Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night

“Pierre also took me to the guards’ chamber,” Jack said in a small voice. “That’s where I got these.” He held up a ring of keys. “I only wanted to see the unicorn, for I couldn’t imagine how a unicorn climbed the stairs and thought they must have wings. Then Master Gallowglass showed me the Knights’ Staircase —I like your drawing of the running deer very much, Master Roydon. The guards were talking. I couldn’t understand everything, but the word einhorn stuck out, and I thought maybe they knew where it was, and —”

Matthew took Jack by the shoulders and crouched down so that their eyes met. “Do you know what they would have done if they’d caught you?” My husband looked as fearful as the child did.

Jack nodded.

“And seeing a unicorn was worth being beaten?”

“I’ve been beaten before. But I’ve never seen a magical beast. Except for the lion in the emperor’s menagerie. And Mistress Roydon’s dragon.” Jack looked horrified and clapped his hand over his mouth.

“So you’ve seen that, too? Prague has been an eye-opening experience for all concerned, then.” Matthew stood and held out his hand. “Give me the keys.” Jack did so, reluctantly. Matthew bowed to the boy. “I am in your debt, Jack.”

“But I was bad,” Jack whispered. He rubbed his backside, as if he had already felt the punishment Matthew was bound to dole out.

“I’m bad all the time,” Matthew confessed. “Sometimes good comes of it.”

“Yes, but nobody beats you ,” Jack said, still trying to understand this strange world where grown men were in debt to little boys and his hero was not perfect after all.

“Matthew’s father beat him with a sword once. I saw it.” The firedrake’s wings fluttered softly within my rib cage in silent agreement. “Then he knocked him over and stood on him.”

“He must be as big as the emperor’s bear Sixtus,” Jack said, awed at the thought of anyone conquering Matthew.

“He is,” Matthew said, growling like the bear in question. “Back to bed. Now.”

“But I’m nimble—and quick,” Jack protested. “I can get Mistress Roydon’s book without anyone seeing me.”

“So can I, Jack,” Matthew promised. Matthew and Gallowglass returned from the palace covered with blood, dirt, and soot—and bearing Ashmole 782.

“You got it!” I cried. Annie and I were waiting on the first floor. We had small bags packed with traveling essentials.

Matthew opened the cover. “The first three pages are gone.”

The book that had been whole just hours before was now broken, the text racing across the page. I’d planned on running my fingers over the letters and symbols once it was in our possession to determine its meaning. Now that was impossible. As soon as my fingertips touched the page, the words skittered in every direction.

“We found Kelley with the book. He was bent over it and crooning like a madman.” Matthew paused. “The book was talking back.”

“He tells you true, Auntie. I heard the words, though I couldn’t make them out.”

“Then the book really is alive,” I murmured.

“And really dead, too,” Gallowglass said, touching the binding. “It’s an evil thing as well as a powerful one.”

“When Kelley spotted us, he screamed at the top of his lungs and started ripping pages from the book. Before I could reach him, the guards were there. I had to choose between the book and Kelley.” Mathew hesitated. “Did I do the right thing?”

“I think so,” I said. “When I found the book in England, it was broken. And it may be easier to find the fugitive pages in the future than it would be now.” Modern search engines and library catalogs would be enormously helpful, now that I knew what I was seeking.

“Provided the pages weren’t destroyed,” Matthew said. “If that’s the case . . .”

“Then we’ll never know all of the book’s secrets. Even so, your modern laboratory might reveal more about what’s left than we imagined when we set out on this quest.”

“So you’re ready to go back?” Matthew asked. There was a spark of something in his eye. He smothered it quickly. Was it excitement? Dread?

I nodded. “It’s time.”

We fled Prague by the light of the bonfires. The creatures were in hiding on Walpurgisnacht, not wanting to be seen by the revelers in case they found themselves flung onto the pyre.

The frigid waters of the North Sea were just navigable, and the spring thaw had broken up the ice in the harbors. Boats were leaving the ports for England, and we were able to catch one without delay. Even so, the weather was stormy when we pulled away from the European shore.

In our cabin belowdecks, I found Matthew studying the book. He had discovered that it was sewn together with long strands of hair.

“Dieu ,” he murmured, “how much more genetic information might this thing contain?” Before I could stop him, he touched the tip of his pinkie to his tongue and then to the drops of blood showering down from the baby’s hair on the first extant page.

“Matthew!” I said, horrified.

“The inks contain blood. And if that’s the case, my guess is that the gold and silver leaf on these illustrations is applied to a glue base made from bones. Creature bones.”

The boat lurched leeward, and my stomach went along with it. When I was through being sick, Matthew held me in his arms. The book lay between us, slightly open, the lines of text searching to find their place in the order of things.

“What have we done?” I whispered.

“We’ve found the Tree of Life and the Book of Life, all wrapped up in one.” Matthew rested his cheek on my hair.

“When Peter Knox told me the book held all the witches’ original spells, I told him he was mad. I couldn’t imagine anyone being so foolish as to put so much knowledge in one place.” I touched the book. “But this book contains so much more—and we still don’t know what the words say. If this were to fall into the wrong hands in our own time—”

“It could be used to destroy us all,” Matthew finished.

I craned my head to look at him. “What are we going to do with it, then? Take it back with us to the future or leave it here?”

“I don’t know, mon coeur .” He gathered me closer, muffling the sound of the storm as it lashed against the hull.

“But this book may well hold the key to all your questions.” I was surprised that Matthew could part with it now that he knew what it contained.

“Not all,” he said. “There’s one only you can answer.”

“What’s that?” I asked with a frown.

“Are you seasick or are you with child?” Matthew’s eyes were as heavy and stormy as the sky, with glints of bright lightning.

“You would know better than I.” He had taken blood from my vein a few days ago, soon after I realized that my period was late.

“I didn’t see the child in your blood or hear its heart—not yet. It’s the change in your scent that I noticed. I remember it from last time. You can’t be more than a few weeks pregnant.”

“I would have thought my being pregnant would make you more eager than ever to keep the book with you.”

“Maybe my questions don’t need answers as urgently as I thought they did.” To prove his point, Matthew put the book on the floor, out of sight. “I thought it would tell me who I am and why I’m here. Perhaps I already know.”

I waited for him to explain.

“After all my searching, I discover that I am who I always was: Matthew de Clermont. Husband. Father. Vampire. And I am here for only one reason: To make a difference.”

Peter Knox dodged the puddles in the courtyard of the Strahov Monastery in Prague. He was on his annual spring circuit of libraries in central and Eastern Europe. When the tourists and scholars were at their lowest ebb, Knox went from one old repository to another, making sure that nothing untoward had turned up in the past twelve months that might cause the Congregation—or him—trouble. In each library he had a trusted informant, a member of staff who was of sufficiently high standing to have free access to the books and manuscripts, but not so elevated that he might later be required to take a principled stand against library treasures simply . . . disappearing.