Hearts cannot be broken, Matthew reminded himself.
“As I learn about your mate, I will discover so much about you as well,” Benjamin continued.
“There is no better way to know a man than to understand his woman. I learned that from Philippe, as well.”
The gears in Matthew’s brain clinked and clunked. Some awful truth was fighting to make itself known.
“Was Philippe able to tell you about the time he and I spent together during the war? It didn’t go according to my plans. Philippe spoiled so many of them when he visited the witch in the camp—an old Gypsy woman,” Benjamin explained. “Someone tipped him off to my presence, and as usual Philippe took matters into his own hands. The witch stole most of his thoughts, scrambled the rest like eggs, and then hanged herself. It was a setback, to be sure. He had always had such an orderly mind. I had been looking forward to exploring it, in all its complex beauty.”
Matthew’s roar of protest came out as a croak, but the screaming in his head went on and on. This he had not expected.
It had been Benjamin—his son—who had tortured Philippe during the war and not some Nazi functionary.
Benjamin struck Matthew across the face, breaking his cheekbone.
“Quiet. I am telling you a bedtime story.” Benjamin’s fingers pressed into the broken bones of Matthew’s face, playing them like an instrument whose only music was pain. “By the time the commander at Auschwitz released Philippe into my custody, it was too late. After the witch there was only one coherent thing left in that once brilliant mind: Ysabeau. She can be surprisingly sensual, I discovered, for someone so cold.”
As much as Matthew wanted to stop his ears against the words, there was no way to do so.
“Philippe hated his own weakness, but he could not let her go,” Benjamin continued. “Even in the midst of his madness, weeping like a baby, he thought of Ysabeau—all the while knowing I was sharing in his pleasure.” Benjamin smiled, displaying his sharp teeth. “But that’s enough family talk for now. Prepare yourself, Matthew. This is going to hurt.”
36
On the plane home, Gallowglass had warned Marcus that something unexpected had happened to me at the Bodleian.
“You will find Diana . . . altered,” Gallowglass said carefully into the phone.
Altered. It was an apt description for a creature who was composed of knots, cords, chains, wings, seals, weapons, and now, words and a tree. I didn’t know what that made me, but it was a far cry from what I had been before.
Even though he’d been warned of the change, Marcus was visibly shocked when I climbed out of the car at Sept-Tours. Phoebe accepted my metamorphosis with greater equanimity, as she did most things.
“No questions, Marcus,” Hamish said, taking my elbow. He’d seen on the plane what questions did to me. No disguising spell could hide the way my eyes went milky white and displayed letters and symbols at even the hint of a query, more letters appearing on my forearms and the backs of my hands.
I expressed silent thanks that my children would never know me any different and would therefore think it normal to have a palimpsest for a mother.
“No questions,” Marcus quickly agreed.
“The children are in Matthew’s study with Marthe. They have been restless for the past hour, as if they knew you were coming,” Phoebe said, following me into the house.
“I’ll see Becca and Philip first.” In my eagerness I flew up the stairs rather than walking. There seemed little point in doing anything else.
My time with the children was soul-shaking. On the one hand, they made me feel closer to Matthew. But with my husband in danger, I couldn’t help noticing how much the shape of Philip’s blue eyes resembled that of his father’s. There was a similarly stubborn cast to his chin, too, young and immature though it was. And Becca’s coloring—her hair as dark as a raven’s wing, eyes that were not the usual baby blue but already a brilliant gray-green, milky skin—was eerily like Matthew’s. I cuddled them close, whispering promises into their ears about what their father would do with them when he returned home.