A Discovery of Witches

by Deborah Harkness

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

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

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

  Ysabeau was watching her son closely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “No.” I shook my head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I know,” I murmured impatiently.

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

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

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

  Be careful, the strange voice warned.

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

  “What’s too late?” Matthew asked.

  “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

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

  “Why do vampires have such a strange attitude toward time?” I mused aloud, still caught in a bewildering mix of past and present. The word “love” had sent feelings of possessiveness through me, however, drawing me to the here and now. “Witches don’t have centuries to fall in love. We do it quickly. Sarah says my mother fell in love with my father the moment she saw him. I’ve loved you since I decided not to hit you with an oar on the City of Oxford’s dock.” The blood in my veins began to hum. Marthe looked startled, suggesting she could hear it, too.

  “You don’t understand.” It sounded as if Matthew, like the bow, might snap in two.

  “I do. The Congregation will try to stop me, but they won’t tell me who to love.” When my parents were taken from me, I was a child with no options and did what people told me. I was an adult now, and I was going to fight for Matthew.

  “Domenico’s overtures are nothing compared to what you can expect from Peter Knox. What happened today was an attempt at rapprochement, a diplomatic mission. You aren’t ready to face the Congregation, Diana, no matter what you think. And if you did stand up to them, what then? Bringing these old animosities to the surface could spin out of control, expose us to humans. Your family might suffer.” Matthew’s words were brutal, meant to make me stop and reconsider. But nothing he said outweighed what I felt for him.

  “I love you, and I’m not going to stop.” Of this, too, I was certain.

  “You are not in love with me.”

  “I decide who I love, and how, and when. Stop telling me what to do, Matthew. My ideas about vampires may be romantic, but your attitudes toward women need a major overhaul.”

  Before he could respond, his phone began to hop across the ottoman. He swore an oath in Occitan that must have been truly awe-inspiring, because even Marthe looked shocked. He reached down and snagged the phone before it could skitter onto the floor.

  “What is it?” he said, his eyes fixed on me.

  There were faint murmurs on the other end of the line. Marthe and Ysabeau exchanged worried glances.

  “When?” Matthew’s voice sounded like a gunshot. “Did they take anything?” My forehead creased at the anger in his voice. “Thank God. Was there damage?”

  Something had happened in Oxford while we were gone, and it sounded like a robbery. I hoped it wasn’t the Old Lodge.

  The voice on the other end of the phone continued. Matthew passed a hand over his eyes.

  “What else?” he asked, his voice rising.

  There was another long silence. He turned away and walked to the fireplace, his right hand splayed flat against the mantel.

  “So much for diplomacy.” Matthew swore under his breath. “I’ll be there in a few hours. Can you pick me up?”

  We were going back to Oxfo
rd. I stood.

  “Fine. I’ll call before I land. And, Marcus? Find out who else besides Peter Knox and Domenico Michele are members of the Congregation.”

  Peter Knox? The pieces of the puzzle began to click into place. No wonder Matthew had come back to Oxford so quickly when I’d told him who the brown wizard was. It explained why he was so eager to push me away now, too. We were breaking the covenant, and it was Knox’s job to enforce it.

  Matthew stood silently for a few moments after the line went dead, one hand clenched as if he were resisting the urge to beat the stone mantel into submission.

  “That was Marcus. Someone tried to break in to the lab. I need to go back to Oxford.” He turned, his eyes dead.

  “Is everything all right?” Ysabeau shot a worried look in my direction.

  “They didn’t make it through the security controls. Still, I need to talk to the university officials and make sure whoever it was doesn’t succeed the next time.” Nothing that Matthew was saying made sense. If the burglars had failed, why wasn’t he relieved? And why was he shaking his head at his mother?

  “Who were they?” I asked warily.

  “Marcus isn’t sure.”

  That was odd, given a vampire’s preternaturally sharp sense of smell. “Was it humans?”

  “No.” We were back to the monosyllabic answers.

  “I’ll get my things.” I turned toward the stairs.

  “You aren’t coming. You’re staying here.” Matthew’s words brought me to a standstill.

  “I’d rather be in Oxford,” I protested, “with you.”

  “Oxford’s not safe at the moment. I’ll be back when it is.”

  “You just told me we should return there! Make up your mind, Matthew. Where is the danger? The manuscript and the witches? Peter Knox and the Congregation? Or Domenico Michele and the vampires?”

  “Were you listening? I am the danger.” Matthew’s voice was sharp.

  “Oh, I heard you. But you’re keeping something from me. It’s a historian’s job to uncover secrets,” I promised him softly. “And I’m very good at it.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him. “No more excuses or false explanations. Go to Oxford. I’ll stay here.”

  “Do you need anything from upstairs?” Ysabeau asked. “You should take a coat. Humans will notice if you’re wearing only a sweater.”

  “Just my computer. My passport’s in the bag.”

  “I’ll get them.” Wanting a respite from all the de Clermonts for a moment, I pelted up the stairs. In Matthew’s study I looked around the room that held so much of him.

  The armor’s silvery surfaces winked in the firelight, holding my attention while a jumble of faces flashed through my mind, the visions as swift as comets through the sky. There was a pale woman with enormous blue eyes and a sweet smile, another woman whose firm chin and square shoulders exuded determination, a man with a hawkish nose in terrible pain. There were other faces, too, but the only one I recognized was Louisa de Clermont, holding dripping, bloody fingers in front of her face.

  Resisting the vision’s pull helped the faces fade, but it left my body shaking and my mind bewildered. The DNA report had indicated that visions were likely to come. But there’d been no more warning of their arrival than there had been last night when I floated in Matthew’s arms. It was as if someone had pulled the stopper on a bottle and my magic—released at last—was rushing to get out.

  Once I was able to jerk the cord from the socket I slid it into Matthew’s bag, along with the computer. His passport was in the front pocket, as he’d said it would be.

  When I returned to the salon, Matthew was alone, his keys in his hands and a suede barn jacket draped across his shoulders. Marthe muttered and paced in the great hall.

  I handed him his computer and stood far away to better resist the urge to touch him once more. Matthew pocketed his keys and took the bag.

  “I know this is hard.” His voice was hushed and strange. “But you need to let me take care of it. And I need to know that you’re safe while I’m doing that.”

  “I’m safe with you, wherever we are.”

  He shook his head. “My name should have been enough to protect you. It wasn’t.”

  “Leaving me isn’t the answer. I don’t understand all of what’s happened today, but Domenico’s hatred goes beyond me. He wants to destroy your family and everything else you care about. Domenico might decide this isn’t the right time to pursue his vendetta. But Peter Knox? He wants Ashmole 782, and he thinks I can get it for him. He won’t be put off so easily.” I shivered.

  “He’ll make a deal if I offer him one.”

  “A deal? What do you have to trade?”

  The vampire fell silent.

  “Matthew?” I insisted.

  “The manuscript,” he said flatly. “I’ll leave it—and you—alone if he promises the same. Ashmole 782 has been undisturbed for a century and a half. We’ll let it remain that way.”

  “You can’t make a deal with Knox. He can’t be trusted.” I was horrified. “Besides, you have all the time you need to wait for the manuscript. Knox doesn’t. Your deal won’t appeal to him.”

  “Just leave Knox to me,” he said gruffly.

  My eyes snapped with anger. “Leave Domenico to you. Leave Knox to you. What do you imagine I’m going to do? You said I’m not a damsel in distress. So stop treating me like one.”

  “I suppose I deserved that,” he said slowly, his eyes black, “but you have a lot to learn about vampires.”

  “So your mother tells me. But you may have a few things to learn about witches, too.” I pushed the hair out of my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Go to Oxford. Sort out what happened there.” Whatever happened that you won’t share with me. “But for God’s sake, Matthew, don’t negotiate with Peter Knox. Decide how you feel about me—not because of what the covenant forbids, or the Congregation wants, or even what Peter Knox and Domenico Michele make you afraid of.”

  My beloved vampire, with a face that would make an angel envious, looked at me with sorrow. “You know how I feel about you.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t. When you’re ready, you’ll tell me.”

  Matthew struggled with something and left it unsaid. Wordlessly he walked toward the door into the hall. When he reached it, he gave me a long look of snowflakes and frost before walking through.

  Marthe met him in the hall. He kissed her softly on both cheeks and said something in rapid Occitan.

  “Compreni, compreni,” she said, nodding vehemently and looking past him at me.

  “Mercés amb tot meu còr,” he said quietly.

  “Al rebèire. Mèfi.”

  “T’afortissi.” Matthew turned to me. “And you’ll promise me the same thing—that you’ll be careful. Listen to Ysabeau.”

  He left without a glance or a final, reassuring touch.

  I bit my lip and tried to swallow the tears, but they spilled out. After three slow steps toward the watchtower stairs, my feet began to run, tears streaming down my face. With a look of understanding, Marthe let me go.

  When I came out into the cold, damp air, the de Clermont standard was snapping gently to and fro and the clouds continued to obscure the moon. Darkness pressed on me from every direction, and the one creature who kept it at bay was leaving, taking the light with him.

  Peering down over the tower’s ramparts, I saw Matthew standing by the Range Rover, talking furiously to Ysabeau. She looked shocked and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket as if to stop him from getting in the car.

  His hand was a white blur as he pulled his arm free. His fist pounded, once, into the car’s roof. I jumped. Matthew had never used his strength on anything bigger than a walnut or an oyster shell when he was around me, and the dent he’d left in the metal was alarmingly deep.

  He hung his head. Ysabeau touched him lightly on the cheek, his sad features gleaming in the dim light. He climbed into the car and said a few more words. His mother nodded a
nd looked briefly at the watchtower. I stepped back, hoping neither of them had seen me. The car turned over, and its heavy tires crunched across the gravel as Matthew pulled away.

  The Range Rover’s lights disappeared below the hill. With Matthew gone, I slid down the stone wall of the keep and gave in to the tears.

  It was then that I discovered what witchwater was all about.

  Chapter 23

  Before I met Matthew, there didn’t seem to be room in my life for a single additional element—especially not something as significant as a fifteen-hundred-year-old vampire. But he’d slipped into unexplored, empty places when I wasn’t looking.

  Now that he’d left, I was terribly aware of his absence. As I sat on the roof of the watchtower, my tears softened my determination to fight for him. Soon there was water everywhere. I was sitting in a puddle of it, and the level just kept rising.

  It wasn’t raining, despite the cloudy skies.

  The water was coming out of me.

  My tears fell normally but swelled as they dropped into globules the size of snowballs that hit the stone roof of the watchtower with a splash. My hair snaked over my shoulders in sheets of water that poured over the curves of my body. I opened my mouth to take a breath because the water streaming down my face was blocking my nose, and water gushed out in a torrent that tasted of the sea.

  Through a film of moisture, Marthe and Ysabeau watched me. Marthe’s face was grim. Ysabeau’s lips were moving, but the roar of a thousand sea-shells made it impossible to hear her.

  I stood, hoping the water would stop. It didn’t. I tried to tell the two women to let the water carry me away along with my grief and the memory of Matthew—but all that produced was another gush of ocean. I reached out, thinking that would help the water drain from me. Even more water cascaded from my fingertips. The gesture reminded me of my mother’s arm reaching toward my father, and the waves increased.

  As the water poured forth, my control slipped further. Domenico’s sudden appearance had frightened me more than I’d been willing to admit. Matthew was gone. And I had vowed to fight for him against enemies I couldn’t identify and didn’t understand. It was now clear that Matthew’s past was not composed simply of homely elements of firelight, wine, and books. Nor had it unfolded solely within the limits of a loyal family. Domenico had alluded to something darker that was full of enmity, danger, and death.