No matter which door we opened, we found Matthew in some horrific tableau of pain and torment.
And every illusory scene had been staged especially for me.
After my hopes had been raised and dashed a dozen times, I blew all the doors in the house off their hinges with a single word. I didn’t bother looking inside any of the open rooms. Apparitions could be quite convincing, and Knox’s were very good indeed. But they were not flesh and blood. They were not my Matthew, and I was not deceived by them even though those I had seen would remain with me forever.
“Matthew will be with Benjamin. Find him.” I walked away without waiting for Baldwin or Janet to agree. “Where are you, Mr. Knox?”
“Dr. Bishop.” Knox was waiting for me when I rounded the corner. “Come. Have a drink with me.
You won’t be leaving this place, and it may be your last chance to enjoy the comforts of a warm room— until you conceive Benjamin’s child, that is.”
Behind me I slammed down an impenetrable wall of fire and water so that no one could follow.
Then I threw up another behind Knox, boxing us into a small section of the corridor.
“Nicely done. Your spell-casting talents have emerged, I see,” said Knox.
“You will find me . . . altered,” I said, using Gallowglass’s phrase. The magic was waiting inside me, begging to fly. But I kept it under control, and the power obeyed me. I felt it there, still and watchful.
“Where have you been?” Knox asked. “Lots of places. London. Prague. France.” I felt the tingle of magic in my fingertips. “You’ve been to France, too.”
“I went looking for your husband and his son. I found a letter, you see. In Prague.” Knox’s eyes gleamed. “Imagine my surprise, stumbling upon Emily Mather—never a terribly impressive witch— binding your mother’s spirit inside a stone circle.”
Knox was trying to distract me.
“It reminded me of the stone circle I cast in Nigeria to bind your parents. Perhaps that was Emily’s intention.”
Words crawled beneath my skin, answering the silent questions his words engendered.
“I should never have let Satu do the honors where you were concerned, my dear. I’ve always suspected that you were different,” Knox said. “Had I opened you up last October, as I did your mother and father all those years ago, you could have been spared so much heartache.”
But there had been more in the past fourteen months than heartache. There had been unexpected joy, too. I clung to that now, anchoring myself to it as firmly as if Janet were working her magic.
“You’re very quiet, Dr. Bishop. Have you nothing to say?”
“Not really. I prefer actions to words these days. They save time.”
At last I released the magic spooled tightly within me. The net I’d made to capture Knox was black and purple, woven through with strands of white, silver, and gold. It spread out in wings from my shoulder blades, reminding me of the absent Corra, whose power, as she promised, was still mine.
“With knot of one, the spell’s begun.” My netlike wings spread wider.
“Very impressive bit of illusory work, Dr. Bishop.” Knox’s tone was patronizing. “A simple banishing spell will—”
“With knot of two, the spell be true.” The silver and gold threads in my net gleamed bright, balancing the dark and light powers that marked the crossroads of the higher magics.
“It’s too bad Emily didn’t have your skill,” Knox said. “She might have gotten more out of your mother’s bound spirit than the gibberish I found when I stole her thoughts at Sept-Tours.”