through the doorway, flooding the room with the intricate strains of Bach. The music made it more difficult for the other vampires in the house to overhear our conversations, so Matthew invariably had something playing in the background. “It’s a good thing we know more about Ashmole 782 than Knox does,” I said quietly. “Once I retrieve the book from the Bodleian Library, the Congregation will have to stop handing out ultimatums from Venice and start dealing with us directly.”
Matthew studied me silently for a moment, then poured himself some wine and drank it down in one gulp. He offered me water, but I shook my head. The only thing I craved at this hour was tea.
Marcus had urged me to avoid caffeine during the pregnancy, however, and herbal blends were a poor substitute.
“What do you know about the Congregation’s vampire pedigrees?” I took a seat on the sofa.
“Not much,” Matthew replied, pouring another glass of wine. I frowned. There was no chance of a vampire getting intoxicated by drinking wine from a bottle—the only way that one could feel the influence was to drink blood from an inebriated source—but it wasn’t usual for him to drink like this.
“Does the Congregation keep witch and daemon genealogies, too?” I asked, hoping to distract him.
“I don’t know. The affairs of witches and daemons never concerned me.” Matthew moved across the room and stood facing the fireplace.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I said, all business. “Our top priority has to be Ashmole 782. I’ll need to go to Oxford as quickly as possible.”
“And what will you do then, ma lionne?”
“Figure out a way to recall it.” I thought for a moment of the conditions my father had woven through the spell that bound the book to the library. “My father made sure that the Book of Life would come to me if I need it. Our present circumstances certainly qualify.”
“So the safety of Ashmole 782 is your chief concern,” Matthew said with dangerous softness.
“Of course. That and finding its missing pages,” I said. “Without them the Book of Life will never reveal its secrets.”
When the daemon alchemist Edward Kelley removed three of its pages in sixteenth-century Prague, he had damaged whatever magic had been used in the making of the book. For protection, the text had burrowed into the parchment, creating a magical palimpsest, and the words chased one another through the pages as if looking for the missing letters. It wasn’t possible to read what remained.
“After I recover it, you might be able to figure out which creatures are bound into it, perhaps even date it, by analyzing its genetic information in your lab,” I continued. Matthew’s scientific work focused on issues of species origins and extinction. “When I locate the two missing pages—”
Matthew turned, his face a calm mask. “You mean when we recover Ashmole 782 and when we
locate the other pages.”
“Matthew, be reasonable. Nothing would anger the Congregation more than the news that we were seen together at the Bodleian.”
His voice got even softer, his face calmer. “You are more than three months pregnant, Diana.
Members of the Congregation have already invaded my home and killed your aunt. Peter Knox is desperate to get his hands on Ashmole 782 and knows that you have the power to do it. Somehow he knows about the Book of Life’s missing pages, too. You will not be going to the Bodleian Library or anywhere else without me.”
“I have to put the Book of Life back together again,” I said, my voice rising.
“Then we will, Diana. Right now Ashmole 782 is safely in the library. Leave it there and let this business with the Congregation settle down.” Matthew was relying—perhaps too much—on the idea that I was the only witch who could release the spell my father had placed on the book.
“How long will that take?”
“A few months. Perhaps until after the babies are born,” Matthew said.
“That may be six more months,” I said, reining in my anger. “So I’m supposed to wait and gestate.
And your plan is to twiddle your thumbs and watch the calendar with me?”
“I will do whatever Baldwin commands,” Matthew said, drinking the last of his wine.
“You cannot be serious!” I exclaimed. “Why do you put up with his autocratic nonsense?”
“Because a strong head of the family prevents chaos, unnecessary bloodshed, and worse,” Matthew explained. “You forget that I was reborn in a very different time, Diana, when most creatures were expected to obey someone else without question—your lord, your priest, your