A Discovery of Witches(238)

I still didn’t know when or where “it” was.

Matthew bent down to undo the lock. When he opened the bag and saw what was on top, he let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I was afraid Ysabeau might have sent the wrong one.”

“You haven’t opened the bag yet?” I was amazed at his self-control.

“No.” Matthew lifted out a book. “I didn’t want to think about it too much. Just in case.”

He handed me the book. It had black leather bindings with simple silver borders.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, running my fingers over its surface.

“Open it.” Matthew looked anxious.

“Will I know where we’re going once I do?” Now that the third object was in my hands, I felt strangely reluctant.

“I think so.”

The front cover creaked open, and the unmistakable scent of old paper and ink rose in the air. There were no marbled endpapers, no bookplates, no additional blank sheets such as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collectors put in their books. And the covers were heavy, indicating that wooden boards were concealed beneath the smoothly stretched leather.

Two lines were written in thick black ink on the first page, in a tight, spiky script of the late sixteenth century.

“‘To my own sweet Matt,’ ” I read aloud. “‘Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?’”

The dedication was unsigned, but it was familiar.

“Shakespeare?” I lifted my eyes to Matthew.

“Not originally,” he replied, his face tense. “Will was something of a magpie when it came to collecting other people’s words.”

I slowly turned the page.

It wasn’t a printed book but a manuscript, written in the same bold hand as the inscription. I looked closer to make out the words.

Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin

To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess.



“Jesus,” I said hoarsely, clapping the book shut. My hands were shaking.

“He’ll laugh like a fool when he hears that was your reaction,” Matthew commented.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Probably.”

“How did you get it?”

“Kit gave it to me.” Matthew touched the cover lightly. “Faustus was always my favorite.”

Every historian of alchemy knew Christopher Marlowe’s play about Dr. Faustus, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for magical knowledge and power. I opened the book and ran my fingers over the inscription while Matthew continued.

“Kit and I were friends—good friends—in a dangerous time when there were few creatures you could trust. We raised a certain amount of hell and eyebrows. When Sophie pulled the chess piece I’d lost to him from her pocket, it seemed clear that England was our destination.”

The feeling my fingertips detected in the inscription was not friendship, however. This was a lover’s dedication.

“Were you in love with him, too?” I asked quietly.

“No,” Matthew said shortly. “I loved Kit, but not the way you mean, and not in the way he wanted. Left to Kit, things would have been different. But it wasn’t up to him, and we were never more than friends.”

“Did he know what you are?” I hugged the book to my chest like a priceless treasure.

“Yes. We couldn’t afford secrets. Besides, he was a daemon, and an unusually perceptive one at that. You’ll soon discover it’s pointless trying to keep anything from Kit.”

That Christopher Marlowe was a daemon made a certain sense, based on my limited knowledge of him.

“So we’re going to England,” I said slowly. “When, exactly?”

“To 1590.”

“Where?”

“Every year a group of us met at the Old Lodge for the old Catholic holidays of All Saints and All Souls. Few dared to celebrate them, but it made Kit feel daring and dangerous to commemorate them in some way. He would read us his latest draft of Faustus—he was always fiddling with it, never satisfied. We’d drink too much, play chess, and stay awake until dawn.” Matthew drew the manuscript from my arms. He rested it on the table and took my hands in his. “Is this all right with you, mon coeur? We don’t have to go. We can think of sometime else.”

But it was already too late. The historian in me had started to process the opportunities of life in Elizabethan England.

“There are alchemists in England in 1590.”

“Yes,” he said warily. “None of them particularly pleasant to be around, given the mercury poisoning and their strange work habits. More important, Diana, there are witches—powerful witches, who can guide your magic.”

“Will you take me to the playhouses?”

“Could I keep you from them?” Matthew’s brows rose.

“Probably not.” My imagination was caught by the prospect opening before us. “Can we walk through the Royal Exchange? After they light the lamps?”

“Yes.” He drew me into his arms. “And go to St. Paul’s to hear a sermon, and to Tyburn for an execution. We’ll even chat about the inmates with the clerk at Bedlam.” His body shook with suppressed laughter. “Good Lord, Diana. I’m taking you to a time when there was plague, few comforts, no tea, and bad dentistry, and all you can think about is what Gresham’s Exchange looked like at night.”