Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(144)

We’d caught the tide back to town, which sped our return. The torches were lit on the Water Lane landing in anticipation of our arrival, but two men in the Countess of Pembroke’s livery waved us off.

“Baynard’s Castle, if you please, Master Roydon!” one called across the water.

“Something must be wrong,” Matthew said, standing in the prow of the barge. Henry directed the oarsmen to proceed the extra distance down the river, where the countess’s landing was similarly ablaze with beacons and lanterns.

“Is it one of the boys?” I asked Mary when she rushed down the hall to meet us.

“No. They are well. Come to the laboratory. At once,” she called over her shoulder, already heading back in the direction of the tower.

The sight that greeted us there was enough to make both Matthew and me gasp.

“It is an altogether unexpected arbor Dian?,” Mary said, crouching down so that she was at eye level with the bulbous chamber at the alembic’s base that held the roots of a black tree. It wasn’t like the first arbor Dian?, which was entirely silver and far more delicate in its structure. This one, with its stout, dark trunk and bare limbs, reminded me of the oak tree in Madison that had sheltered us after Juliette’s attack. I’d pulled the vitality out of that tree to save Matthew’s life.

“Why isn’t it silver?” Matthew asked, wrapping his hands around the countess’s fragile glass alembics.

“I used Diana’s blood,” Mary replied. Matthew straightened and gave me an incredulous look.

“Look at the wall,” I said, pointing at the bleeding firedrake.

“It’s the green dragon—the symbol for aqua regia or aqua fortis,” he said after giving it a cursory glance.

“No, Matthew. Look at it. Forget what you think it depicts and try to see it as if it were the first time.”

“Dieu.” Matthew sounded shocked. “Is that my insignia?”

“Yes. And did you notice that the dragon has its tail in its mouth? And that it’s not a dragon at all? Dragons have four legs. That’s a firedrake.”

“A firedrake. Like . . .” Matthew swore again.

“There have been dozens of different theories about what ordinary substance was the crucial first ingredient required to make the philosopher’s stone. Roger Bacon—who owned Dr. Dee’s missing manuscript—believed it was blood.” I was confident this piece of information would get Matthew’s attention. I crouched down to look at the tree.

“And you saw the mural and followed your instincts.” After a momentary pause, Matthew ran his thumb along the vessel’s wax seal, cracking the wax. Mary gasped in horror as he ruined her experiment.

“What are you doing?” I asked, shocked.

“Following a hunch of my own and adding something to the alembic.” Matthew lifted his wrist to his mouth, bit down on it, and held it over the narrow opening. His dark, thick blood dripped into the solution and fell into the bottom of the vessel. We stared into the depths.

Just when I thought nothing was going to happen, thin streaks of red began to work their way up the tree’s skeletal trunk. Then golden leaves sprouted from the branches.

“Look at that,” I said, amazed.

Matthew smiled at me. It was a smile still tinged with regret, but there was some hope in it, too.

Red fruits appeared among the leaves, sparkling like tiny rubies. Mary began to murmur a prayer, her eyes wide.

“My blood made the structure of the tree, and your blood made it bear fruit,” I said slowly. My hand went to my hollow belly.

“Yes. But why?” Matthew replied.

If anything could tell us about the mysterious transformation that occurred when witch and wearh combined their blood, it would be Ashmole 782’s strange pictures and mysterious text.

“How long did you say it would take you to get Dee’s book back?” I asked Matthew.

“Oh, I don’t imagine it will take very long,” he murmured. “Not once I put my mind to it.”

“The sooner the better,” I said mildly, twining my fingers though his as we watched the ongoing miracle that our blood had wrought.





Chapter Twenty Five





The strange tree continued to grow and develop the next day and the next: Its fruit ripened and fell among the tree’s roots in the mercury and prima materia. New buds formed, blossomed, and flowered. Once a day the leaves turned from gold to green and back to gold. Sometimes the tree put out new branches or a new root stretched out to seek sustenance. “I have yet to find a good explanation for it,” Mary said, gesturing at the piles of books that Joan had pulled down from the shelves. “It is as if we have created something entirely new.”

In spite of the alchemical distractions, I hadn’t forgotten my witchier concerns. I wove and rewove my invisible gray cloak, and each time I did it faster and the results were finer and more effective. Marjorie promised me that I would soon be able to put my weaving to words so other witches could perform the spell.

After walking back home from St. James Garlickhythe a few days later, I climbed the stairs to our rooms at the Hart and Crown, shedding my disguising spell as I did so. Annie was across the courtyard fetching the clean linen from the washerwomen. Jack was with Pierre and Matthew. I wondered what Fran?oise had procured for dinner. I was famished.