Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night

“Call the fire,” my father said, as if it were as simple as ordering a pizza.

After a moment of hesitation, I crooked my finger and wished for the fire to come to me. An orange-red thread caught on the tip, and when I let my breath out through pursed lips, dozens of tiny bubbles of light and heat flew into the air like fireflies.

“Lovely, Diana!” Catherine cried out, clapping her hands.

Between the clapping and the fire, my firedrake wanted to be released. Bennu cried out from my father’s shoulders, and the firedrake answered. “No,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport. She’s a dragon—not a goldfish. Why are you always trying to pretend that the magical is ordinary? Let her fly!”

I relaxed just a fraction, and my ribs softened, opening away from my spine like the leaves of a book. My firedrake escaped the bony confines at the first opportunity, flapping her wings as they metamorphosed from gray and insubstantial to iridescent and gleaming. Her tail curled up in a loose knot, and she soared around the room. The firedrake caught the tiny balls of light in her teeth, swallowing them down like candy. She then turned her attention to my father’s water bubbles as if they were fine champagne. When she was through with her treats, the firedrake hovered in the air before me, her tail flicking at the floor. She cocked her head as if waiting for me to ask her something.

“What are you?” I asked, wondering how she managed to absorb all the conflicting powers of water and fire.

“You, but not you.” The firedrake blinked, her glassy eyes studying me. A swirling ball of energy balanced at the end of her spade-shaped tail. The firedrake gave her tail a flick, tipping the ball of energy into my cupped hands. It looked just like the one I had given Matthew back in Madison.

“What is your name?” I whispered.

“You may call me Corra,” she said in a language of smoke and mist. Corra bobbed her head in farewell, melted into a gray shadow, and disappeared. Her weight thudded into my center, her wings curved around my back, and there was stillness. I took a deep breath.

“That was great, honey.” My father squeezed me tight. “You were thinking like fire. Empathy is the secret to most things in life—including magic. Look how bright the threads are now!”

All around us the world gleamed with possibility. And, in the corners, the steadily brightening indigo and amber weave warned that time was growing impatient.

“My two weeks are up. It’s time for me to go.”

My father’s words weren’t unexpected, but they felt like a blow nevertheless. My eyelids dropped to cover my reaction.

“Your mother will think I’ve taken up with an orange seller if I don’t show up soon.”

“Orange sellers are more of a seventeenth-century thing,” I said absently, picking at the cords in my lap. I was now making steady progress with everything from simple charms against headaches to the more complicated weavings that could make waves ruffle on the Thames. I twined the gold and blue strands around my fingers. Strength and understanding .

“Wow. Nice recovery, Diana.” My father turned to Matthew. “She bounces back fast.”

“Tell me about it,” was my husband’s equally dry reply. They both relied on humor to smooth over the rough edges of their interactions, which sometimes made them unbearable.

“I’m glad I got to know you, Matthew—despite that scary look you get when you think I’m bossing Diana around,” my father said with a laugh.

Ignoring their banter, I twisted the yellow cord in with the gold and blue. Persuasion .

“Can you stay until tomorrow? It would be a shame to miss the celebrations.” It was Midsummer Eve, and the city was in a holiday mood. Worried that a final evening with his daughter would not be sufficient inducement, I shamelessly appealed to my father’s academic interests. “There will be so many folk customs for you to observe.”

“Folk customs?” My father laughed. “Very slick. Of course I’m staying until tomorrow. Annie made a wreath of flowers for my hair, and Will and I are going to share some tobacco with Walter. Then I’m going to visit with Father Hubbard.”

Matthew frowned. “You know Hubbard?”

“Oh, sure. I introduced myself to him when I arrived. I had to, since he was the man in charge. Father Hubbard figured out I was Diana’s father pretty quickly. You all have an amazing sense of smell.” My father looked at Matthew benignly. “An interesting man, with his ideas about creatures all living as one big, happy family.”

“It would be utter chaos,” I pointed out.

“We all made it through last night with three vampires, two witches, a daemon, two humans, and a dog sharing one roof. Don’t be so quick to dismiss new ideas, Diana.” My father looked at me disapprovingly. “Then I suppose I’ll hang out with Catherine and Marjorie. Lots of witches will be on the prowl tonight. Those two will definitely know where the most fun can be found.” Apparently he was on a first-name basis with half the town.

“And you’ll be careful. Especially around Will, Daddy. No ‘Wow’ or ‘Well played, Shakespeare.’” My father was fond of slang. It was, he said, the hallmark of the anthropologist.

“If only I could take Will home with me, he’d make a cool—sorry, honey—colleague. He has a sense of humor. Our department could do with someone like him. Put a bit of leavening in the lump, if you know what I mean.” My father rubbed his hands together. “What are your plans?”

“We don’t have any.” I looked at Matthew blankly, and he shrugged.

“I thought I would answer some letters,” he said hesitantly. The mail had piled up to alarming levels.

“Oh, no.” My father sat back in his chair, looking horrified.

“What?” I turned my head to see who or what had entered the room.

“Don’t tell me you’re the kind of academics who can’t tell the difference between their life and their job.” He flung up his hands as if warding off the plague. “I refuse to believe that my daughter could be one of them.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic, Daddy,” I said stiffly. “We could spend the evening with you. I’ve never smoked. It will be historic to do it with Walter for the first time, since he introduced tobacco into England.”

My father looked even more horrified. “Absolutely not. We’ll be bonding as fellow men. Lionel Tiger argues—”

“I’m not a big fan of Tiger,” Matthew interjected. “The social carnivore never made sense to me.”

“Can we put the topic of eating people aside for a moment and discuss why you don’t want to spend your last night with Matthew and me?” I was hurt.

“It’s not that, honey. Help me out here, Matthew. Take Diana out on a date. You must be able to think of something to do.”

“Like roller-skating?” Matthew’s brows shot up. “There aren’t any skating rinks in sixteenth-century London—and precious few of them left in the twenty-first century, I might add.”

“Damn.” My father and Matthew had been playing “fad versus trend” for days, and while my father was delighted to know that the popularity of disco and the Pet Rock would fade, he was shocked to hear that other things—like the leisure suit—were now the butt of jokes. “I love rollerskating. Rebecca and I go to a place in Dorchester when we want to get away from Diana for a few hours, and—”

“We’ll go for a walk,” I said hastily. My father could be unnecessarily frank when it came to discussing how he and my mother spent their free time. He seemed to think it might shock Matthew’s sense of propriety. When that failed, he took to calling Matthew “Sir Lancelot” for an added measure of annoyance.