“Abraham, this lady wishes to speak with you,” Rabbi Loew said, interrupting their debate.
“All the women in Prague are eager to meet Abraham.” David, the scholar, stood. “Whose daughter wants a love spell this time?”
“It is not her father that should interest you but her husband. This is Frau Roydon, the Englishman’s wife.”
“The one the emperor calls La Diosa?” David laughed and clasped Abraham’s shoulder. “Your luck has turned, my friend. You are caught between a king, a goddess, and a nachzehrer.” My limited German suggested this unfamiliar word meant “devourer of the dead.”
Abraham said something rude in Hebrew, if Rabbi Loew’s disapproving expression was any indication, and turned to face me at last. He and I looked at each other, witch to witch, but neither of us could bear it for long. I twisted away with a gasp, and he winced and pressed his eyelids with his fingers. My skin was tingling all over, not just where his eyes had fallen. And the air between us was a mass of different, bright hues.
“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.”