“Diana would hate Hachiōji,” Gallowglass stated with conviction.
“Not to mention Miyako,” Verin murmured.
“Then Matthew had better do his duty.” Baldwin stood. “Quickly.” Matthew’s brother left the room so fast he seemed to vanish. Verin and Ernst quickly said their good-nights and followed. Once they’d gone, Ysabeau suggested we adjourn to the salon. There was an ancient stereo there and enough Brahms to muffle the lengthiest of conversations.
“What will you do, Matthew?” Ysabeau still looked shattered. “You cannot let Diana go to Japan.
Miyako would eat her alive.”
“We’re going to the Bishop house in Madison,” I said. It was hard to know who was most surprised by this revelation we were going to New York: Ysabeau, Matthew, or Sarah.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Matthew said cautiously.
“Em discovered something important here at Sept-Tours—something she’d rather die than reveal.”
I marveled at how calm I sounded.
“What makes you think so?” Matthew asked.
“Sarah said Em had been poking through things in the Round Tower, where all the de Clermont family records are kept. If she knew about the witch’s baby in Jerusalem, she would have wanted to know more,” I replied.
“Ysabeau told both of us about the baby,” Sarah said, looking at Ysabeau for confirmation. “Then we told Marcus. I still don’t see why this means we should go to Madison.”
“Because whatever it was that Emily discovered drove her to summon up spirits,” I said. “Sarah thinks Emily was trying to reach Mom. Maybe Mom knew something, too. If that’s true, we might be able to find out more about it in Madison.”
“That’s a lot of thinks, mights, and maybes, Auntie,” Gallowglass said with a frown.
I looked at my husband, who had not responded to my suggestion but was instead staring absently into his wineglass. “What do you think, Matthew?”
“We can go to Madison,” he said. “For now.”
“I’ll go with you,” Fernando murmured. “Keep Sarah company.” She smiled at him gratefully.
“There’s more going on here than meets the eye—and it involves Knox and Gerbert. Knox came to Sept-Tours because of a letter he’d found in Prague that mentioned Ashmole 782.” Matthew looked somber. “It can’t be a coincidence that Knox’s discovery of that letter coincides with Emily’s death and Benjamin’s reappearance.”
“You were in Prague. The Book of Life was in Prague. Benjamin was in Prague. Knox found something in Prague,” Fernando said slowly. “You’re right, Matthew. That’s more than a coincidence.
It’s a pattern.”
“There’s something else—something we haven’t told you about the Book of Life,” Matthew said.
“It’s written on parchment made from the skins of daemons, vampires, and witches.”
Marcus’s eyes widened. “That means it contains genetic information.”
“That’s our suspicion,” Matthew said. “We can’t let it fall into Knox’s hands—or, God forbid, Benjamin’s.”
“Finding the Book of Life and its missing pages still has to be our top priority,” I agreed.
“Not only could it tell us about creature origins and evolution, it may help us understand blood rage,” Marcus said. “But we might not be able to gather any useful genetic information from it.”
“The Bishop house returned the page with the chemical wedding to Diana shortly after we came back,” Matthew said. The house was known among the area’s witches for its magical misbehavior and often took cherished items for safekeeping, only to restore them to their owners at a later date. “If we can get to a lab, we could test it.”