Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

“I see. You want me to play dead. And you’ll give up your work and Ashmole 782? I don’t believe that.” I stood and moved toward the door.

Matthew’s hand was rough on my arm. It violated all the laws of physics that he could have reached my side so quickly.

“Sit down, Diana.” His voice was as rough as his touch, but it was oddly gratifying that he was showing any emotion at all.

“Why are you giving in?” I whispered.

“To avoid exposing us all to the humans—and to keep you alive.” He pulled me back to the sofa and pushed me onto the cushions. “This family is not a democracy, especially not at a time like this. When I tell you to do something, you do it, without hesitation or question. Understood?” Matthew’s tone indicated that the discussion was over.

“Or what?” I was deliberately provoking him, but his aloofness frightened me.

He put down his wine, and the crystal captured the light from the candles.

I felt myself falling, this time into a pool of water.

The pool became a drop, the drop a tear glistening on a white cheek.

Sarah’s cheeks were covered in tears, her eyes red and swollen. Em was in the kitchen. When she joined us, it was evident that she’ d been crying, too. She looked devastated.

“What?” I said, fear gripping my stomach. “What’s happened?”

Sarah wiped at her eyes, her fingers stained with the herbs and spices she used in her spell casting.

Her fingers grew longer, the stains dissolving.

“What?” Matthew said, his eyes wild, white fingers brushing a tiny, bloodstained tear from an equally white cheek. “What’s happened?”

“Witches. They have your father,” Ysabeau said, her voice breaking.

As the vision faded, I searched for Matthew, hoping his eyes would exert their usual pull and relieve my lingering disorientation. As soon as our glances met, he came and hovered over me. But there was none of the usual comfort associated with his presence.

“I will kill you myself before I let anyone hurt you.” The words caught in his throat. “And I don’t want to kill you. So please do what I tell you.”

“So that’s it?” I asked when I could manage it. “We’re going to abide by an ancient, narrow-minded agreement made almost a thousand years ago. Case closed.”

“You mustn’t be under the Congregation’s scrutiny. You have no control over your magic and no understanding of your relationship to Ashmole 782. At Sept-Tours you may be protected from Peter Knox, Diana, but I’ve told you before that you aren’t safe around vampires. No warmblood is. Ever.”

“You won’t hurt me.” In spite of what had happened over the past several days, on this point I was absolutely certain.

“You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood.”

I made a dismissive gesture. “You’ve killed humans. I know this, Matthew. You’re a vampire, and you’ve lived for hundreds of years. Do you think I imagined you survived on nothing but animals?”

Ysabeau was watching her son closely.

“Saying you know I’ve killed humans and understanding what that means are two different things, Diana. You have no idea what I’m capable of.” He touched his talisman from Bethany and moved away from me with swift, impatient steps.

“I know who you are.” Here was another point of absolute certainty. I wondered what made me so instinctively sure of Matthew as the evidence about the brutality of vampires—even witches—mounted.

“You don’t know yourself. And three weeks ago you’d never heard of me.” Matthew’s gaze was restless and his hands, like mine, were shaking. This worried me less than the fact that Ysabeau had pitched farther forward in her seat. He picked up a poker and gave the fire a vicious thrust before throwing it aside. The metal rang against the stone, gouging the hard surface as if it were butter.

“We will figure this out. Give us some time.” I tried to make my voice low and soothing.

“There’s nothing to figure out.” Matthew was pacing now. “You have too much undisciplined power. It’s like a drug—a highly addictive, dangerous drug that other creatures are desperate to share. You’ll never be safe so long as a witch or vampire is near you.”

My mouth opened to respond, but the place where he’d been standing was empty. Matthew’s icy fingers were on my chin, lifting me to my feet.

“I’m a predator, Diana.” He said it with the seductiveness of a lover. The dark aroma of cloves made me dizzy. “I have to hunt and kill to survive.” He turned my face away from him with a savage twist, exposing my neck. His restless eyes raked over my throat.

“Matthew, put Diana down.” Ysabeau sounded unconcerned, and my own faith in him remained unshaken. He wanted to frighten me off for some reason, but I was in no real danger—not as I had been with Domenico.

“She thinks she knows me, Maman,” he purred. “But Diana doesn’t know what it’s like when the craving for a warmblood tightens your stomach so much that you’re mad with need. She doesn’t know how much we want to feel the blood of another heart pulsing through our veins. Or how difficult it is for me to stand here, so close, and not taste her.”

Ysabeau rose but remained where she was. “Now is not the time to teach her, Matthew.”

“You see, it’s not just that I could kill you outright,” he continued, ignoring his mother. His black eyes were mesmerizing. “I could feed on you slowly, taking your blood and letting it replenish, only to begin again the next day.” His grip moved from my chin to circle my neck, and his thumb stroked the pulse at my throat as if he were gauging just where to sink his teeth into my flesh.

“Stop it,” I said sharply. His scare tactics had gone on long enough.

Matthew dropped me abruptly on the soft carpet. By the time I felt the impact, the vampire was across the room, his back to me and his head bowed.

I stared at the pattern on the rug beneath my hands and knees.

A swirl of colors, too many to distinguish, moved before my eyes.

They were leaves dancing against the sky—green, brown, blue, gold.

“It’s your mom and dad,” Sarah was explaining, her voice tight. “They’ve been killed. They’re gone, honey.”

I dragged my eyes from the carpet to the vampire standing with his back to me.

“No.” I shook my head.

“What is it, Diana?” Matthew turned, concern momentarily pushing the predator away.

The swirl of colors captured my attention again—green, brown, blue, gold. They were leaves, caught in an eddy on a pool of water, falling onto the ground around my hands. A bow, curved and polished, rested next to a scattering of arrows and a half-empty quiver.

I reached for the bow and felt the taut string cut into my flesh.

“Matthew,” Ysabeau warned, sniffing the air delicately.

“I know, I can smell it, too,” he said grimly.

He’s yours, a strange voice whispered. You mustn’t let him go.

“I know,” I murmured impatiently.

“What do you know, Diana?” Matthew took a step toward me.

Marthe shot to my side. “Leave her,” she hissed. “The child is not in this world.”

I was nowhere, caught between the terrible ache of losing my parents and the certain knowledge that soon Matthew, too, would be gone.

Be careful, the strange voice warned.

“It’s too late for that.” I raised my hand from the floor and smashed it into the bow, snapping it in two. “Much too late.”

“What’s too late?” Matthew asked.

“I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“You can’t have,” he said numbly. The room was utterly silent, except for the crackling of the fire. “It’s too soon.”