“Now we wait for Matthew,” Gallowglass said flatly. “You wanted him to establish a family. He’s off doing it.”
“I couldn’t let him kill Jack.” Under the surface of her skin, Diana’s magic pulsed again in iridescent agitation. It reminded Gallowglass of long nights watching the aurora borealis from the sandy stretch of coastline beneath the cliffs where his father and grandfather had once lived.
“Matthew won’t be able to stay away for long. It’s one thing to wander in the darkness because you know no different, but it’s quite another to enjoy the light only to have it taken from you,” Gallowglass said.
“You sound so sure,” she whispered.
“I am. Marcus’s children are a handful, but he’ll make them heel.” Gallowglass lowered his voice.
“I assume there’s a good reason you chose London?”
Her glance flickered.
“I thought so. You’re not just looking for the last missing page. You’re going after Ashmole 782. And I’m not talking nonsense,” Gallowglass said, raising his hand when Diana opened her mouth to protest. “You’ll be wanting people around you, then. People you can trust unto death, like Granny and Sarah and Fernando.” He drew out his phone.
“Sarah already knows I’m on my way to Europe. I told her I’d let her know where I was once I was settled.” Diana frowned at the phone. “And Ysabeau is still Gerbert’s prisoner. She’s not in touch with the outside world.”
“Oh, Granny has her ways,” Gallowglass said serenely, his fingers racing across the keys. “I’ll just send her a message and tell her where we’re headed. Then I’ll tell Fernando. You can’t do this alone, Auntie. Not what you’ve got planned.”
“You’re taking this very well, Gallowglass,” Diana said gratefully. “Matthew would be trying to talk me out of it.”
“That’s what you get for falling in love with the wrong man,” he said under his breath, slipping the phone back into his pocket.
Ysabeau de Clermont picked up her sleek red phone and looked at the illuminated display. She noted the time—7:37 A.M. Then she read the waiting message. It began with three repetitions of a single word:
Mayday
Mayday
Mayday
She’d been expecting Gallowglass to get in touch ever since Phoebe had notified her that Marcus had departed in the middle of the night, mysteriously and suddenly, to go off and join Matthew. Ysabeau and Gallowglass had decided early on that they needed a way to notify each other when things went “pear-shaped,” to use her grandson’s expression. Their system had changed over the years, from beacons and secret messages written in onion juice to codes and ciphers, then to objects sent through the mail without explanation. Now they used the phone.
At first Ysabeau had been dubious about owning one of these cellular contraptions, but given recent events she was glad to have it restored to her. Gerbert had confiscated it shortly after her arrival in Aurillac, in the vain hope that being without it would make her more malleable.
Gerbert had returned the phone to Ysabeau several weeks ago. She had been taken hostage to satisfy the witches and to make a public show of the Congregation’s power and influence. Gerbert was under no illusion that his prisoner would part with a scrap of information that would help them find Matthew. He was, however, grateful that Ysabeau was willing to play along with the charade. Since arriving at Gerbert’s home, she had been a model prisoner. He claimed that having her phone back was a reward for good behavior, but she knew it was largely due to the fact that Gerbert could not figure out how to silence the many alarms that sounded throughout the day.
Ysabeau liked these reminders of events that had altered her world: just before midday, when Philippe and his men had burst into her prison and she felt the first glimmers of hope; two hours before sunrise, when Philippe had first admitted that he loved her; three in the afternoon, the hour she had found Matthew’s broken body in the half-built church in Saint-Lucien; 1:23 P.M., when Matthew drew the last drops of blood from Philippe’s pain-ravaged body. Other alarms marked the hour of Hugh’s death and Godfrey’s, the hour when Louisa had first exhibited signs of blood rage, the hour when Marcus had demonstrated definitively that the same disease had not touched him. The rest of her daily alarms were reserved for significant historical events, such as the births of kings and queens whom Ysabeau had called friends, wars that she had fought