Time's Convert

by Deborah Harkness

  This was one of their routines as a couple—rehearsing the marriage vows. Sometimes they focused on one line and pretended that it would be hard to keep. Sometimes they made fun of the whole lot and the smallness of the concerns the vows addressed when stacked up against the size of their feelings for each other.

  “In sickness and in health.” Phoebe settled deeper into the tub. Its coolness reminded her of Marcus, and its solid curves made her wish he were sitting behind her, his arms and legs enfolding her. “Forsaking all others. Forever.”

  “Forever is a long time,” Marcus warned.

  “Forsaking all others,” Phoebe repeated, putting careful emphasis on the middle word.

  “You can’t know for sure. Not until you know me blood to blood,” Marcus replied.

  Their rare quarrels erupted after just this kind of exchange, when Marcus’s words suggested he’d lost confidence in her and Phoebe became defensive. Such arguments had usually been settled in Marcus’s bed, where each had demonstrated to the other’s satisfaction that although they might not know everything (yet), they had mastered certain important bodies of knowledge.

  But Phoebe was in Paris and Marcus was in the Auvergne. A physical rapprochement wasn’t possible at the moment. A wiser, more experienced person would have let the matter drop—but Phoebe was twenty-three, irritated, and anxious about what was about to take place.

  “I don’t know why you think it’s me who will change my mind and not you.” She intended the words to be light and playful. To her horror, they sounded accusatory. “After all, I’ve never known you as anything but a vampire. But you fell in love with me as a warmblood.”

  “I’ll still love you.” Marcus’s response was gratifyingly swift. “That won’t change, even if you do.”

  “You might hate the taste of me. I should have made you try me—before,” Phoebe said, trying to pick a fight. Maybe Marcus didn’t love her as much as he thought he did. Phoebe’s rational mind knew that was nonsense, but the irrational part (the part that was in control at the moment) wasn’t convinced.

  “I want us to share that experience—as equals. I’ve never shared my blood with my mate—nor have you. It’s something we can do for the first time, together.” Marcus’s voice was gentle, but it held an edge of frustration.

  This was well-covered ground. Equality was something that Marcus cared about deeply. A woman and child begging, a racial slur overheard on the tube, an elderly man struggling to cross the street while young people sped by with their headphones and mobiles—all of these made Marcus seethe.

  “We should have just run off and eloped,” Marcus said. “We should have done it our way, and not bothered with all this ancient tradition and ceremony.”

  But doing it this way, in slow, measured steps, was a choice they had also made together.

  Ysabeau de Clermont, the family’s matriarch and Marcus’s grandmother, had laid out the pros and cons of abandoning vampire custom with her usual clarity. She started with the recent family scandals. Marcus’s father, Matthew, had married a witch in violation of nearly a thousand years of prohibitions against relationships between creatures of different species. Then he nearly died at the hands of his estranged, deranged son, Benjamin. This left Phoebe and Marcus with two options. They could keep her transformation and their marriage secret for as long as possible before facing an eternity of gossip and speculation about what had gone on behind the scenes. Alternatively, they could transform Phoebe into a vampire before she was mated to Marcus with all due pomp—and transparency. If they chose the latter course, Phoebe and Marcus would likely suffer a year of inconvenience, followed by a decade or two of notoriety, and then be free to enjoy an endless lifetime of relative peace and quiet.

  Marcus’s reputation had played a factor in Phoebe’s decision, too. He was known among vampires for his impetuousness, and for charging off to right the evils of the world without a care for what other creatures might think. Phoebe hoped that if they followed tradition in the matter of their marriage, Marcus would enter the ranks of respectability and his idealism might be seen in a more positive light.

  “Tradition serves a useful purpose, remember?” Phoebe said firmly. “Besides, we’re not sticking to all the rules. Your secret phone plan is no longer secret, by the way. Freyja knows.”

  “It was always a long shot.” Marcus sighed. “I swear to God, Freyja’s part bloodhound. There’s no getting anything past her. Don’t worry. Freyja won’t really mind us talking. It’s Miriam who’s the stickler.”

  “Miriam is in Montmartre,” Phoebe said, glancing at her watch. It was now thirty minutes past midnight. Miriam would return soon. She really had to get off the phone.

  “There’s good hunting around the Sacré Coeur,” Marcus commented.

  “That’s what Freyja said,” Phoebe replied.

  Silence fell. It grew heavy with all the things they couldn’t say, wouldn’t say, or wanted to say but didn’t know how. In the end, there were only three words important enough to utter.

  “I love you, Marcus Whitmore.”

  “I love you, Phoebe Taylor,” Marcus replied. “No matter what you decide ninety days from now, you’re already my mate. You’re under my skin, in my blood, in my dreams. And don’t worry. You’re going to be a brilliant vampire.”

  Phoebe had no doubts that the transformation would work, and blissfully few that she wouldn’t enjoy being ageless and powerful. But would she and Marcus be able to build a relationship that would endure, like the one Marcus’s grandmother had known with her mate, Philippe?

  “I will be thinking of you,” Marcus said. “Every moment.”

  The line went dead as Marcus hung up.

  Phoebe kept the phone to her ear until the telephone service disconnected the call. She climbed out of the tub, smashed the phone with the canister of bath salts, opened the window, and threw the lump of plastic and circuitry as far as she could into the garden. Destroying the evidence of their transgression had been part of Marcus’s original plan, and Phoebe was going to follow it to the letter even if Freyja already knew about the forbidden phones. What was left of the device landed in the small fishpond with a satisfying plonk.

  Having rid herself of the incriminating evidence, Phoebe took off her dress and hung it up inside the armoire—making sure that the striped plastic bag was once again out of sight on top of it. Then she put on the simple white silk dressing gown that Françoise had laid out for her on the bed.

  Phoebe sat on the edge of the mattress, quiet and still, resolutely facing her future, and waited for time to find her.

  PART 1

  Time Hath Found Us

  We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

  —THOMAS PAINE

  2

  Less Than Naught

  13 MAY

  Phoebe stepped on the scale.

  “My God, you are tiny.” Freyja read the numbers to Miriam, who recorded them on something that looked like a medical chart. “Fifty-two kilograms.”

  “I told you to gain three kilos, Phoebe,” Miriam said. “The scale shows an increase of just two kilos.”

  “I did try.” Phoebe didn’t see why she was apologizing to these two, who were on the equivalent of a raw-foods-plus-liquids diet. “What difference does one kilo make?”

  “Blood volume,” Miriam replied, trying to sound patient. “The heavier you are, the more blood you have.”

  “And the more blood you have, the more you will need to receive from Miriam,” Freyja continued. “We want to be sure that she gives back as much as she takes. There are fewer risks of rejection with an equivalent exchange of human blood for vampire blood. And we want you to receive as much blood as possible.”

  The calculations had been going on for months. Blood volume. Cardiac output. Weight. Oxygen uptake. If Phoebe didn’t know better, she would think she was on t
rial for the British national fencing team, not the de Clermont family.

  “Are you sure about the pain?” Freyja asked. “We can give you something for it. There’s no need to experience any discomfort. Rebirth need not be painful, as it once was.”

  This, too, had been a topic of much discussion. Freyja and Miriam had recounted hair-raising tales of their own transformations, and how agonizing it was to be filled with the blood of a preternatural creature. Vampire blood was thuggish, beating out every trace of humanity in its effort to create the perfect predator. By taking blood in slowly, a newborn vampire could adjust to the invasion of new genetic material with little or no pain—but there was evidence that the human body also had a greater opportunity to reject the maker’s blood, preferring to die rather than change into something else. The rapid transfusion of vampire blood had the opposite effect. The pain was excruciating, but the weakened human body didn’t have the time or resources to mount a counterattack.

  “I am not bothered by the prospect of pain. Let’s just get this over with.” Phoebe’s tone indicated that she hoped to put an end to this conversational avenue—forever.

  Freyja and Miriam exchanged glances.

  “How about a local anesthetic for the bite?” Miriam asked, turning clinical once more.

  “For God’s sake, Miriam.” When not feeling like a potential Olympian, Phoebe was convinced she was in the most thorough preoperative consultation ever conducted. “I don’t want anesthesia. I want to feel the bite. I want to feel the pain. This is the only birthing process I’m ever going to have. I’m not going to miss it.”

  Phoebe was quite clear on this score.

  “No act of creation has ever been painless,” she continued. “Miracles should leave a mark, so that we can remember how precious they are.”

  “Very well, then,” Freyja said, brisk and efficient. “The doors are locked. The windows are locked. Françoise and Charles are standing by. Just in case.”

  “I still think we should have done this in Denmark.” Even now, Miriam couldn’t stop reanalyzing the procedure. “There are too many beating hearts in Paris.”

  “Lejre has nearly fifteen hours of daylight this time of year. Phoebe wouldn’t be able to stand so much sunshine so quickly,” Freyja argued.

  “Yes, but the hunting . . .” Miriam began.

  What would follow, Phoebe knew, was a long comparison of French and Danish fauna, in which the nutritive benefits of both would be considered, taking into account variability in size, freshness, farmed versus wild, and the unpredictable appetites of the infant vampire.

  “That’s it,” Phoebe said, headed for the door. “Maybe Charles will change me. I cannot go over these arrangements one. More. Time.”

  “She’s ready,” Miriam and Freyja said in unison.

  Phoebe pulled the loose neck of the white dressing gown aside, exposing rich veins and arteries. “Then do it.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when Phoebe felt a sharp sensation.

  Numbness.

  Tingling.

  Suction.

  Phoebe’s knees buckled and her head swam as the shock of rapid blood loss overtook her. Her brain registered that she was being attacked and was in mortal danger, and her adrenaline rose.

  Her field of vision narrowed, and the room dimmed.

  Strong arms caught her.

  Phoebe floated in a velvet darkness, sinking into folds of quiet.

  Peace.

  * * *

  —

  A SEARING COLD BROUGHT HER back to awareness.

  Phoebe was freezing, burning.

  Her mouth opened in a terrified scream as her body caught fire from the inside.

  Someone offered a wrist, wet with something that smelled—delicious.

  Copper and iron.

  Salt and sweet.

  It was the scent of life. Life.

  Phoebe snuffled at the wrist like a baby seeking her mother’s breast, the flesh held tantalizingly close to her mouth without touching her lips.

  “You choose,” her maker said. “Life? Or death?”

  Phoebe used all of her energy to move closer to the promise of vitality. In the distance, someone was knocking, slow and steady. Understanding followed.

  Heartbeat.

  Pulse.

  Blood.

  Phoebe kissed the cold flesh of her maker’s wrist, reverent and blindingly conscious of the gift being given.

  “Life,” Phoebe whispered before taking her first mouthful of vampire blood.

  As the powerful substance surged through her veins, Phoebe’s body exploded in pain and yearning: for what was lost, for what was to come, for all that she would never be, and for everything that she would become.

  Her heart began to make a new music, one that was slow and deliberate.

  I am, Phoebe’s heart sang.

  Naught.

  And yet.

  Now.

  Evermore.

  3

  The Prodigal Returns

  13 MAY

  “If the ghosts are making that racket, I’m going to kill them,” I murmured, clinging to the disorientation of sleep in hopes of prolonging it for a few more moments. I was still jet-lagged after our recent flight from America to France and had piles of exams and papers to grade following the end of the spring semester at Yale. Pulling the covers closer to my chin, I turned over and prayed for silence.

  Heavy pounding echoed through the house, bouncing off thick stone walls and floors.

  “Someone’s at the front door.” Matthew, who slept very little, was at the open window, sniffing the night air for clues as to their identity. “It’s Ysabeau.”

  “It’s three in the morning!” I groaned and slid my feet into a pair of waiting slippers. We were no strangers to crisis, but even so, this was unusual.

  Matthew relocated in a flash from the bedroom window to the stairs and began his swift descent.

  “Mama!” Becca wailed in the nearby nursery, capturing my attention. “Ow! Loud. Loud.”

  “Coming, sweetie.” My daughter had her father’s keen hearing. Her first word had been “mama,” her second “papa,” and her third “Pip” for her brother Philip. “Blood,” “loud,” and “doggy” had followed quickly thereafter.

  “Lightning bug, lightning bug, make me a match.” I didn’t flick on the lights, choosing instead to gently illuminate the tip of my index finger with a simple spell inspired by a song from an old album of show tunes I’d found in a cupboard. My gramarye—the ability to put my knotted magic into words—was coming along.

  In the nursery, Becca was sitting up, tiny hands clapped to her ears and her face twisted in distress. Cuthbert, the overstuffed elephant Marcus gave to her, and a wooden zebra named Zee were prancing around her heavy, medieval cradle. Philip stood inside his own, gripping the sides and looking at his sister with concern.

  In dreamtime, the magic in the twins’ half-witch, half-vampire blood bubbled to the surface, disturbing their shallow sleep. Though I found their nocturnal activities a bit worrying, Sarah said we could thank the goddess that thus far the twins’ magic had been confined to rearranging the nursery furniture, making white clouds out of baby powder, and constructing impromptu mobiles out of stuffed animals.

  “Owie,” Philip said, pointing to Becca. He was already following in Matthew’s medical footsteps, minutely inspecting every creature at Les Revenants—two legged, four legged, winged, or finned—for scrapes, blemishes, and insect bites.

  “Thank you, Philip.” I narrowly avoided collision with Cuthbert and headed for Becca. “Would you like a cuddle, Becca?”

  “Cuthbert, too.” Becca was already a skilled negotiator thanks to spending time with her two grandmothers. I feared that Ysabeau and Sarah were bad influences.

  “Just you and Phili
p, if he’d like to join us,” I said firmly, rubbing Becca’s back.

  Cuthbert and Zee hit the ground with petulant thuds. It was impossible to know which of the children was responsible for the flying animals, or why the magic had left them. Was it Becca who had set them aloft, and the backrub had brought her enough comfort that she didn’t need the animals anymore? Or was it Philip, who was quieter now because his sister was no longer in distress? Or was it because I had said no?

  In the distance, the pounding stopped. Ysabeau was in the house.

  “Gam—” Becca began. Then she hiccupped.

  “Mer,” Philip finished, his expression brightening.

  Anxiety wove a tight knot in my stomach. I suddenly realized that something had to be very wrong for Ysabeau to come in the middle of the night without a phone call.

  The soft murmurs downstairs were too faint for my witch’s ears to catch, though the twins’ cocked heads suggested that they could follow the conversation between their father and grandmother. Unfortunately, they were too young to relay its substance to me.

  I eyed the slick steps as I shifted Becca to one side and picked up Philip with my free arm. Normally, I clung to the rope that Matthew strung up on the curved wall to keep warmbloods from falling. I’d been limiting the magic I used in the children’s presence for fear that they would try to imitate me. Tonight would have to be an exception.

  Come with me, the wind whispered, snaking around my ankles in a lover’s caress, and I will fulfill your desire.

  The elemental call was maddeningly clear. Why, then, couldn’t it carry Ysabeau’s words to me? Why did it want me to join Matthew and her?

  But power could be sphinxlike. If you didn’t ask the right question, it simply refused to respond.

  Cuddling the children closer, I surrendered to the allure of the air, and my feet lifted from the floor. I hoped the children wouldn’t notice we were inches above the stone, but something ancient and wise had sparked to life in Philip’s gray-green eyes.