Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(75)

“Are you criticizing my creativity already?” He turned me over and settled between my thighs. “Besides, I was thinking of this instead.” He lowered his mouth to mine and slid gently inside me.

“We came out here to work on my shooting,” I said sometime later. “Is this what you meant by target practice?”

Matthew rumbled with laughter. “There are hundreds of Auvergnat euphemisms for making love, but I don’t believe that’s one of them. I’ll ask Chef if he’s familiar with it.”

“You will not.”

“Are you being prim, Dr. Bishop?” he asked with mock surprise, picking a piece of straw from the hair tangled at the small of my back. “Don’t bother. No one is under any illusions about how we’re spending our time.”

“I see your point,” I said, pulling the hose that were formerly his over my knees. “Now that you’ve lured me here, you might as well try to figure out what I’m doing wrong.”

“You’re a novice and can’t expect to hit the mark every time,” he said, getting to his feet and rummaging for his own hose. One leg was still attached to his breeches, which were lying close by, but the other was nowhere to be seen. I reached underneath my shoulder and handed him the wadded-up ball they’d become.

“With good coaching I could become an expert.” I’d now seen Matthew shoot, and he was a born archer with his long arms and fine, strong fingers. I picked up the curved bow, a burnished crescent of horn and wood propped up against a nearby pile of hay. The twisted leather bowstring swung free.

“Then you should be spending time with Philippe, not with me. His handling of the bow is legendary.”

“Your father told me Ysabeau is a better shot.” I was using her bow, but so far her skills had not rubbed off on me.

“That’s because Maman is the only creature who has ever landed an arrow in his side.” He beckoned at the bow. “Let me string it for you.”

There was already a pink stripe across my cheek from the first time I’d tried to attach the bowstring to its ring. It required enormous strength and dexterity to bend back the upper and lower limbs of the bow into proper alignment. Matthew braced the lower limb against his thigh, bent the upper limb back with one hand, and used the other to tie off the bowstring. “You make that look easy.” It had looked easy when he’d twisted the cork from a bottle of champagne back in modern Oxford, too. “It is—if you’re a vampire and have had roughly a thousand years of practice.” Matthew handed me the bow with a smile. “Remember, keep your shoulders in a straight line, don’t think too long about the shot, and make the release soft and smooth.”

He made it sound easy, too. I turned to face the target. Matthew had used a few daggers to pin a soft cap, a doublet, and a skirt to a pile of hay. At first I thought the goal was to hit something: the hat, the doublet, the skirt. Matthew explained that the goal was to hit what I was aiming for. He demonstrated his point by shooting a single arrow into a haystack, encircling it clockwise with five other arrows, then splitting the center shaft down the middle with a sixth.

I drew an arrow out of the quiver, nocked it, looked down the line of sight provided by my left arm, and pulled the bowstring back. I hesitated. The bow was already misaligned.

“Shoot,” Matthew said sharply.

When I released the string, the arrow whizzed by the hay and fell flat on the ground.

“Let me try again,” I said, reaching for the quiver by my feet.

“I’ve seen you shoot witchfire at a vampire and blow a hole straight through her chest,” Matthew said quietly.

“I don’t want to talk about Juliette.” I tried to set the arrow in place, but my hands shook. I lowered the bow. “Or Champier. Or the fact that my powers seem to have totally disappeared. Or how I can make fruit wither and see colors and lights around people. Can’t we just leave it—for one week?” Once again, my magic (or lack thereof) was a regular topic of conversation.

“The archery was supposed to help jostle your witchfire into action,” Matthew pointed out. “Talking about Juliette may help.”

“Why can’t this just be about me getting some exercise?” I asked impatiently.

“Because we need to understand why your power is changing,” Matthew said calmly. “Raise the bow, pull the arrow back, and let it fly.”

“At least I hit the hay this time,” I said after the arrow landed in the upper right corner of the haystack.

“Too bad you were aiming for the stomach.”

“You’re taking all the fun out of this.”

Matthew’s expression turned serious. “There’s nothing lighthearted about survival. This time nock the arrow but close your eyes before you aim.”

“You want me to use my instincts.” My laugh was shaky as I placed the arrow in the bow. The target was in front of me, but rather than focus on it I closed my eyes as Matthew suggested. As soon as I did, the weight of the air distracted me. It pressed on my arms, my thighs, and settled like a heavy cloak on my shoulders. The air held the tip of the arrow up, too. I adjusted my stance, shoulders widening as they pushed the air aside. A breeze, a caress of movement, pulled a few strands of hair away from my ear in response.

What do you want? I asked the breeze crossly.