Chapter 22

Chapter 22

W hen the memory faded, Griselda Gowdie’s bottle was still intact in the spider, supported with a wreath of bladder wrack, neatly corked, and resealed with silver and gold wax. The tiny braid from the bottle’s neck was the only thing that Gwyneth had not been able to return to the bottle. It was in one of the test tubes, sealed with a sturdy, modern closure.

“You did it, Gwyneth,” Janet said, awestruck.

The rest of us remained silent. No matter how spacious Gwyneth’s memory chamber, it was impossible to draw a full breath after what we’d witnessed. We had seen the events of those terrible days through Grissel’s eyes and were forever changed by them.

Even so, we each had a singular reaction to Grissel’s memories and what they revealed, for no two people perceived the same truths in preserved memories.

Reunited with a lost part of her mother, Janet was caught up in grief, and wept quietly.

Sarah had witnessed the rehabilitation of her ancestor Bridget Bishop. “See!” she said triumphantly. “Bridget wasn’t as selfish as everyone makes her out to be!”

“Gallowglass?” Matthew gasped. “Here?”

I shared in his surprise that the summer traveler in Grissel’s letter to Agnes Gray was his nephew. It was one of the few mysteries Grissel’s memories solved, though it revealed even more complicated riddles.

It was the worn coin that had captured Baldwin’s attention, shock etched on his face. “Hugh’s coin?”

“I would never have sent it had I known.” Already grieving for her mother, Janet was overcome again with the knowledge of the role she’d played in Philippe’s capture and a blood-tear rolled down her face. I hadn’t known that a third-generation Bright Born could shed such a vampire tear, and had always considered Janet more witch than vampire.

“No regret, Janet.” Baldwin wiped the drop of blood from her cheek. “You used it exactly as Hugh would have wished.”

Granny Dorcas, who was outside the pearly bubble, pressed her anguished face into the wall of the memory chamber so that the bumps of her nose and chin warped its smooth surface, wanting to be nearer herkin.

Whatever Gwyneth had seen and felt was tucked safely behind an expression that was schooled to give nothing away.

Bridget Bishop’s prophecy was uppermost in my mind, for I knew in blood and bone it was the real reason Griselda Gowdie had left her memories in Salem. My lips moved as I repeated the words of her bloodsong and prophecy silently, trying to memorize them before they vanished.

“Quiet, everyone,” Matthew commanded, noticing my intense concentration. He grabbed his laboratory notebook and thrust it in my direction, along with his favorite fountain pen.

“Write it down, mon coeur, ” Matthew murmured. “Now. Before you forget.”

I did, first recording Bridget’s words before turning to the rest of Grissel’s memory. The pressure I put on the pen’s nib was so heavy that I created a ghostly palimpsest on the underlying sheets, the ink blotting and splotching until it stained my fingers blue. I filled page after page, desperate to make sure that no detail was lost. I reached the end of the tale, then circled back to the beginning to see if I’d missed anything.

“Leave it as it is, Diana.” Gwyneth’s light touch brought me back to the here and now. “It’s a rare piece of writing that doesn’t benefit from an edit, but the description of a memory is one of them.”

Reluctantly, I closed the notebook.

“It’s time to leave Salem behind.” Gwyneth used the tip of her wand to poke a hole in the memory chamber and it dissolved into gray particles that swirled in the air then disappeared into the nearest patch of Shadow.

The goddess and her hounds. Dorcas raised the hem of her skirt to dab at her eyes. I’d forgotten how cold it was in that gaol. Put another log on the fire, young man.

Baldwin did so, immediately.

Red stains, brighter than those I’d witnessed on Bridget Bishop’s bodice in the gaol, bloomed through Granny Dorcas’s sleeve. I drew the diaphanous linen and wool up toward her elbow, revealing red holes dotted along her forearms. She had not been saved from the pricker’s bodkin, after all.

“Granny Dorcas! You’re—bleeding,” I said, the tips of my fingers red. Grissel’s memories had opened the ghost’s old wounds.

They haven’t done that since Tabby had the twins, Granny Dorcas replied, pulling away from me. They’ll stop soon.

Perhaps they might even heal, now that Granny Dorcas knew the memories of that dark night would never be forgotten by those who had borne witness to them.

Baldwin returned from the woodpile, not a hair or button out of place. “Are there other bottles like this one, Gwyneth?”

“Some. In the attic of the Old Place,” Gwyneth replied, her words few.

“I brought all the bottles I found at the Bishop House to Ravenswood.” I carefully avoided looking at Sarah. “There are more memory bottles in Venice, too.”

There were expressions of disbelief around the table.

“What makes you think that?” Matthew asked.

I opened the shoebox and removed a seemingly empty bottle of Diorissimo.

“What I saw here. Mom kept some of her memories in her bedroom,” I explained. “I accidentally opened this one last night, not realizing what it contained. There was no sealing wax or hair-lock to give its true purpose away, so I can’t show you what it held. The memories are gone.”

“Clever Rebecca,” Gwyneth murmured, “coming up with a new memory bottle closure. She was such a talented mnemonist.”

“What was in it?” Sarah asked.

“Mom’s memories of the day when Peter Knox examined me,” I replied, “and the altercation between them afterward.”

I would never forget what I’d seen in the bottle. The tone of my voice alerted both Matthew and Baldwin that there was more to come. Matthew rested his hand on my shoulder in support.

“That bastard boasted that he viewed Mom’s memories on Isola della Stella, over and over again. It made her sick to think of him inside her. There was something sadistic—even pornographic—about Knox’s interest.”

“The witches possess more memories than Rebecca’s,” Janet said softly.

“You shouldn’t—” Gwyneth tried to stop her from saying anything further.

“I must,” Janet said with firm refusal. “I’ll lose my seat, and you’ll be censured for failing to stop me, but after seeing Mam’s memories, it hardly matters.” Janet drew a deep breath.

“How many bottles do they have?” Baldwin asked.

“We lost count centuries ago,” Janet replied. “Every time there was a war, a change of monarch, a religious controversy, or a famine, the Congregation sent someone out to gather whatever memories they could find that had survived what a witch’s mortal body could not withstand. They returned them to Isola della Stella and put them into storage. Today, they’re among the most treasured relics the witches possess.”

“What did they intend to do with them?” Matthew wondered.

“I’m not sure anyone had a plan for them—at first. We had been persecuted for centuries. Whole villages were destroyed, and communities lost. Memories were all we had left, and we were determined to keep them,” Janet replied. “Initially, the witches’ efforts were focused solely on preservation. Now, the witches open them when they are seeking to appoint a new member to the Congregation. We did so recently, when we replaced Satu J?rvinen with Tinima Toussaint.”

Peter Knox had opened my mother’s bottles repeatedly. Had he violated other witches’ privacy as well?

“The memory palace at Isola della Stella contains a bottle for every witch who walked the Labyrinth and advanced to the rank of adept since the 1890s,” Gwyneth explained. “Part of becoming an adept requires you leave your unique experiences behind so that they remain sacred—and secret.”

“Whatever happens to a witch in the Labyrinth, there’s one thing I know for sure,” Janet remarked. “It lays bare her soul. I’ve seen the adepts emerge from their trials, blasted with power and eyes filled with a terrible wonder. It’s only after their memories are taken away that they return to some semblance of normality.”

“And the witches use the collection as a talent pool from which to draw only the best and brightest to sit in the Congregation chamber,” Baldwin mused. “You have no recollection of what happened to you there?”

“None of us do,” Janet said. “Sometimes, a shred of tattered memory rises to the surface of an adept’s mind, but it’s never enough to fully understand what the Labyrinth ceremony meant to us.”

“My grandfathers, my grandmother, Mom, Dad’s sister, Naomi.” I ticked off the litany of names. “All of their experiences—whatever they were, whatever magic they stirred up—are on a shelf in Venice.”

Matthew’s lips parted in horror.

“There’s a gap during World War I, when it was impossible for the Congregation to receive any new bottles,” Gwyneth explained, hoping to lower Matthew’s level of concern. “But after the Armistice, the witches renewed their commitment to developing the talents of the most gifted witches. It was seen as a way to prevent further damage to our culture and traditions.”

“Why are the witches so interested in the memories from the Labyrinth?” Matthew finally asked, ominously quiet.

“To succeed in the Labyrinth and become an adept, a witch must face not only her deepest fears, as she does at the Crossroads, but her greatest desires, too,” Gwyneth explained. “Dark, Shadow, or Light, what a witch experiences at the heart of the maze reveals her strengths and weaknesses, as well as the contours of her power.”

“Her power.” Matthew was thoughtful. Then his lips turned gray as the blood drained from his face. “They’ve been practicing eugenics. The witches are picking through the memory bottles looking not just for signs of talent but for specific, rare forms of magic.”

Eugenics was bloodcraft by another name, one that masked the darkest side of scientific endeavor. Proponents of eugenics like Francis Galton believed that they could engineer a better human by banishing what they considered undesirable or uncivilized characteristics, including racial difference, sexual diversity, and disability.

“You say this emphasis on memory bottles started in the 1890s, and then revived in the 1920s?” Matthew asked Gwyneth.

She nodded.

“The timing is perfect,” Matthew murmured.

“Wait, Matthew.” Baldwin held up his hand. “Creatures have bred—and been bred—to improve their lineage since time immemorial, whether by marrying the daughters of tall men because height was an advantage in battle, or putting your neighbor’s horse to stud with your mare because it was faster and better-looking than yours. It doesn’t necessarily mean this was about achieving some ideal level of magical purity in a witch’s blood.”

“They’re not vampires, Baldwin.” Matthew’s expression was grim. “The witches’ goal wasn’t greater purity—it was greater power.”

Janet agreed. “The Congregation’s witches were terribly concerned with our waning power in general, and the decline of higher magic in particular. It’s not a huge leap from higher magic to higher races. ”

Baldwin continued to look skeptical.

“Witches always preserve family records—grimoires, spellbooks, oracle cards—but Granny Alice thought we could do better,” Gwyneth said. “When she was Congregation librarian, she put out a worldwide call for witches to gather their family memories, too, so they could be preserved in Venice for future generations.”

“When was this?” Matthew opened his notebook and uncapped his pen.

“From 1875 to 1890,” Gwyneth said, “during the first eugenics movement.”

I never foresaw they would put my work to evil purposes! Granny Alice shouted as she sailed by on the library ladder.

“Were the witches hoping to learn something particular from these family memories, Gwyneth?” Matthew’s hand raced across a page in his notebook as he recorded his thoughts.

“From what Granny Alice said—and mind you, I was a child and it was a long time ago—they were particularly interested in the rites. It’s what led to the Rites Revision Covenant of 1919.”

“What rites?” Baldwin frowned.

“The bell, book, and candle ceremony at age thirteen; choosing a path at the Crossroads before age twenty-one; walking the Labyrinth, for those witches who showed promise in higher magic,” Gwyneth said. “It was Granny Alice who advocated for adding a new exam at age seven for children with a family history of higher magic, to see if there were early clues that it would later manifest.”

“A test the Congregation’s witches will administer to Rebecca and Philip in a few weeks.” Matthew swore. “The witches may rely on the Labyrinth bottles to select their representatives, but testing children must be connected to a desire to groom that next generation of higher magic adepts.”

“No one is grooming my children,” I said, filled with rage at the prospect.

“What about Gallowglass?” Sarah asked. “Maybe he could help—if we could find him.”

“What about Bridget’s prophecy?” Gwyneth suggested. “If we focus on that, and decipher what it means, it might illuminate the path forward.”

“What about the memory bottles on Isola della Stella?” Janet cried. “There’s no telling what they might reveal!”

Baldwin held up his hand for silence. The clash of conversation died down.

“What will be done is up to Matthew,” Baldwin said. “And Diana, of course. It’s their responsibility to clean up this mess before the de Clermont family is publicly implicated in it.”

When Baldwin had recognized Matthew’s kin as a scion of the de Clermont clan, he had made it clear that any problems stemming from our branch of the family were ours to solve.

“Diana?” Matthew turned tome.

I considered the evidence of Peter Knox’s malfeasance, and the mention of three families in Bridget Bishop’s prophecy.

“We need to recover all of the family memory bottles from Isola della Stella,” I said. “ Three families joined in joy and in struggle, / Will each bear witness to the black bird oracle . The Bishops. The Proctors…”

“The de Clermonts.” A spark of fury flamed in Baldwin’s eyes.

“Fingers would naturally point in that direction,” I admitted.

Baldwin’s focus moved to another part of the prophecy.

“ Two children, bright as Moon and Sun, / Will Darkness, Light, and Shadow make one. ” Baldwin swore. “We must claim what’s ours, for the sake of Rebecca and Philip.”

I held up my hands, where weaver’s cords snaked across my palms and wrists, creating a palimpsest with my veins and the words of the Book of Life. “We might not understand what the prophecy means, but it’s clear the stakes couldn’t be higher.”

Matthew nodded, his eyes black.

“But—how will we reclaim them?” Janet said. “If I remove even one bottle from Celestina, the alarm bells will be heard in Milan.”

“I’ll go.” This was not only my responsibility but something I felt compelled todo for my mother’s sake.

“No, Diana. You’d have to pass through the Labyrinth to reach them,” Gwyneth said. “On Isola della Stella, there are no second chances, and you don’t have the knowledge or the skill to navigate its challenges right now. I should go.”

My octogenarian great-aunt was not going to walk into the lion’s den, either, not while I still had breath in my body. I was about to say so when Baldwin spoke.

“Matthew?”

My husband was astonished by Baldwin’s deference. He soon regained his composure and flipped through his laboratory notebook. What the family tree and Mendelian Punnett squares had to do with memory bottles and stealing them from the Congregation, I couldn’t imagine.

“Our priorities have shifted,” he said, glancing through the pages. “First, we were concerned about the Congregation’s examination of the twins, then about Diana’s test at the Crossroads, as if they were isolated issues. But these are both rites of passage, as is the Labyrinth ceremony.”

“ Four drops of blood on an altar stone, ” I murmured. “Do you think Bridget’s prophecy may refer to another, connected ritual?”

“I think we need to find out,” Matthew replied. “The bottles on Isola della Stella may represent our best chance of determining if—and, even more importantly, how—the pieces of this puzzle fit together.”

Baldwin shot me a glance. In the de Clermont family, Matthew was known for his impulsive, often-bloody, responses to crises, not this methodical approach.

The black bird oracle hopped and buzzed in my pocket. I reached in and drew out the card that leaped into my fingers. The Queen of Vultures— the card of silence, and secrets. I put it down on the table so everyone could see.

“We need to call Ysabeau,” I said.

“She’s bound to remember something useful about this memory palace, perhaps some quirk of its construction that will help us storm the witches’ stronghold.” Baldwin cast an avaricious glance over the card as he spoke, no doubt wondering if he could use it to manipulate the international stock market.

Left to Baldwin, this dispute would rapidly escalate into something as ambitious and ill-fated as the siege of Damascus.

Matthew dialed her number, putting her on speaker.

“ Oui? ” Ysabeau’s response was immediate. I suspected my mother-in-law had been waiting—perhaps for weeks—for this call.

“Hello, Maman, ” Matthew said.

“Who are we destroying today?” Ysabeau demanded. “They must have threatened Rebecca and Philip, or Baldwin would be in Berlin. I would recognize his death march heartbeat anywhere.”

Ten steps ahead, as usual.

“We’re not at war, Maman. We’re gathering intelligence, and wondered if you know anything about a memory palace the witches have in Venice. It would be part of the Celestina complex,” Matthew replied, referring to the buildings that housed the Congregation on Isola della Stella.

“Does this have something to do with Lieutenant Proctor and Captain Lloyd?” Ysabeau’s frank question stunned Matthew into silence.

The Queen of Vultures seemed to wink at me from the table, exuding satisfaction as she brooded over her pile of carrion. The likeness to Ysabeau was unmistakable. I decided to add to the heap.

“Matthew’s been analyzing some new DNA evidence, and I’ve been at the Bishop House with my grandmother’s ghost, and it seems both of my grandfathers visited you to discuss Philippe’s situation.” Hopefully these new morsels of information would be enough to stop the verbal jousting of which the de Clermonts were so fond. “We’ve learned that Janet’s mother, Griselda, was in the Salem jail in 1692 to care for my ancestors. Gallowglass was there, too.”

“Eric was in Salem in 1692?” Ysabeau asked, breezing past the revelation about Thomas Lloyd and Taliesin Proctor as though it were old news. “How extraordinary. I thought he was in Goa then, with Fernando. I shall have to make a note of it in my aide-mémoire. ”

Ysabeau’s version of memory bottles took the form of slender volumes of appointments, cases filled with calling cards, and dance programs that still had their ribbons and tiny pencils attached so a woman could make note of to whom she’d promised the next waltz.

“We’re concerned, Maman, because Griselda preserved her memories of Salem in a magical bottle.” Matthew continued his vain attempt to bring his mother’s wide-ranging recollections into focus.

“Just one?” Ysabeau made a dismissive sound. “ N’importe quoi. I take it you have this bottle?”

“Yes, but Janet tells us there are more on Isola della Stella that contain Bishop and Proctor family memories,” Matthew replied, pinching the bridge of his nose as though it would summon more patience.

“Ah,” Ysabeau said. “Baldwin is afraid the Congregation will learn that the de Clermont family has been connected to Diana for longer than they suspected.”

This, too, was old news to my mother-in-law.

“You don’t sound surprised, Ysabeau.” Baldwin’s expression never changed, but his eyes glimmered with a dangerous combination of frustration and anger.

“It wasn’t my tale to tell” was Ysabeau’s prim reply. “Surely you do not need my help finding this cellar filled with old bottles, Baldwin. You and Matthew have spent far more time at Celestina drinking Philippe’s wine than I have.”

“The witches’ memory palace, Maman, ” Matthew said, grinding the words out between his teeth. “Think. Please. Any scrap of information about how it was built, or when, could help us.”

“Memory palace. Hmm. Mais—non. You cannot be referring to that vulgar folly the witches built in their water garden?” Ysabeau’s tone conveyed an audible shudder. “It was so hastily constructed I thought it must have fallen into the lagoon by now. The witches wanted it to display their antiquities—old bones, a stuffed crocodile, their pyxes and amphoras—and trinkets they considered sacred relics, like Matthew’s little vials of saints’ blood. I do not know why they bothered, for few creatures were allowed to see them.”

“Did you ever see them?” Matthew drove his fingers through his hair with frustration.

“Admission to their holy place was by invitation only.” Ysabeau’s response was a classic nonanswer. When had something like an invitation ever mattered to Ysabeau?

“Must you make this so difficult, Maman ? I feel like I’m pulling teeth.”

“I cannot imagine what you mean,” Ysabeau said. “I am happy to tell you what you want to know, Matthew. As it happens, I went there several times with Roberto Rio, the daemon who drew up the plans. Construction was underway during the witches’ Troubles, and the place was often unguarded. There were so few witches left, you see.”

I winced, unable to meet the eyes of Sarah and Gwyneth. I was used to Ysabeau’s dismissive remarks about witches, but her casual prejudice was nevertheless painful.

“As for these bottles, I never saw any there. I did look to see if they might have a few fla?ons de souvenirs oubliés hidden away that would please Gerbert.”

Leave it to vampires to come up with a more elegant name than memory bottles.

“He locked his collection in a casket—like the one he kept the head of Meridiana in.” Ysabeau continued to drop breadcrumbs before us, this one relating to the powerful witch who had been an oracle of great repute. “Philippe possessed three fla?ons, too, all very old. He considered them great treasures, but threw them into the Aegean in a fit of temper over something Gallowglass said.”

If Gerbert and Philippe both showed an interest in memory bottles, then we were on the right track.

“I’m going to Venice,” I said, my stool scraping the floor as I pushed back from the table.

“I’m going with you,” Matthew said.

“I’ll drive you to Boston,” Sarah offered.

“No one is going anywhere.” Baldwin scowled.

“What?” I was furious. “You saw the memories in Grissel’s bottle! And heard what Peter Knox did with my mother’s memories! We don’t have time to waste.”

“Diana’s right,” Janet agreed. “Sidonie and Tinima find a great deal to do in the Congregation archives these days. Rima told me they’ve been tracing early references to illicit vampire-witch unions, and noting down every strange power and odd occurrence that accompanied them.”

I did not know the Haitian Tinima Toussaint—the newest member of the Congregation. She brought a fresh perspective to Congregation deliberations and highlighted the issues threatening Indigenous magical practices and its practitioners. The priestess’s spell-casting skills were legendary, and her knowledge of African magic profound.

“It’s only a matter of time before the two of them find something,” Janet predicted. “Whether the clue lies in Crusader chronicles from Jerusalem, or in my granny Isobel’s confessions about her love child with the devil, or in the accounts of the ghastly deaths of vampires in New Orleans—there is bound to be something that will pique their interest. Sidonie will ransack the memory palace if she thinks it will give her the whip hand over Diana and the de Clermonts.”

“But she will not do so today,” Baldwin said. “Nor tomorrow.”

“Surely speed’s an advantage. Why would we wait until they catch up to us?” I demanded.

Baldwin’s hand met the table, palm flat, in a savage blow.

“Because you are my general, Diana, and I will not win this war by putting you on the front lines!” Baldwin exclaimed. It was a pointed reminder that Matthew and I may have formed our own scion but were still subject to the sire of the larger clan.

“General?” I said, numb. Ysabeau was the general of the de Clermont army—notme.

“I thought this was an intelligence-gathering operation, not a war,” Sarah said.

“In this family, Sarah, they are often indistinguishable,” Ysabeau said.

Matthew, who seldom took a side when Baldwin and I were embroiled in an argument, did so now.

“Baldwin is right, ma lionne, ” Matthew said. “We must tread carefully. Whatever the nature and duration of the connection between our three families, my father’s fingerprints are all over it. Philippe loved intricate toys and complicated games that depended on strategy, memory, and risk. What could be more intricate and complicated than a family?”

“Agreed, brother. Philippe set something in motion—though the gods know when, why, or how—that has yet to play itself out,” Baldwin said, “some mechanism to bring about a desired end that will remain mysterious until the final trumpet sounds.”

“ Deus ex machina, ” I murmured. God from a machine. It was as good a description of Philippe as I’d ever heard. I touched the golden arrowhead and felt the goddess’s hand. Four drops of blood on an altar stone…

It was then I realized that Philippe couldn’t have acted alone. He had to have had the goddess’s help. I wondered if he’d had my mother’s assistance as well.

“We have been caught in Philippe’s spiderwebs before,” Ysabeau said. “This is nothing new. Plus ?a change, plus c’est la même chose. ”

Ysabeau had put a new twist on one of her mate’s favorite sayings: endings, beginnings, change.

“You need not worry, children.” Ysabeau’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have a plan to retrieve the bottles.”

Widespread alarm followed this announcement. Ysabeau sailedon.

“Diana must meet me tomorrow at Ca’ Chiaramonte,” Ysabeau commanded, “before sunset, when the gondola traffic will be at its peak.”

In the eight years I had known her, Ysabeau had seldom traveled past Limousin. Venice may as well have been on the dark side of the moon. Our alarm turned to amazement.

“How—” Matthew began.

“Why—” Baldwin started.

But Ysabeau was not to be interrupted. “I trust you will be able to get her and Janet here in one of your infernal flying machines, Baldwin. It is the feast of Redentore and I received my annual invitation to return to Venice and commemorate the end of the terrible plague outbreak in 1576. I will attend services in the church we commissioned Signor Palladio to build so the city could mourn its dead.”

“An invitation from whom?” Matthew demanded.

“From the doge,” Ysabeau replied. “He was delighted that I accepted.”

There hadn’t been a doge in Venice since 1797.

“Domenico.” Matthew shook his head. “This is a very bad idea, Maman. He will know you are up to something.”

“That is my intention,” Ysabeau said.

Baldwin was aghast. “I am not sending my sister into the chaos of a Venetian festival while you make a spectacle of yourself with Domenico Michele! We must gather information—quietly—before we do anything that might cause speculation.”

“Bah,” Ysabeau said. “Philippe was never louder than when he was involved in something underhanded. If your father wanted to know an enemy’s plans, he held a banquet and sent one of his daughters into their camp as bait. You should try to emulate your sire in this respect, Baldwin.”

“I would need to notify the other vampire clans,” Baldwin protested. “You cannot just show up and—”

“Marthe has informed Fernando of our arrival.” Ysabeau would brook no opposition. “ ?a suffit. ”

“And Santoro?” Matthew asked. The family’s Venetian majordomo resembled a mother hen and did not like chaos.

“Let it be a surprise,” Ysabeau said.

“Your plan is what, Ysabeau, beyond adding to the city’s fireworks?” If looks could kill, Matthew’s phone would have been reduced to a mess of fried electronics and melted glass based on Baldwin’s expression.

“I would never share something so important as my plans with you, Baldwin.” Ysabeau purred like a cat curled before the fire. “Remember Jerusalem?”

Baldwin blanched.

“The memory palace has a tower, too, as I recall.” Ysabeau let her words fall on Philippe’s son like the glass shards of a broken memory bottle. “All you need to know is that I will be the canard this time, while Diana and Janet go to Isola della Stella and infiltrate Celestina.”

“Duck?” I looked to Matthew for clarification.

“She means decoy,” Matthew explained.

Ysabeau fell silent, waiting for Matthew and Baldwin to absorb her words and accept the steely determination behind them.

“It might work,” Matthew said, clearly torn. “But the risk—”

“If the Congregation had Philippe’s memories, or Hugh’s, what would you do to get them back?” I asked Matthew.

“Anything.” Matthew’s response was whip-quick.

“Exactly. I need to do this, Matthew.” My voice was soft, but sure.

“Excellent. I knew you would see the beauty of my plan, Diana. I will see you tomorrow—and Janet, too.” Ysabeau chortled. “This is just like old times. The intrigue! The danger. How I’ve missed beating Philippe at his own games.”

—

“Gwyneth will be furious if she finds out.” I held tightly to Matthew’s hand as we slipped past the witch’s tree and into the Ravens’ Wood.

“Is it wise to go without her?” In Matthew, worry and curiosity battled for the upper hand.

“Wise?” I shook my head. “But necessary.”

I focused on letting my instincts lead and allowing my feet to follow. The black bird oracle was in my pocket, another precaution against disaster. The cards would tell me if I strayed too far into Darkness.

The moss-covered bumps and lumps that remained of the Proctor family labyrinth gleamed with an evergreen magic in the dark of the forest.

“We just need to find the entrance,” I told Matthew. It would be difficult, given the labyrinth’s ruinous state, but I wanted to avoid climbing over its crumbling walls if possible.

“I can feel its power,” Matthew said, a note of awe in his voice.

Matthew walked the uneven circumference, looking at the rubble with a stonemason’s practiced eye. He read the foundations, and the angle that the stones had fallen due to the pressures of weather and time.

“Here— No, the missing stones are just buried under an accumulation of leaves and pine needles,” Matthew said when he spotted a break in the wall.

There were a few more false alarms before Matthew located the clean edges of the labyrinth’s original entrance.

“This is the way in,” he said, beckoning me forward. “And the way out, too.”

“There’s no exit?” I didn’t like the thought of having to retrace my steps.

Matthew shook his head. “Not in a labyrinth. The object of walking it is to proceed inward and gain enlightenment before returning to the world the same way you came. It’s a spiritual exercise, mon coeur, and one that I’ve undertaken many times.”

“I’m glad you’re coming with me, then.” I would ask Matthew for further details about his inward journeys later. Time was passing, and with it this opportunity to better prepare myself for Venice.

“This labyrinth was built by witches. It might reject me,” Matthew warned.

“Not if they’re anything like me,” I said, giving him a soft kiss for luck. “Let’s do this, before we change our minds.”

Matthew had reluctantly agreed that the best way to ensure success on Isola della Stella was to rehearse what might happen once I arrived. I wanted to make a practice run of the labyrinth here, in the Ravens’ Wood. It would give me some sense of what the ritual space of the Labyrinth on Isola della Stella might demand of me if I was forced to go through it to find the memory bottles.

I squeezed Matthew’s hand, and he grasped it tighter in return.

“I feel like we’re about to timewalk,” Matthew murmured, “and not in a good way.”

We had stood just like this in the Bishop House, hand in hand, facing an uncertain future, before we had taken our fated leap into the past.

“I’m not the witch I was then,” I said, hoping to comfort him.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Matthew looked down at me. “All right, ma lionne. Lead the way.”

Our first few steps into the labyrinth were incident-free.

“This just feels like an ordinary walk in the woods,” I whispered. “I don’t feel anything magical at all.”

Matthew’s finger pressed to my lip in silent warning. “Philippe always told me the gods wait for a mere mortal to overestimate their power. It’s only then that they pounce—a little like wolves hunting their prey.”

I nodded, and kept my reaction to myself.

A few feet later, I felt the first prickle of something that was not of this world.

Three more feet, and the walls of the labyrinth seemed to be growing.

“Matthew, are they—” I began, my attention glued to the sprouting walls. They were still covered with lichen and moss, but no longer at knee and hip level.

“Erupting from the ground?” Matthew’s sense of the change was far less organic and gentle than mine. He looked grim. “Yes.”

Soon, we wouldn’t be able to see the trees on the other side of the walls.

“Maybe I should call Cailleach,” I said, uneasy.

“Your guide to higher magic?” Matthew touched the nearby wall, which was now even with his shoulder. “Won’t that attract the goddess’s attention?”

“I think we already have it. I wish we’d gone with our other option,” I said, my anxiety increasing as the walls closedin, “and opened one of Mom’s other memory bottles instead.”

A glass perfume bottle, heavy with compressed memories, appeared in my free hand. I gasped.

Be careful what you wish for, the trees whispered.

I held it up before Matthew.

He swore. “You shouldn’t have brought that with you, Diana.”

“I didn’t,” I protested. “I was just thinking that it might have been better to have stayed home and opened Mom’s bottles like you suggested, and…”

I trailed off. Gwyneth had mentioned something about the labyrinth, and a witch’s deepest desires…

“I wish the moon was brighter,” I said.

The clouds parted, revealing the silver orb.

“I wish my mother was here,” I whispered.

Mom peeked around the next turn in the labyrinth.

“I wish to keep my children safe from harm!” I shouted to the sky.

An athame embedded itself at my feet, point down.

“I want to cast a proper hex,” I cried.

A shimmering six-crossed knot floated through my mind’s eye, and the gramarye that would secure it tickled my tongue.

After facing Meg at the Crossroads and meeting the shades, I had imagined the Labyrinth on Isola della Stella as a terrifying place of unimaginable horrors.

“I was wrong. A labyrinth is a place of dreams, not nightmares!” I turned to Matthew, elated with power and possibility. “Try it. Make a wish!”

Matthew hesitated. He shook his head.

“What about Lucas? Or Hugh? Don’t you wish they were alive?”

Matthew paled. “Don’t say such things, Diana.”

But my words had already done their damage, for what choice did Matthew have but to hear what I said, take it to heart, and feel the longing in his soul?

Papa?

Matthew wheeled around. A slight boy stood behind us with hair cropped so short you could see his scalp. He was dressed in a stained linen shift and there were no shoes on his feet.

Matthieu?

Matthew’s head turned. An ordinary-looking man with an extraordinary smile walked past my mother.

He laughed. Salut, mon frère.

“Hugh?” Matthew whispered.

The labyrinth’s magic was more potent than I had suspected, able to conjure Matthew’s deepest desires merely because he thought of them.

I didn’t notice Darkness wrapping its hand around the athame’s grip. Nor did I see Shadow loom behind Matthew’s brother, ready to engulf him.

All I could see was my husband’s ravaged expression as he came face-to-face with those he had loved, and failed, and lost.

Granny Dorcas had warned me that Darkness was cunning. Gwyneth was adamant I was not yet ready for the perils of a labyrinth. They were both proven right.

“Cailleach!” I called to the moon. “Help me!”

But I had overestimated my own power in one of the goddess’s most sacred spaces. Cailleach would not come to my aid.

I couldn’t call on the Light, for it would only increase Darkness’s hunger. All that I could do was draw Shadow around Matthew and me and leave the labyrinth as quickly as possible.

I whispered into the night, welcoming Shadow to meet me. I invited the moths to shroud us in their velvet wings. I pulled eldritch clouds over our heads in a shield, and summoned the spirits of my ancestors to rise up from the ground in an army of bones.

Matthew made an unearthly sound of pain as I dragged him past Lucas, forcing him to leave his son once more—and I was the cause ofit.

Papa! Lucas screamed. J’ai peur du noir!

Matthew broke free from my grasp with a guttural cry, determined to save his son this time.

A wall of Shadow stopped him. From its depths emerged a man dressed in khaki and brown leather, tow-haired and freckled like Pip, with the lanky ease of an athlete.

“Grandpa.” I had never been more relieved to see anyone in my life.

Steady, Matthew, Tally said, using the power he still possessed to keep Matthew from abandoning the Light and flying into Darkness.

My grandfather turned on me in fury. You nearly lost him to Elsewhere, Diana. Vampires aren’t welcome in any of the goddess’s labyrinths—nor are you. Not yet.

“I know,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I just wanted—”

“Don’t,” Matthew cried. “God help me. Please. Stop.”

“I’m sorry, my love. I only wanted—” I protested.

Not another word, Diana, Tally said, his words low and threatening. His eyes shone through Shadow with the intensity of a spy slipping between worlds.

I fell silent, my breath coming in jagged gasps as the immediate danger to Matthew subsided.

This is how Naomi got into trouble, wanting to run before she could walk, believing that her goddess-given talents would always see her through, Tally said, supporting Matthew’s weight. Philippe believed in the enormity of his power, too. It was one of the reasons he didn’t survive.

Matthew’s broad frame shook like a terrified child’s at the mention of his father. He moaned.

The goddess may have given you the strength to get through any challenge—though if she did, you may well curse her for it in the end, Tally said. But your husband? Your children? Think of them before you decide to do your own thing and to hell with the rules that were established to protect you.

I nodded. Fresh tears welled up, but I sniffed them away. This was not the time for me to fall apart or give in to self-pity.

Get your husband back home, and get some rest, Tally said, as stern as he would have been to one of his subordinates during the war. He’ll recover. Vampires usuallydo.

“I promise.” This time, I’d follow his advice to the letter.

You’ll need a clear head and heart in Venice. You can’t afford a single snafu. My grandfather’s tone suggested he had personal experience in this department. Not with so many lives at stake.

My grandfather draped Matthew’s arm around my shoulders and I staggered under the weight he had so easily borne.

“Let’s go home, my love,” I said. “It’s not far.”

Matthew was wounded in heart and soul, rather than body, and vampire blood was useless for healing the injuries he’d sustained in the Proctor labyrinth. I would have to make amends for what had happened here—though only the goddess knew how I could ever doso.

What if the labyrinth’s magic had changed how Matthew felt about me? What if he never forgave me? I wished I could—

Be careful what you wish for, Diana. Tally’s voice whispered through the trees.

I turned my head and saw him in a fog of Shadow. He held back Darkness so that it would not keep us from the Light of home and family.

With a tilt of his head and a touch of fingers to his cap, Grandpa Tally melted into the gloom.

“During the war, we called your grandfather the Specter,” Matthew said, his voice shaky. He, too, had seen Tally disappear. “Here one minute, gone the next.”

“Oh, Matthew,” I said, holding on to him tightly. “I never meant—”

“I know,” Matthew said.

There was something in his tone that I’d never heard before. It frightened me more than Darkness itself.

Despair.

“I love you,” I said, eager for his reassurance and expecting Matthew’s usual reply.

“Let’s go home,” was his weary response.