le Noir’s gargoylelike faces pinched his nose tight shut, avoiding the cloud mentioned in the text.

“Get your riding clothes on.”

My head lifted from the pages of the manuscript.

“Matthew made me promise to take you outdoors. He said it would keep you from getting sick,” Ysabeau explained.

“You don’t have to, Ysabeau. Domenico and the witchwater have depleted my adrenaline supply, if that’s your concern.”

“Matthew must have told you how alluring the smell of panic is to a vampire.”

“Marcus told me,” I corrected her. “Actually, he told me what it tastes like. What does it smell like?”

Ysabeau shrugged. “Like it tastes. Maybe a bit more exotic—a touch of muskiness, perhaps. I was never much drawn to it. I prefer the kill to the hunt. But to each her own.”

“I’m not having as many panic attacks these days. There’s no need for you to take me riding.” I turned back to my work.

“Why do you think they have gone away?” Ysabeau asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said with a sigh, looking at Matthew’s mother.

“You have been like this for a long time?”

“Since I was seven.”

“What happened then?”

“My parents were killed in Nigeria,” I replied shortly.

“This was the picture you received—the one that caused Matthew to bring you to Sept-Tours.”

When I nodded in response, Ysabeau’s mouth flattened into a familiar, hard line. “Pigs.”

There were worse things to call them, but “pigs” did the job pretty well. And if it grouped whoever had sent me the photograph with Domenico Michele, then it was the right category.

“Panic or no panic,” Ysabeau said briskly, “we are going to exercise as Matthew wanted.”

I powered off the computer and went upstairs to change. My riding clothes were folded neatly in the bathroom, courtesy of Marthe, though my boots were in the stables, along with my helmet and vest. I slithered into the black breeches, added a turtleneck, and slipped on loafers over a pair of warm socks, then went downstairs in search of Matthew’s mother.

“I’m in here,” she called. I followed the sound to a small room painted warm terra-cotta. It was ornamented with old plates, animal horns, and an ancient dresser large enough to store an entire inn’s worth of plates, cups, and cutlery. Ysabeau peered over the pages of Le Monde, her eyes covering every inch of me. “Marthe tells me you slept.”

“Yes, thank you,” I shifted from one foot to the other as if waiting to see the school principal to explain my misbehavior.

Marthe saved me from further discomfort by arriving with a pot of tea. She, too, surveyed me from head to foot.

“You are better today,” she finally announced, handing me a mug. She stood there frowning until Matthew’s mother put down her paper, and then she departed.

When I was finished with my tea, we went to the stables. Ysabeau had to help with my boots, since they were still too stiff to slide on and off easily, and she watched carefully while I put on my turtle shell of a vest and the helmet. Clearly safety equipment had been part of Matthew’s instructions. Ysabeau, of course, wore nothing more protective than a brown quilted jacket. The relative indestructibility of vampire flesh was a boon if you were a rider.

In the paddock Fiddat and Rakasa stood side by side, mirror images right down to the armchair-style saddles on their backs.

“Ysabeau,” I protested, “Georges put the wrong tack on Rakasa. I don’t ride sidesaddle.”

“Are you afraid to try?” Matthew’s mother looked at me appraisingly.

“No!” I said, tamping down my temper. “I just prefer to ride astride.”

“How do you know?” Her emerald eyes flickered with a touch of malice.

We stood for a few moments, staring at each other. Rakasa stamped her hoof and looked over her shoulder.

Are you going to ride or talk? she seemed to be asking.

Behave, I replied brusquely, walking over and putting her fetlock against my knee.

“Georges has seen to this,” Ysabeau said in a bored tone.

“I don’t ride horses I haven’t checked myself.” I examined Rakasa’s hooves, ran my hands over her reins, and slid my fingers under the saddle.

“Philippe never did either.” Ysabeau’s voice held a note of grudging respect. With poorly concealed impatience, she watched me finish. When I was done, she led Fiddat over to a set of steps and waited for me to follow. After she’d helped me get into the strange contraption of a saddle, she hopped onto her own horse. I took one look at her and knew I was in for quite a morning. Judging from her seat, Ysabeau was a better rider than Matthew—and he was the best I’d ever seen.

“Walk around,” Ysabeau said. “I need to make sure you won’t fall off and kill yourself.”

“Show a little faith, Ysabeau.” Don’t let me fall, I bargained with Rakasa, and I’ ll make sure you get an apple a day for the rest of your life. My mount’s ears shot forward, then back, and she nickered gently. We circled the paddock twice before I drew to a gentle stop in front of Matthew’s mother. “Satisfied?”

“You’re a better rider than I expected,” she admitted. “You could probably jump, but I promised Matthew we would not.”

“He managed to wheedle a fair number of promises out of you before he left,” I muttered, hoping she wouldn’t hear me.

“Indeed,” she said crisply, “some of them harder to keep than others.”

We passed through the open paddock gate. Georges touched his cap to Ysabeau and shut the gate behind us, grinning and shaking his head.

Matthew’s mother kept us on relatively flat ground while I got used to the strange saddle. The trick was to keep your body square despite how off-kilter you felt.