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September 15 - September 19, 2025
“For Diana’s sake?” Matthew turned away. “I would do anything. Pay any price.”
“Loss is loss, Matthew, and a vampire’s soul is as fragile as that of any warmblood. Six hundred years or sixty or six—it doesn’t matter. When your mate dies, a part of your soul dies with him. Or her,” Fernando said gently. “And you will have your children—Marcus as well as the twins—to comfort you.”
“Turning Diana into a vampire is your greatest desire—” “Never,” Matthew interrupted, his voice savage. “And your greatest horror,” Fernando finished. “If she became a vampire, she would no longer be my Diana,” Matthew said. “She would be something—someone—else.” “You might love her just the same,” Fernando said. “How could I, when I love Diana for all that she is?” Matthew replied.
“I am frightened for your children. It pains me to say it—to even think it—but I have seen you kill someone you loved.”
“What will you do if Diana sees to the babies’ needs before yours?”
“Even Gallowglass thinks you should be in a laboratory analyzing that page you have from the Book of Life, and he doesn’t understand the first thing about science.”
“Have you had a chance to delve further into Diana’s DNA?” He had taken the blood samples and cheek swabs last year. “What do you think I’ve been doing all this while? Crocheting blankets in case you came home with babies and weeping about your absence? And yes, I know as much about the twins as the rest—which is to say not nearly enough.”
“I learned that what we think we know about your wife is minuscule compared to what we don’t know. Her nuclear DNA is like a labyrinth: If you go wandering in it, you’re likely to get lost,”
His wife—his heart, his mate, his life—stepped down off the porch and into his arms. Diana’s eyes were the blue and gold of a summer sky, and Matthew wanted nothing more than to fall headlong into their bright depths, not to lose himself but to be found.
even without the steadying presence of Em, who had always been the house’s center of gravity.
There was power there. Knowledge, too. I felt the familiar push and pull of desire and fear as I saw the clearing through the eyes of those who had walked these paths before.
“You chose death for them, just as you chose life for me, life for Louisa and Kit even though they tried to harm you, life for Jack when you brought him to our house in the Blackfriars instead of leaving him on the street to starve, life for baby Grace when you rescued her from the fire. Whether you realize it or not, you paid a price every time.”
“Philippe was the only other creature I’ve ever known who made life-or-death decisions as quickly and instinctively as you. The price that Philippe paid was terrible loneliness, one that grew over time. Not even Ysabeau could banish it.”
“My blood wouldn’t have been enough. But the goddess drew the life out of that ancient oak tree so I could feed it to you through my veins.”
“It’s already done.” My heart thudded, and his heart echoed it. “If the goddess wants me to fulfill some purpose of hers, I’ll do it—gladly. Because you’re mine, and I’m not done with you yet.”
“Without you I would never have known Philippe or received his blood vow. I wouldn’t be carrying your children. I wouldn’t have seen my father or known I was a weaver. Don’t you understand?” My hands rose to cradle his face. “In saving your life, I saved mine, too.”
“That you were going to possess an extraordinary combination of your parents’ very different magical abilities,”
“That’s why I can tie the tenth knot,” I said, understanding for the first time where the power came from. “I can create because my father was a weaver, and I can destroy because my mother had the talent for higher, darker magics.” “A union of opposites,” Matthew said. “Your parents were an alchemical wedding, too. One that produced a marvelous child.”
Do not refuse me because I am dark and shadowed,’” I whispered, remembering a passage from an alchemical text I’d studied in Matthew’s library. “That line from the Aurora Consurgens used to remind me of you, but now it makes me think of my parents, as well as my own magic and how hard I resisted it.”
“This reminds me of another part of the Aurora Consurgens,” he murmured. “‘As I am the end, so my lover is the beginning. I encompass the whole work of creation, and all knowledge is hidden in me.’”
“On how long it takes me to figure out why Diana married somebody like you, Clairmont, and whether you deserve her. And don’t waste your lord-of-the-manor act on me. I come from a long line of field hands. I am not impressed,” Chris said, stalking toward the house.
“I warned you about his reputation with women. Clairmont may be a great scientist, but he’s also a notorious asshole! Besides, he’s too old for you.”
“Why is there a tree in the fireplace?”
Miriam sounded more like herself now that she was criticizing a fellow researcher.
“I’ll empty my piggy bank when I get home and let you know, Miriam,” Chris said. Miriam’s lips twitched.
Chris had a sip of coffee, his dark eyes taking in the details of what Jack was sketching now: a naked woman, her head thrown back in agony. “I wish like hell he would go back to drawing daffodils.”
“According to my grandmother’s people, two wolves live inside every creature: one evil and the other good. They spend all their
“Nana Bets said the wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.”
“That stunt you pulled in the square will be the last time you challenge me, mongrel.” Baldwin’s shirt showed teeth marks at the shoulder, and there were beads of blood around the torn fabric.
This was vampire justice—swift, unbending, remorseless. For minor infractions the sire’s punishment would consist only of this public show of submission. Through that blood the sire received a thin trickle of his progeny’s innermost thoughts and memories. The ritual stripped a vampire’s soul bare, making him shamefully vulnerable. Acquiring another creature’s secrets, by whatever means, sustained a vampire in much the same way the hunt did, nourishing that part of his soul that forever sought to possess more.
If the offenses were more significant, the ritual of submission would be followed by death. Killing another vampire was physically taxing, emotionally draining, and spiritually devastating. It was why most vampire sires appointed one of their kin to do it for them.
Too late, he caught the scent of honeysuckle and summer storms. Too late, he saw Diana release Corra.
“Take your hands. Off. My. Son.” Diana’s skin was gleaming, the subtle nimbus that was always visible without her disguising spell now appearing as a distinctive, prismatic light. Rainbows of color shot under her skin—not just the hands but up her arms, along the tendons of her neck, twisting and spiraling as though the cords in her fingers had extended through her whole body.
Based on what he’d seen tonight, Diana was as single-minded as Baldwin when it came to destroying the obstacles in her way.
“Philippe was right. Your Christianity really does make you perfect for your job.” Baldwin snorted. “What other faith promises to wash away your sins if only you confess them?”
“One year ago you walked into the Bodleian Library and straight into my heart. As soon as that wicked mouth of yours smiled, the moment your eyes lightened with recognition even though we’d never met before, I knew that my life would never be the same.”
“But you have become as vital to me as breath and blood. My heart no longer knows where I end and you begin. I knew that you were a powerful witch from the moment I saw you, but how could I have imagined that you would have so much power over me?”
Matthew put more than a thousand years of longing into one last kiss.
“I knew from the goddamn beginning you were going to break her heart,” Chris called to Matthew when she reached him. He drew Diana into his arms. But it was Matthew’s heart that was breaking, taking with it his composure, his sanity, and his last traces of humanity.
Still Matthew didn’t respond. He was listening for Diana’s voice, her distinctive step, the rhythm of her heartbeat. There was only silence, and stars too faint to show him the way home.
Jason had once told him that learning how to be a vampire under Miriam’s guidance had convinced him that there was indeed an all-knowing, all-seeing, and vengeful deity. Contrary to biblical teachings, however, She was female and sarcastic.
“Granddad always did have an unholy ability to give us jobs we could neither refuse nor perform without losing some piece of our souls.”
“a small part of me hoped fate might have another surprise up her sleeve. I wondered if you might come back different, or without Matthew, or without loving him as much as he loves you.”
“So long as I call you Auntie, I never forget who really owns your heart,”
“Philippe always put his own needs last,” Gallowglass said. “Vampires are creatures ruled by their desire, with instincts for self-preservation that are much stronger than any warmblood’s. But Philippe was never like the rest of us. It broke his heart every time Granny got restless and went away. Then I didn’t understand why Ysabeau felt it necessary to leave. Now that I’ve heard her tale, I think Philippe’s love frightened her. It was so deep and selfless that Granny simply couldn’t trust it—not after what her sire put her through. Part of her was always braced for Philippe to turn on her, to
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Life as Gerbert’s hostage had been most illuminating.
“He has many houses. Most of them mean nothing to him. Some do. This is one of them. He would not have given you a gift he didn’t value himself.”
“And you will quickly discover that you are never so free to make your own decisions as when Matthew is off being patriarchal with someone else. Like me, you might even come to look forward to these moments apart.”
“You must never explain Matthew’s actions to anyone,” Ysabeau said sharply. “Vampires don’t tell tales for a reason. Knowledge is power in our world.”
“Philippe always said it was easier to withstand a siege than to cross a room at Ysabeau’s side. He had to fend off her admirers with more than a stick, I can tell you.”
