Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

The vampires withdrew. Domenico looked back, reluctant to leave. Satu waited, her gaze vacant, until the sound of metal meeting up with wood and stone signaled that they were gone from the castle. Her blue eyes snapped to attention, and she fixed them on me. With a small gesture, she released her spell that had kept me silent.

“Who are you?” I croaked when it was possible to form words again.

“My name is Satu Järvinen,” she said, walking around me in a slow circle, trailing a hand behind her. It triggered a deep memory of another hand that had moved like hers. Once Sarah had walked a similar path in the backyard in Madison when she’d tried to bind a lost dog, but the hands in my mind did not belong to her.

Sarah’s talents were nothing compared to those possessed by this witch. It had been evident she was powerful from the way she flew. But she was adept at spells, too. Even now she was restraining me inside gossamer filaments of magic that stretched across the courtyard without her uttering a single word. Any hope of easy escape vanished.

“Why did you kidnap me?” I asked, trying to distract her from her work.

“We tried to make you see how dangerous Clairmont was. As witches, we didn’t want to go to these lengths, but you refused to listen.” Satu’s words were cordial, her voice warm. “You wouldn’t join us for Mabon, you ignored Peter Knox. Every day that vampire drew closer. But you’re safely beyond his reach now.”

Every instinct screamed danger.

“It’s not your fault,” Satu continued, touching me lightly on the shoulder. My skin tingled, and the witch smiled. “Vampires are so seductive, so charming. You’ve been caught in his thrall, just as Meridiana was caught by Gerbert. We don’t blame you for this, Diana. You led such a sheltered childhood. It wasn’t possible for you to see him for what he is.”

“I’m not in Matthew’s thrall,” I insisted. Beyond the dictionary definition, I had no idea what it might involve, but Satu made it sound coercive.

“Are you quite sure?” she asked gently. “You’ve never tasted a drop of his blood?”

“Of course not!” My childhood might have been devoid of extensive magical training, but I wasn’t a complete idiot. Vampire blood was a powerful, life-altering substance.

“No memories of a taste of concentrated salt? No unusual fatigue? You’ve never fallen deeply asleep when he was in your presence, even though you didn’t want to close your eyes?”

On the plane to France, Matthew had touched his fingers to his own lips, then to mine. I’d tasted salt then. The next thing I knew, I was in France. My certainty wavered.

“I see. So he has given you his blood.” Satu shook her head. “That’s not good, Diana. We thought it might be the case, after he followed you back to college on Mabon and climbed through your window.”

“What are you talking about?” My blood froze in my veins. Matthew would never give me his blood. Nor would he violate my territory. If he had done these things, there would have been a reason, and he would have shared it with me.

“The night you met, Clairmont hunted you down to your rooms. He crept through an open window and was there for hours. Didn’t you wake up? If not, he must have used his blood to keep you asleep. How else can we explain it?”

My mouth had been full of the taste of cloves. I closed my eyes against the recollection, and the pain that accompanied it.

“This relationship has been nothing more than an elaborate deception, Diana. Matthew Clairmont has wanted only one thing: the lost manuscript. Everything the vampire has done and every lie he’s told along the way have been a means to that end.”

“No.” It was impossible. He couldn’t have been lying to me last night. Not when we lay in each other’s arms.

“Yes. I’m sorry to have to tell you these things, but you left us no other choice. We tried to keep you apart, but you are so stubborn.”

Just like my father, I thought. My eyes narrowed. “How do I know that you’re not lying?”

“One witch can’t lie to another witch. We’re sisters, after all.”

“Sisters?” I demanded, my suspicions sharpening. “You’re just like Gillian—pretending sisterhood while gathering information and trying to poison my mind against Matthew.”

“So you know about Gillian,” Satu said regretfully.

“I know she’s been watching me.”

“Do you know she’s dead?” Satu’s voice was suddenly vicious.

“What?” The floor seemed to tilt, and I felt myself sliding down the sudden incline.

“Clairmont killed her. It’s why he took you away from Oxford so quickly. It’s yet another innocent death we haven’t been able to keep out of the press. What did the headlines say . . . ? Oh, yes: ‘Young American Scholar Dies Abroad While Doing Research.’” Satu’s mouth curved into a malicious smile.

“No.” I shook my head. “Matthew wouldn’t kill her.”

“I assure you he did. No doubt he questioned her first. Apparently vampires have never learned that killing the messenger is pointless.”

“The picture of my parents.” Matthew might have killed whoever sent me that photo.

“It was heavy-handed for Peter to send it to you and careless of him to let Gillian deliver it,” Satu continued. “Clairmont’s too smart to leave evidence, though. He made it look like a suicide and left her body propped up like a calling card against Peter’s door at the Randolph Hotel.”

Gillian Chamberlain hadn’t been a friend, but the knowledge that she would never again crouch over her glass-encased papyrus fragments was more distressing than I would have expected.

And it was Matthew who had killed her. My mind whirled. How could Matthew say he loved me and yet keep such things from me? Secrets were one thing, but murder—even under the guise of revenge and retaliation— was something else. He kept warning me he couldn’t be trusted. I’d paid no attention to him, brushing his words aside. Had that been part of his plan, too, another strategy to lure me into trusting him?

“You must let me help you.” Satu’s voice was gentle once more. “This has gone too far, and you are in terrible danger. I can teach you to use your power. Then you’ll be able to protect yourself from Clairmont and other vampires, like Gerbert and Domenico. You will be a great witch one day, just like your mother. You can trust me, Diana. We’re family.”

“Family,” I repeated numbly.

“Your mother and father wouldn’t have wanted you to fall into a vampire’s snares,” Satu explained, as if I were a child. “They knew how important it was to preserve the bonds between witches.”

“What did you say?” There was no whirling now. Instead my mind seemed unusually sharp and my skin was tingling all over, as if a thousand witches were staring at me. There was something I was forgetting, something about my parents that made everything Satu said a lie.

A strange sound slithered into my ears. It was a hissing and creaking, like ropes being pulled over stone. Looking down, I saw thick brown roots stretching and twisting across the floor. They crawled in my direction.

Satu seemed unaware of their approach. “Your parents would have wanted you to live up to your responsibilities as a Bishop and as a witch.”

“My parents?” I drew my attention from the floor, trying to focus on Satu’s words.

“You owe your loyalty and allegiance to me and your fellow witches, not to Matthew Clairmont. Think of your mother and father. Think of what this relationship would do to them, if only they knew.”

A cold finger of foreboding traced my spine, and all my instincts told me that this witch was dangerous. The roots had reached my feet by then. As if they could sense my distress the roots abruptly changed direction, digging into the paving stones on either side of where I stood, before weaving themselves into a sturdy, invisible web beneath the castle floors.