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September 14 - September 15, 2024
“You cannot silence me. Telling the queen is my duty. Once you would have agreed with me, Henry. But since the witch came, everything’s changed! She has enchanted everyone in the house.” Kit’s eyes were frantic. “You dote on her like a sister. George is half in love. Tom praises her wit, and Walter would have her skirts up and her back against a wall if he weren’t afraid of Matt. Return her to where she belongs. We were happy before.” “Matthew wasn’t happy.” Tom had been drawn to our end of the room by Marlowe’s angry energy. “You say you love him.” Kit turned to me, his face full of entreaty.
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Hope, faith, courage: the three elements of Philippe’s simple creed. Matthew felt he possessed nothing but doubt, belief, and bravado.
“I’ve been thinking of Diana. Neither earth nor ocean produces a creature as savage and monstrous as woman,” Philippe said sorrowfully.
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
‘Change is the only reliable thing in the world.’” “Heraclitus,” I murmured.
Philippe’s deep voice sang out his next words: Far happier then were the times for men, Fondly yearned for now! You heroes, so bred Of gods in those silver days, favor me As I call you now with my magic song.
“You will not be alone either, Philippe de Clermont,” I whispered fiercely. “I’ll find a way to be with you in the darkness, I promise. And when you think the whole world has abandoned you, I’ll be there, holding your hand.” “How could it be otherwise,” Philippe said gently, “when you are in my heart?”
“They were with him for the holidays. ‘On the morning of the Christians’ holy celebration, I said farewell to your son. He is happy at last, mated to a woman who walks in the footsteps of the goddess and is worthy of his love,’” Ysabeau read aloud.
Fate still has the power to surprise us, bright one. I fear there are difficult times ahead for all of us. I will do what I can, in what time remains to me, to ensure your safety and that of our children and grandchildren, those whose blessings we already enjoy and those as yet unborn.’”
“But enough of these dark matters. You must keep yourself safe, too, so that you can enjoy the future with them. It has been two days since I reminded you that you hold my heart. I wish that I could do so every moment, so that you do not forget it, or the name of the man who will cherish yours forevermore. Philipos.”
Henry had just persuaded Matthew and Gallowglass to play flapdragon—an alarming game that involved setting raisins alight in a dish of brandy and betting on who could swallow the greatest number—when the sound of carolers rose from the street outside the windows.
“All that children need is love, a grown-up to take responsibility for them, and a soft place to land.”
“Your father says a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop. Let’s hope he’s right,” Hancock muttered, “because this is one hell of a hole you’ve put us in tonight.”
“We women own nothing absolutely, save what lies between our ears. Our virtue belongs first to our father and then to our husband. We dedicate our duty to our family. As soon as we share our thoughts with another, put pen to paper or thread a needle, all that we do and make belongs to someone else. So long as she has words and ideas, Annie will always possess something that is hers alone.”
“‘It begins with absence and desire, it begins with blood and fear,’” I whispered. “‘It began with a discovery of witches,’” time responded, in a primeval echo that set alight the blue and amber threads that flickered against the room’s stone walls.
And so I discovered that the practice of magic was not unlike the practice of history. The trick to both wasn’t finding the correct answers but formulating better questions.
Ars longa, vita brevis.’ Art is long, but life is short.
‘Occasio præceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.’” “It may be an excessively sentimental inscription, given the instrument’s purpose,” I admitted. “Sentimental?” Matthew’s eyebrow shot up. “From the viewpoint of the rat, it sounds quite realistic: Opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgment difficult.” His mouth twitched.
The forest has ears, and the fields have eyes.”
“All the monsters looked like ordinary men tonight, Master Roydon,” Jack told him, snuggling deeper into my husband’s arms. He sounded exhausted, and there were blue smudges under his eyes that made him look far older than his years. “They often do, Jack,” Matthew said. “They often do.”
Diana: You are everything we dreamed you would one day become. Life is the strong warp of time. Death is only the weft. It will be because of your children, and your children’s children, that I will live forever. Dad P.S. Every time you read “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” in Hamlet, think of me.
“You tell me that magic is just desire made real. Maybe spells are nothing more than words that you believe with all your heart,” Matthew said, coming to rest his hands on my shoulders.
The goddess does not want us to imitate some ideal of perfection, but to be our true selves.”
The time is coming when you will have to choose between the safety of the past and the promise of the future, Matthew.” “And the past cannot be cured, no matter how hard I try,” he said. “It’s something I’m always telling the queen when she agonizes over a bad decision. Hoist by my own petard again, as Gallowglass would be quick to point out.”
“Mind me well, young Jack. The one who pays your wages is correct in all things.”
Omni fine initium novum,’” Matthew said, gazing upon the land of his father as though he had, at last, come home. “‘In every ending there is a new beginning.’”
