Matthew planted a kiss on my shoulder before the sun rose, and then he slipped downstairs. My muscles were tight in an uncustomary combination of stiffness and languor. At last I dragged myself out of bed and went looking for him.

I found Sarah and Em instead. They were standing by the back window, each clutching a steaming cup of coffee. Glancing over their shoulders, I went to fill the kettle. Matthew could wait—tea could not.

“What are you looking at?” I expected them to name some rare bird.

“Matthew.”

I backed up a few steps.

“He’s been out there for hours. I don’t think he’s moved a muscle. A raven flew by. I believe she plans to perch on him,” Sarah continued, taking a sip of her coffee.

Matthew was standing with his feet rooted in the earth and his arms stretched out to the sides at shoulder level, index fingers and thumbs gently touching. In his gray T-shirt and black yoga pants, he did look like an unusually well-dressed, robust scarecrow.

“Should we be worried about him? He’s got nothing on his feet.” Em stared at Matthew over the edge of her coffee cup. “He must be freezing.”

“Vampires burn, Em. They don’t freeze. He’ll come in when he’s ready.”

After filling the kettle, I made tea and stood with my aunts, silently watching Matthew. On my second cup, he finally lowered his arms and folded over at the waist. Sarah and Em moved hastily away from the window.

“He knows we’ve been watching him. He’s a vampire, remember?” I laughed and pushed Sarah’s boots on over my wool socks and a frayed pair of leggings and clomped outside.

“Thank you for being so patient,” Matthew said after he’d gathered me into his arms and soundly kissed me good morning.

I was still clutching my mug, which had been in danger of spilling tea down his back. “Meditation is the only rest you get. I’m not about to disturb it. How long have you been out here?”

“Since dawn. I needed time to think.”

“The house does that to people. There are too many voices, too much going on.” It was chilly, and I snuggled inside my sweatshirt with the faded maroon bobcat on the back.

Matthew touched the dark circles under my eyes. “You’re still exhausted. Some meditation wouldn’t do you any harm either, you know.”

My sleep had been fitful, full of dreams, snatches of alchemical poetry, and mumbled tirades directed at Satu. Even my grandmother had been worried. She’d been leaning against the chest of drawers with a watchful expression while Matthew soothed me back to sleep.

“I was strictly forbidden to do anything resembling yoga for a week.”

“And you obey your aunt when she sets down these rules?” Matthew’s eyebrow made a question mark.

“Not usually.” I laughed, grabbing him by the sleeve to pull him back inside.

Matthew had my tea out of my hands and was lifting me out of Sarah’s boots in an instant. He arranged my body and stood behind me. “Are your eyes closed?”

“Now they are,” I said, closing my eyes and digging my toes through my socks into the cold earth. Thoughts chased around in my mind like playful kittens.

“You’re thinking,” Matthew said impatiently. “Just breathe.”

My mind and breath settled. Matthew came around and lifted my arms, pressing my thumbs to the tips of my ring fingers and pinkies.

“Now I look like a scarecrow, too,” I said. “What am I doing with my hands?”

“Prana mudra,” Matthew explained. “It encourages the life force and is good for healing.”

As I stood with arms outstretched and palms facing the sky, the silence and peace worked their way through my battered body. After about five minutes, the tightness between my eyes lifted and my mind’s eye opened. There was a corresponding, subtle change inside me—an ebb and flow like water lapping on the shore. With each breath I took, a drop of cold, fresh water formed in my palm. My mind remained resolutely blank, unconcerned that I might be engulfed in witchwater even as the level of water in my hands slowly rose.

My mind’s eye brightened, focusing on my surroundings. When it did, I saw the fields around the house as never before. Water ran beneath the ground’s surface in deep blue veins. The roots of the apple trees extended into them, and finer webs of water shimmered in the leaves as they rustled in the morning breeze. Underneath my feet the water flowed toward me, trying to understand my connection to its power.

Calmly I breathed in and out. The water level in my palms rose and fell in response to the changing tides within and underneath me. When I could control the water no longer, the mudras broke open, water cascading from my flattened palms. I was left standing in the middle of the backyard, eyes open and arms outstretched, a small puddle on the ground under each hand.

My vampire stood twelve feet away from me with a proud look on his face, his arms crossed. My aunts were on the back porch, astonished.

“That was impressive,” Matthew murmured, bending to pick up the stone-cold mug of tea. “You’re going to be as good at this as you are at your research, you know. Magic’s not just emotional and mental—it’s physical, too.”

“Have you coached witches before?” I slid back into Sarah’s boots, my stomach rumbling loudly.

“No. You’re my one and only.” Matthew laughed. “And yes, I know you’re hungry. We’ll talk more about this after breakfast.” He held out his hand, and we walked together toward the house.

“You can make a lot of money water witching, you know,” Sarah called as we approached. “Everyone in town needs a new well, and old Harry was buried with his dowsing rod when he died last year.”

“I don’t need a dowsing rod—I am a dowsing rod. And if you’re thinking of digging, do it there.” I pointed to a cluster of apple trees that looked less scraggy than the rest.

Inside, Matthew boiled fresh water for my tea before turning his attention to the Syracuse Post-Standard. It could not compete with Le Monde, but he seemed content. With my vampire occupied, I ate slice after slice of bread hot from the toaster. Em and Sarah refilled their coffee cups and looked warily at my hands every time I got near the electrical appliances.

“This is going to be a three-pot morning,” Sarah announced, dumping the used grounds out of the coffeemaker. I looked at Em in alarm.

It’s mostly decaf, she said without speaking, her lips pressed together in silent mirth. I’ve been adulterating it for years. Like text messaging, silent speech was useful if you wanted to have a private discussion in this house.

Smiling broadly, I returned my attention to the toaster. I scraped the last of the butter onto my toast and wondered idly if there was more.

A plastic tub appeared at my elbow.

I turned to thank Em, but she was on the other side of the kitchen. So was Sarah. Matthew looked up from his paper and stared at the refrigerator.

The door was open, and the jams and mustards were rearranging themselves on the top shelf. When they were in place, the door quietly closed.

“Was that the house?” Matthew asked casually.

“No,” Sarah replied, looking at me with interest. “That was Diana.”

“What happened?” I gasped, looking at the butter.

“You tell us,” Sarah said crisply. “You were fiddling with your ninth piece of toast when the refrigerator opened and the butter sailed out.”

“All I did was wonder if there was more.” I picked up the empty container.

Em clapped her hands with delight at my newest sign of power, and Sarah insisted that I try to get something else out of the refrigerator. No matter what I called, it refused to come.

“Try the cabinets,” Em suggested. “The doors aren’t as heavy.”

Matthew had been watching the activity with interest. “You just wondered about the butter because you needed it?”

I nodded.

“And when you flew yesterday, did you command the air to cooperate?”

“I thought ‘Fly,’ and I flew. I needed to do it more than I needed the butter, though—you were about to kill me. Again.”

“Diana flew?” Sarah asked faintly.

“Is there anything you need now?” inquired Matthew.

“To sit down.” My knees felt a little shaky.

A kitchen stool traveled across the floor and parked obligingly beneath my backside.

Matthew smiled with satisfaction and picked up the paper. “It’s just as I thought,” he murmured, returning to the headlines.

Sarah tore the paper from his hands. “Stop grinning like the Cheshire cat. What did you think?”

At the mention of another member of her species, Tabitha strutted into the house through the cat door. With a look of complete devotion, she dropped a tiny, dead field mouse at Matthew’s feet.

“Merci, ma petite,” Matthew said gravely. “Unfortunately, I am not hungry at present.”

Tabitha yowled in frustration and hauled her offering off to the corner, where she punished it by batting it between her paws for failing to please Matthew.

Undeterred, Sarah repeated her question. “What do you think?”

“The spells that Rebecca and Stephen cast ensure that nobody can force the magic from Diana. Her magic is bound up in necessity. Very clever.” He smoothed out his rumpled paper and resumed reading.

“Clever and impossible,” Sarah grumbled.

“Not impossible,” he replied. “We just have to think like her parents. Rebecca had seen what would happen at La Pierre—not every detail, but she knew that her daughter would be held captive by a witch. Rebecca also knew that she would get away. That’s why the spellbinding held fast. Diana didn’t need her magic.”

“How are we supposed to teach Diana how to control her power if she can’t command it?” demanded my aunt.

The house gave us no chance to consider the options. There was a sound like cannon fire, followed by tap dancing.

“Oh, hell.” Sarah groaned. “What does it want now?”

Matthew put down his paper. “Is something wrong?”

“The house wants us. It slams the coffin doors on the keeping room and then moves the furniture around to get our attention.” I licked the butter off my fingers and padded through the family room. The lights flickered in the front hall.

“All right, all right,” Sarah said testily. “We’re coming.”

We followed my aunts into the keeping room. The house sent a wing chair careening across the floor in my direction.

“It wants Diana,” Emily said unnecessarily.

The house might have wanted me, but it didn’t anticipate the interference of a protective vampire with quick reflexes. Matthew shot his foot out and stopped the chair before it hit me in the back of the knees. There was a crack of old wood on strong bones.

“Don’t worry, Matthew. The house only wants me to sit down.” I did so, waiting for its next move.

“The house needs to learn some manners,” he retorted.

“Where did Mom’s rocker come from? We got rid of it years ago,” Sarah said, pursing her lips at the old chair near the front window.

“The rocking chair is back, and so is Grandma,” I said. “She said hello when we arrived.”

“Was Elizabeth with her?” Em sat on the uncomfortable Victorian sofa. “Tall? Serious expression?”

“Yes. I didn’t get a good look, though. She was mostly behind the door.”

“The ghosts don’t hang around much these days,” Sarah said. “We think she’s some distant Bishop cousin who died in the 1870s.”

A ball of green wool and two knitting needles rocketed down the chimney and rolled across the hearth.

“Does the house think I should take up knitting?” I asked.

“That’s mine—I started making a sweater a few years ago, and then one day it disappeared. The house takes all sorts of things and keeps them,” Em explained to Matthew as she retrieved her project. She gestured at the sofa’s hideous floral upholstery. “Come sit with me. Sometimes it takes the house awhile to get to the point. And we’re missing some photographs, a telephone book, the turkey platter, and my favorite winter coat.”

Matthew, not surprisingly, found it difficult to relax, given that a porcelain serving dish might decapitate him, but he did his best. Sarah sat in a Windsor chair nearby, looking annoyed.

“Come on, out with it,” she snapped several minutes later. “I’ve got things to do.”

A thick brown envelope wormed its way through a crack in the green-painted paneling next to the fireplace. Once it had worked itself free, it shot across the keeping room and landed, faceup, in my lap.

“Diana” was scrawled on the front in blue ballpoint ink. My mother’s small, feminine handwriting was recognizable from permission slips and birthday cards.

“It’s from Mom.” I looked at Sarah, amazed. “What is it?”

She was equally startled. “I have no idea.”

Inside were a smaller envelope and something carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper. The envelope was pale green, with a darker green border around the edges. My father had helped me pick it out for my mother’s birthday. It had a cluster of white and green lily of the valley raised up slightly on the corner of each page. My eyes filled with tears.

“Do you want to be alone?” Matthew asked quietly, already on his feet.

“Stay. Please.”

Shaking, I tore the envelope open and unfolded the papers inside. The date underneath the lily of the valley—August 13, 1983—caught my eye immediately.

My seventh birthday. It had fallen only days before my parents left for Nigeria.

I galloped through the first page of my mother’s letter. The sheet fell from my fingers, drifted onto the floor, and came to rest at my feet.

Em’s fear was palpable. “Diana? What is it?”

Without answering, I tucked the rest of the letter next to my thigh and picked up the brown envelope the house had been hiding for my mother. Pulling at the tissue paper, I wriggled a flat, rectangular object into the open. It was heavier than it should be, and it tingled with power.

I recognized that power and had felt it before.

Matthew heard my blood begin to sing. He came to stand behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders.

I unfolded the wrappings. On top, blocking Mathew’s view and separated by still more tissue from what lay beneath, was a piece of ordinary white paper, the edges brown with age. There were three lines written on it in spidery script.

“‘It begins with absence and desire,’” I whispered around the tightness in my throat. “‘It begins with blood and fear.’”

“‘It begins with a discovery of witches,’” Matthew finished, looking over my shoulder.

After I’d delivered the note to Matthew’s waiting fingers, he held it to his nose for a moment before passing it silently to Sarah. I lifted the top sheet of tissue paper.

Sitting in my lap was one of the missing pages from Ashmole 782.

“Christ,” he breathed. “Is that what I think it is? How did your mother get it?”

“She explains in the letter,” I said numbly, staring down at the brightly colored image.

Matthew bent and picked up the dropped sheet of stationery. “‘My darling Diana,’” he read aloud. “‘Today you are seven—a magical age for a witch, when your powers should begin to stir and take shape. But your powers have been stirring since you were born. You have always been different.’”

My knees shifted under the image’s uncanny weight.

“‘That you are reading this means that your father and I succeeded. We were able to convince the Congregation that it was your father—and not you—whose power they sought. You mustn’t blame yourself. It was the only decision we could possibly make. We trust that you are old enough now to understand.’” Matthew gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before continuing.

“‘You’re old enough now, too, to take up the hunt that we began when you were born—the hunt for information about you and your magic. We received the enclosed note and drawing when you were three. It came to us in an envelope with an Israeli stamp. The department secretary told us there was no return address or signature—just the note and the picture.

“‘We’ve spent much of the past four years trying to make sense of it. We couldn’t ask too many questions. But we think the picture shows a wedding. ’”

“It is a wedding—the chemical marriage of mercury and sulfur. It’s a crucial step in making the philosopher’s stone.” My voice sounded harsh after Matthew’s rich tones.

It was one of the most beautiful depictions of the chemical wedding I’d ever seen. A golden-haired woman in a pristine white gown held a white rose in one hand. It was an offering to her pale, dark-haired husband, a message that she was pure and worthy of him. He wore black-and-red robes and clasped her other hand. He, too, held a rose—but his was as red as fresh-spilled blood, a token of love and death. Behind the couple, chemicals and metals were personified as wedding guests, milling around in a landscape of trees and rocky hills. A whole menagerie of animals gathered to witness the ceremony: ravens, eagles, toads, green lions, peacocks, pelicans. A unicorn and a wolf stood side by side in the center background, behind the bride and groom. The whole scene was gathered within the outspread wings of a phoenix, its feathers flaming at the edges and its head curved down to watch the scene unfold.

“What does it mean?” Em asked.

“That someone has been waiting for Matthew and me to find each other for a long time.”

“How could that picture possibly be about you and Matthew?” Sarah craned her neck to inspect it more closely.

“The queen is wearing Matthew’s crest.” A gleaming silver-and-gold circlet held back the bride’s hair. In its midst, resting against her forehead, was a jewel in the shape of a crescent moon with a star rising above it.

Matthew reached past the picture and took up the rest of my mother’s letter. “Do you mind if I continue?” he asked gently.

I shook my head, the page from the manuscript still resting on my knees. Em and Sarah, wary of its power, were exercising proper caution in the presence of an unfamiliar bewitched object and remained where they were.

“‘We think the woman in white is meant to be you, Diana. We are less certain about the identity of the dark man. I’ve seen him in your dreams, but he’s hard to place. He walks through your future, but he’s in the past as well. He’s always in shadows, never in the light. And though he’s dangerous, the shadowed man doesn’t pose a threat to you. Is he with you now? I hope so. I wish I could have known him. There is so much I would have liked to tell him about you.’” Matthew’s voice stumbled over the last words.

“‘We hope the two of you will be able to discover the source of this picture. Your father thinks it’s from an old book. Sometimes we see text moving on the back of the page, but then the words disappear again for weeks, even months, at a time. ’”

Sarah sprang out of her chair. “Give me the picture.”

“It’s from the book I told you about. The one in Oxford.” I handed it to her reluctantly.

“It feels so heavy,” she said, walking toward the window with a frown. She turned the picture over and angled the page this way and that. “But I don’t see any words. Of course, it’s no wonder. If this page was removed from the book it belongs to, then the magic is badly damaged.”

“Is that why the words I saw were moving so fast?”

Sarah nodded. “Probably. They were searching for this page and couldn’t find it.”

“Pages.” This was a detail I hadn’t told Matthew.

“What do you mean, ‘pages’?” Matthew came around the chair, flicking little shards of ice over my features.

“This isn’t the only page that’s missing from Ashmole 782.”

“How many were removed?”

“Three,” I whispered. “Three pages were missing from the front of the manuscript. I could see the stubs. It didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Three,” Matthew repeated. His voice was flat, and it sounded as though he were about to break something apart with his bare hands.

“What does it matter whether there are three pages missing or three hundred?” Sarah was still trying to detect the hidden words. “The magic is still broken.”

“Because there are three types of otherworldly creatures.” Matthew touched my face to let me know he wasn’t angry at me.

“And if we have one of the pages . . .” I started.

“Then who has the others?” Em finished.

“Damn it all to hell, why didn’t Rebecca tell us about this?” Sarah, too, sounded like she wanted to destroy something. Emily took the picture from her hands and laid it carefully on an antique tea table.

Matthew continued reading. “‘Your father says that you will have to travel far to unlock its secrets. I won’t say more, for fear this note will fall into the wrong hands. But you will figure it out, I know. ’”

He handed the sheet to me and went on to the next. “‘The house wouldn’t have shared this letter if you weren’t ready. That means you also know that your father and I spellbound you. Sarah will be furious, but it was the only way to protect you from the Congregation before the shadowed man was with you. He will help you with your magic. Sarah will say it’s not his business because he’s not a Bishop. Ignore her.’”

Sarah snorted and looked daggers at the vampire.

“‘Because you will love him as you love no one else, I tied your magic to your feelings for him. Even so, only you will have the ability to draw it into the open. I’m sorry about the panic attacks. They were the only thing I could think of. Sometimes you’re too brave for your own good. Good luck learning your spells—Sarah is a perfectionist.’”

Matthew smiled. “There always was something odd about your anxiety.”

“Odd how?”

“After we met in the Bodleian, it was almost impossible to provoke you into panicking.”

“But I panicked when you came out of the fog by the boathouses.”

“You were startled. Your instincts should have been screaming with panic whenever I was near. Instead you came closer and closer.” Matthew dropped a kiss on my head and turned to the last page.

“‘It’s hard to know how to finish this letter when there is so much in my heart. The past seven years have been the happiest of my life. I wouldn’t give up a moment of our precious time with you—not for an ocean of power or a long, safe life without you. We don’t know why the goddess entrusted you to us, but not a day has passed that we didn’t thank her for it.’”

I suppressed a sob but couldn’t stop the tears.

“‘I cannot shield you from the challenges you will face. You will know great loss and danger, but also great joy. You may doubt your instincts in the years to come, but your feet have been walking this path since the moment you were born. We knew it when you came into the world a caulbearer. You’ve remained between worlds ever since. It’s who you are, and your destiny. Don’t let anyone keep you from it.’”

“What’s a caulbearer?” I whispered.

“Someone born with the amniotic sac still intact around them. It’s a sign of luck,” Sarah explained.

Matthew’s free hand cradled the back of my skull. “Much more than luck is associated with the caul. In times past, it was thought to foretell the birth of a great seer. Some believed it was a sign you would become a vampire, a witch, or a werewolf.” He gave me a lopsided grin.

“Where is it?” Em asked Sarah.

Matthew and I swung our heads in quick unison. “What?” we asked simultaneously.

“Cauls have enormous power. Stephen and Rebecca would have saved it.”

We all looked at the crack in the paneling. A phonebook landed in the grate with a thud, sending a cloud of ash into the room.

“How do you save a caul?” I wondered aloud. “Do you put it in a baggie or something?”

“Traditionally, you press a piece of paper or fabric onto the baby’s face and the caul sticks to it. Then you save the paper,” explained Em.

All eyes swiveled to the page from Ashmole 782. Sarah picked it up and studied it closely. She muttered a few words and stared some more.

“There’s something uncanny about this picture,” she reported, “but it doesn’t have Diana’s caul attached to it.”

That was a relief. It would have been one strange thing too many.

“So is that all, or does my sister have any other secrets she’d like to share with us?” Sarah asked tartly. Matthew frowned at her. “Sorry, Diana,” she murmured.

“There’s not much more. Can you manage it, mon coeur?”

I grabbed his free hand and nodded. He perched on one of the chair’s padded arms, which creaked slightly under his weight.

“‘Try not to be too hard on yourself as you journey into the future. Keep your wits about you, and trust your instincts. It’s not much in the way of advice, but it’s all that a mother can give. We can scarcely bear leaving you, but the only alternative is to risk losing you forever. Forgive us. If we have wronged you, it was because we loved you so much. Mom.’”

The room was silent, and even the house was holding its breath. A sound of loss started somewhere deep within me just before a tear fell from my eye. It swelled to the size of a softball and hit the floor with a splash. My legs felt liquid.

“Here it comes,” Sarah warned.

Matthew dropped the page from the letter and swept me out of the chair and through the front door. He set me on the driveway, and my toes gripped the soil. The witchwater released harmlessly into the ground while my tears continued to flow. After a few moments, Matthew’s hands slid around my waist from behind. His body shielded me from the rest of the world, and I relaxed against his chest.

“Let it all go,” he murmured, his lips against my ear.

The witchwater subsided, leaving behind an aching sense of loss that would never go away completely.

“I wish they were here,” I cried. “My mother and father would know what to do.”

“I know you miss them. But they didn’t know what to do—not really. Like all parents, they were just doing their best from moment to moment.”

“My mother saw you, and what the Congregation might do. She was a great seer.”

“And so will you be, one day. Until then we’re going to have to manage without knowing what the future holds. But there are two of us. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”

We went back inside, where Sarah and Em were still scrutinizing the page from the manuscript. I announced that more tea and a fresh pot of coffee were in order, and Matthew came with me into the kitchen, though his eyes lingered on the brightly colored image.

The kitchen looked like a war zone, as usual. Every surface was covered with dishes. While the kettle came to the boil and the coffee brewed, I rolled up my sleeves to do the dishes.

Matthew’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He was ignoring it, intent on putting more logs into the already overloaded fireplace.

“You should get that,” I said, squirting dish liquid into the sink.

He pulled out his phone. His face revealed that this was not a call he wanted to take. “Oui?”

It must be Ysabeau. Something had gone wrong, someone wasn’t where he or she was supposed to be—it was impossible for me to follow the particulars given their rapid exchange, but Matthew’s annoyance was clear. He barked out a few orders and disconnected the phone.

“Is Ysabeau all right?” I swished my fingers through the warm water, hoping there was no new crisis.

Matthew’s hands pushed my shoulders gently away from my ears, kneading the tight muscles. “She’s fine. This had nothing to do with Ysabeau. It was Alain. He was doing some business for the family and ran into an unexpected situation.”

“Business?” I picked up the sponge and started washing. “For the Knights of Lazarus?”

“Yes,” he said shortly.

“Who is Alain?” I set the clean plate in the drainer.

“He began as my father’s squire. Philippe couldn’t manage without him, in war or in peace, so Marthe made him a vampire. He knows every aspect of the brotherhood’s business. When my father died, Alain transferred his loyalty from Philippe to me. He called to warn me that Marcus wasn’t pleased to receive my message.”

I turned to meet his eyes. “Was it the same message you gave to Baldwin at La Guardia?”

He nodded.

“I’m nothing but trouble to your family.”

“This isn’t a de Clermont family matter anymore, Diana. The Knights of Lazarus protect those who cannot protect themselves. Marcus knew that when he accepted a place among them.”

Matthew’s phone buzzed again.

“And that will be Marcus,” he said grimly.

“Go talk to him in private.” I tilted my chin toward the door. Matthew kissed my cheek before pushing the green button on his phone and heading into the backyard.

“Hello, Marcus,” he said warily, shutting the door behind him.

I continued moving the soapy water over the dishes, the repetitive motion soothing.

“Where’s Matthew?” Sarah and Em were standing in the doorway, holding hands.

“Outside, talking to England,” I said, nodding again in the direction of the back door.

Sarah got another clean mug out of the cabinet—the fourth she’d used that morning, by my count—and filled it with fresh coffee. Emily picked up the newspaper. Still, their eyes tingled with curiosity. The back door opened and closed. I braced for the worst.

“How is Marcus?”

“He and Miriam are on their way to New York. They have something to discuss with you.” Matthew’s face looked like a thundercloud.

“Me? What is it?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Marcus didn’t want you to be on your own with only witches to keep you company.” I smiled at him, and some of the tension left his face.

“They’ll be here by nightfall and will check in to the inn we passed on our way through town. I’ll go by and see them tonight. Whatever they need to tell you can wait until tomorrow.” Matthew’s worried eyes darted to Sarah and Em.

I turned to the sink again. “Call him back, Matthew. They should come straight here.”

“They won’t want to disturb anyone,” he said smoothly. Matthew didn’t want to upset Sarah and the rest of the Bishops by bringing two more vampires into the house. But my mother would never have let Marcus travel so far only to stay in a hotel.

Marcus was Matthew’s son. He was my son.

My fingers prickled, and the cup I was washing slipped from my grasp. It bobbed in the water for a few moments, then sank.

“No son of mine is checking in to a hotel. He belongs in the Bishop house, with his family, and Miriam shouldn’t be alone. They’re both staying here, and that’s final,” I said firmly.

“Son?” said Sarah faintly.

“Marcus is Matthew’s son, which makes him my son, too. That makes him a Bishop, and this house belongs to him as much as it does to you, or me, or Em.” I turned to face them, grabbing the sleeves of my shirt tightly with my wet hands, which were shaking.

My grandmother drifted down the hallway to see what the fuss was about.

“Did you hear me, Grandma?” I called.

I believe we all heard you, Diana, she said in her rustly voice.

“Good. No acting up. And that goes for every Bishop in this house—living and dead.”

The house opened its front and back doors in a premature gesture of welcome, sending a gust of chilly air through the downstairs rooms.

“Where will they sleep?” Sarah grumbled.

“They don’t sleep, Sarah. They’re vampires.” The prickling in my fingers increased.

“Diana,” Matthew said, “please step away from the sink. The electricity, mon coeur.”

I gripped my sleeves tighter. The edges of my fingers were bright blue.

“We get the message,” Sarah said hastily, eyeing my hands. “We’ve already got one vampire in the house.”

“I’ll get their rooms ready,” Emily said, with a smile that looked genuine. “I’m glad we’ll have a chance to meet your son, Matthew.”

Matthew, who had been leaning against an ancient wooden cupboard, pulled himself upright and walked slowly toward me. “All right,” he said, drawing me from the sink and tucking my head under his chin. “You’ve made your point. I’ll call Marcus and let him know they’re welcome here.”

“Don’t tell Marcus I called him my son. He may not want a stepmother.”

“You two will have to sort that out,” Matthew said, trying to suppress his amusement.

“What’s so funny?” I tipped my face up to look at him.

“With all that’s happened this morning, the one thing you’re worried about is whether Marcus wants a stepmother. You confound me.” Matthew shook his head. “Are all witches this surprising, Sarah, or is it just Bishops?”

Sarah considered her answer. “Just Bishops.”

I peeked around Matthew’s shoulder to give her a grateful smile.

My aunts were surrounded by a mob of ghosts, all of whom were solemnly nodding in agreement.

After the dishes were done, Matthew and I gathered up my mother’s letter, the mysterious note, and the page from Ashmole 782 and carried them into the dining room. We spread the papers out on the room’s vast, well-worn table. These days it was seldom used, since it made no sense for two people to sit at the end of a piece of furniture designed to easily seat twelve. My aunts joined us, steaming mugs of coffee in their hands.

Sarah and Matthew crouched over the page from the alchemical manuscript.

“Why is it so heavy?” Sarah picked the page up and weighed it carefully.

“I don’t feel any special weightiness,” Matthew confessed, taking it from her hands, “but there’s something odd about the way it smells.”

Sarah gave it a long sniff. “No, it just smells old.”

“It’s more than that. I know what old smells like,” he said sardonically.

Em and I, on the other hand, were more interested in the enigmatic note.

“What do you think it means?” I asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

“I’m not sure.” Em hesitated. “Blood usually signifies family, war, or death. But what about absence? Does it mean this page is absent from the book? Or did it warn your parents that they wouldn’t be present as you grew up?”

“Look at the last line. Did my parents discover something in Africa?”

“Or were you the discovery of witches?” Em suggested gently.

“The last line must be about Diana’s discovery of Ashmole 782,” Matthew chimed in, looking up from the chemical wedding.

“You believe that everything is about me and that manuscript,” I grumbled. “The note mentions the subject of your All Souls essay—fear and desire. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No stranger than the fact that the white queen in this picture is wearing my crest.” Matthew brought the illustration over to me.

“She’s the embodiment of quicksilver—the principle of volatility in alchemy,” I said.

“Quicksilver?” Matthew looked amused. “A metallic perpetual-motion machine?”

“You could say that.” I smiled, too, thinking of the ball of energy I’d given him.

“What about the red king?”

“He’s stable and grounded.” I frowned. “But he’s also supposed to be the sun, and he’s not usually depicted wearing black and red. Usually he’s just red.”

“So maybe the king isn’t me and the queen isn’t you.” He touched the white queen’s face delicately with his fingertip.

“Perhaps,” I said slowly, remembering a passage from the Matthew’s Aurora manuscript. “‘Attend to me, all people, and listen to me, all who inhabit the world: my beloved, who is red, has called to me. He sought, and found me. I am the flower of the field, a lily growing in the valley. I am the mother of true love, and of fear, and of understanding, and blessed hope.’”

“What is that?” Matthew touched my face now. “It sounds biblical, but the words aren’t quite right.”

“It’s one of the passages on the chemical wedding from the Aurora Consurgens .” Our eyes locked, held. When the air became heavy, I changed the subject. “What did my father mean when he said we’d have to travel far to figure out the picture’s significance?”

“The stamp came from Israel. Maybe Stephen meant we would have to return there.”

“There are a lot of alchemical manuscripts in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University. Most of them belonged to Isaac Newton.” Given Matthew’s history with the place, not to mention the Knights of Lazarus, it was not a city I was eager to visit.

“Israel didn’t count as ‘traveling far’ for your father,” said Sarah, sitting opposite. Em walked around the table and joined her.

“What did qualify?” Matthew picked up my mother’s letter and scanned the last page for further clues.

“The Australian outback. Wyoming. Mali. Those were his favorite places to timewalk.”

The word cut through me with the same intensity as “spellbound” had only a few days before. I knew that some witches could move between past, present, and future, but I’d never thought to ask whether anyone in my own family had the ability. It was rare—almost as rare as witchfire.

“Stephen Proctor could travel in time?” Matthew’s voice assumed the deliberate evenness it often did when magic was mentioned.

Sarah nodded. “Yes. Stephen went to the past or the future at least once a year, usually after the annual anthropologists’ convention in December.”

“There’s something on the back of Rebecca’s letter.” Em bent her neck to see underneath the page.

Matthew quickly flipped it over. “I dropped the page to get you outside before the witchwater broke. I didn’t see this. It’s not your mother’s handwriting,” he said, passing it to me.

The handwriting on the penciled note had elongated loops and spiky peaks. “Remember, Diana: ‘The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.’” I’ d seen that hand somewhere before. In the recesses of my memory, I flipped through images trying to locate its source but without success.

“Who would have written a quote from Albert Einstein on the back of Mom’s note?” I asked Sarah and Em, angling the page to face them and struck again by its familiarity.

“That looks like your dad. He took calligraphy lessons. Rebecca poked fun at him for it. It made his handwriting look so old-fashioned.”

Slowly I turned the page over, scrutinizing the writing again. It did look nineteenth-century in style, like the handwriting of the clerks employed to compile the catalogs in the Bodleian back during Victoria’s reign. I stiffened, looked more closely at the writing, shook my head.

“No, it’s not possible.” There was no way my father could have been one of those clerks, no way he could have written the nineteenth-century subtitle on Ashmole 782.

But my father could timewalk. And the message from Einstein was unquestionably meant for me. I dropped the page onto the table and put my head in my hands.

Matthew sat next to me and waited. When Sarah made an impatient sound, he silenced her with a decisive gesture. Once my mind stopped spinning, I spoke.

“There were two inscriptions on the first page of the manuscript. One was in ink, written by Elias Ashmole: ‘Anthropologia, or a treatis containing a short description of Man.’ The other was in a different hand, in pencil: ‘in two parts: the first Anatomical, the second Psychological.’”

“The second inscription had to be written much later,” Matthew observed. “There was no such thing as ‘psychology’ during Ashmole’s lifetime.”

“I thought it dated from the nineteenth century.” I pulled my father’s note toward me. “But this makes me think my father wrote it.”

The room fell silent.

“Touch the words,” Sarah finally suggested. “See what else they say.”

My fingers passed lightly over the penciled letters. Images bloomed from the page, of my father in a dark frock coat with wide lapels and a high black cravat, crouched over a desk covered with books. There were other images, too, of him in his study at home wearing his familiar corduroy jacket, scrawling a note with a No. 2 pencil while my mother looked over his shoulder, weeping.

“It was him.” My fingers lifted from the page, shaking visibly.

Matthew took my hand in his. “That’s enough bravery for one day, ma lionne.”

“But your father didn’t remove the chemical wedding from the book at the Bodleian,” mused Em, “so what was he doing there?”

“Stephen Proctor was bewitching Ashmole 782 so that no one but his daughter could call it from the stacks.” Matthew sounded sure.

“So that’s why the spell recognized me. But why didn’t it behave the same way when I recalled it?”

“You didn’t need it. Oh, you wanted it,” Matthew said with a wry smile when I opened my mouth to protest, “but that’s different. Remember, your parents bound your magic so that your power couldn’t be forced from you. The spell on the manuscript was no different.”

“When I first called Ashmole 782, all I needed was to check the next item off my to-do list. It’s hard to believe that something so insignificant could trigger such a reaction.”

“Your mother and father couldn’t have foreseen everything—such as the fact that you would be a historian of alchemy and would regularly work at the Bodleian. Could Rebecca timewalk, too?” Matthew asked Sarah.

“No. It’s rare, of course, and the most adept timewalkers are well versed in witchcraft as well. Without the right spells and precautions, you can easily end up somewhere you don’t want to be, no matter how much power you have.”

“Yes,” Matthew said drily. “I can think of any number of times and places you would want to avoid.”

“Rebecca went with Stephen sometimes, but he had to carry her.” Sarah smiled at Em. “Do you remember Vienna? Stephen decided he was going to take her waltzing. He spent a full year figuring out which bonnet she should wear for the journey.”

“You need three objects from the particular time and place you want to travel back to. They keep you from getting lost,” Em continued. “If you want to go to the future, you have to use witchcraft, because it’s the only way to direct yourself.”

Sarah picked up the picture of the chemical wedding, no longer interested in timewalking. “What’s the unicorn for?”

“Forget the unicorn, Sarah,” I said impatiently. “Daddy couldn’t have wanted me to go back in the past and get the manuscript. What did he think, that I’d timewalk and snatch it before it was bewitched? What if I ran into Matthew by accident? Surely that would mess up the time-space continuum.”

“Oh, relativity.” Sarah’s voice was dismissive. “As an explanation that only goes so far.”

“Stephen always said timewalking was like changing trains,” Em said. “You get off one train, then wait at the station until there’s a place for you on a different train. When you timewalk, you depart from the here and now and you’re held out of time until there’s room for you sometime else.”

“That’s similar to the way vampires change lives,” Matthew mused. “We abandon one life—arrange a death, a disappearance, a change of residence—and look for another one. You’d be amazed at how easily people walk away from their homes, jobs, and families.”

“Surely someone notices that the John Smith they knew last week doesn’t look the same,” I protested.

“That’s even more amazing,” Matthew admitted. “So long as you pick carefully, no one says a word. A few years in the Holy Land, a life-threatening illness, the likelihood of losing an inheritance—all provide excellent excuses for creatures and humans to turn a blind eye.”

“Well, whether it’s possible or not, I can’t timewalk. It wasn’t on the DNA report.”

“Of course you can timewalk. You’ve been doing it since you were a child.” Sarah sounded smug as she discredited Matthew’s scientific findings. “The first time you were three. Your parents were scared to death, the police were called out—it was quite a scene. Four hours later they found you sitting in the kitchen high chair eating a slice of birthday cake. You must have been hungry and gone back to your own birthday party. After that, whenever you disappeared, we figured you were sometime else and you’d turn up. And you disappeared a lot.”

My alarm at the thought of a toddler traveling through time gave way to the realization that I had the power to answer any historical question. I brightened considerably.

Matthew had already figured this out and was waiting patiently for me to catch up. “No matter what your father wanted, you aren’t going back to 1859,” he said firmly, turning the chair around so I faced him. “Time is not something you’re going to meddle with. Understood?”

Even after assuring him that I would stay in the present, no one left me alone for an instant. The three of them silently passed me from one to the other in choreography worthy of Broadway. Em followed me upstairs to make sure there were towels, though I knew perfectly well where the linen closet was. When I came out of the bathroom, Matthew was lying on the bed fiddling with his phone. He stayed upstairs when I went down to make a cup of tea, knowing that Sarah and Em would be waiting for me in the family room.

Marthe’s tin was in my hands, and I felt guilty for missing yesterday and breaking my promise to her. Determined to have some tea today, I filled the kettle and opened the black metal box. The smell of rue triggered a sharp recollection of being swept into the air by Satu. Gripping the lid more tightly, I focused on the other scents and happier memories of Sept-Tours. I missed its gray stone walls, the gardens, Marthe, Rakasa—even Ysabeau.

“Where did you get that, Diana?” Sarah came in the kitchen and pointed at the tin.

“Marthe and I made it.”

“That’s his mother’s housekeeper? The one who made the medicine for your back?”

“Marthe is Ysabeau’s housekeeper, yes.” I put a slight emphasis on their proper names. “Vampires have names, just like witches. You need to learn them.”

Sarah sniffed. “I would have thought you’d go to the doctor for a prescription, not depend on old herbal lore.”

“Dr. Fowler will fit you in if you want something more reliable.” Em had come in, too. “Not even Sarah is much of an advocate of herbal contraception.”

I hid my confusion by plopping a tea bag into the mug, keeping my mind blank and my face hidden. “This is fine. There’s no need to see Dr. Fowler.”

“True. Not if you’re sleeping with a vampire. They can’t reproduce—not in any way that contraception is going to prevent. All you have to watch out for is teeth on your neck.”

“I know, Sarah.”

But I didn’t. Why had Marthe taught me so carefully how to make a completely unnecessary tea? Matthew had been clear that he couldn’t father children as warmbloods did. Despite my promise to Marthe, I dumped the half-steeped cup down the sink and threw the bag in the trash. The tin went on the top shelf in the cupboard, where it would be safely out of sight.

By late afternoon, in spite of many conversations about the note, the letter, and the picture, we were no closer to understanding the mystery of Ashmole 782 and my father’s connection to it. My aunts started to make dinner, which meant that Em roasted a chicken while Sarah drank a glass of bourbon and criticized the quantity of vegetables being prepared. Matthew prowled around the kitchen island, uncharacteristically restless.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand. “You need some exercise.”

It was he who needed fresh air, not I, but the prospect of going outdoors was enticing. A search in the mudroom closet revealed an old pair of my running shoes. They were worn, but they fit better than Sarah’s boots.

We made it as far as the first apple trees before Matthew swung me around and pressed me between his body and one of the old, gnarled trunks. The low canopy of branches shielded us from the house’s sight.

Despite my being trapped, there was no answering rush of witchwind. There were plenty of other feelings, though.

“Christ, that house is crowded,” Matthew said, pausing just long enough to get the words out before refastening his lips on mine.

We’d had too little time alone since he’d returned from Oxford. It seemed a lifetime ago, but it was only days. One of his hands slid into the waistband of my jeans, his fingers cool against my bare flesh. I shivered with pleasure, and he drew me closer, his other hand locating the rounded curves of my breast. We pressed the length of our bodies against each other, but he kept looking for new ways to connect.

Finally there was only one possibility left. For a moment it seemed Matthew intended to consummate our marriage the old-fashioned way—standing up, outdoors, in a blinding rush of physical need. His control returned, however, and he pulled away.

“Not like this,” he rasped, his eyes black.

“I don’t care.” I pulled him back against me.

“I do.” There was a soft, ragged expulsion of air as Matthew breathed a vampire’s sigh. “When we make love for the first time, I want you to myself—not surrounded by other people. And I’ll want you for more than the few snatched moments we’d have now, believe me.”

“I want you, too,” I said, “and I’m not known for my patience.”

His lips drew up into a smile, and he made a soft sound of agreement.

Matthew’s thumb stroked the hollow in my throat, and my blood leaped. He put his lips where his thumb had been, pressing them softly against the outward sign of the vitality that pulsed beneath the surface. He traced a vein up the side of my neck toward my ear.

“I’m enjoying learning where you like to be touched. Like here.” Matthew kissed behind my ear. “And here.” His lips moved to my eyelids, and I made a soft sound of pleasure. “And here.” He ran his thumb over my lower lip.

“Matthew,” I whispered, my eyes pleading.

“What, mon coeur?” He watched, fascinated, as his touch drew fresh blood to the surface.

I didn’t answer but pulled him to me, unconcerned with the cold, the growing darkness, and the rough bark beneath my sore back. We remained there until Sarah called from the porch.

“You didn’t get very far, did you?” Her snort carried clear across the field. “That hardly qualifies as exercise.”

Feeling like a schoolgirl caught necking in the driveway, I pulled my sweatshirt into the proper position and headed back to the house. Matthew chuckled and followed.

“You look pleased with yourself,” Sarah said when he stepped into the kitchen. Standing under the bright lights, he was every inch a vampire—and a self-satisfied one, at that. But his eyes were no longer restless, and for that I was grateful.

“Leave him alone.” Em’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp. She handed me the salad and pointed me to the table in the family room where we usually ate. “We saw a fair amount of that apple tree ourselves while Diana was growing up.”

“Hmph,” Sarah said. She picked up three wineglasses and waved them in Matthew’s direction. “Got any more of that wine, Casanova?”

“I’m French, Sarah, not Italian. And I’m a vampire. I always have wine,” Matthew said with a wicked smile. “There’s no danger of running out either. Marcus will bring more. He’s not French—or Italian either, alas—but his education compensated for it.”

We sat around the table, and the three witches proceeded to demolish Em’s roast chicken and potatoes. Tabitha sat next to Matthew, her tail swishing flirtatiously across his feet every few minutes. He kept the wine flowing into Sarah’s glass, and I sipped at my own. Em asked repeatedly if he wanted to taste anything, but Matthew declined.

“I’m not hungry, Emily, but thank you.”

“Is there anything at all that you would eat?” Em wasn’t used to people refusing her food.

“Nuts,” I said firmly. “If you have to buy him food, get him nuts.”

Em hesitated. “What about raw meat?”

Matthew grabbed my hand and squeezed it before I could reply. “If you want to feed me, uncooked meat would be just fine. I like broth, too—plain, no vegetables.”

“Is that what your son and colleague eat, too, or are these just your favorite foods?”

Matthew’s impatience with my earlier questions about his lifestyle and dining habits made sense to me now.

“It’s pretty standard vampire fare when we’re among warmbloods.” Matthew released my hand and poured himself more wine.

“You must hang out at bars a lot, what with the wine and nuts,” Sarah observed.

Em put her fork down and stared at her.

“What?” Sarah demanded.

“Sarah Bishop, if you embarrass us in front of Matthew’s son, I’ll never forgive you.”

My resulting fit of giggles quickly turned into full-blown laughter. Sarah was the first to join in, followed by Em. Matthew sat and smiled as if he’d been dropped into a lunatic asylum but was too polite to mention it.

When the laughter subsided, he turned to Sarah. “I was wondering if I could borrow your stillroom to analyze the pigments used in the picture of the chemical wedding. Maybe they can tell us where and when it was made.”

“You’re not going to remove anything from that picture.” The historian in me rose up in horror at the thought.

“It won’t come to any harm,” Matthew said mildly. “I do know how to analyze tiny pieces of evidence.”

“No! We should leave it alone until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Don’t be so prim, Diana. Besides, it’s a bit late for that when it was you who sent the book back.” Sarah stood, her eyes brightening. “Let’s see if the cookbook can help.”

“Well, well,” Em said under her breath. “You’re one of the family now, Matthew.”

Sarah disappeared into the stillroom and returned holding a leather-bound book the size of a family Bible. Within its covers was all the learning and lore of the Bishops, handed down from witch to witch for nearly four hundred years. The first name in the book was Rebecca, accompanied by the date 1617 in an ornate, round hand. Other names were sprawled down the first page in two columns, each one in a slightly different ink with a different date attached to it. The names continued onto the back of the sheet as well, with Susannahs, Elizabeths, Margarets, Rebeccas, and Sarahs dominating the list. My aunt never showed anybody this book—not even other witches. You had to be family to see her “cookbook.”

“What is that, Sarah?” Matthew’s nostrils flared at the scent of old paper, herbs, and smoke that was released as Sarah splayed its covers open.

“The Bishop grimoire.” She pointed to the first name. “It first belonged to Rebecca Davies, Bridget Bishop’s grandmother, then to her mother, Rebecca Playfer. Bridget handed the book down to her first daughter, born out of wedlock in England around 1650. Bridget was still in her teens at the time, and she named her daughter after her mother and grandmother. Unable to care for the girl, Bridget gave her up to a family in London. ” Sarah made a soft sound of disgust. “The rumors of her immorality haunted her for the rest of her life. Later her daughter Rebecca joined her and worked in her mother’s tavern. Bridget was on her second husband then, and had another daughter named Christian.”

“And you’re descended from Christian Bishop?” Matthew asked.

Sarah shook her head. “Christian Oliver, you mean—Bridget’s daughter from her second marriage. Edward Bishop was Bridget’s third husband. No, our ancestor is Rebecca. After Bridget was executed, Rebecca legally changed her name to Bishop. Rebecca was a widow, with no husband to argue with. It was an act of defiance.”

Matthew gave me a long look. Defiance, it seemed to say, was clearly a genetic trait.

“Nobody remembers all of Bridget Bishop’s many names anymore—she was married three times,” Sarah continued. “All anyone remembers is the name she bore when she was found guilty of witchcraft and executed. Since that time the women of the family have preserved the Bishop name, regardless of marriage or of who their father was.”

“I read about Bridget’s death shortly after,” Matthew said softly. “It was a dark time for creatures. Even though the new science seemed to strip all the mystery from the world, humans were still convinced that unseen forces were all around them. They were right, of course.”

“Well, the tension between what science promised and what their common sense told them was true resulted in the deaths of hundreds of witches.” Sarah started flipping through the grimoire’s pages.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, frowning. “Was one of the Bishops a manuscript conservator? If not, you won’t find much help in that spell book.”

“You don’t know what is in this spell book, miss,” Sarah said serenely. “You’ve never shown one bit of interest in it.”

My lips pressed into a thin line. “Nobody is damaging that manuscript.”

“Ah, here it is.” Sarah pointed triumphantly at the grimoire. “One of Margaret Bishop’s spells from the 1780s. She was a powerful witch. ‘My method for perceiving obscurities in paper or fabric.’ That’s where we’ll start.” She stood up, her finger marking the place.

“If you stain—” I began.

“I heard you the first two times, Diana. This is a spell for a vapor. Nothing but air will touch your precious manuscript page. Stop fussing.”

“I’ll go get it,” Matthew said hastily. I shot him a filthy look.

After he returned from the dining room with the picture cradled carefully in his hands, he and Sarah went off into the stillroom together. My aunt was talking a mile a minute as Matthew listened intently.

“Who would have imagined?” said Em, shaking her head.

Em and I washed the dinner dishes and had started the process of tidying the family room, which looked like a crime scene, when a pair of headlights swept the driveway.

“They’re here.” My stomach tightened.

“It’ll be fine, honey. They’re Matthew’s family.” Em squeezed my arm encouragingly.

By the time I reached the front door, Marcus and Miriam were getting out of the car. Miriam looked awkward and out of place in a lightweight brown sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, a miniskirt, and ankle boots, her dark eyes taking in the farm and its surroundings with an attitude of disbelief. Marcus was observing the house’s architecture and sniffing the breeze—which was no doubt redolent with coffee and witches—clothed in a short-sleeved T-shirt from a 1982 concert tour and a pair of jeans.

When the door swung open, Marcus’s blue eyes met mine with a twinkle. “Hi, Mom, we’re home!”

“Did he tell you?” I demanded, furious with Matthew for not obeying my wishes.

“Tell me what?” Marcus’s forehead creased in puzzlement.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “Hello, Marcus. Hello, Miriam.”

“Diana.” Miriam’s fine features were drawn into their familiar look of disapproval.

“Nice house.” Marcus headed up the porch stairs. He held a brown bottle in his fingers. Under the porch lights, his golden hair and polished white skin positively gleamed.

“Come in, welcome.” I hurriedly pulled him inside, hoping that no one driving by the house had glimpsed the vampire on the landing.

“How are you, Diana?” There was worry in his eyes, and his nose flared to take in my scent. Matthew had told him about La Pierre.

“I’m fine.” Upstairs, a door closed with a bang. “No nonsense! I am deadly serious!”

“About what?” Miriam stopped in her tracks, and her flat black curls wiggled over her shoulders like snakes.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Now that both vampires were safely within the walls, the house sighed.

“Nothing?” Miriam had heard the sigh, too, and her brows rose.

“The house gets a bit worried when visitors come to call, that’s all.”

Miriam looked up the staircase and sniffed. “How many residents does the house have?”

It was a simple question, for which there was no simple answer.

“Unsure,” I said shortly, lugging a duffel bag in the direction of the stairs. “What do you have in here?”

“It’s Miriam’s bag. Let me.” Marcus hooked it easily with his index finger.

We went upstairs so I could show them their rooms. Em had asked Matthew outright if the two would be sharing a bed. First he’d looked shocked at the impropriety of the question, and then he’d burst into gales of laughter and assured her that if they weren’t separated, there would be one dead vampire by morning. Periodically throughout the day, he’d chuckled under his breath, saying “Marcus and Miriam. What an idea.”

Marcus was staying in the guest bedroom that used to belong to Em, and we’d put Miriam in my old attic room. Stacks of fluffy towels were waiting on their beds, and I showed each of them where the bathroom was. There wasn’t much to do to get vampire guests settled—you couldn’t offer them food, or a place to lie down, or much of anything in the way of creature comforts. Happily, there’d been no spectral apparitions or falling plaster to indicate the house was displeased with their presence.

Matthew certainly knew that his son and Miriam had arrived, but the stillroom was secluded enough that Sarah remained oblivious. When I led the two vampires past the keeping room, Elizabeth peeped around the door, her eyes wide as an owl’s.

“Go find Grandma.” I turned to Marcus and Miriam. “Sorry, we’ve got ghosts.”

Marcus covered his laugh with a cough. “Do all of your ancestors live with you?”

Thinking of my parents, I shook my head.

“Too bad,” he murmured.

Em was waiting in the family room, her smile wide and genuine. “You must be Marcus,” she said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand. “I’m Emily Mather.”

“Em, this is Matthew’s colleague, Miriam Shephard.”

Miriam stepped forward. Though she and Em were both fine-boned, Miriam looked like a china doll in comparison.

“Welcome, Miriam,” said Em, looking down with a smile. “Do either of you need something to drink? Matthew opened wine.” She was entirely natural, as if vampires were always dropping by. Both Marcus and Miriam shook their heads.

“Where’s Matthew?” Miriam asked, making her priorities clear. Her keen senses absorbed the details of her new environment. “I can hear him.”

We led the two vampires toward the old wooden door that closed off Sarah’s private sanctuary. Marcus and Miriam continued to take in all the scents of the Bishop house as we proceeded—the food, the clothes, the witches, the coffee, and the cat.

Tabitha came screeching out of the shadows by the fireplace, aiming straight for Miriam as if the two were deadly enemies.

Miriam hissed, and Tabitha froze in mid-hurtle. The two assessed each other, predator to predator. Tabitha was the first to avert her eyes when, after several long moments, the cat discovered an urgent need to groom herself. It was a silent acknowledgment that she was no longer the only female of consequence on the premises.

“That’s Tabitha,” I said weakly. “She’s quite fond of Matthew.”

In the stillroom Matthew and Sarah were crouched over a pot of something set atop an old electric burner, rapt expressions on their faces. Bunches of dried herbs swung from the rafters, and the original colonial ovens stood ready for use, their iron hooks and cranes waiting to hold heavy cauldrons over the coals.

“The eyebright is crucial,” Sarah was explaining like a schoolmarm. “It clears the sight.”

“That smells vile,” Miriam observed, wrinkling her tiny nose and creeping closer.

Matthew’s face darkened.

“Matthew,” Marcus said evenly.

“Marcus,” his father replied.

Sarah stood and examined the newest members of the household, both of whom glowed. The stillroom’s subdued light only accentuated their unnatural paleness and the startling effect of their dilated pupils. “Goddess save us, how does anyone think you’re human?”

“It’s always been a mystery to me,” Miriam said, studying Sarah with equal interest. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous either, with all that red hair and the smell of henbane coming off you in waves. I’m Miriam Shephard.”

Matthew and I exchanged a long look, wondering how Miriam and Sarah were going to coexist peacefully under the same roof.

“Welcome to the Bishop house, Miriam.” Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and Miriam responded in kind. My aunt turned her attention to Marcus. “So you’re his kid.” As usual, she had no patience with social niceties.

“I’m Matthew’s son, yes.” Marcus, who looked like he’d seen a ghost, slowly held out a brown bottle. “Your namesake was a healer, like you. Sarah Bishop taught me how to set a broken leg after the Battle of Bunker Hill. I still do it the way she taught me.”

Two roughly shod feet dangled over the edge of the stillroom loft.

Let’s hope he’s got more strength now than he did then, said a woman who was the spitting image of Sarah.

“Whiskey,” Sarah said, looking from the bottle to my son with new appreciation.

“She liked spirits. I thought you might, too.”

Both Sarah Bishops nodded.

“You thought right,” my aunt said.

“How’s the potion going?” I said, trying not to sneeze in the close atmosphere.

“It needs to steep for nine hours,” Sarah said. “Then we boil it again, draw the manuscript through the vapor, and see what we see.” She eyed the whiskey.

“Let’s take a break, then. I could open that for you,” Matthew suggested, gesturing at the bottle.

“Don’t mind if I do.” She took the bottle from Marcus. “Thank you, Marcus.”

Sarah turned off the burner and clapped a lid on the pot before we all streamed into the kitchen. Matthew poured himself some wine, offered it to Miriam and Marcus, who declined again, and got Sarah some whiskey. I made myself tea—plain Lipton’s from the grocery store—while Matthew asked the vampires about their trip and the state of work at the lab.

There was no trace of warmth in Matthew’s voice, or any indication he was pleased by his son’s arrival. Marcus shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, knowing that he wasn’t welcome. I suggested we might go into the family room and sit down in hopes that some of the awkwardness would fade.

“Let’s go to the dining room instead.” Sarah raised her glass to her charming great-nephew. “We’ll show them the letter. Get Diana’s picture, Matthew. They should see that, too.”

“Marcus and Miriam won’t be staying long,” Matthew said with quiet reproach. “They have something to tell Diana, and then they’re going back to England.”

“But they’re family,” Sarah pointed out, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room.

My aunt retrieved the picture herself while Matthew continued to glower at his son. Sarah led us to the front of the house. Matthew, Em, and I assembled on one side of the table. Miriam, Marcus, and Sarah sat on the other. Once settled, my aunt began chattering about the morning’s events. Whenever she asked Matthew for some point of clarification, he bit out the answer without embellishment. Everyone in the room save Sarah seemed to understand that Matthew didn’t want Miriam and Marcus to know the details of what had happened. My aunt blithely continued, finishing with a recitation of my mother’s letter along with the postscript from my father. Matthew held firmly on to my hand while she did so.

Miriam took up the picture of the chemical wedding. She studied it carefully before turning her eyes to me. “Your mother was right. This is a picture of you. Matthew, too.”

“I know,” I said, meeting her gaze. “Do you know what it means?”

“Miriam?” Matthew said sharply.

“We can wait until tomorrow.” Marcus looked uneasy and rose to his feet. “It’s late.”

“She already knows,” Miriam said softly. “What comes after marriage, Diana? What’s the next step in alchemical transmutation after conjunctio?”

The room tilted, and I smelled the herbs in my tea from Sept-Tours.

“Conceptio.” My body turned to jelly, and I slid down the back of the chair as everything went black.

My head was between my knees amid the utter pandemonium. Matthew’s hand kept my attention glued to the pattern in the worn Oriental rug under my feet. In the background Marcus was telling Sarah that if she approached me, his father would likely rip her head off.

“It’s a vampire thing,” Marcus said soothingly. “We’re very protective of our spouses.”

“When were they married?” asked Sarah, slightly dazed.

Miriam’s efforts to calm Em were far less soothing. “We call it shielding,” her bell-like soprano chimed. “Ever seen a hawk with its prey? That’s what Matthew’s doing.”

“But Diana’s not his prey, is she? He’s not going to . . . to bite her?” Em glanced at my neck.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Miriam said slowly, considering the question. “He’s not hungry, and she’s not bleeding. The danger is minimal.”

“Knock it off, Miriam,” said Marcus. “There’s nothing to worry about, Emily.”

“I can sit up now,” I mumbled.

“Don’t move. The blood flow to your head isn’t back to normal yet.” Matthew tried not to growl at me but couldn’t manage it.

Sarah made a strangled sound, her suspicions that Matthew was constantly monitoring my blood supply now confirmed.

“Do you think he’d let me walk past Diana to get her test results?” Miriam asked Marcus.

“That depends on how pissed off he is. If you’d blindsided my wife that way, I’d poleax you and then eat you for breakfast. I’d sit tight if I were you.”

Miriam’s chair scraped against the floor. “I’ll risk it.” She darted past.

“Damn,” Sarah breathed.

“She’s unusually quick,” Marcus reassured her, “even for a vampire.”

Matthew maneuvered me into a sitting position. Even that gentle movement made my head feel like it was exploding and set the room whirling. I closed my eyes momentarily, and when I opened them again, Matthew’s were looking back, full of concern.

“All right, mon coeur?”

“A little overwhelmed.”

Matthew’s fingers circled my wrist to take my pulse.

“I’m sorry, Matthew,” Marcus murmured. “I had no idea Miriam would behave like this.”

“You should be sorry,” his father said flatly, without looking up. “Start explaining what this visit is about—quickly.” The vein throbbed in Matthew’s forehead.

“Miriam—” Marcus began.

“I didn’t ask Miriam. I’m asking you,” his father snapped.

“What’s going on, Diana?” my aunt asked, looking wild. Marcus still had his arm around her shoulders.

“Miriam thinks the alchemical picture is about me and Matthew,” I said cautiously. “About the stage in the making of the philosopher’s stone called conjunctio, or marriage. The next step is conceptio.”

“Conceptio?” Sarah asked. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Probably. It’s Latin—for conception,” Matthew explained.

Sarah’s eyes widened. “As in children?”

But my mind was elsewhere, flipping through the pictures in Ashmole 782.

“Conceptio was missing, too.” I reached for Matthew. “Someone has it, just like we have conjunctio.”

Miriam glided into the room with impeccable timing, carrying a sheaf of papers. “Who do I give these to?”

After she’d gotten a look from Matthew that I hoped never to see again, Miriam’s face went from white to pearl gray. She hastily handed him the reports.

“You’ve brought the wrong results, Miriam. These belong to a male,” said Matthew, impatiently scanning the first two pages.

“The results do belong to Diana,” Marcus said. “She’s a chimera, Matthew.”

“What’s that?” Em asked. A chimera was a mythological beast that combined the body parts of a lioness, a dragon, and a goat. I looked down, half expecting to glimpse a tail between my legs.

“A person with cells that possess two or more different genetic profiles.” Matthew was staring in disbelief at the first page.

“That’s impossible.” My heart gave a loud thump. Matthew circled me with his arms, holding the test results on the table in front of us.

“It’s rare, but not impossible,” he said grimly, his eyes moving over the gray bars.

“My guess is VTS,” Miriam said, ignoring Marcus’s warning frown. “Those results came from her hair. There were strands of it on the quilt we took to the Old Lodge.”

“Vanishing twin syndrome,” Marcus explained, turning to Sarah. “Did Rebecca have problems early in her pregnancy? Any bleeding or concerns about miscarriage?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. But they weren’t here—Stephen and Rebecca were in Africa. They didn’t come back to the States until the end of her first trimester.”

Nobody had ever told me I was conceived in Africa.

“Rebecca wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong.” Matthew shook his head, his mouth pressed into a hard, firm line. “VTS happens before most women know they’re pregnant.”

“So I was a twin, and Mom miscarried my sibling?”

“Your brother,” Matthew said, pointing to the test results with his free hand. “Your twin was male. In cases like yours, the viable fetus absorbs the blood and tissues of the other. It happens quite early, and in most cases there’s no evidence of the vanished twin. Does Diana’s hair indicate she might possess powers that didn’t show up in her other DNA results?”

“A few—timewalking, shape-shifting, divination,” his son replied. “Diana fully absorbed most of them.”

“My brother was supposed to be the timewalker, not me,” I said slowly.

A trail of phosphorescent smudges marked my grandmother’s progress as she drifted into the room, touched me lightly on the shoulder, and sat at the far end of the table.

“He would have had the genetic predisposition to control witchfire, too,” Marcus said, nodding. “We found only the fire marker in the hair sample—no other traces of elemental magic.”

“And you don’t think my mother knew about my brother?” I ran my fingertip along the bars of gray, black, and white.

“Oh, she knew.” Miriam sounded confident. “You were born on the goddess’s feast day. She named you Diana.”

“So?” I shivered, pushing aside the memory of riding through the forest in sandals and a tunic, along with the strange feeling of holding a bow and arrow that accompanied witchfire.

“The goddess of the moon had a twin—Apollo. ‘This Lion maketh the Sun so soon, / To be joined to his sister, the Moon.’” Miriam’s eyes gleamed as she recited the alchemical poem. She was up to something.

“You know ‘The Hunting of the Green Lion.’”

“I know the next verses, too: ‘By way of a wedding, a wondrous thing, / This Lion should cause them to beget a king.’”

“What is she talking about?” Sarah asked testily.

When Miriam tried to answer, Matthew shook his head. The vampire fell silent.

“The sun king and moon queen—philosophical sulfur and mercury—married and conceived a child,” I told Sarah. “In alchemical imagery the resulting child is a hermaphrodite, to symbolize a mixed chemical substance.”

“In other words, Matthew,” Miriam interjected tartly, “Ashmole 782 is not just about origins, nor is it just about evolution and extinction. It’s about reproduction.”

I scowled. “Nonsense.”

“You may think it’s nonsense, Diana, but it’s clear to me. Vampires and witches may be able to have children together after all. So might other mixed partners.” Miriam sat back in her chair triumphantly, silently inviting Matthew to explode.

“But vampires can’t reproduce biologically,” Em said. “They’ve never been able to. And different species can’t mix like that.”

“Species change, adapting to new circumstances,” said Marcus. “The instinct to survive through reproduction is a powerful one—certainly powerful enough to cause genetic changes.”

Sarah frowned. “You make it sound like we’re going extinct.”

“We might be.” Matthew pushed the test results into the center of the table along with the notes and the page from Ashmole 782. “Witches are having fewer children and possess diminishing powers. Vampires are finding it harder to take a warmblood through the process of rebirth. And the daemons are more unstable than ever.”

“I still don’t see why that would allow vampires and witches to share children,” Em said. “And if there is a change, why should it begin with Diana and Matthew?”

“Miriam began to wonder while watching them in the library,” Marcus explained.

“We’ve seen vampires exhibit protective behavior before when they want to shield their prey or a mate. But at some point other instincts—to hunt, to feed—overwhelm the urge to protect. Matthew’s protective instincts toward Diana just got stronger,” said Miriam. “Then he started a vampire’s equivalent of flashing his plumage, swooping and diving in the air to attract attention away from her.”

“That’s about protecting future children,” Marcus told his father. “Nothing else makes a predator go to those lengths.”

“Emily’s right. Vampires and witches are too different. Diana and I can’t have children,” Matthew said sharply, meeting Marcus’s eyes.

“We don’t know that. Not absolutely. Look at the spadefoot toad.” Marcus rested his elbows on the table’s surface, weaving his fingers together with a loud crack of his knuckles.

“The spadefoot toad?” Sarah picked up the picture of the chemical wedding, her fingers crumpling the edge. “Wait a minute. Is Diana the lion, the toad, or the queen in this picture?”

“She’s the queen. Maybe the unicorn, too.” Marcus gently pried the page from my aunt’s fingers and went back to amphibians. “In certain situations, the female spadefoot toad will mate with a different—though not completely unrelated—species of toad. Her offspring benefit from new traits, like faster development, that help them survive.”

“Vampires and witches are not spadefoot toads, Marcus,” Matthew said coldly. “And not all of the changes that result are positive.”

“Why are you so resistant?” Miriam asked impatiently. “Cross-species breeding is the next evolutionary step.”

“Genetic supercombinations—like those that would occur if a witch and a vampire were to have children—lead to accelerated evolutionary developments. All species take such leaps. It’s your own findings we’re reporting back to you, Matthew,” said Marcus apologetically.

“You’re both ignoring the high mortality associated with genetic super-combinations. And if you think we’re going to test those odds with Diana, you are very much mistaken.” Matthew’s voice was dangerously soft.

“Because she’s a chimera—and AB-negative as well—she may be less likely to reject a fetus that’s half vampire. She’s a universal blood recipient and has already absorbed foreign DNA into her body. Like the spadefoot toad, she might have been led to you by the pressures of survival.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of conjecture, Marcus.”

“Diana is different, Matthew. She’s not like other witches.” Marcus’s eyes flickered from Matthew to me. “You haven’t looked at her mtDNA report.”

Matthew shuffled the pages. His breath came out in a hiss.

The sheet was covered in brightly covered hoops. Miriam had written across the top in red ink “Unknown Clan,” accompanied by a symbol that looked like a backward E set at an angle with a long tail. Matthew’s eyes darted over the page, and the next.

“I knew you’d question the findings, so I brought comparatives,” Miriam said quietly.

“What’s a clan?” I watched Matthew carefully for a sign of what he was feeling.

“A genetic lineage. Through a witch’s mitochondrial DNA, we can trace descent back to one of four women who were the female ancestors of every witch we’ve studied.”

“Except you,” Marcus said to me. “You and Sarah aren’t descended from any of them.”

“What does this mean?” I touched the backward E.

“It’s an ancient glyph for heh, the Hebrew number five.” Matthew directed his next words to Miriam. “How old is it?”

Miriam considered her words carefully. “Clan Heh is old—no matter which mitochondrial-clock theory you adhere to.”

“Older than Clan Gimel?” Matthew asked, referring to the Hebrew word for the number three.

“Yes.” Miriam hesitated. “And to answer your next question, there are two possibilities. Clan Heh could just be another line of descent from mtLilith.”

Sarah opened her mouth to ask a question, and I quieted her with a shake of my head.

“Or Clan Heh could descend from a sister of mtLilith—which would make Diana’s ancestor a clan mother, but not the witches’ equivalent of mtEve. In either case it’s possible that without Diana’s issue Clan Heh will die out in this generation.”

I slid the brown envelope from my mother in Matthew’s direction. “Could you draw a picture?” No one in the room was going to understand this without visual assistance.

Matthew’s hand sped over the page, sketching out two sprawling diagrams. One looked like a snake, the other branched out like the brackets for a sports tournament. Matthew pointed to the snake. “These are the seven known daughters of mitochondrial Eve—mtEve for short. Scientists consider them to be the most recent common matrilineal ancestors of every human of Western European descent. Each woman appears in the DNA record at a different point in history and in a different region of the globe. They once shared a common female ancestor, though.”

“That would be mtEve,” I said.

“Yes.” He pointed at the tournament bracket. “This is what we’ve uncovered about the matrilineal descent of witches. There are four lines of descent, or clans. We numbered them in the order we found them, although the woman who was mother to Clan Aleph—the first clan we discovered—lived more recently than the others.”

“Define ‘recently,’ please,” Em requested.

“Aleph lived about seven thousand years ago.”

“Seven thousand years ago?” Sarah said incredulously. “But the Bishops can only trace our female ancestors back to 1617.”

“Gimel lived about forty thousand years ago,” Matthew said grimly. “So if Miriam is right, and Clan Heh is older, you’ll be well beyond that.”

“Damn,” Sarah breathed again. “Who’s Lilith?”

“The first witch.” I drew Matthew’s diagrams closer, remembering his cryptic response in Oxford to my asking if he was searching for the first vampire. “Or at least the first witch from whom present-day witches can claim matrilineal descent.”

“Marcus is fond of the Pre-Raphaelites, and Miriam knows a lot of mythology. They picked the name,” Matthew said by way of explanation.

“The Pre-Raphaelites loved Lilith. Dante Gabriel Rossetti described her as the witch Adam loved before Eve.” Marcus’s eyes turned dreamy. “‘So went / Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent / And round his heart one strangling golden hair.’”

“That’s the Song of Songs,” Matthew observed. “‘You have wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, and with one hair of your neck.’”

“The alchemists admired the same passage,” I murmured with a shake of my head. “It’s in the Aurora Consurgens, too.”

“Other accounts of Lilith are far less rapturous,” Miriam said in stern tones, drawing us back to the matter at hand. “In ancient stories she was a creature of the night, goddess of the wind and the moon, and the mate of Samael, the angel of death.”

“Did the goddess of the moon and the angel of death have children?” Sarah asked, looking at us sharply. Once more the similarities between old stories, alchemical texts, and my relationship with a vampire were uncanny.

“Yes.” Matthew plucked the reports from my hands and put them into a tidy pile.

“So that’s what the Congregation is worried about,” I said softly. “They fear the birth of children that are neither vampire nor witch nor daemon, but mixed. What would they do then?”

“How many other creatures have been in the same position as you and Matthew, over the years?” wondered Marcus.

“How many are there now?” Miriam added.

“The Congregation doesn’t know about these test results—and thank God for that.” Matthew slid the pile of papers back into the center of the table. “But there’s still no evidence that Diana can have my child.”

“So why did your mother’s housekeeper teach Diana how to make that tea?” Sarah asked. “She thinks it’s possible.”

Oh, dear, my grandmother said sympathetically. It’s going to hit the fan now.

Matthew stiffened, and his scent became overpoweringly spicy. “I don’t understand.”

“That tea that Diana and what’s-her-name—Marthe—made in France. It’s full of abortifacients and contraceptive herbs. I smelled them the moment the tin was open.”

“Did you know?” Matthew’s face was white with fury.

“No,” I whispered. “But no harm was done.”

Matthew stood. He pulled his phone from his pocket, avoiding my eyes. “Please excuse me,” he said to Em and Sarah before striding out of the room.

“Sarah, how could you?” I cried after the front door shut behind him.

“He has a right to know—and so do you. No one should take drugs without consenting to it.”

“It’s not your job to tell him.”

“No,” Miriam said with satisfaction. “It was yours.”

“Stay out of this, Miriam.” I was spitting mad, and my hands were twitching.

“I’m already in it, Diana. Your relationship with Matthew puts every creature in this room in danger. It’s going to change everything, whether you two have children or not. And now he’s brought the Knights of Lazarus into it.” Miriam was as furious as I was. “The more creatures who sanction your relationship, the likelier it is that there will be war.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. War?” The marks Satu burned into my back prickled ominously. “Wars break out between nations, not because a witch and a vampire love each other.”

“What Satu did to you was a challenge. Matthew responded just as they hoped he would: by calling on the brotherhood.” Miriam made a sound of disgust. “Since you walked into the Bodleian, he’s lost control of his senses. And the last time he lost his senses over a woman, my husband died.”

The room was quiet as a tomb. Even my grandmother looked startled.

Matthew wasn’t a killer, or so I told myself over and over again. But he killed to feed himself, and he killed in angry, possessive rages. I knew both of these truths and loved him anyway. What did it say about me, that I could love such a creature so completely?

“Calm down, Miriam,” Marcus warned.

“No,” she snarled. “This is my tale. Not yours, Marcus.”

“Then tell it,” I said tersely, gripping the edges of the table.

“Bertrand was Matthew’s best friend. When Eleanor St. Leger was killed, Jerusalem came to the brink of war. The English and the French were at each other’s throats. He called on the Knights of Lazarus to resolve the conflict. We were nearly exposed to the humans as a result.” Miriam’s brittle voice broke. “Someone had to pay for Eleanor’s death. The St. Legers demanded justice. Eleanor died at Matthew’s hands, but he was the grand master then, just as he is now. My husband took the blame—to protect Matthew as well as the order. A Saracen executioner beheaded him.”

“I’m sorry, Miriam—truly sorry—about your husband’s death. But I’m not Eleanor St. Leger, and this isn’t Jerusalem. It was a long time ago, and Matthew’s not the same creature.”

“It seems like yesterday to me,” Miriam said simply. “Once again Matthew de Clermont wants what he cannot have. He hasn’t changed at all.”

The room fell silent. Sarah looked aghast. Miriam’s story had confirmed her worst suspicions about vampires in general and Matthew in particular.

“Perhaps you’ll remain true to him, even after you know him better,” Miriam continued, her voice dead. “But how many more creatures will Matthew destroy on your behalf? Do you think Satu Jдrvinen will escape Gillian Chamberlain’s fate?”

“What happened to Gillian?” Em asked, her voice rising.

Miriam opened her mouth to respond, and the fingers on my right hand curled instinctively into a loose ball. The index and middle fingers released in her direction with a tiny snap. She grabbed her throat and made a gurgling sound.

That wasn’t very nice, Diana, my grandmother said with a shake of her finger. You need to watch your temper, my girl.

“Stay out of this, Grandma—and you too, Miriam.” I gave both of them withering glances and turned to Em. “Gillian’s dead. She and Peter Knox sent me the picture of Mom and Dad in Nigeria. It was a threat, and Matthew felt he had to protect me. It’s instinctive in him, like breathing. Please try to forgive him.”

Em turned white. “Matthew killed her for delivering a picture?”

“Not just for that,” said Marcus. “She’d been spying on Diana for years. Gillian and Knox broke in to her rooms at New College and ransacked them. They were looking for DNA evidence so they could learn more about her power. If they’d found out what we now know—”

My fate would be far worse than death if Gillian and Knox knew what was in my test results. It was devastating that Matthew hadn’t told me himself, though. I hid my thoughts, trying to close the shutters behind my eyes. My aunts didn’t need to know that my husband kept things from me.

But there was no keeping my grandmother out. Oh, Diana, she whispered. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

“I want you all out of my house.” Sarah pushed her chair back. “You, too, Diana.”

A long, slow shudder started in the house’s old root cellar under the family room and spread throughout the floorboards. It climbed up the walls and shook the panes of glass in the windows. Sarah’s chair shot forward, pressing her against the table. The door between the dining room and the family room slammed shut.

The house never likes it when Sarah tries to take charge, my grandmother commented.

My own chair pulled back and dumped me unceremoniously onto the floor. I used the table to haul myself up, and when I was on my feet, invisible hands spun me around and pushed me through the door toward the front entrance. The dining-room door crashed behind me, locking two witches, two vampires, and a ghost inside. There were muffled sounds of outrage.

Another ghost—one I’d never seen before—walked out of the keeping room and beckoned me forward. She wore a bodice covered with intricate embroidery atop a dark, full skirt that touched the floor. Her face was creased with age, but the stubborn chin and long nose of the Bishops was unmistakable.

Be careful, daughter. Her voice was low and husky. You are a creature of the crossroads, neither here nor there. ’Tis a dangerous place to be.

“Who are you?”

She looked toward the front door without answering. It opened soundlessly, its usually creaky hinges silent and smooth. I have always known he would come—and come for you. My own mother told me so.

I was torn between the Bishops and the de Clermonts, part of me wanting to return to the dining room, the other part needing to be with Matthew. The ghost smiled at my dilemma.

You have always been a child between, a witch apart. But there is no path forward that does not have him in it. Whichever way you go, you must choose him.

She disappeared, leaving fading traces of phosphorescence. Matthew’s white face and hands were just visible through the open door, a blur of movement in the darkness at the end of the driveway. At the sight of him my decision became easy.

Outside, I drew my sleeves down over my hands to protect them from the chilly air. I picked up one foot . . . and when I put it down, Matthew was directly in front of me, his back turned. It had taken me a single step to travel the length of the driveway.

He was speaking in furiously fast Occitan. Ysabeau must be on the other end.

“Matthew.” I spoke softly, not wanting to startle him.

He whipped around with a frown. “Diana. I didn’t hear you.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. May I speak to Ysabeau, please?” I reached for the phone.

“Diana, it would be better—”

Our families were locked in the dining room, and Sarah was threatening to throw us all out. We had enough problems without severing ties with Ysabeau and Marthe.

“What was it that Abraham Lincoln said about houses?”

“‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” Matthew said, a puzzled look on his face.

“Exactly. Give me the phone.” Reluctantly he did so.

“Diana?” Ysabeau’s voice had an uncharacteristic edge.

“No matter what Matthew has said, I’m not angry with you. No harm was done.”

“Thank you,” she breathed. “I have been trying to tell him—it was only a feeling that we had, something half remembered from very long ago. Diana was the goddess of fertility then. Your scent reminds me of those times, and of the priestesses who helped women conceive.”

Matthew’s eyes touched me through the darkness.

“You’ll tell Marthe, too?”

“I will, Diana.” She paused. “Matthew has shared your test results and Marcus’s theories with me. It is a sign of how much they have startled him, that he told your tale. I do not know whether to weep with joy or sorrow at the news.”

“It’s early days, Ysabeau—maybe both?”

She laughed softly. “It will not be the first time my children have driven me to tears. But I wouldn’t give up the sorrow if it meant giving up the joy as well.”

“Is everything all right at home?” The words escaped before I thought them through, and Matthew’s eyes softened.

“Home?” The significance of the word was not lost on Ysabeau either. “Yes, we are all well here. It is very . . . quiet since you both left.”

My eyes filled with tears. Despite Ysabeau’s sharp edges, there was something so maternal about her. “Witches are noisier than vampires, I’m afraid.”

“Yes. And happiness is always louder than sadness. There hasn’t been enough happiness in this house.” Her voice grew brisk. “Matthew has said everything to me that he needs to say. We must hope the worst of his anger has been spent. You will take care of each other.” Ysabeau’s last sentence was a statement of fact. It was what the women in her family—my family—did for those they loved.

“Always.” I looked at my vampire, his white skin gleaming in the dark, and pushed the red button to disconnect the line. The fields on either side of the driveway were frost-covered, the ice crystals catching the faint traces of moonlight coming through the clouds.

“Did you suspect, too? Is that why you won’t make love to me?” I asked Matthew.

“I told you my reasons. Making love should be about intimacy, not just physical need.” He sounded frustrated at having to repeat himself.

“If you don’t want to have children with me, I will understand,” I said firmly, though part of me quietly protested.

His hands were rough on my arms. “Christ, Diana, how can you think that I wouldn’t want our children? But it might be dangerous—for you, for them.”

“There’s always risk with pregnancy. Not even you control nature.”

“We have no idea what our children would be. What if they shared my need for blood?”

“All babies are vampires, Matthew. They’re all nourished with their mother’s blood.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it. I gave up all hope of children long ago.” Our eyes met, searching for reassurance that nothing between us had changed. “But it’s too soon for me to imagine losing you.”

And I couldn’t bear losing our children.

Matthew’s unspoken words were as clear to me as an owl hooting overhead. The pain of Lucas’s loss would never leave him. It cut deeper than the deaths of Blanca or Eleanor. When he lost Lucas, he lost part of himself that could never be recovered.

“So you’ve decided. No children. You’re sure.” I rested my hands on his chest, waiting for the next beat of his heart.

“I’m not sure of anything,” Matthew said. “We haven’t had time to discuss it.”

“Then we’ll take every precaution. I’ll drink Marthe’s tea.”

“You’ll do a damn sight more than that,” he said grimly. “That stuff is better than nothing, but it’s a far cry from modern medicine. Even so, no human form of contraception may be effective when it comes to witches and vampires.”

“I’ll take the pills anyway,” I assured him.

“And what about you?” he asked, his fingers on my chin to keep me from avoiding his eyes. “Do you want to carry my children?”

“I never imagined myself a mother.” A shadow flickered across his face. “But when I think of your children, it feels as though it was meant to be.”

He dropped my chin. We stood silently in the darkness, his arms around my waist and my head on his chest. The air felt heavy, and I recognized it as the weight of responsibility. Matthew was responsible for his family, his past, the Knights of Lazarus—and now for me.

“You’re worried that you couldn’t protect them,” I said, suddenly understanding.

“I can’t even protect you,” he said harshly, fingers playing over the crescent moon burned into my back.

“We don’t have to decide just yet. With or without children, we already have a family to keep together.” The heaviness in the air shifted, some of it settling on my shoulders. All my life I’d lived for myself alone, pushing away the obligations of family and tradition. Even now part of me wanted to return to the safety of independence and leave these new burdens behind.

His eyes traveled up the drive to the house. “What happened after I left?”

“Oh, what you’d expect. Miriam told us about Bertrand and Jerusalem—and let slip about Gillian. Marcus told us who broke in to my rooms. And then there’s the fact that we might have started some kind of war.”

“Dieu, why can’t they keep their mouths shut?” He ran his fingers through his hair, his regret at concealing all this from me clear in his eyes. “At first I was sure this was about the manuscript. Then I supposed it was all about you. Now I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it’s about. Some old, powerful secret is unraveling, and we’re caught up in it.”

“Is Miriam right to wonder how many other creatures are tangled in it, too?” I stared at the moon as if she might answer my question. Matthew did instead.

“It’s doubtful we’re the first creatures to love those we should not, and we surely won’t be the last.” He took my arm. “Let’s go inside. We have some explaining to do.”

On our way up the drive, Matthew observed that explanations, like medicines, go down easier when accompanied by liquid refreshment. We entered the house through the back door to pick up the necessary supplies. While I arranged a tray, Matthew’s eyes rested on me.

“What?” I looked up. “Did I forget something?”

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “No, ma lionne. I’m just trying to figure out how I acquired such a fierce wife. Even putting cups on a tray, you look formidable.”

“I’m not formidable,” I said, tightening my ponytail self-consciously.

“Yes, you are.” Matthew smiled. “Miriam wouldn’t be in such a state otherwise.”

When we reached the door between the dining room and the family room, we listened for sounds of a battle within, but there was nothing except quiet murmurs and low conversation. The house unlocked the door and opened it for us.

“We thought you might be thirsty,” I said, putting the tray on the table.

A multitude of eyes turned in our direction—vampires, witches, ghosts. My grandmother had a whole flock of Bishops at her back, all of them rustling and shifting as they tried to adjust to having vampires in the dining room.

“Whiskey, Sarah?” Matthew asked, picking up a tumbler from the tray.

She gave him a long look. “Miriam says that by accepting your relationship we invite war. My father fought in World War II.”

“So did mine,” Matthew said, pouring the whiskey. So had he, no doubt, but he was silent on that point.

“He always said whiskey made it possible to close your eyes at night without hating yourself for everything you’d been ordered to do that day.”

“It’s no guarantee, but it helps.” Matthew held out the glass.

Sarah took it. “Would you kill your own son if you thought he was a threat to Diana?”

He nodded. “Without hesitation.”

“That’s what he said.” Sarah nodded at Marcus. “Get him a drink, too. It can’t be easy, knowing your own father could kill you.”

Matthew got Marcus his whiskey and poured Miriam a glass of wine. I made Em a cup of milky coffee. She’d been crying and looked more fragile than usual.

“I just don’t know if I can handle this, Diana,” she whispered when she took the mug. “Marcus explained what Gillian and Peter Knox had planned. But when I think of Barbara Chamberlain and what she must be feeling now that her daughter is dead—” Em shuddered to a stop.

“Gillian Chamberlain was an ambitious woman, Emily,” said Matthew. “All she ever wanted was a seat at the Congregation’s table.”

“But you didn’t have to kill her,” Em insisted.

“Gillian believed absolutely that witches and vampires should remain apart. The Congregation has never been satisfied that they fully understood Stephen Proctor’s power and asked her to watch Diana. She wouldn’t have rested until both Ashmole 782 and Diana were in the Congregation’s control.”

“But it was just a picture.” Em wiped at her eyes.

“It was a threat. The Congregation had to understand that I was not going to stand by and let them take Diana.”

“Satu took her anyway,” Em pointed out, her voice unusually sharp.

“That’s enough, Em.” I reached over and covered her hand with mine.

“What about this issue of children?” Sarah asked, gesturing with her glass. “Surely you two won’t do something so risky?”

“That’s enough,” I repeated, standing and banging my hand on the table. Everyone but Matthew and my grandmother jumped in surprise. “If we are at war, we’re not fighting for a bewitched alchemical manuscript, or for my safety, or for our right to marry and have children. This is about the future of all of us.” I saw that future for just a moment, its bright potential spooling away in a thousand different directions. “If our children don’t take the next evolutionary steps, it will be someone else’s children. And whiskey isn’t going to make it possible for me to close my eyes and forget that. No one else will go through this kind of hell because they love someone they’re not supposed to love. I won’t allow it.”

My grandmother gave me a slow, sweet smile. There’s my girl. Spoken like a Bishop.

“We don’t expect anyone else to fight with us. But understand this: our army has one general. Matthew. If you don’t like it, don’t enlist.”

In the front hall, the old case clock began to strike midnight.

The witching hour. My grandmother nodded.

Sarah looked at Em. “Well, honey? Are we going to stand with Diana and join Matthew’s army or let the devil take the hindmost?”

“I don’t understand what you all mean by war. Will there be battles? Will vampires and witches come here?” Em asked Matthew in a shaky voice.

“The Congregation believes Diana holds answers to their questions. They won’t stop looking for her.”

“But Matthew and I don’t have to stay,” I said. “We can be gone by morning.”

“My mother always said my life wouldn’t be worth living once it was tangled up with the Bishops,” Em said with a wan smile.

“Thank you, Em,” Sarah said simply, although her face spoke volumes.

The clock tolled a final time. Its gears whirred into place, ready to strike the next hour when it came.

“Miriam?” Matthew asked. “Are you staying here or are you going back to Oxford?”

“My place is with the de Clermonts.”

“Diana is a de Clermont now.” His tone was icy.

“I understand, Matthew.” Miriam directed a level gaze at me. “It won’t happen again.”

“How strange,” Marcus murmured, his eyes sweeping the room. “First it was a shared secret. Now three witches and three vampires have pledged loyalty to one another. If we had a trio of daemons, we’d be a shadow Congregation.”

“We’re unlikely to run into three daemons in downtown Madison,” Matthew said drily. “And whatever happens, what we’ve talked about tonight remains among the six of us—understood? Diana’s DNA is no one else’s business.”

There were nods all around the table as Matthew’s motley army fell into line behind him, ready to face an enemy we didn’t know and couldn’t name.

We said our good-nights and went upstairs. Matthew kept his arm around me, guiding me through the doorframe and into the bedroom when I found it impossible to navigate the turn on my own. I slid between the icy sheets, teeth chattering. When his cool body pressed against mine, the chattering ceased.

I slept heavily, waking only once. Matthew’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and he pulled me back so that we lay like spoons.

“Sleep,” he said, kissing me behind the ear. “I’m here.” His cold hand curved over my belly, already protecting children yet to be born.

Over the next several days, Matthew’s tiny army learned the first requirement of war: allies must not kill each other.

Difficult as it was for my aunts to accept vampires into their house, it was the vampires who had the real trouble adjusting. It wasn’t just the ghosts and the cat. More than nuts would have to be kept in the house if vampires and warmbloods were to live in such close quarters. The very next day Marcus and Miriam had a conversation with Matthew in the driveway, then left in the Range Rover. Several hours later they returned bearing a small refrigerator marked with a red cross and enough blood and medical supplies to outfit an army field hospital. At Matthew’s request, Sarah selected a corner of the stillroom to serve as the blood bank.

“It’s just a precaution,” Matthew assured her.

“In case Miriam gets the munchies?” Sarah picked up a bag of O-negative blood.

“I ate before I left England,” Miriam said primly, her tiny bare feet slipping quietly over the stone floors as she put items away.

The deliveries also included a blister pack of birth-control pills inside a hideous yellow plastic case with a flower molded into the lid. Matthew presented them to me at bedtime.

“You can start them now or wait a few days until your period starts.”

“How do you know when my period is going to start?” I’d finished my last cycle the day before Mabon—the day before I’d met Matthew.

“I know when you’re planning on jumping a paddock fence. You can imagine how easy it is for me to know when you’re about to bleed.”

“Can you be around me while I’m menstruating?” I held the case gingerly as if it might explode.

Matthew looked surprised, then chuckled. “Dieu, Diana. There wouldn’t be a woman alive if I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing.”

I started the pills that night.

As we adjusted to the close quarters, new patterns of activity developed in the house—many of them around me. I was never alone and never more than ten feet away from the nearest vampire. It was perfect pack behavior. The vampires were closing ranks around me.

My day was divided into zones of activity punctuated by meals, which Matthew insisted I needed at regular intervals to fully recover from La Pierre. He joined me in yoga between breakfast and lunch, and after lunch Sarah and Em tried to teach me how to use my magic and perform spells. When I was tearing my hair out with frustration, Matthew would whisk me off for a long walk before dinner. We lingered around the table in the family room after the warmbloods had eaten, talking about current events and old movies. Marcus unearthed a chessboard, and he and his father often played together while Em and I cleaned up.

Sarah, Marcus, and Miriam shared a fondness for film noir, which now dominated the house’s TV-viewing schedule. Sarah had discovered this happy coincidence when, during one of her habitual bouts of insomnia, she went downstairs in the middle of the night and found Miriam and Marcus watching Out of the Past. The three also shared a love of Scrabble and popcorn. By the time the rest of the house awoke, they’d transformed the family room into a cinema and everything had been swept off the coffee table save a game board, a cracked bowl full of lettered tiles, and two battered dictionaries.

Miriam proved to be a genius at remembering archaic seven-letter words.

“‘Smoored’!” Sarah was exclaiming one morning when I came downstairs. “What the hell kind of word is ‘smoored’? If you mean those campfire desserts with marshmallows and graham crackers, you’ve spelled it wrong.”

“It means ‘smothered,’” Miriam explained. “It’s what we did to fires to keep them banked overnight. We smoored them. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Sarah grumbled and retreated to the kitchen for coffee.

“Who’s winning?” I inquired.

“You need to ask?” The vampire smiled with satisfaction.

When not playing Scrabble or watching old movies, Miriam held classes covering Vampires 101. In the space of a few afternoons, she managed to teach Em the importance of names, pack behavior, possessive rituals, preternatural senses, and dining habits. Lately talk had turned to more advanced topics, such as how to slay a vampire.

“No, not even slicing our necks open is foolproof, Em,” Miriam told her patiently. The two were sitting in the family room while I made tea in the kitchen. “You want to cause as much blood loss as possible. Go for the groin as well.”

Matthew shook his head at the exchange and took the opportunity (since everyone else was otherwise engaged) to pin me behind the refrigerator door. My shirt was askew and my hair tumbling around my ears when our son came into the room with an armload of wood.

“Did you lose something behind the refrigerator, Matthew?” Marcus’s face was the picture of innocence.

“No,” Matthew purred. He buried his face in my hair so he could drink in the scent of my arousal. I swatted ineffectually at his shoulders, but he just held me tighter.

“Thanks for replenishing the firewood, Marcus,” I said breathlessly.

“Should I go get more?” One blond eyebrow arched up in perfect imitation of his father.

“Good idea. It will be cold tonight.” I twisted my head to reason with Matthew, but he mistook it as an invitation to kiss me again. Marcus and the wood supply faded into inconsequence.

When not lying in wait in dark corners, Matthew joined Sarah and Marcus in the most unholy trio of potion brewers since Shakespeare put three witches around a cauldron. The vapor Sarah and Matthew brewed up for the picture of the chemical wedding hadn’t revealed anything, but this didn’t deter them. They occupied the stillroom at all hours, consulting the Bishop grimoire and making strange concoctions that smelled bad, exploded, or both. On one occasion Em and I investigated a loud bang followed by the sound of rolling thunder.

“What are you three up to?” Em asked, hands on hips. Sarah’s face was covered in gray soot, and debris was falling down the chimney.

“Nothing,” Sarah grumbled. “I was trying to cleave the air and the spell got bent out of shape, that’s all.”

“Cleaving?” I looked at the mess, astonished.

Matthew and Marcus nodded solemnly.

“You’d better clean up this room before dinner, Sarah Bishop, or I’ll show you cleaving!” Em sputtered.

Of course, not all encounters between residents were happy ones. Marcus and Matthew walked together at sunrise, leaving me to the tender care of Miriam, Sarah, and the teapot. They never went far. They were always visible from the kitchen window, their heads bent together in conversation. One morning Marcus turned on his heel and stormed back to the house, leaving his father alone in the old apple orchard.

“Diana,” he growled in greeting before streaking through the family room and straight out the front door. “I’m too damn young for this!” he shouted as he left.

His engine revved—Marcus preferred sports cars to SUVs—and the tires bit into the gravel when he reversed and pulled out of the driveway.

“What’s Marcus upset about?” I asked when Matthew returned, kissing his cold cheek as he reached for the paper.

“Business,” he said shortly, kissing me back.

“You didn’t make him seneschal?” Miriam asked incredulously.

Matthew flipped the paper open. “You must have a very high opinion of me, Miriam, if you think the brotherhood has functioned for all these years without a seneschal. That position is already occupied.”

“What’s a seneschal?” I put two slices of bread in the beat-up toaster. It had six slots, but only two of them worked with any reliability.

“My second in command,” Matthew said briefly.

“If he’s not the seneschal, why has Marcus sped out of here?” Miriam pressed.

“I appointed him marshal,” Matthew said, scanning the headlines.

“He’s the least likely marshal I’ve ever seen,” she said severely. “He’s a physician, for God’s sake. Why not Baldwin?”

Matthew looked up from his paper and cocked his eyebrow at her. “Baldwin?”

“Okay, not Baldwin,” Miriam hastily replied. “There must be someone else.”

“Had I two thousand knights to choose from as I once did, there might be someone else. But there are only eight knights under my command at present—one of whom is the ninth knight and not required to fight—a handful of sergeants, and a few squires. Someone has to be marshal. I was Philippe’s marshal. Now it’s Marcus’s turn.” The terminology was so antiquated it invited giggles, but the serious look on Miriam’s face kept me quiet.

“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.”

“Are you managing me?” I asked darkly.

“You’ve just now noticed?” He chuckled. “It’s been my full-time job for weeks.”

Matthew continued to do so throughout the afternoon, retelling stories he’d gleaned from the paper about lost cats up trees, fire-department chili cook-offs, and impending Halloween events. By the time I’d devoured a bowl of leftovers, the food and his mindless chatter had done their work, and it was possible to face Sarah and the Bishop grimoire again. Back in the stillroom, Matthew’s words came back to me whenever I threatened to abandon Sarah’s detailed instructions, refocusing my attempts to conjure fire, voices, or whatever else she required.

After hours of spell casting—none of which had gone particularly well—he knocked on the stillroom door and announced it was time for our walk. In the mudroom I flung on a thick sweater, slid into my sneakers, and flew out the door. Matthew joined me at a more leisurely pace, sniffing the air appreciatively and watching the play of light on the fields around the house.

Darkness fell quickly in late October, and twilight was now my favorite time of day. Matthew might be a morning person, but his natural self-protectiveness diminished at sunset. He seemed to relax into the lengthening shadows, the fading light softening his strong bones and rendering his pale skin a touch less otherworldly.

He grabbed my hand, and we walked in companionable silence, happy to be near each other and away from our families. At the edge of the forest, Matthew sped up and I deliberately hung back, wanting to stay outdoors as long as possible.

“Come on,” he said, frustrated at having to match my slow steps.

“No!” My steps became smaller and slower. “We’re just a normal couple taking a walk before dinner.”

“We’re the least normal couple in the state of New York,” Matthew said with a smile. “And this pace won’t even make you break a sweat.”

“What do you have in mind?” It had become clear during our previous walks that the wolflike part of Matthew enjoyed romping in the woods like an oversize puppy. He was always coming up with new ways to play with my power so that learning how to use it wouldn’t seem like a chore. The dull, dutiful stuff he left to Sarah.

“Tag.” He shot me a mischievous look that was impossible to resist and took off in an explosion of speed and strength. “Catch me.”

I laughed and darted behind, my feet rising from the ground and my mind trying to capture a clear image of reaching his broad shoulders and touching them. My speed increased as the vision became more precise, but my agility left a lot to be desired. Simultaneously using the powers of flight and precognition at high speed made me trip over a shrub. Before I tumbled to the ground, Matthew had scooped me up.

“You smell like fresh air and wood smoke,” he said, nuzzling my hair.

There was an anomaly in the forest, felt rather than seen. It was a bending of the fading light, a sense of momentum, an aura of dark intention. My head swiveled over my shoulder.

“Someone’s here,” I said.

The wind was blowing away from us. Matthew raised his head, trying to pick up the scent. He identified it with a sharp intake of breath.

“Vampire,” he said quietly, grabbing my hand and standing. He pushed me against the trunk of a white oak.

“Friend or foe?” I asked shakily.

“Leave. Now.” Matthew had his phone out, pushing the single number on speed dial that connected him to Marcus. He swore at the voice-mail recording. “Someone is tracking us, Marcus. Get here—fast.” He disconnected and pushed another button that brought up a text-message screen.

The wind changed, and the skin around his mouth tightened.

“Christ, no.” His fingers flew over the keys, typing in two words before he flung the phone into the nearby bushes.

“SOS. Juliette.”

He turned, grabbing my shoulders. “Do whatever you did in the stillroom. Pick up your feet and go back to the house. Immediately. I’m not asking you, Diana, I’m telling you.”

My feet were frozen and refused to obey him. “I don’t know how. I can’t.”

“You will.” Matthew pushed me against the tree, his arms on either side and his back to the forest. “Gerbert introduced me to this vampire a long time ago, and she isn’t to be trusted or underestimated. We spent time together in France in the eighteenth century, and in New Orleans in the nineteenth century. I’ll explain everything later. Now, go.”

“I’m not leaving without you.” My voice was stubborn. “Who is Juliette?”

“I am Juliette Durand.” The melodious voice, accented with hints of French and something else, came from above. We both looked up. “What trouble you two have caused.”

A stunning vampire was perched on a thick branch of a nearby maple. Her skin was the color of milk with a splash of coffee, and her hair shone in a blend of brown and copper. Clad in the colors of autumn—brown, green, and gold—she looked like an extension of the tree. Wide hazel eyes sat atop slanted cheekbones, and her bones implied a delicacy that I knew misrepresented her strength.

“I’ve been watching you—listening, too. Your scents are all tangled up together.” She made a quiet sound of reproof.

I didn’t see her leave the branch, but Matthew did. He’d angled his body so that he would be in front of me when she landed. He faced her, lips curled in warning.

Juliette ignored him. “I have to study her.” She tilted her head to the right and lifted her chin a touch, staring at me intently.

I frowned.

She frowned back.

Matthew shivered.

I glanced at him in concern, and Juliette’s eyes followed mine.

She was imitating my every move. Her chin was jutting out at precisely the same angle as mine, her head was held at exactly the same incline. It was like looking into a mirror.

Panic flooded my system, filling my mouth with bitterness. I swallowed hard, and the vampire swallowed, too. Her nostrils flared, and she laughed, sharp and hard as diamonds.

“How have you resisted her, Matthew?” She took a long, slow breath. “The smell of her should drive you mad with hunger. Do you remember that frightened young woman we stalked in Rome? She smelled rather like this one, I think.”

Matthew remained silent, his eyes fixed on the vampire.

Juliette took a few steps to the right, forcing him to adjust his position. “You’re expecting Marcus,” she observed sadly. “I’m afraid he’s not coming. So handsome. I would have liked to see him again. The last time we met, he was so young and impressionable. It took us weeks to sort out the mess he’d made in New Orleans, didn’t it?”

An abyss opened before me. Had she killed Marcus? Sarah and Em?

“He’s on the phone,” she continued. “Gerbert wanted to be sure that your son understood the risk he’s taking. The Congregation’s anger is directed only at the two of you—now. But if you persist, others will pay the price as well.”

Marcus wasn’t dead. Despite the relief, my blood ran cold at the expression on her face.

There was still no response from Matthew.

“Why so quiet, my love?” Juliette’s warm voice belied the deadness of her eyes. “You should be glad to see me. I’m everything you want. Gerbert made sure of that.”

He still didn’t answer.

“Ah. You’re silent because I’ve surprised you,” Juliette said, her tone strangely fractured between music and malice. “You’ve surprised me, too. A witch?”

She feinted left, and Matthew swiveled to meet her. She somersaulted through the empty space where his head had been and landed at my side, fingers around my throat. I froze.

“I don’t understand why he wants you so much.” Juliette’s voice was petulant. “What it is that you do? What did Gerbert fail to teach me?”

“Juliette, let her be.” Matthew couldn’t risk a move in my direction for fear she’d snap my neck, but his legs were rigid with the effort to stay still.

“Patience, Matthew,” she said, bending her head.

I closed my eyes, expecting to feel teeth.

Instead cold lips pressed against mine. Juliette’s kiss was weirdly impersonal as she teased my mouth with her tongue, trying to get me to respond. When I didn’t, she made a sound of frustration.

“That should have helped me understand, but it didn’t.” Juliette flung me at Matthew but kept hold of one wrist, her razor-sharp nails poised above my veins. “Kiss her. I have to know how she’s done it.”

“Why not leave this alone, Juliette?” Matthew caught me in his cool grip.

“I must learn from my mistakes—Gerbert’s been saying so since you abandoned me in New York.” Juliette focused on Matthew with an avidity that made my flesh crawl.

“That was more than a hundred years ago. If you haven’t learned your mistake by now, you’re not going to.” Though Matthew’s anger was not directed at me, its power made me recoil nonetheless. He was simmering with it, the rage coming from him in waves.

Juliette’s nails cut into my arm. “Kiss her, Matthew, or I will make her bleed.”

Cupping my face with one careful, gentle hand, he struggled to push up the corners of his mouth into a smile. “It will be all right, mon coeur.” Matthew’s pupils were dots in a sea of gray-green. One thumb stroked my jaw as he bent nearer, his lips nearly touching mine. His kiss was slow and tender, a testament of feeling. Juliette stared at us coldly, drinking in the details. She crept closer as Matthew drew away from me.

“Ah.” Her voice was blank and bitter. “You like the way she responds when you touch her. But I can’t feel anymore.”

I’d seen Ysabeau’s anger and Baldwin’s ruthlessness. I’d felt Domenico’s desperation and smelled the unmistakable scent of evil that hung around Gerbert. But Juliette was different. Something fundamental was broken within her.

She released my arm and sprang out of Matthew’s reach. His hands squeezed my elbows, and his cold fingers touched my hips. With an infinitesimal push, Matthew gave me another silent command to leave.

But I had no intention of leaving my husband alone with a psychotic vampire. Deep within, something stirred. Though neither witchwind nor witchwater would be enough to kill Juliette, they might distract her long enough for us to get away—but both refused my unspoken commands. And any spells I had learned over the past few days, no matter how imperfectly, had flown from my mind.

“Don’t worry,” Juliette said softly to Matthew, her eyes bright. “It will be over very quickly. I would like to linger, of course, so that we could remember what we once were to each other. But none of my touches will drive her from your mind. Therefore I must kill you and take your witch to face Gerbert and the Congregation.”

“Let Diana go.” Matthew raised his hands in truce. “This is between us, Juliette.”

She shook her head, setting her heavy, burnished hair swaying. “I’m Gerbert’s instrument, Matthew. When he made me, he left no room for my desires. I didn’t want to learn philosophy or mathematics. But Gerbert insisted, so that I could please you. And I did please you, didn’t I?” Juliette’s attention was fixed on Matthew, and her voice was as rough as the fault lines in her broken mind.

“Yes, you pleased me.”

“I thought so. But Gerbert already owned me.” Juliette’s eyes turned to me. They were brilliant, suggesting she had fed recently. “He will possess you, too, Diana, in ways you cannot imagine. In ways only I know. You’ll be his, then, and lost to everyone else.”

“No.” Matthew lunged at Juliette, but she darted past.

“This is no time for games, Matthew,” said Juliette.

She moved quickly—too quickly for my eyes to see—then pulled slowly away from him with a look of triumph. There was a ripping sound, and blood welled darkly at his throat.

“That will do for a start,” she said with satisfaction.

There was a roaring in my head. Matthew stepped between me and Juliette. Even my imperfect warmblood nose could smell the metallic tang of his blood. It was soaking into his sweater, spreading in a dark stain across his chest.

“Don’t do this, Juliette. If you ever loved me, you’ll let her go. She doesn’t deserve Gerbert.”

Juliette answered in a blur of brown leather and muscle. Her leg swung high, and there was a crack as her foot connected with Matthew’s abdomen. He bent over like a felled tree.

“I didn’t deserve Gerbert either.” There was a hysterical edge to Juliette’s voice. “But I deserved you. You belong to me, Matthew.”

My hands felt heavy, and I knew without looking that they held a bow and arrow. I backed away from the two vampires, raising my arms.

“Run!” Matthew shouted.

“No,” I said in a voice that was not my own, squinting down the line of my left arm. Juliette was close to Matthew, but I could release the arrow without touching him. When my right hand flexed, Juliette would be dead. Still, I hesitated, never having killed anyone before

That moment was all Juliette needed. Her fingers punched through Matthew’s chest, nails tearing through fabric and flesh as if both were paper. He gasped at the pain, and Juliette roared in victory.

All hesitation gone, my right hand tightened and opened. A ball of fire arced from the extended tips of my left fingers. Juliette heard the explosion of flame and smelled the sulfur in the air. She turned, her nails withdrawing from the hole in Matthew’s chest. Disbelief showed in her eyes before the spitting ball of black, gold, and red enveloped her. Her hair caught fire first, and she reeled in panic. But I had anticipated her, and another ball of flame was waiting. She stepped right into it.

Matthew dropped to his knees, his hands pressing the blood-soaked sweater into the spot where she had punctured the skin over his heart. Screaming, Juliette reached out, trying to draw him into the inferno.

At a flick of my wrist and a word to the wind, she was picked up and carried several feet from where Matthew was collapsing into the earth. She fell onto her back, her body alight.

I wanted to run to him but continued to watch Juliette as her vampire bones and flesh resisted the flames. Her hair was gone and her skin was black and leathery, but even then she wasn’t dead. Her mouth kept moving, calling Matthew’s name.

My hands remained raised, ready for her to defy the odds. She lumbered to her feet once, and I released another bolt. It hit her in the middle of the chest, went through her rib cage, and came out the other side, shattering the tough skin as it passed and turning her ribs and lungs to coal. Her mouth twisted into a rictus of horror. She was beyond recovery now, no matter the strength of her vampire blood.

I rushed to Matthew’s side and dropped to the ground. He could no longer keep himself upright and was lying on his back, knees bent. There was blood everywhere, pulsing out of the hole in his chest in deep purple waves and flowing more evenly from his neck, so dark it was like pitch.

“What should I do?” I frantically pressed my fingers against his throat. His white hands were still locked around the wound in his chest, but the strength was leaching out of them with each passing moment.

“Will you hold me?” he whispered.

My back to the oak tree, I pulled him between my legs.

“I’m cold,” he said with dull amazement. “How strange.”

“You can’t leave me,” I said fiercely. “I won’t have it.”

“There’s nothing to be done about that now. Death has me in his grip.” Matthew was talking in a way that had not been heard in a thousand years, his fading voice rising and falling in an ancient cadence.

“No.” I fought back my tears. “You have to fight, Matthew.”

“I have fought, Diana. And you are safe. Marcus will have you away from here before the Congregation knows what has happened.”

“I won’t go anywhere without you.”

“You must.” He struggled in my arms, shifting so that he could see my face.

“I can’t lose you, Matthew. Please hold on until Marcus gets here.” The chain inside me swayed, its links loosening one by one. I tried to resist by keeping him tight against my heart.

“Hush,” he said softly, raising a bloody finger to touch my lips. They tingled and went numb as his freezing blood came into contact with my skin. “Marcus and Baldwin know what to do. They will see you safe to Ysabeau. Without me the Congregation will find it harder to act against you. The vampires and witches will not like it, but you are a de Clermont now, with my family’s protection as well as that of the Knights of Lazarus.”

“Stay with me, Matthew.” I bent my head and pressed my lips against his, willing him to keep breathing. He did—barely—but his eyelids had closed.

“From birth I have searched for you,” Matthew whispered with a smile, his accent strongly French. “Since finding you I have been able to hold you in my arms, have heard your heart beat against mine. It would have been a terrible thing to die without knowing what it feels like to truly love.” Tiny shudders swept over him from head to toe and then subsided.

“Matthew!” I cried, but he could no longer respond. “Marcus!” I screamed into the trees, praying to the goddess all the while. By the time his son reached us, I’d already thought several times that Matthew was dead.

“Holy God,” Marcus said, taking in Juliette’s charred body and Matthew’s bloody form.

“The bleeding won’t stop,” I said. “Where is it all coming from?”

“I need to examine him to know, Diana.” Marcus took a tentative step toward me.

Tightening my arms around my husband, I felt my eyes turn cold. The wind began to rise where I sat.

“I’m not asking you to let go of him,” Marcus said, instinctively understanding the problem, “but I have to look at his chest.”

He crouched next to us and tore gently at his father’s black sweater. With a horrible rending noise, the fabric gave way. A long gash crossed from Matthew’s jugular vein to his heart. Next to the heart was a deep gouge where Juliette had tried to punch through to the aorta.

“The jugular is nearly severed, and the aorta has been damaged. Not even Matthew’s blood can work fast enough to heal him in both places.” Marcus spoke quietly, but he didn’t need to speak at all. Juliette had given Matthew a death blow.

My aunts were here now, Sarah puffing slightly. Miriam appeared, white-faced, behind them. After only a glance, she turned on her heel, dashing back to the house.

“It’s my fault.” I sobbed, rocking Matthew like a child. “I had a clear shot, but I hesitated. I’ve never killed anyone before. She wouldn’t have reached his heart if I’d acted sooner.”

“Diana, baby,” Sarah whispered. “It’s not your fault. You did what you could. You’re going to have to let him go.”

I made a keening sound, and my hair rose up around my face. “No!” Fear bloomed in the eyes of vampire and witch as the forest grew quiet.

“Get away from her, Marcus!” shouted Em. He jumped backward just in time.

I’d become someone—something—who didn’t care about these creatures, or that they were trying to help. It had been a mistake to hesitate before. Now the part of me that had killed Juliette was intent on only one thing: a knife. My right arm shot out toward my aunt.

Sarah always had two blades on her, one dull and black-handled, the other sharp and white-handled. At my call the white blade cut through her belt and flew at me point first. Sarah put up a hand to call it back, and I imagined a wall of blackness and fire between me and the surprised faces of my family. The white-handled knife sliced easily through the blackness and floated gently down near my bent right knee. Matthew’s head lolled as I released him just enough to grasp the hilt.

Turning his face gently toward mine, I kissed his mouth long and hard. His eyes fluttered open. He looked so tired, and his skin was gray.

“Don’t worry, my love. I’m going to fix it.” I raised the knife.

Two women were standing inside the barrier of flames. One was young and wore a loose tunic, with sandals on her feet and a quiver of arrows slung across her shoulders. The strap was tangled up in her hair, which was dark and thick. The other was the old lady from the keeping room, her full skirt swaying.

“Help me,” I begged.

There will be a price, the young huntress said.

“I will pay it.”

Don’t make a promise to the goddess lightly, daughter, the old woman murmured with a shake of her head. You’ll have to keep it.

“Take anything—take anyone. But leave me him.”

The huntress considered my offer and nodded. He is yours.

My eyes were on the two women as I raised the knife. Twisting Matthew closer to my body so that he couldn’t see, I reached across and slashed the inside of my left elbow, the sharp blade cutting easily through fabric and flesh. My blood flowed, a trickle at first, then faster. I dropped the knife and tightened my left arm until it was in front of his mouth.

“Drink,” I said, steadying his head. Matthew’s eyelids flickered again, and his nostrils flared. He recognized the scent of my blood and struggled to get away. My arms were heavy and strong as oak branches, connected to the tree at my back. I drew my open, bleeding elbow a fraction closer to his mouth. “Drink.”

The power of the tree and the earth flowed through my veins, an unexpected offering of life to a vampire on the verge of death. I smiled in gratitude at the huntress and the ghost of the old woman, nourishing Matthew with my body. I was the mother now, the third aspect of the goddess along with the maiden and the crone. With the goddess’s help, my blood would heal him.

Finally Matthew succumbed to the instinct to survive. His mouth fastened onto the soft skin of my inner arm, teeth sharp. His tongue lightly probed the ragged incision, pulling the gash in my skin wider. He drew long and hard against my veins. I felt a short, sharp burst of terror.

His skin began to lose some of its pallor, but venous blood would not be enough to heal him completely. I was hoping that a taste of me would drive him beyond his normal range of control so that he would take the next step, but I felt for the white-handled knife just in case.

Giving the huntress and the witch one last look, I returned my attention to my husband. Another shock of power ran into my body as I settled more firmly against the tree.

While he fed, I began to kiss him. My hair fell around his face, mixing my familiar scent with that of his blood and mine. He turned his eyes to me, pale green and distant, as if he weren’t sure of my identity. I kissed him again, tasting my own blood on his tongue.

In two fast, smooth moves that I couldn’t have stopped even had I wanted to, Matthew grabbed the hair at the nape of my neck. He tilted my head back and to the side, then lowered his mouth to my throat. There was no terror then, just surrender.

“Diana,” he said with complete satisfaction.

So this is how it happens, I thought. This is where the legends come from.

My spent, used blood had given him the strength to want something fresh and vital. Matthew’s sharp upper teeth cut into his lower lip, and a bead formed there. His lips brushed my neck, sensuous and swift. I shivered, unexpectedly aroused at his touch. My skin went numb as his blood touched my flesh. He held my head firmly, his hands once again strong.

No mistakes, I prayed.

There were tiny pricks along my carotid arteries. My eyes opened wide in surprise when the first drawing pressure told me Matthew had reached the blood he sought.

Sarah turned away, unable to watch. Marcus reached for Em, and she went to him without hesitation, crying into his shoulder.

I pressed Matthew’s body into mine, encouraging him to drink more deeply. His relish when he did so was evident. How he’d hungered for me, and how strong he’d been to resist.

Matthew settled into the rhythms of his feeding, pulling on my blood in waves.

Matthew, listen to me. Thanks to Gerbert, I knew that my blood would carry messages to him. My only worry was that they would be fleeting, and my power to communicate would be swallowed up.

He startled against my throat, then resumed his feeding.

I love you.

He gave another start of surprise.

This was my gift. I am inside you, giving you life.

Matthew shook his head as if to dislodge an annoying insect and kept drinking.

I am inside you, giving you life. It was harder to think, harder to see through the fire. I focused on Em and Sarah, tried to tell them with my eyes not to worry. I looked for Marcus, too, but couldn’t move my eyes enough to find him.

I am inside you, giving you life. I repeated the mantra until it was no longer possible.

There was a slow pulsing, the sound of my heart starting to die.

Dying was nothing at all like I’d expected it to be.

There was a moment of bone-deep quiet.

A sense of parting and regret.

Then nothing.

In my bones there was a sudden boom as of two worlds colliding.

Something stung my right arm, accompanied by the odor of latex and plastic, and Matthew was arguing with Marcus. There was cold earth below me, and the tang of leaf mold replaced the other scents. My eyes were open, but I saw nothing except blackness. With effort I was able to pick out the half-bare branches of trees crisscrossing above me.

“Use the left arm—it’s already open,” said Matthew with impatience.

“That arm’s useless, Matthew. The tissues are full of your saliva and won’t absorb anything else. The right arm is better. Her blood pressure is so low I’m having a hard time finding a vein, that’s all.” Marcus’s voice had the unnatural quietness of the emergency-room physician who sees death regularly.

Two thick strands of spaghetti spooled onto my face. Cold fingers touched my nose, and I tried to shake them off, only to be held down.

Miriam’s voice came from the darkness to my right. “Tachycardia. I’ll sedate her.”

“No,” Matthew said roughly. “No sedatives. She’s barely conscious. They could put her into a coma.”

“Then keep her quiet.” Miriam’s tone was matter-of-fact. Tiny, cold fingers pressed against my neck with unexpected firmness. “I can’t stop her from bleeding out and hold her still at the same time.”

What was happening around me was visible only in disconcerting slices—what was directly above, what could be glimpsed from the corners of my eyes, what could be tracked through the enormous effort of swiveling them in their sockets.

“Can you do anything, Sarah?” Matthew’s voice was anguished.

Sarah’s face swam into view. “Witchcraft can’t heal vampire bites. If it could, we’d never have had anything to fear from creatures like you.”

I began drifting to somewhere peaceful, but my progress was interrupted by Em’s slipping her hand into mine, holding me firmly in my own body.

“We’ve got no choice, then.” Matthew sounded desperate. “I’ll do it.”

“No, Matthew,” said Miriam decidedly. “You’re not strong enough yet. Besides, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” There was a tearing sound. After Juliette’s attack on Matthew, I recognized that it was vampire flesh.

“Are they making me a vampire?” I whispered to Em.

“No, mon coeur.” Matthew’s voice was as decided as Miriam’s had been. “You lost—I took—a great deal of blood. Marcus is replacing it with human blood. Now Miriam needs to see to your neck.”

“Oh.” It was too complicated to follow. My brain was fuzzy—almost as fuzzy as my tongue and throat. “I’m thirsty.”

“You’re craving vampire blood, but you’re not going to get it. Lie very still,” Matthew said firmly, holding my shoulders so tightly it was painful. Marcus’s cold hands crept past my ears to my jaw, holding my mouth closed, too. “And, Miriam—”

“Stop fussing, Matthew,” Miriam said briskly. “I was doing this to warmbloods long before you were reborn.”

Something sharp cut into my neck, and the smell of blood filled the air.

The cutting sensation was followed by a pain that froze and burned simultaneously. The heat and cold intensified, traveling below the surface tissues of my neck to sear the bones and muscles underneath.

I wanted to escape the icy licks, but there were two vampires holding me down. My mouth was firmly closed, too, so all I could do was let out a muffled, fearful sound.

“Her artery is obscured,” Miriam said quietly. “The wound has to be cleared.” She took a single, audible sip, drawing the blood away. The skin was numbed momentarily, but sensation returned full force when she withdrew.

The extreme pain sent adrenaline coursing through my system, and panic followed in its wake. The gray walls of La Pierre loomed around me, my inability to move putting me back within Satu’s hands.

Matthew’s fingers dug into my shoulders, returning me to the woods outside the Bishop house. “Tell her what you’re doing, Miriam. That Finnish witch made her afraid of what she can’t see.”

“It’s just drops of my blood, Diana, falling from my wrist,” Miriam said calmly. “I know it hurts, but it’s all we have. Vampire blood heals on contact. It will close your artery better than the sutures a surgeon would use. And you needn’t worry. There’s no chance such a small amount, applied topically, will make you one of us.”

After her description it was possible to recognize each deliberate drop falling into my open wound. There it mingled with my witch’s flesh, forcing an instantaneous buildup of scar tissue. It must require enormous control, I thought, for a vampire to undertake such a procedure without giving in to hunger. At last the drops of searing coldness came to an end.

“Done,” Miriam said with a touch of relief. “All I have to do now is sew the incision.” Her fingers flew over my neck, tugging and stitching the flesh back together. “I tried to neaten the wound, Diana, but Matthew tore the skin with his teeth.”

“We’re going to move you to the house now,” Matthew said.

He cradled my head and shoulders while Marcus supported my legs. Miriam walked alongside carrying the equipment. Someone had driven the Range Rover across the fields, and it stood waiting with its rear door open. Matthew and Miriam switched places, and he disappeared into the cargo area to ready it for me.

“Miriam,” I whispered. She bent toward me. “If something goes wrong—” I couldn’t finish, but it was imperative she understand me. I was still a witch. But I’d rather be a vampire than dead.

She stared into my eyes, searched for a moment, then nodded. “Don’t you dare die, though. He’ll kill me if I do what you ask.”

Matthew talked nonstop during the bumpy ride back to the house, kissing me softly whenever I tried to sleep. Despite his gentleness, it was a wrench each time.

At the house, Sarah and Em sped around collecting cushions and pillows. They made a bed in front of the keeping room’s fireplace. Sarah lit the pile of logs in the grate with a few words and a gesture. A blaze began to burn, but still I shivered uncontrollably, cold to the core.

Matthew lowered me onto the cushions and covered me with quilts while Miriam pressed a bandage onto my neck. As she worked, my husband and his son muttered in the corner.

“It’s what she needs, and I do know where her lungs are,” Marcus said impatiently. “I won’t puncture anything.”

“She’s strong. No central line. End of discussion. Just get rid of what’s left of Juliette’s body,” Matthew said, his voice quiet but commanding.

“I’ll see to it,” Marcus replied. He turned on his heel, and the front door thudded behind him before the Range Rover sprang once more into life.

The ancient case clock in the front entrance ticked the minutes as they passed. The warmth soaked into my bones, making me drowsy. Matthew sat at my side, holding one hand tightly so that he could tug me back whenever I tried to escape into the welcome oblivion.

Finally Miriam said the magic word: “stable.” Then I could give in to the blackness flitting around the edges of my consciousness. Sarah and Em kissed me and left, Miriam followed, and at last there was nothing but Matthew and the blessed quiet.

Once silence descended, however, my mind turned to Juliette.

“I killed her.” My heart raced.

“You had no choice.” His tone said no further discussion was required. “It was self-defense.”

“No it wasn’t. The witchfire . . .” It was only when he was in danger that the bow and arrow had appeared in my hands.

Matthew quieted me with a kiss. “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

There was something that couldn’t wait, something I wanted him to know now.

“I love you, Matthew.” There hadn’t been a chance to tell him before Satu snatched me away from Sept-Tours. This time I wanted to be sure it was said before something else happened.

“I love you, too.” He bent his head, his lips against my ear. “Remember our dinner in Oxford? You wanted to know how you would taste.”

I moved my head in acknowledgment.

“You taste of honey,” he murmured. “Honey—and hope.”

My lips curved, and then I slept.

But it was not restful slumber. I was caught between waking and sleeping, La Pierre and Madison, life and death. The ghostly old woman had warned me of the danger of standing at a crossroads. There were times that death seemed to be standing patiently at my side, waiting for me to choose the road I wanted to take.

I traveled countless miles that night, fleeing from place to place, never more than a step ahead of whoever was pursuing me—Gerbert, Satu, Juliette, Peter Knox. Whenever my journey brought me back to the Bishop house, Matthew was there. Sometimes Sarah was with him. Other times it was Marcus. Most often, though, Matthew was alone.

Deep in the night, someone started humming the tune we’d danced to a lifetime ago in Ysabeau’s grand salon. It wasn’t Marcus or Matthew—they were talking to each other—but I was too tired to figure out where the music was coming from.

“Where did she learn that old song?” Marcus asked.

“At home. Christ, even in sleep she’s trying to be brave.” Matthew’s voice was desolate. “Baldwin is right—I’m no good at strategy. I should have foreseen this.”

“Gerbert counted on your forgetting about Juliette. It had been so long. And he knew you’d be with Diana when she struck. He gloated about it on the phone.”

“Yes, he knows I’m arrogant enough to think she was safe with me at her side.”

“You’ve tried to protect her. But you can’t—no one could. She’s not the only one who needs to stop being brave.”

There was something Marcus didn’t know, something Matthew was forgetting. Snatches of half-remembered conversation came back to me. The music stopped to let me speak.

“I told you before,” I said, groping for Matthew in the dark and finding only a handful of soft wool that released the scent of cloves when crushed, “I can be brave enough for both of us.”

“Diana,” Matthew said urgently. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

His face was inches from mine. He was cradling my head with one hand, the other cool on my lower back, where a crescent moon swept from one side of my body to the other.

“There you are,” I murmured. “I’m afraid we’re lost.”

“No, my darling, we’re not lost. We’re at the Bishop house. And you don’t need to be brave. It’s my turn.”

“Will you be able to figure out which road we need to take?”

“I’ll find the way. Rest and let me take care of that.” Matthew’s eyes were very green.

I drifted off once more, racing to elude Gerbert and Juliette, who were hard at my heels. Toward dawn my sleep deepened, and when I awoke, it was morning. A quick check revealed that my body was naked and tucked tightly under layers of quilts, like a patient in a British intensive-care ward. Tubing disappeared into my right arm, a bandage encased my left elbow, and something was stuck to my neck. Matthew was sitting nearby with knees bent and his back against the sofa.

“Matthew? Is everyone all right?” There was cotton wool wrapped around my tongue, and I was still fiercely thirsty.

“Everyone’s fine.” Relief washed over his face as he reached for my hand and pressed his lips to my palm. Matthew’s eyes flickered to my wrist, where Juliette’s fingernails had left angry red crescent moons.

The sound of our voices brought the rest of the household into the room. First there were my aunts. Sarah was lost in her thoughts, dark hollows under her eyes. Em looked tired but relieved, stroking my hair and assuring me that everything was going to be all right. Marcus came next. He examined me and talked sternly about my need to rest. Finally Miriam ordered everyone else out of the room so she could change my bandages.

“How bad was it?” I asked when we were alone.

“If you mean Matthew, it was bad. The de Clermonts don’t handle loss—or the threat of it—very well. Ysabeau was worse when Philippe died. It’s a good thing you lived, and not just for my sake.” Miriam applied ointment to my wounds with a surprisingly delicate touch.

Her words conjured images of Matthew on a vengeful rampage. I closed my eyes to blot them out. “Tell me about Juliette.”

Miriam emitted a low hiss of warning. “Juliette Durand is not my tale to tell. Ask your husband.” She disconnected the IV and held out one of Sarah’s old flannel shirts. After I struggled with it for a few moments, she came to my aid. Her eyes fell on the marks on my back.

“The scars don’t bother me. They’re just signs that I’ve fought and survived.” I pulled the shirt over my shoulders self-consciously nonetheless.

“They don’t bother him either. Loving de Clermonts always leaves a mark. Nobody knows that better than Matthew.”

I buttoned up the shirt with shaking fingers, unwilling to meet her eyes. She handed over a pair of stretchy black leggings.

“Giving him your blood like that was unspeakably dangerous. He might not have been able to stop drinking.” A note of admiration had crept into her voice.

“Ysabeau told me the de Clermonts fight for those they love.”

“His mother will understand, but Matthew is another matter. He needs to get it out of his system—your blood, what happened last night, everything.”

Juliette. The name hung unspoken in the air between us.

Miriam reconnected the IV and adjusted its flow. “Marcus will take him to Canada. It will be hours before Matthew finds someone he’s willing to feed on, but it can’t be helped.”

“Sarah and Em will be safe with both of them gone?”

“You bought us some time. The Congregation never imagined that Juliette would fail. Gerbert is as proud as Matthew, and nearly as infallible. It will take them a few days to regroup.” She froze, a guilty look on her face.

“I’d like to talk to Diana now,” Matthew said quietly from the door. He looked terrible. There was hunger in the sharpened angles of his face and the lavender smudges under his eyes.

He watched silently as Miriam walked around my makeshift bed. She shut the heavy coffin doors behind her, their catches clicking together. When he turned to me, his look was concerned.

Matthew’s need for blood was at war with his protective instincts.

“When are you leaving?” I asked, hoping to make my wishes clear.

“I’m not leaving.”

“You need to regain your strength. Next time the Congregation won’t send just one vampire or witch.” I wondered how many other creatures from Matthew’s past were likely to come calling at the Congregation’s behest, and I struggled to sit up.

“You are so experienced with war now, ma lionne, that you understand their strategies?” It was impossible to judge his feelings from his features, but his voice betrayed a hint of amusement.

“We’ve proved we can’t be beaten easily.”

“Easily? You almost died.” He sat next to me on the cushions.

“So did you.”

“You used magic to save me. I could smell it—lady’s mantle and ambergris.”

“It was nothing.” I didn’t want him know what I’d promised in exchange for his life.

“No lies.” Matthew grabbed my chin with his fingertips. “If you don’t want to tell me, say so. Your secrets are your own. But no lies.”

“If I do keep secrets, I won’t be the only one doing so in this family. Tell me about Juliette Durand.”

He let go of my chin and moved restlessly to the window. “You know that Gerbert introduced us. He kidnapped her from a Cairo brothel, brought her to the brink of death over and over again before transforming her into a vampire, and then shaped her into someone I would find appealing. I still don’t know if she was insane when Gerbert found her or if her mind broke after what he did to her.”

“Why?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity from my voice.

“She was meant to worm her way into my heart and then into my family’s affairs. Gerbert had always wanted to be included among the Knights of Lazarus, and my father refused him time and time again. Once Juliette had discovered the intricacies of the brotherhood and any other useful information about the de Clermonts, she was free to kill me. Gerbert trained her to be my assassin, as well as my lover.” Matthew picked at the window frame’s peeling paint. “When I first met her, she was better at hiding her illness. It took me a long time to see the signs. Baldwin and Ysabeau never trusted her, and Marcus detested her. But I—Gerbert taught her well. She reminded me of Louisa, and her emotional fragility seemed to explain her erratic behavior.”

He has always liked fragile things, Ysabeau had warned me. Matthew hadn’t been just sexually attracted to Juliette. The feelings had gone deeper.

“You did love her.” I remembered Juliette’s strange kiss and shuddered.

“Once. Long ago. For all the wrong reasons,” Matthew continued. “I watched her—from a safe distance—and made sure she was cared for, since she was incapable of caring for herself. When World War I broke out, she disappeared, and I assumed she’d been killed. I never imagined she was alive somewhere.”

“And all the time you were watching her, she was watching you, too.” Juliette’s attentive eyes had taken in my every movement. She must have observed Matthew with a similar keenness.

“If I’d known, she would never have been allowed to get near you.” He stared out into the pale morning light. “But there’s something else we have to discuss. You must promise me never to use your magic to save me. I have no wish to live longer than I’m meant to. Life and death are powerful forces. Ysabeau interfered with them on my behalf once. You aren’t to do it again. And no asking Miriam—or anyone else—to make you a vampire.” His voice was startling in its coldness, and he crossed the room to my side with quick, long strides. “No one—not even I—will transform you into something you’re not.”

“You’ll have to promise me something in return.”

His eyes narrowed with displeasure. “What’s that?”

“Don’t ever ask me to leave you when you’re in danger,” I said fiercely. “I won’t do it.”

Matthew calculated what would be required of him to keep his promise while keeping me out of harm’s way. I was just as busy figuring out which of my dimly understood powers needed mastering so that I could protect him without incinerating him or drowning myself. We eyed each other warily for a few moments. Finally I touched his cheek.

“Go hunting with Marcus. We’ll be fine for a few hours.” His color was all wrong. I wasn’t the only one who had lost a lot of blood.

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I have my aunts, not to mention Miriam. She told me at the Bodleian that her teeth are as sharp as yours. I believe her.” I was more knowledgeable now about vampire teeth.

“We’ll be home by dark,” he said reluctantly, brushing his fingers across my cheekbone. “Is there anything you need before I go?”

“I’d like to talk to Ysabeau.” Sarah had been distant that morning, and I wanted to hear a maternal voice.

“Of course,” he said, hiding his surprise by reaching into his pocket for his phone. Someone had taken the time to retrieve it from the bushes. He dialed Sept-Tours with a single push of his finger.

“Maman?” A torrent of French erupted from the phone. “She’s fine,” Matthew interrupted, his voice soothing. “Diana wants—she’s asked—to speak to you.”

There was silence, followed by a single crisp word. “Oui.”

Matthew handed me the phone.

“Ysabeau?” My voice cracked, and my eyes filled with sudden tears.

“I am here, Diana.” Ysabeau sounded as musical as ever.

“I almost lost him.”

“You should have obeyed him and gone as far away from Juliette as you could.” Ysabeau’s tone was sharp before turning soft once more. “But I am glad you did not.”

I cried in earnest then. Matthew stroked the hair back from my forehead, tucking my typically wayward strand behind my ear, before leaving me to my conversation.

To Ysabeau I was able to express my grief and confess my failure to kill Juliette at my first opportunity. I told her everything—about Juliette’s startling appearance and her strange kiss, my terror when Matthew began to feed, about what it was like to begin to die only to return abruptly to life. Matthew’s mother understood, as I’d known she would. The only time Ysabeau interrupted was during the part of my story that involved the maiden and the crone.

“So the goddess saved my son,” she murmured. “She has a sense of justice, as well as humor. But that is too long a tale for today. When you are next at Sept-Tours, I will tell you.”

Her mention of the chвteau caused another sharp pang of homesickness. “I wish I were there. I’m not sure anyone in Madison can teach me all that I need to know.”

“Then we must find a different teacher. Somewhere there is a creature who can help.”

Ysabeau issued a series of firm instructions about obeying Matthew, taking care of him, taking care of myself, and returning to the chвteau as soon as possible. I agreed to all of them with uncharacteristic alacrity and got off the phone.

A few tactful moments later, Matthew opened the door and stepped inside.

“Thank you,” I said, sniffing and holding up his phone.

He shook his head. “Keep it. Call Marcus or Ysabeau at any time. They’re numbers two and three on speed dial. You need a new phone, as well as a watch. Yours doesn’t even hold a charge.” Matthew settled me gently against the cushions and kissed my forehead. “Miriam’s working in the dining room, but she’ll hear the slightest sound.”

“Sarah and Em?” I asked.

“Waiting to see you,” he said with a smile.

After visiting with my aunts, I slept a few hours, until a restless yearning for Matthew had me clawing myself awake.

Em got up from my grandmother’s recently returned rocker and came to me carrying a glass of water, her forehead creased in deep lines that hadn’t been there a few days ago. Grandma was sitting on the sofa staring at the paneling next to the fireplace, clearly waiting for another message from the house.

“Where’s Sarah?” I closed my fingers around the glass. My throat was still parched, and the water would feel divine.

“She went out for a while.” Em’s delicate mouth pressed into a thin line.

“She blames this all on Matthew.”

Em dropped down to her knees on the floor until her eyes were level with mine. “This has nothing to do with Matthew. You offered your blood to a vampire—a desperate, dying vampire.” She silenced my protests with a look. “I know he’s not just any vampire. Even so, Matthew could kill you. And Sarah’s devastated that she can’t teach you how to control your talents.”

“Sarah shouldn’t worry about me. Did you see what I did to Juliette?”

She nodded. “And other things as well.”

My grandmother’s attention was now fixed on me instead of the paneling.

“I saw the hunger in Matthew when he fed on you,” Em continued quietly. “I saw the maiden and the crone, too, standing on the other side of the fire.”

“Did Sarah see them?” I whispered, hoping that Miriam couldn’t hear.

Em shook her head. “No. Does Matthew know?”

“No.” I pushed my hair aside, relieved that Sarah was unaware of all that had happened last night.

“What did you promise the goddess in exchange for his life, Diana?”

“Anything she wanted.”

“Oh, honey.” Em’s face crumpled. “You shouldn’t have done that. There’s no telling when she’ll act—or what she’ll take.”

My grandmother was furiously rocking. Em eyed the chair’s wild movements.

“I had to, Em. The goddess didn’t seem surprised. It felt inevitable—right, somehow.”

“Have you seen the maiden and the crone before?”

I nodded. “The maiden’s been in my dreams. Sometimes it’s as though I’m inside her, looking out as she rides or hunts. And the crone met me outside the keeping room.”

You’re in deep water now, Diana, my grandmother rustled. I hope you can swim.

“You mustn’t call the goddess lightly,” Em warned. “These are powerful forces that you don’t yet understand.”

“I didn’t call her at all. They appeared when I decided to give Matthew my blood. They gave me their help willingly.”

Maybe it wasn’t your blood to give. My grandmother continued to rock back and forth, setting the floorboards creaking. Did you ever think of that?

“You’ve known Matthew for a few weeks. Yet you follow his orders so easily, and you were willing to die for him. Surely you can see why Sarah is concerned. The Diana we’ve known all these years is gone.”

“I love him,” I said fiercely. “And he loves me.” Matthew’s many secrets—the Knights of Lazarus, Juliette, even Marcus—I pushed to the side, along with my knowledge of his ferocious temper and his need to control everything and everyone around him.

But Em knew what I was thinking. She shook her head. “You can’t ignore them, Diana. You tried that with your magic, and it found you. The parts of Matthew you don’t like and don’t understand are going to find you, too. You can’t hide forever. Especially now.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are too many creatures interested in this manuscript, and in you and Matthew. I can feel them, pressing in on the Bishop house, on you. I don’t know which side of this struggle they’re on, but my sixth sense tells me it won’t be long before we find out.”

Em tucked the quilt around me. After putting another log on the fire, she left the room.

I was awakened by my husband’s distinctive, spicy scent.

“You’re back,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

Matthew looked rested, and his skin had returned to its normal, pearly color.

He’d fed. On human blood.

“So are you.” Matthew brought my hand to his lips. “Miriam said you’ve been sleeping for most of the day.”

“Is Sarah home?”

“Everyone’s present and accounted for.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “Even Tabitha.”

I asked to see them, and he unhooked me from my IV without argument. When my legs were too unsteady to carry me to the family room, he simply swept me up and carried me.

Em and Marcus settled me into the sofa with great ceremony. I was quickly exhausted by nothing more strenuous than quiet conversation and watching the latest film noir selection on TV, and Matthew lifted me up once more.

“We’re going upstairs,” he announced. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Do you want me to bring up Diana’s IV?” Miriam asked pointedly.

“No. She doesn’t need it.” His voice was brusque.

“Thank you for not hooking me up to all that stuff,” I said as he carried me through the front hall.

“Your body is still weak, but it’s remarkably resilient for a warmblood,” Matthew said as he climbed the stairs. “The reward for being a perpetual-motion machine, I imagine.”

Once he had turned off the light, I curled into his body with a contented sigh, my fingers splayed possessively across his chest. The moonlight streaming through the windows highlighted his new scars. They were already fading from pink to white.

Tired as I was, the gears of Matthew’s mind were working so furiously that sleep proved impossible. It was plain from the set of his mouth and the bright glitter of his eyes that he was picking our road forward, just as he’d promised to do last night.

“Tell me,” I said when the suspense became unbearable.

“What we need is time,” he said thoughtfully.

“The Congregation isn’t likely to give us that.”

“We’ll take it, then.” His voice was almost inaudible. “We’ll timewalk.”