“Not before making them worse.” Matthew’s head dipped. “But in the end it might make them better.” I smoothed his hair over
his hard, stubborn skull. “You still haven’t opened your father’s letter.”
“I know what it says.”
“Perhaps you should open it anyway.”
At last Matthew slid his finger under the seal and broke it. The coin tumbled out of the wax, and he caught it in his palm. When he unfolded the thick paper, it released a faint scent of laurel and rosemary. “Is that Greek?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the single line of text and a swirling rendition of the letter phi below.
“Yes.” Matthew traced the letters, making his first tentative contact with his father. “He commands me to come home. Immediately.”
“Can you bear seeing him again?”
“No. Yes.” Matthew’s fingers crumpled the page into his fist. “I don’t know.”
I took the page away from him, flattening it back into its rectangle. The coin sparkled in Matthew’s palm. It was such a small sliver of metal to have caused so much trouble.
“You won’t face him alone.” Standing by his side when he saw his dead father wasn’t much, but it was all I could do to ease his grief.
“Each of us is alone with Philippe. Some think my father can see into one’s very soul,” Matthew murmured. “It worries me to take you there. With Ysabeau I could predict how she would react: coldness, anger, then acquiescence. When it comes to Philippe, I have no idea. No one understands the way Philippe’s mind works, what information he possesses, what traps he’s laid. If I am secretive, then my father is inscrutable. Not even the Congregation knows what he’s up to, and God knows they spend enough time trying to figure it out.”
“It will be fine,” I reassured him. Philippe would have to accept me into the family. Like Matthew’s mother and brother, he would have no choice.
“Don’t think you can best him,” Matthew warned. “You may be like my mother, as Gallowglass said, but even she gets caught in his web from time to time.”
“And are you still a member of the Congregation in the present? Is that how you knew that Knox and Domenico were members?” The witch Peter Knox had been stalking me since the moment I called up Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian. As for Domenico Michele, he was a vampire with old animosities when it came to the de Clermonts. He’d been present at La Pierre before yet another member of the Congregation tortured me.
“No,” Matthew said shortly, turning away.
“So what Hancock said about a de Clermont always being on the Congregation is no longer true?” I held my breath. Say yes, I urged him silently, even if it’s a lie.
“It’s still true,” he said evenly, crushing my hope.
“Then who . . . ?” I trailed off. “Ysabeau? Baldwin? Surely not Marcus!”
I couldn’t believe that Matthew’s mother, his brother, or his son could be involved without someone letting it slip.
“There are creatures on my family tree that you don’t know, Diana. In any case, I’m not free to divulge the identity of the one who sits at the Congregation’s table.”
“Do any of the rules that bind the rest of us apply to your family?” I wondered. “You meddle in politics—I’ve seen the account books that prove it. Are you hoping that when we return to the present, this mysterious family member is going to somehow shield us from the Congregation’s wrath?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said tightly. “I’m not sure of anything. Not anymore.”
Our plans for departure took shape quickly. Walter and Gallowglass argued about the best route, while Matthew set his affairs in order.
Hancock was dispatched to London with Henry and a leather-wrapped packet of correspondence. As a peer of the realm, the earl was required at court for the celebrations of the queen’s anniversary on the seventeenth of November. George and Tom were packed off to Oxford with a substantial sum of money and a disgraced Marlowe. Hancock warned them of the dire consequences that would ensue if the daemon caused any more trouble. Matthew might be far away, but Hancock would be within sword’s reach and would not hesitate to strike if it was warranted. In addition, Matthew instructed George on exactly what questions about alchemical manuscripts he could ask the scholars of Oxford.
My own affairs were far simpler to arrange. I had few personal items to pack: Ysabeau’s earrings, my new shoes, a few items of clothing. Fran?oise turned all her attention to making me a sturdy, cinnamon-colored gown for the journey. Its high, fur-lined collar was designed to fasten closely and keep out the winds and rain. The silky fox pelts that Fran?oise stitched into the lining of my cloak would serve the same purpose, as would the bands of fur she inserted into the embroidered edges of my new gloves.