I wished the stiff leather portfolio that Phoebe had bought to protect the pages from the Book of Life was here at the table and not across the room. Despite the nap, I was still exhausted.
The portfolio appeared on a nearby table.
“Abracadabra,” Fernando murmured.
“Since we’re here and you live at Matthew’s house, it only seems right to explain to Amira why we’ve all descended on her,” I said. “You’ve probably heard stories about the witches’ first grimoire?”
Amira nodded. I handed her the two pages we’d already gathered.
“These come from that book—the same book the vampires call the Book of Life. We think another page is in the possession of someone named T. J. Weston, living in Chipping Weston. Now that we’re all fed and watered, Phoebe and I are going see if he or she is amenable to selling it.”
Ysabeau and Phoebe appeared right on cue. Phoebe was as white as a sheet. Ysabeau looked mildly bored.
“What’s wrong, Phoebe?” I asked.
“There’s a Holbein. In the bathroom.” She pressed her hands against her cheeks. “A small oil painting of Thomas More’s daughter, Margaret. It shouldn’t be hung over a toilet!”
I was beginning to understand why Matthew found my constant objections to the way his family treated their library books tiresome.
“Stop being so prudish,” Ysabeau said with mild irritation. “Margaret was not the kind of woman to be bothered by a bit of exposed flesh.”
“You think— That is—” Phoebe sputtered. “It’s not the decorum of the situation that troubles me, but the fact that Margaret More might tumble into the loo at any moment!”
“I understand, Phoebe.” I tried to sound sympathetic. “Would it help to know that there are other, far larger and more important works by Holbein in the parlor?”
“And upstairs. The whole sainted family is in one of the attics.” Ysabeau pointed heavenward.
“Thomas More was an arrogant young man, and he did not grow more humble with age. Matthew did not seem to mind, but Thomas and Philippe nearly came to blows on several occasions. If his daughter drowns in the lavatory, it will serve him right.”
Amira began to giggle. After a shocked look, Fernando joined in. Soon we were all laughing, even Phoebe.
“What is all this noise? What has happened now?” Marthe eyed us suspiciously from the door.
“Phoebe is adjusting to being a de Clermont,” I said, wiping at my eyes.
“Bonne chance,” Marthe said. This only made us laugh harder.
It was a welcome reminder that, different though we might be, we were a family of sorts—no stranger or more idiosyncratic than thousands that had come before us.
“And these pages you’ve brought—are they from Matthew’s collections as well?” Amira said, picking up the conversation where we’d abandoned it.
“No. One of them was given to my parents, and the other was in the hands of Matthew’s grandson, Andrew Hubbard.”
“Hmm. So much fear.” Amira’s eyes lost focus. She was a witch with significant insight and empathic powers.
“Amira?” I looked at her closely.
“Blood and fear.” She shuddered, not seeming to hear me. “It’s in the parchment itself, not just the words.”
“Should I stop her?” I asked Sarah. In most situations it was best to let a witch’s second sight play itself out, but Amira had slipped too quickly into her vision of another time and place. A witch might wander so far into a thicket of images and feelings that she couldn’t find her way out of them. “Absolutely not,” Sarah said. “There are two of us to help her if she gets lost.”
“A young woman—a mother. She was killed in front of her children,” Amira murmured. My stomach flipped. “Their father was already dead. When the witches brought her husband’s body to her, they dropped it at her feet and made her look at what they had done to him. It was she who first cursed the book. So much knowledge, lost forever.” Amira’s eyes drifted closed. When they opened again, they were shining with unshed tears. “This parchment was made from the skin that stretched over her ribs.”
I knew that the Book of Life had dead creatures in it, but I never imagined I would know anything more about them than whatever their DNA was capable of revealing. I bolted for the door, stomach heaving. Corra flapped her wings in agitation, turning this way and that to stabilize her position, but there was little room for her to maneuver thanks to the growing presence of the twins.
“Shh. That will not be your fate. I promise you,” Ysabeau said, catching me in