A Discovery of Witches(152)

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 chateau’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

My 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.