Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

“Have you told him he’s to start raising banners?” Miriam and Matthew continued to speak a language of war I didn’t understand.

“What’s a marshal?” The toast sprang out and winged its way to the kitchen island when my stomach rumbled.

“Matthew’s chief military officer.” Miriam eyed the refrigerator door, which was opening without visible assistance.

“Here.” Matthew neatly caught the butter as it passed over his shoulder and then handed it to me with a smile, his face serene in spite of his colleague’s pestering. Matthew, though a vampire, was self-evidently a morning person.

“The banners, Matthew. Are you raising an army?”

“Of course I am, Miriam. You’re the one who keeps bringing up war. If it breaks out, you don’t imagine that Marcus, Baldwin, and I are going to fight the Congregation by ourselves?” Matthew shook his head. “You know better than that.”

“What about Fernando? Surely he’s still alive and well.”

Matthew put his paper down and glowered. “I’m not going to discuss my strategy with you. Stop interfering and leave Marcus to me.”

Now it was Miriam’s turn to bolt. She pressed her lips tightly together and stalked out the back door, headed for the woods.

I ate my toast in silence, and Matthew returned to his paper. After a few minutes, he put it down again and made a sound of exasperation.

“Out with it, Diana. I can smell you thinking, and it’s impossible for me to concentrate.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said around a mouthful of toast. “A vast military machine is swinging into action, the precise nature of which I don’t understand. And you’re unlikely to explain it to me, because it’s some sort of brotherhood secret.”

“Dieu.” Matthew ran his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. “Miriam causes more trouble than any creature I’ve ever known, with the exception of Domenico Michele and my sister Louisa. If you want to know about the Knights, I’ll tell you.”

Two hours later my head was spinning with information about the brotherhood. Matthew had sketched out an organizational flowchart on the back of my DNA reports. It was awesome in its complexity—and it didn’t include the military side. That part of the operation was outlined on some ancient Harvard University letterhead left by my parents that we pulled out of the sideboard. I looked over Marcus’s many new responsibilities.

“No wonder he’s overwhelmed,” I murmured, tracing the lines that connected Marcus to Matthew above him and to seven master knights below, and then to the troops of vampires each would be expected to gather.

“He’ll adjust.” Matthew’s cold hands kneaded the tight muscles in my back, his fingers lingering on the star between my shoulder blades. “Marcus will have Baldwin and the other knights to rely upon. He can handle the responsibility, or I wouldn’t have asked him.”

Maybe, but he would never be the same after taking on this job for Matthew. Every new challenge would chip away a piece of his easygoing charm. It was painful to imagine the vampire Marcus would become.

“What about this Fernando? Will he help Marcus?”

Matthew’s face grew secretive. “Fernando was my first choice for marshal, but he turned me down. It was he who recommended Marcus.”

“Why?” From the way Miriam spoke, the vampire was a respected warrior.

“Marcus reminds Fernando of Philippe. If there is war, we’ll need someone with my father’s charm to convince the vampires to fight not only witches but other vampires, too.” Matthew nodded thoughtfully, his eyes on the rough outlines of his empire. “Yes, Fernando will help him. And keep him from making too many mistakes.”

When we returned to the kitchen—Matthew in search of his newspaper and me in pursuit of an early lunch—Sarah and Em were just back from the grocery store. They unpacked boxes of microwave popcorn as well as tins of mixed nuts and every berry available in October in upstate New York. I picked up a bag of cranberries.

“There you are.” Sarah’s eyes gleamed. “Time for your lessons.”

“I need more tea first, and something to eat,” I protested, pouring the cranberries from one hand to the other in their plastic bag. “No magic on an empty stomach.”

“Give me those,” Em said, grabbing the bag. “You’re squashing them, and they’re Marcus’s favorite.”

“You can eat later.” Sarah pushed me in the direction of the stillroom. “Stop being such a baby and get moving.”

I turned out to be as hopeless at spells now as when I was a teenager. Unable to remember how they started, and given my mind’s tendency to wander, I garbled the order of the words with disastrous results.

Sarah set a candle on the stillroom’s wide table. “Light it,” she commanded, turning back to the indescribably stained grimoire.

It was a simple trick that even a teenage witch could manage. When the spell emerged from my mouth, however, either the candle smoked without the wick’s catching light or something else burst into flames instead. This time I set a bunch of lavender on fire.

“You can’t just say the words, Diana,” Sarah lectured once she’d extinguished the flames. “You have to concentrate. Do it again.”

I did it again—over and over. Once the candle wick sputtered with a tentative flame.

“This isn’t working.” My hands were tingling, the nails blue, and I was ready to scream in frustration.

“You can command witch fire and you can’t light a candle.”

“My arms move in a way that reminds you of someone who could command witchfire. That’s not the same thing, and learning about magic is more important than this stuff,” I said, gesturing at the grimoire.

“Magic is not the only answer,” Sarah said tartly. “It’s like using a chain-saw to cut bread. Sometimes a knife will do.”

“You don’t have a high opinion of magic, but I have a fair amount of it in me, and it wants to come out. Someone has to teach me how to control it.”

“I can’t.” Sarah’s voice was tinged with regret. “I wasn’t born with the ability to summon witchfire or command witchwater. But I can damn well see to it that you can learn to light a candle with one of the simplest spells ever devised.”

Sarah was right. But it took so long to master the craft, and spells would be no help if I started to spout water again.

While I returned to my candle and mumbled words, Sarah looked through the grimoire for a new challenge.

“This is a good one,” she said, pointing to a page mottled with brown, green, and red residues. “It’s a modified apparition spell that creates what’s called an echo—an exact duplicate of someone’s spoken words in another location. Very useful. Let’s do that next.”

“No, let’s take a break.” Turning away, I picked up my foot to take a step.

The apple orchard was around me when I set it down again.

In the house Sarah was shouting. “Diana? Where are you?”

Matthew rocketed out the door and down the porch steps. His sharp eyes found me easily, and he was at my side in a few rapid strides.

“What is this about?” His hand was on my elbow so that I couldn’t disappear again.

“I needed to get away from Sarah. When I put my foot down, here I was. The same thing happened on the driveway the other night.”

“You needed an apple, too? Walking into the kitchen wouldn’t have been sufficient?” The corner of Matthew’s mouth twitched in amusement.

“No,” I said shortly.

“Too much all at once, ma lionne?”

“I’m not good at witchcraft. It’s too . . .”

“Precise?” he finished.

“It takes too much patience,” I confessed.

“Witchcraft and spells may not be your weapons of choice,” he said softly, brushing my tense jaw with the back of his hand, “but you will learn to use them.” The note of command was slight, but it was there. “Let’s find you something to eat. That always makes you more agreeable.”