Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(137)

“We are more similar, you and I, than either of us imagined,” Matthew continued. “But if you can believe good of me, knowing what you do of my past deeds, then you must allow me to believe the same of you.”

Suddenly I wanted to share my secrets. “There was a firedrake and a tree—”

“And the only thing that matters is that you are safely home,” he said, quieting me with a kiss.

Matthew held me so long and so tightly that for a few blissful moments I—almost—believed him.

The next day I went to Goody Alsop’s house to meet with Elizabeth Jackson and Catherine Streeter as promised. Annie accompanied me, but she was sent over to Susanna’s house to wait until my lesson was done.

The rowan branch was propped up in the corner. Otherwise the room looked perfectly ordinary and not at all like the kind of place where witches drew sacred circles or summoned firedrakes. Still, I expected some more visible signs that magic was about to be performed—a cauldron, perhaps, or colored candles to signify the elements.

Goody Alsop gestured to the table, where four chairs were arranged. “Come, Diana, and sit. We thought we might begin at the beginning. Tell us about your family. Much is revealed by following a witch’s bloodline.”

“But I thought you would teach me how to weave spells with fire and water.”

“What is blood, if not fire and water?” Elizabeth said.

Three hours later I was talked out and exhausted from dredging up memories of my childhood—the feeling of being watched, Peter Knox’s visit to the house, my parents’ death. But the three witches didn’t stop there. I relived every moment of high school and college, too: the daemons who followed me, the few spells I could perform without too much trouble, the strange occurrences that began only after I met Matthew. If there was a pattern to any of it, I failed to see it, but Goody Alsop sent me off with assurances that they would soon have a plan.

I dragged myself to Baynard’s Castle. Mary tucked me into a chair and refused my help, insisting I rest while she figured out what was wrong with our batch of prima materia. It had gone all black and sludgy, with a thin film of greenish goo on top.

My thoughts drifted while Mary worked. The day was sunny, and a beam of light sliced through the smoky air and fell on the mural depicting the alchemical dragon. I sat forward in my chair.

“No,” I said. “It can’t be.”

But it was. The dragon was not a dragon for it had only two legs. It was a firedrake and carried its barbed tail in its mouth, like the ouroboros on the de Clermont banner. The firedrake’s head was tilted to the sky, and it held a crescent moon in its jaws. A multipointed star rose above it. Matthew’s emblem. How had I not noticed before?

“What is it, Diana?” asked a frowning Mary.

“Would you do something for me, Mary, even if the request is strange?” I was already untying the silk cord at my wrists in anticipation of her answer.

“Of course. What is it you need?”

The firedrake dripped squiggly blobs of blood into the alchemical vessel below its wings. There the blood swam in a sea of mercury and silver.

“I want you to take my blood and put it in a solution of aqua fortis, silver, and mercury,” I said. Mary’s glance moved from me to the firedrake and back. “For what is blood but fire and water, a conjunction of opposites, and a chemical wedding?”

“Very well, Diana,” Mary agreed, sounding mystified. But she asked no more questions.

I flicked my finger confidently over the scar on my inner arm. I had no need for a knife this time. The skin parted, as I knew it would, and the blood welled up simply because I had need of it. Joan rushed forward with a small bowl to catch the red liquid. On the wall above, the silver and black eyes of the firedrake followed the drops as they fell.

“‘It begins with absence and desire, it begins with blood and fear,’” I whispered.

“‘It began with a discovery of witches,’” time responded, in a primeval echo that set alight the blue and amber threads that flickered against the room’s stone walls.





Chapter Twenty Four




"Is it going to keep doing that?” I stood, frowning, hands on my hips, and stared up at Susanna’s ceiling.

“‘She,’ Diana. Your firedrake is female,” Catherine said. She was also

looking at the ceiling, her expression bemused.

“She. It. That.” I pointed up. I had been trying to weave a spell when my dragon escaped confinement within my rib cage. Again. She was now plastered to the ceiling, breathing out gusts of smoke and chattering her > teeth in agitation. “I can’t have it—her—flying around the room whenever she feels the urge.” The repercussions would be serious should she become loose at Yale among the students.

“That your firedrake broke free is merely a symptom of a much more serious problem.” Goody Alsop extended a bunch of brightly colored silken strands, knotted together at the top. The ends flowed free like the ribbons on a maypole and numbered nine in all, in shades of red, white, black, silver, gold, green, brown, blue, and yellow. “You are a weaver and must learn to control your power.”

“I am well aware of that, Goody Alsop, but I still don’t see how this— embroidery floss—will help,” I said stubbornly. The dragon squawked in agreement, waxing more substantial with the sound and then waning into her typical smoky outlines.