The Book of Life (51 page)

“We might want to tune up your third eye before you start, too,” Sarah said, looking critically at my forehead as though it were a radio.

Phoebe returned with a small box. She handed it to Ysabeau. “Perhaps we should see if this can help first.” Ysabeau drew Master Habermel’s compendium from the cardboard container. “Alain packed up some of your things from Sept-Tours. He thought they would make you feel more at home here.”

The compendium was a beautiful instrument, expertly fashioned from brass, gilded and silvered to make it shine, and loaded with everything from a storage slot for paper and pencil to a compass, latitude tables, and a small clock. At the moment the instrument appeared to be going haywire, for the dials on the face of the compendium were spinning around. We could hear the steady whir of the gears.

Sarah peered at the instrument. “Definitely enchanted.”

“It’s going to wear itself out.” Gallowglass extended a thick finger, ready to give the hands on the clock a poke to slow them down.

“No touching,” Sarah said sharply. “You can never anticipate how a bewitched object will respond to unwanted interference.”

“Did you ever put it near the picture of the chemical wedding, Auntie?” Gallowglass asked. “If you’re right, and Master Habermel’s toy acts up when someone is looking for the Book of Life, then maybe seeing the page will quiet it.”

“Good idea. The picture of the chemical wedding is in the Chinese Room along with the picture of the dragons.” I lumbered to my feet. “I left them on the card table.”

Ysabeau was gone before I could straighten up. She was back quickly, holding the two pages as though they were glass and might shatter at any moment. The moment I laid them on the table, the hand on the compendium dial began to swing slowly from left to right instead of revolving around its central pin. When I picked the pages up, the compendium began to spin again—though slower than it had before.

“I do not think the compendium registers when someone is looking for the Book of Life,” Fernando said. “The instrument itself seems to be searching for the book. Now that it senses some of the pages are nearby, it is narrowing its focus.”

“How strange.” I put the pages back on the table and watched in fascination as the hand slowed and resumed its pendulum swing.

“Can you use it to find the last missing page?” Ysabeau said, staring at the compendium with equal fascination.

“Only if I drive all over England, Wales, and Scotland with it.” I wondered how long it would take me to damage the delicate, priceless instrument, holding it on my lap while Gallowglass or Leonard sped up the M40.

“Or you could devise a locator spell. With a map and that contraption, you might be able to triangulate the missing page’s position,” Sarah said thoughtfully, tapping her lips with her finger.

“What kind of locator spell do you have in mind?” This went well beyond bell, book, and candle or writing a charm on a moonwort pod.

“We’d have to try a few and see—test them to figure out which is best,” Sarah mused. “Then you’d need to perform it under the right conditions, with plenty of magical support so the spell doesn’t get bent out of shape.”

“Where are you going to find magical support in Mayfair?” Fernando asked.

“Linda Crosby,” my aunt and I said at the same time.

Sarah and I spent more than a week testing and retesting spells in the basement of the house in Mayfair as well as the tiny kitchen of Linda’s flat in the Blackfriars. After nearly drowning Tabitha and having the fire brigade show up twice in Playhouse Yard, I had finally managed to cobble together some knots and a handful of magically significant items into a locator spell that might—just might—work.

The London coven met in a portion of the medieval Greyfriars crypt that had survived a series of disasters over its long history, from the dissolution of the monasteries to the Blitz. Atop the crypt stood Andrew Hubbard’s house: the church’s former bell tower. It was twelve stories tall and had only one large room on each of its floors. Outside the tower he had planted a pleasant garden in the one corner of the old churchyard that had resisted urban renewal.

“What a strange house,” Ysabeau murmured.

“Andrew is a very strange vampire,” I replied with a shiver.

“Father H likes lofty spaces, that’s all. He says they make him feel closer to God.” Leonard rapped on the door again.

“I just felt a ghost go by,” Sarah said, drawing her coat more closely around her. There was no mistaking the cold sensation.

“I don’t feel anything,” Leonard said with a vampire’s cavalier disregard for something as corporeal as warmth. His rapping turned to pounding. “Come on, sunshine!”

“Patience, Leonard. We are not all twenty-year-old vampires!” Linda Crosby said crossly once she’d wrestled the door open. “There are a prodigious number of stairs to climb.”

Happily, we had only to descend one floor from the main entrance level to reach the room that Hubbard had set aside for the use of the City of London’s official coven.

“Welcome to our gathering!” Linda said as she led us down the staircase.

Halfway down, I stopped with a gasp.

“Is that . . . you?” Sarah stared at the walls in amazement.

The walls were covered with images of me—weaving my first spell, calling forth a rowan tree, watching Corra as she flew along the Thames, standing beside the witches who had taken me under their wing when I was first learning about my magic. There was Goody Alsop, the coven’s elder, with her fine features and stooped shoulders; the midwife Susanna Norman; and the three remaining witches Catherine Streeter, Elizabeth Jackson, and Marjorie Cooper.

As for the artist, that was clear without a signature. Jack had painted these images, smearing the walls with wet plaster and adding the lines and color so that they became a permanent part of the building. Smoke-stained, mottled with damp, and cracked with age, they had somehow retained their beauty. “We are fortunate to have such a room to work in,” Linda said, beaming “Your journey has long been a source of inspiration for London’s witches. Come and meet your sisters.”

The three witches waiting at the bottom of the stairs studied me with interest, their glances snapping and crackling against my skin. They might not have the power of the Garlickhythe gathering in 1591, but these witches were not devoid of talent.

“Here is our Diana Bishop, come back to us once more,” Linda said. “She has brought her aunt with her, Sarah Bishop, and her mother-in-law, who I trust needs no introduction.”

“None at all,” said the most elderly of the four witches. “We’ve all heard cautionary tales about Mélisande de Clermont.”

Linda had warned me the coven had some doubts about tonight’s proceedings. She had handpicked the witches who would help us: firewitch Sybil Bonewits, waterwitch Tamsin Soothtell, and windwitch Cassandra Kyteler. Linda’s powers relied heavily on the element of earth. So, too, did Sarah’s.

“Times change,” Ysabeau said crisply. “If you would like me to leave . . .”

“Nonsense.” Linda shot a warning glance at her fellow witch. “Diana asked for you to be here when she cast her spell. We will all muddle through somehow. Won’t we, Cassandra?”

The elderly witch gave a curt nod.

“Make way for the maps if you please, ladies!” Leonard said, his arms full of tubes. He dumped them on a rickety table encrusted with wax and beat a fast retreat up the stairs. “Call me if you need anything.” The door to the crypt slammed shut behind him.

Linda directed the placement of the maps, for after much fiddling we had found that the best results came from using a huge map of the British Isles surrounded by individual county maps. The map of Great Britain alone took up a section of floor that was around six feet by four feet.

“This looks like a bad elementary-school geography project,” Sarah muttered as she straightened a map of Dorset.

“It may not be pretty, but it works,” I replied, drawing Master Habermel’s compendium from my bag. Fernando had devised a protective sleeve for it using one of Gallowglass’s clean socks. It was miraculously undamaged. I got out my phone, too, and took a few shots of the murals on the wall. They made me feel closer to Jack—and to Matthew.

“Where should I put the pages from the Book of Life?” Ysabeau had been given custody of the precious sheets of vellum.

“Give the picture of the chemical wedding to Sarah. You hold on to the one with the two dragons,”

I said.

“Me?” Ysabeau’s eyes widened. It had been a controversial decision, but I had prevailed against Sarah and Linda in the end.

“I hope you don’t mind. The chemical-wedding picture came to me from my parents. The dragons belonged to Andrew Hubbard. I thought we could balance the spell by keeping them in witch and vampire hands.” All my instincts told me this was the right decision.

“Of c-course.” Ysabeau’s tongue slipped on the familiar words.

“It will be all right. I promise.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “Sarah will be standing opposite, and Linda and Tamsin will be on either side.”

“You should be worrying about the spell. Ysabeau can take care of herself.” Sarah handed me a pot of red ink and a quill pen made from a white feather with striking brown and gray markings.

“It’s time, ladies,” Linda said with a brisk clap. She distributed brown candles to the other members of the London coven. Brown was a propitious color for finding lost objects. It had the added benefit of grounding the spell—which I was sorely in need of, given my inexperience. Each witch took her place outside the ring of county maps, and they all lit their candles with whispered spells. The flames were unnaturally large and bright—true witch’s candles.

Linda escorted Ysabeau to her place just below the south coast of England. Sarah stood across from her, as promised, above the north coast of Scotland. Linda walked clockwise three times around the carefully arranged witches, maps, and vampire, sprinkling salt to cast a protective circle. Once everyone was in her proper place, I took the stopper out of the bottle of red ink. The distinctive scent of dragon’s-blood resin filled the air. There were other ingredients in the ink, too, including more than a few drops of my own blood. Ysabeau’s nostrils flared at the coppery tang. I dipped the quill pen into the ink and pressed the chiseled silver nib onto a narrow slip of parchment. It had taken me two days to find someone willing to make me a pen using a feather from a barn owl—far longer than it would have in Elizabethan London.

Letter by letter, working from the outside of the parchment to the center, I wrote the name of the person I sought.

T, N, J, O, W, T, E, S
T J WESTON

I folded the parchment carefully to hide the name. Now it was my turn to walk outside the sacred circle and work another binding. After slipping Master Habermel’s compendium into the pocket of my sweater along with the parchment rectangle, I began a circular perambulation from the place between the firewitch and the waterwitch. I passed by Tamsin and Ysabeau, Linda and Cassandra, Sarah and Sybil.

When I arrived back at the place where I began, a shimmering line ran outside the salt, illuminating the witches’ astonished faces. I turned my left hand palm up. For a moment there was a flicker of color on my index finger, but it was gone before I could determine what it had been. Even without the missing hue, my hand gleamed with gold, silver, black, and white lines of power that pulsed under the skin. The streaks twisted and twined into the orobouros-shaped tenth knot that surrounded the prominent blue veins at my wrist.

I stepped through a narrow gap in the shimmering line and drew the circle closed. The power roared through it, keening and crying out for release. Corra wanted out, too. She was restless, shifting and stretching inside me.

“Patience, Corra,” I said, stepping carefully over the salt and onto the map of England. Each step took me closer to the spot that represented London. At last my feet rested on the City. Corra released her wings with a snap of skin and bone and a cry of frustration.

“Fly, Corra!” I commanded.

Free at last, Corra shot around the room, sparks streaming from her wings and tongues of flame escaping from her mouth. As she gained altitude and found air currents that would help to carry her where she wanted to go, the beating of her wings slowed. Corra caught sight of her portrait and cooed in approval, reaching out to pat the wall with her tail.

I pulled the compendium from my pocket and held it in my right hand. The folded slip of parchment went into my left. My arms stretched wide, and I waited while the threads that bound the world and filled the Greyfriars crypt snaked and slithered over me, seeking out the cords that had been absorbed into my hands. When they met, the cords lengthened and expanded, filling my whole body with power. They knotted around my joints, created a protective web around my womb and heart, and traveled along veins and the pathways forged by nerves and sinews.

I recited my spell:

Missing pages

Lost and found

Where is Weston

On this ground?

Then I blew on the slip of parchment, and Weston’s name caught light, the red ink bursting into flame. I cupped the fiery words in my palm where they continued to burn bright. Overhead, Corra circled above the map watchfully, her keen eyes alert. The compendium’s gears whirred, and the hands on the main dial moved. A roaring filled my ears as a bright thread of gold shot out from the compendium. It spun outward until it met up with the two pages from the Book of Life. Another thread came from the compendium’s gilded dial. It lit a spot on the map of England, then slithered off to a map at Linda’s feet.

Corra swept down and pounced on the spot, crying out with triumph as though she had caught some unsuspecting prey. A town’s name illuminated, a bright burst of flame leaving the charred outlines of letters.

The spell complete, the roaring diminished. Power receded from my body, loosening the knotted cords. But they did not recoil back into my hands. They stayed where they were, running through me as if they had formed a new bodily system.

When the power had retreated, I swayed slightly. Ysabeau started forward.