Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

“Both of you listen to me, then. Get far, far away from Peter Knox. And that vampire had better see that you do, or I’m holding him responsible. Stephen Proctor was the most easygoing man alive. It took a lot to make him dislike someone—and he detested that wizard. Diana, you will come home immediately.”

“I will not, Sarah! I’m going to France with Matthew.” Sarah’s far less attractive option had just convinced me.

There was silence.

“France?” Em said faintly.

Matthew held out his hand.

“Matthew would like to speak to you.” I handed him the phone before Sarah could protest.

“Ms. Bishop? Do you have caller ID?”

I snorted. The brown phone hanging on the kitchen wall in Madison had a rotary dial and a cord a mile long so that Sarah could wander around while she talked. It took forever to simply dial a local number. Caller ID? Not likely.

“No? Take down these numbers, then.” Matthew slowly doled out the number to his mobile and another that presumably belonged to the house, along with detailed instructions on international dialing codes. “Call at any time.”

Sarah then said something pointed, based on Matthew’s startled expression.

“I’ll make sure she’s safe.” He handed me the phone.

“I’m getting off now. I love you both. Don’t worry.”

“Stop telling us not to worry,” Sarah scolded. “You’re our niece. We’re good and worried, Diana, and likely to stay that way.”

I sighed. “What can I do to convince you that I’m all right?”

“Pick up the phone more often, for starters,” she said grimly.

When we’d said our good-byes, I stood next to Matthew, unwilling to meet his eyes. “All this is my fault, just like Sarah said. I’ve been behaving like a clueless human.”

He turned away and walked to the end of the sofa, as far from me as he could get in the small room, and sank into the cushions. “This bargain you made about magic and its place in your life—you made it when you were a lonely, frightened child. Now, every time you take a step, it’s as though your future hinges on whether you manage to put your foot down in the right place.”

Matthew looked startled when I sat next to him and silently took his hands in mine, resisting the urge to tell him it was going to be all right.

“In France maybe you can just be for a few days—not trying, not worrying about making a mistake,” he continued. “Maybe you could rest— although I’ve never seen you stop moving long enough. You even move in your sleep, you know.”

“I don’t have time to rest, Matthew.” I was already having second thoughts about leaving Oxford. “The alchemy conference is less than six weeks away. They’re expecting me to deliver the opening lecture. I’ve barely started it, and without access to the Bodleian there’s no chance of finishing it in time.”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “Your paper is on alchemical illustrations, I assume?”

“Yes, on the allegorical image tradition in England.”

“Then I don’t suppose you would be interested in seeing my fourteenth-century copy of Aurora Consurgens. It’s French, regrettably.”

My eyes widened. Aurora Consurgens was a baffling manuscript about the opposing forces of alchemical transformation—silver and gold, female and male, dark and light. Its illustrations were equally complex and puzzling.

“The earliest known copy of the Aurora is from the 1420s.”

“Mine is from 1356.”

“But a manuscript from such an early date won’t be illustrated,” I pointed out. Finding an illuminated alchemical manuscript from before 1400 was as unlikely as discovering a Model-T Ford parked on the battlefield at Gettysburg.

“This one is.”

“Does it contain all thirty-eight images?”

“No. It has forty.” He smiled. “It would seem that previous historians have been wrong about several particulars.”

Discoveries on this scale were rare. To get first crack at an unknown, fourteenth-century illustrated copy of Aurora Consurgens represented the opportunity of a lifetime for a historian of alchemy.

“What do the extra illustrations show? Is the text the same?”

“You’ll have to come to France to find out.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said promptly. After weeks of frustration, writing my keynote address suddenly seemed possible.

“You won’t go for your own safety, but if there’s a manuscript involved?” He shook his head ruefully. “So much for common sense.”

“I’ve never been known for my common sense,” I confessed. “When do we leave?”

“An hour?”

“An hour.” This was no spur-of-the-moment decision. He’d been planning it since I’d fallen asleep the night before.

He nodded. “There’s a plane waiting at the airstrip by the old American air force base. How long will it take you to get your things together?”

“That depends on what I need to bring with me,” I said, my head spinning.

“Nothing much. We won’t be going anywhere. Pack warm clothes, and I don’t imagine you’ll consider leaving without your running shoes. It will be just the two of us, along with my mother and her housekeeper.”

His. Mother.

“Matthew,” I said faintly, “I didn’t know you had a mother.”

“Everybody has a mother, Diana,” he said, turning his clear gray eyes to mine. “I’ve had two. The woman who gave birth to me and Ysabeau—the woman who made me a vampire.”

Matthew was one thing. A houseful of unfamiliar vampires was quite another. Caution about taking such a dangerous step pushed aside some of my eagerness to see the manuscript. My hesitation must have shown.

“I hadn’t thought,” he said, his voice tinged with hurt. “Of course you have no reason to trust Ysabeau. But she did assure me that you would be safe with her and Marthe.”

“If you trust them, then I do, too.” To my surprise, I meant it—in spite of the niggling worry that he’d had to ask them if they planned on taking a piece out of my neck.

“Thank you,” he said simply. Matthew’s eyes drifted to my mouth, and my blood tingled in response. “You pack, and I’ll wash up and make a few phone calls.”

When I passed by his end of the sofa, he caught my hand in his. Once again the shock of his cold skin was counteracted by an answering warmth in my own.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he murmured before he released me.

It was almost laundry day, and my bedroom was draped with dirty clothes. A rummage through the wardrobe yielded several nearly identical pairs of black pants that were clean, a few pairs of leggings, and half a dozen long-sleeved T-shirts and turtlenecks. There was a beat-up Yale duffel bag on top of it, and I jumped up and snagged the strap with one hand. The clothes all went into the old blue-and-white canvas bag, along with a few sweaters and a fleece pullover. I also chucked in sneakers, socks, and underwear, along with some old yoga clothes. I didn’t own decent pajamas and could sleep in those. Remembering Matthew’s French mother, I slipped in one presentable shirt and pair of trousers.

Matthew’s low voice floated down the hall. He talked first to Fred, then to Marcus, and then to a cab company. With the bag’s strap over my shoulder, I maneuvered myself awkwardly into the bathroom. Toothbrush, soap, shampoo, and a hairbrush all went inside, along with a hair dryer and a tube of mascara. I hardly ever wore the stuff, but on this occasion a cosmetic aid seemed a good idea.

When I was finished, I rejoined Matthew in the living room. He was thumbing through the messages on his phone, my computer case at his feet. “Is that it?” he asked, eyeing the duffel bag with surprise.

“You told me I didn’t need much.”