Matthew was suspiciously quiet, and I pushed myself up to see his expression. “Tonight I feel thirty-seven. Even more important, I believe that next year I will feel thirty-eight.”
“I don’t understand,” I said uneasily.
He drew me back down and tucked my head under his chin. “For more than a thousand years, I’ve stood outside of time, watching the days and years go by. Since I’ve been with you, I’m aware of its passage. It’s easy for vampires to forget such things. It’s one of the reasons Ysabeau is so obsessed with reading the newspapers—to remind herself that there’s always change, even though time doesn’t alter her.”
“You’ve never felt this way before?”
“A few times, very fleetingly. Once or twice in battle, when I feared I was about to die.”
“So it’s about danger, not just love.” A cold wisp of fear moved through me at this matter-of-fact talk of war and death.
“My life now has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything before was preamble. Now I have you. One day you will be gone, and my life will be over.”
“Not necessarily,” I said hastily. “I’ve only got another handful of decades in me—you could go on forever.” A world without Matthew was unthinkable.
“We’ll see,” he said quietly, stroking my shoulder.
Suddenly his safety was of paramount concern to me. “You will be careful?”
“No one sees as many centuries as I have without being careful. I’m always careful. Now more than ever, since I have so much more to lose.”
“I would rather have had this moment with you—just this one night—than centuries with someone else,” I whispered.
Matthew considered my words. “I suppose if it’s taken me only a few weeks to feel thirty-seven again, I might be able to reach the point where one moment with you was enough,” he said, cuddling me closer. “But this talk is too serious for a marriage bed.”
“I thought conversation was the point of bundling,” I said primly.
“It depends on whom you ask—the bundlers or those being bundled.” He began working his mouth down from my ear to my shoulders. “Besides, I have another part of the medieval wedding service I’d like to discuss with you.”
“You do, husband?” I bit his ear gently as it moved past.
“Don’t do that,” he said, with mock severity. “No biting in bed.” I did it again anyway. “What I was referring to was the part of the ceremony where the obedient wife,” he said, looking at me pointedly, “promises to be ‘bonny and buxom in bed and board.’ How do you intend to fulfill that promise?” He buried his face in my breasts as if he might find the answer there.
After several more hours discussing the medieval liturgy, I had a new appreciation for church ceremonies as well as folk customs. And being with him in this way was more intimate than I’d ever been with another creature.
Relaxed and at ease, I curled against Matthew’s now-familiar body so that my head rested below his heart. His fingers ran through my hair again and again, until I fell asleep.
It was just before dawn when I awoke to a strange sound coming from the bed next to me, like gravel rolling around in a metal tube.
Matthew was sleeping—and snoring, too. He looked even more like the effigy of a knight on a tombstone now. All that was missing was the dog at his feet and the sword clasped at his waist.
I pulled the covers over him. He didn’t stir. I smoothed his hair back, and he kept breathing deeply. I kissed him lightly on the mouth, and there was still no reaction. I smiled at my beautiful vampire, sleeping like the dead, and felt like the luckiest creature on the planet as I crept from under the covers.
Outside, the clouds were still hanging in the sky, but at the horizon they were thin enough to reveal faint traces of red behind the gray layers. It might actually clear today, I thought, stretching slightly and looking back at Matthew’s recumbent form. He would be unconscious for hours. I, on the other hand, was feeling restless and oddly rejuvenated. I dressed quickly, wanting to go outside in the gardens and be by myself for a while.
When I finished dressing, Matthew was still lost in his rare, peaceful slumber. “I’ll be back before you know it,” I whispered, kissing him.
There was no sign of Marthe, or of Ysabeau. In the kitchen I took an apple from the bowl set aside for the horses and bit into it. The apple’s crisp flesh tasted bright against my tongue.
I drifted into the garden, walking along the gravel paths, drinking in the smells of herbs and the white roses that glowed in the early-morning light. If not for my modern clothes, it could have been in the sixteenth century, with the orderly square beds and the willow fences that were supposed to keep the rabbits out—though the château’s vampire occupants were no doubt a better deterrent than a scant foot of bent twigs.
Reaching down, I ran my fingers over the herbs growing at my feet. One of them was in Marthe’s tea. Rue, I realized with satisfaction, pleased that the knowledge had stuck.
A gust of wind brushed past me, pulling loose the same infernal lock of hair that would not stay put. My fingers scraped it back in place, just as an arm swept me off the ground.
Ears popping, I was rocketed straight up into the sky.
The gentle tingle against my skin told me what I already knew.
When my eyes opened, I would be looking at a witch.
Chapter 29
M
y captor’s eyes were bright blue, angled over high, strong cheekbones and topped by a shock of platinum hair. She was wearing a thick, hand-knit turtleneck and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. No black robes or brooms, but she was—unmistakably—a witch.
With a contemptuous flick of her fingers, she stopped the sound of my scream before it broke free. Her arm swept to the left, carrying us more horizontally than vertically for the first time since she’d plucked me from the garden at Sept-Tours.
Matthew would wake up and find me gone. He would never forgive himself for falling asleep, or me for going outside.
Idiot,
I told myself.
“Yes you are, Diana Bishop,” the witch said in a strangely accented voice.
I slammed shut the imaginary doors behind my eyes that had always kept out the casual, invasive efforts of witches and daemons.
She laughed, a silvery sound that chilled me to the bone. Frightened, and hundreds of feet above the Auvergne, I emptied my mind in hopes of leaving nothing for her to find once she breached my inadequate defenses. Then she dropped me.
As the ground flew up, my thoughts organized themselves around a single word—Matthew.
The witch caught me up in her grip at my first whiff of earth. “You’re too light to carry for one who can’t fly. Why won’t you, I wonder?”
Silently I recited the kings and queens of England to keep my mind blank.
She sighed. “I’m not your enemy, Diana. We are both witches.”
The winds changed as the witch flew south and west, away from Sept-Tours. I quickly grew disoriented. The blaze of light in the distance might be Lyon, but we weren’t headed toward it. Instead we were moving deeper into the mountains—and they didn’t look like the peaks Matthew had pointed out to me earlier.
We descended toward something that looked like a crater set apart from the surrounding countryside by yawning ravines and overgrown forests. It proved to be the ruin of a medieval castle, with high walls and thick foundations that extended deep into the earth. Trees grew inside the husks of long-abandoned buildings huddled in the fortress’s shadow. The castle didn’t have a single graceful line or pleasing feature. There was only one reason for its existence—to keep out anyone who wished to enter. The poor dirt roads leading over the mountains were the castle’s only link to the rest of the world. My heart sank.
The witch swung her feet down and pointed her toes, and when I didn’t do the same, she forced mine down with another flick of her fingers. The tiny bones complained at the invisible stress. We slid along what remained of the gray tiled roofs without touching them, headed toward a small central courtyard. My feet flattened out suddenly and slammed into the stone paving, the shock reverberating through my legs.
“In time you’ll learn to land more softly,” the witch said matter-of-factly.
It was impossible to process my change in circumstances. Just moments ago, it seemed, I had been lying, drowsy and content, in bed with Matthew. Now I was standing in a dank castle with a strange witch.
When two pale figures detached themselves from the shadows, my confusion turned to terror. One was Domenico Michele. The other was unknown to me, but the freezing touch of his eyes told me he was a vampire, too. A wave of incense and brimstone identified him: this was Gerbert of Aurillac, the vampire-pope.
Gerbert wasn’t physically intimidating, but there was evil at the core of him that made me shrink instinctively. Traces of that darkness were in brown eyes that looked out from deep sockets set over cheekbones so prominent that the skin appeared to be stretched thin over them. His nose hooked slightly, pointing down to thin lips that were curled into a cruel smile. With this vampire’s dark eyes pinned on me, the threat posed by Peter Knox paled in comparison.
“Thank you for this place, Gerbert,” the witch said smoothly, keeping me close by her side. “You’re right—I won’t be disturbed here.”
“It was my pleasure, Satu. May I examine your witch?” Gerbert asked softly, walking slowly to the left and right as if searching for the best vantage point from which to view a prize. “It is difficult, when she has been with de Clermont, to tell where her scents begin and his end.”
My captor glowered at the reference to Matthew. “Diana Bishop is in my care now. There is no need for your presence here any longer.”
Gerbert’s attention remained fixed on me as he took small, measured steps toward me. His exaggerated slowness only heightened his menace. “It is a strange book, is it not, Diana? A thousand years ago, I took it from a great wizard in Toledo. When I brought it to France, it was already bound by layers of enchantment.”
“Despite your knowledge of magic, you could not discover its secrets.” The scorn in the witch’s voice was unmistakable. “The manuscript is no less bewitched now than it was then. Leave this to us.”
He continued to advance. “I knew a witch then whose name was similar to yours—Meridiana. She didn’t want to help me unlock the manuscript’s secrets, of course. But my blood kept her in thrall.” He was close enough now that the cold emanating from his body chilled me. “Each time I drank from her, small insights into her magic and fragments of her knowledge passed to me. They were frustratingly fleeting, though. I had to keep going back for more. She became weak, and easy to control.” Gerbert’s finger touched my face. “Meridiana’s eyes were rather like yours, too. What did you see, Diana? Will you share it with me?”
“Enough, Gerbert.” Satu’s voice crackled with warning, and Domenico snarled.
“Do not think this is the last time you will see me, Diana. First the witches will bring you to heel. Then the Congregation will decide what to do with you.” Gerbert’s eyes bored into mine, and his finger moved down my cheek in a caress. “After that, you will be mine. For now,” he said with a small bow in Satu’s direction, “she is yours.”
The vampires withdrew. Domenico looked back, reluctant to leave. Satu waited, her gaze vacant, until the sound of metal meeting up with wood and stone signaled that they were gone from the castle. Her blue eyes snapped to attention, and she fixed them on me. With a small gesture, she released her spell that had kept me silent.
“Who are you?” I croaked when it was possible to form words again.
“My name is Satu Järvinen,” she said, walking around me in a slow circle, trailing a hand behind her. It triggered a deep memory of another hand that had moved like hers. Once Sarah had walked a similar path in the backyard in Madison when she’d tried to bind a lost dog, but the hands in my mind did not belong to her.
Sarah’s talents were nothing compared to those possessed by this witch. It had been evident she was powerful from the way she flew. But she was adept at spells, too. Even now she was restraining me inside gossamer filaments of magic that stretched across the courtyard without her uttering a single word. Any hope of easy escape vanished.
“Why did you kidnap me?” I asked, trying to distract her from her work.
“We tried to make you see how dangerous Clairmont was. As witches, we didn’t want to go to these lengths, but you refused to listen.” Satu’s words were cordial, her voice warm. “You wouldn’t join us for Mabon, you ignored Peter Knox. Every day that vampire drew closer. But you’re safely beyond his reach now.”
Every instinct screamed danger.
“It’s not your fault,” Satu continued, touching me lightly on the shoulder. My skin tingled, and the witch smiled. “Vampires are so seductive, so charming. You’ve been caught in his thrall, just as Meridiana was caught by Gerbert. We don’t blame you for this, Diana. You led such a sheltered childhood. It wasn’t possible for you to see him for what he is.”
“I’m not in Matthew’s thrall,” I insisted. Beyond the dictionary definition, I had no idea what it might involve, but Satu made it sound coercive.
“Are you quite sure?” she asked gently. “You’ve never tasted a drop of his blood?”
“Of course not!” My childhood might have been devoid of extensive magical training, but I wasn’t a complete idiot. Vampire blood was a powerful, life-altering substance.
“No memories of a taste of concentrated salt? No unusual fatigue? You’ve never fallen deeply asleep when he was in your presence, even though you didn’t want to close your eyes?”
On the plane to France, Matthew had touched his fingers to his own lips, then to mine. I’d tasted salt then. The next thing I knew, I was in France. My certainty wavered.
“I see. So he
has
given you his blood.” Satu shook her head. “That’s not good, Diana. We thought it might be the case, after he followed you back to college on Mabon and climbed through your window.”