A Discovery of Witches(196)

“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?”