A Discovery of Witches(41)

Matthew retrieved the white ball and prepared for his next shot. “The Bodleian.”

The daemon’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “The Bodleian? Since when have you been a regular at the library?”

Matthew fouled, his white ball hopping over the cushion and onto the floor. “Since I was at a concert and overheard two witches talking about an American who’d got her hands on a long-lost manuscript,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out why the witches would give a damn.” He stepped back from the table, annoyed at his error.

Hamish quickly played his fifteen hazards. Matthew placed his ball on the table and picked up the chalk to mark down Hamish’s score.

“So you just strolled in there and struck up a conversation with her to find out?” The daemon pocketed all three balls with a single shot.

“I went looking for her, yes.” Matthew watched while Hamish moved around the table. “I was curious.”

“Was she happy to see you?” Hamish asked mildly, making another tricky shot. He knew that vampires, witches, and daemons seldom mixed. They preferred to spend time within close-knit circles of similar creatures. His friendship with Matthew was a relative rarity, and Hamish’s daemonic friends thought it was madness to let a vampire get so close. On a night like this one, he thought they might have a point.

“Not exactly. Diana was frightened at first, even though she met my eyes without flinching. Her eyes are extraordinary—blue and gold and green and gray,” Matthew mused. “Later she wanted to hit me. She smelled so angry.”

Hamish bit back a laugh. “Sounds like a reasonable response to being ambushed by a vampire in the Bodleian.” He decided to be kind to Matthew and save him from a reply. The daemon shot his yellow ball over the red, deliberately nicking it just enough that the red ball drifted forward and collided with it. “Damn,” he groaned. “A foul.”

Matthew returned to the table, shot a few hazards, and tried a cannon or two.

“Have you seen each other outside the library?” Hamish asked when the vampire had regained some of his composure.

“I don’t see her much, actually, even in the library. I sit in one part and she sits in another. I’ve taken her to breakfast, though. And to the Old Lodge, to meet Amira.”

Hamish kept his jaw closed with difficulty. Matthew had known women for years without taking them to the Old Lodge. And what was this about sitting at opposite ends of the library?

“Wouldn’t it be easier to sit next to her in the library, if you’re interested in her?”

“I’m not interested in her!” Matthew’s cue exploded into the white ball. “I want the manuscript. I’ve been trying to get my hands on it for more than a hundred years. She just put in the slip and up it came from the stacks.” His voice was envious.

“What manuscript, Matt?” Hamish was doing his best to be patient, but the exchange was rapidly becoming unendurable. Matthew was giving out information like a miser parting with pennies. It was intensely aggravating for quick-minded daemons to deal with creatures who didn’t consider any division of time smaller than a decade particularly important.

“An alchemical book that belonged to Elias Ashmole. Diana Bishop is a highly respected historian of alchemy.”

Matthew fouled again by striking the balls too hard. Hamish respotted the balls and continued to rack up points while his friend simmered down. Finally Jordan came to tell them that drinks were available downstairs.

“What’s the score?” Hamish peered at the chalk marks. He knew he’d won, but the gentlemanly thing was to ask—or so Matthew had told him.

“You won, of course.”

Matthew stalked out of the room and pounded down the stairs at considerably more than a human pace. Jordan eyed the polished treads with concern.

“Professor Clairmont is having a difficult day, Jordan.”

“So it would seem,” the butler murmured.

“Better bring up another bottle of red. It’s going to be a long night.”

They had their drinks in what had once been the lodge’s reception area. Its windows looked out on the gardens, which were still kept in orderly, classical parterres despite the fact that their proportions were all wrong for a hunting lodge. They were too grand—they belonged to a palace, not a folly.

In front of the fireplace, drinks in hand, Hamish could at last press his way into the heart of the mystery. “Tell me about this manuscript of Diana’s, Matthew. It contains what, exactly? The recipe for the philosopher’s stone that turns lead into gold?” Hamish’s voice was lightly mocking. “Instructions on how to concoct the elixir of life so you can transform mortal into immortal flesh?”

The daemon stopped his teasing the instant Matthew’s eyes rose to meet his.

“You aren’t serious,” Hamish whispered, his voice shocked. The philosopher’s stone was just a legend, like the Holy Grail or Atlantis. It couldn’t possibly be real. Belatedly, he realized that vampires, daemons, and witches weren’t supposed to be real either.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Matthew asked.

“No.” The daemon shuddered. Matthew had always been convinced that he could use his scientific skills to figure out what made vampires resistant to death and decay. The philosopher’s stone fit neatly into those dreams.