Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(171)

“Is she the one you were waiting for, Abraham ben Elijah?” Rabbi Loew asked.

“She is,” Abraham said. He turned away from me and rested his fists on the table. “My dreams did not tell me that she was the wife of an alukah, however.”

“Alukah?” I looked to Rabbi Loew for an explanation. If the word was German, I couldn’t decipher it.

“A leech. It is what we Jews call creatures like your husband,” he replied. “For what it is worth, Abraham, Gabriel consented to the meeting.”

“You think I trust the word of the monster who judges my people from his seat on the Qahal while turning a blind eye to those who murder them?” Abraham cried.

I wanted to protest that this was not the same Gabriel—the same Matthew—but stopped. Something I said might get everyone in this room killed in another six months when the sixteenth-century Matthew was back in his rightful place.

“I am not here for my husband or the Congregation,” I said, stepping forward. “I am here for myself.”

“Why?” Abraham demanded.

“Because I, too, am a maker of spells. And there aren’t many of us left.”

“There were more, before the Qahal—the Congregation—set up their rules.” Abraham said, a challenge in his tone. “God willing, we will live to see children born with these gifts.”

“Speaking of children, where is your golem?”

David guffawed. “Mother Abraham. What would your family in Chelm say?”

“They would say I had befriended an ass with nothing in his head but stars and idle fancies, David Gans!” Abraham said, turning red.

My firedrake, which had been restive for days, roared to life with all this merriment. Before I could stop her, she was free. Rabbi Loew and his friends gaped at the sight.

“She does this sometimes. It’s nothing to worry about.” My tone went from apologetic to brisk as I reprimanded my unruly familiar. “Come down from there!”

My firedrake tightened her grip on the wall and shrieked at me. The old plaster was not up to the task of supporting a creature with a ten-foot wingspan. A large chunk fell free, and she chattered in alarm. Her tail lashed out to the side and anchored itself into the adjacent wall for added security. The firedrake hooted triumphantly.

“If you don’t stop that, I’m going to have Gallowglass give you a really evil name,” I muttered. “Does anyone see her leash? It looks like a gauzy chain.” I searched along the skirting boards and found it behind the kindling basket, still connected to me. “Can one of you hold the slack for a minute while I rein her in?” I turned, my hands full of translucent links.

The men were gone.

“Typical,” I muttered. “Three grown men and a woman, and guess who gets stuck with the dragon?”

Heavy feet clomped across the wooden floors. I angled my body so that I could see around the door. A reddish gray creature wearing dark clothes and a black cap on his bald head was staring at my firedrake.

“No, Yosef.” Abraham stood between me and the creature, his hands raised as if he were trying to reason with it. But the golem—for this must be the legendary creature fashioned from the mud of the Moldau and animated with a spell—kept moving his feet in the firedrake’s direction.

“Yosef is fascinated by the witch’s dragon,” said David.

“I believe the golem shares his maker’s fondness for pretty girls,” Rabbi Loew said. “My reading suggests that a witch’s familiar often has some of his maker’s characteristics.”

“The golem is Abraham’s familiar?” I was shocked.

“Yes. He didn’t appear when I made my first spell. I was beginning to think I didn’t have a familiar.” Abraham waved his hands at Yosef, but the golem stared unblinking at the firedrake sprawled against the wall. As if she knew she had an admirer, the firedrake stretched her wings so that the webbing caught the light.

I held up my chain. “Didn’t he come with something like this?”

“That chain doesn’t seem to be helping you much,” Abraham observed.

“I have a lot to learn!” I said indignantly. “The firedrake appeared when I wove my first spell. How did you make Yosef?”

Abraham pulled a rough set of cords from his pocket. “With ropes like these.”

“I have cords, too.” I reached into the purse hidden in my skirt pocket for my silks.

“Do the colors help you to separate out the world’s threads and use them more effectively?” Abraham stepped toward me, interested in this variation of weaving.

“Yes. Each color has a meaning, and to make a new spell I use the cords to focus on a particular question.” I looked at the golem in confusion. He was still staring at the firedrake. “But how did you go from cords to a creature?”

“A woman came to me to ask for a new spell to help her conceive. I started making knots in the rope while I considered her request and ended up with something that looked like the skeleton of a man.” Abraham went to the desk, took up a piece of David’s paper, and, in spite of his friend’s protests, sketched out what he meant.

“It’s like a poppet,” I said, looking at his drawing. Nine knots were connected by straight lines of rope: a knot for its head, one for its heart, two knots for hands, another knot for the pelvis, two more for knees, and a final two for the feet.