Membership in Marcus’s Conventicle had swelled considerably over the past months. Matthew’s assistant, Miriam, was now a permanent resident at the château, as were Philippe’s daughter Verin and her husband Ernst. Gallowglass, Ysabeau’s restless grandson, had shocked them all by staying put there for six whole weeks. Even now he showed no signs of leaving. Sophie Norman and Nathaniel Wilson welcomed their new baby, Margaret, into the world under Ysabeau’s roof, and now the baby’s authority in the château was second only to Ysabeau’s. With her grandchild living at Sept-Tours, Nathaniel’s mother Agatha appeared and reappeared without warning, as did Matthew’s best friend, Hamish. Even Baldwin flitted through occasionally.
Never in her long life had Ysabeau expected to be chatelaine of such a household.
“Where is Sarah?” Marcus asked, tuning in to the hum of activity all around. “I don’t hear her.”
“In the Round Tower.” Ysabeau ran her sharp nail around the edge of the newspaper story and neatly lifted the clipped columns from their printed surround. “Sophie and Margaret sat with her for a while. Sophie says Sarah is keeping watch.”
“For what? What’s happened now?” Marcus said, snatching at the newspaper. He’d read them all that morning, tracking the subtle shifts in money and influence that Nathaniel had found a way to analyze and isolate so that they could be better prepared for the Congregation’s next move. A world without Phoebe was inconceivable, but Nathaniel had become nearly as indispensable. “That damn telescope is going to be a problem. I just know it. All Knox needs is a timewalking witch and this story and he’ll have everything he needs to go back into the past and find my father.”
“Your father won’t be there for much longer, if he’s still there at all.”
“Really, Grand-mère,” Marcus said with a note of exasperation, his attention still glued to the text surrounding the hole that Ysabeau had left in the Times. “How can you possibly know that?”
“First there were the miniatures, then the laboratory records, and now this telescope. I know my daughter-in-law. This telescope is exactly the kind of gesture Diana would make if she had nothing left to lose.” Ysabeau brushed past her grandson. “Diana and Matthew are coming home.”
Marcus’s expression was unreadable.
“I expected you to be happier about your father’s return,” Ysabeau said quietly, stopping by the door.
“It’s been a difficult few months,” Marcus said somberly. “The Congregation made it clear they want the book and Nathaniel’s daughter. Once Diana is here . . .”
“They will stop at nothing.” Ysabeau took in a slow breath. “At least we will no longer have to worry about something happening to Diana and Matthew in the past. We will be together, at Sept-Tours, fighting side by side.” Dying side by side.
“So much has changed since last November.” Marcus stared into the shining surface of the table as though he were a witch and it might show him the future.
“In their lives, too, I suspect. But your father’s love for you is a constant. Sarah needs Diana now. You need Matthew, too.”
Ysabeau took her clipping and headed for the Round Tower, leaving Marcus to his thoughts. Once it had been Philippe’s favorite jail. Now it was used to store old family papers. Though the door to the room on the third floor was ajar, Ysabeau rapped on it smartly.
“You don’t have to knock. This is your house.” The rasp in Sarah’s voice indicated how many cigarettes she’d been smoking and how much whiskey she’d been drinking.
“If that’s how you behave, I am glad not to be your guest,” Ysabeau said sharply.
“My guest?” Sarah laughed softly. “I would never have let you into my house.”
“I don’t usually require an invitation.” Ysabeau and Sarah had perfected the art of acerbic banter. Marcus and Em had tried without success to persuade them to obey the rules of courteous communication, but the two clan matriarchs knew that their sharp exchanges helped maintain their fragile balance of power. “You should not be up here, Sarah.”
“Why not? Afraid I’ll catch my death of cold?” Sarah’s voice hitched with sudden pain, and she doubled over as if she’d been struck. “Goddess help me, I miss her. Tell me this is a dream, Ysabeau. Tell me that Emily isn’t dead.”
“It’s not a dream,” Ysabeau said as gently as she could. “We all miss her. I know that you are empty and aching inside, Sarah.”
“And it will pass,” Sarah said dully.
“No. It won’t.”
Sarah looked up, surprised at Ysabeau’s vehemence.
“Every day of my life, I yearn for Philippe. The sun rises and my heart cries out for him. I listen for his voice, but there is silence. I crave his touch. When the sun sets, I retire in the knowledge that my mate is gone from this world and I will never see his face again.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working,” Sarah said, the tears streaming.
“Emily died so that Sophie and Nathaniel’s child might live. Those who killed her will pay for it, I promise you. The de Clermonts are very good at revenge, Sarah.”
“And revenge will make me feel better?” Sarah squinted up through her tears.
“No. Seeing Margaret grow to womanhood will help. So will this.” Ysabeau dropped the cutting into the witch’s lap. “Diana and Matthew are coming home.”
VI. New World, Old World
41
My attempts to reach the Old Lodge’s future from its past were unsuccessful. I focused on the look and smell of the place and saw the threads that bound Matthew and me to the house—brown and green and gold. But they slipped out of my fingers repeatedly.
I tried for Sept-Tours instead. The threads that linked us there were tinged with Matthew’s idiosyncratic blend of silver, red, and black. I imagined the house full of familiar faces—Sarah and Em, Ysabeau and Marthe, Marcus and Miriam, Sophie and Nathaniel. But I couldn’t reach that safe port either.
Resolutely ignoring the rising panic, I searched among hundreds of options for an alternative destination. Oxford? The Blackfriars underground station in modern London? St. Paul’s Cathedral?
My fingers kept returning to the same strand in the warp and weft of time that was not silky and smooth but hard and rough. I inched along its twisting length and discovered that it was not a thread but a root connected to some unseen tree. With that realization I tripped, as over an invisible threshold, and fell into the keeping room of the Bishop House.
Home. I landed on my hands and knees, the knotted cords flattened between my palms and the floor. Centuries of polish and the passage of hundreds of ancestral feet had long since smoothed out its wide pine boards. They felt familiar under my hands, a token of permanence in a world of change. I looked up, half expecting to see my aunts waiting in the front hall. It had been so easy to find my way back to Madison that I assumed they were guiding us. But the air in the Bishop House was still and lifeless, as though not a soul had disturbed it since Halloween. Not even the ghosts seemed to be in residence.
Matthew was kneeling next to me, his hand still clasped in mine and his muscles trembling from the stress of moving through time.
“Are we alone?” I asked.
He took in the house’s scents. “Yes.”
With his quiet response, the house wakened and the atmosphere went from flat and lifeless to thick and uneasy in a blink. Matthew looked at me and smiled. “Your hair. It’s changed again.”
I glanced down to find not the strawberry blond curls I’d grown accustomed to but straight, silky strands that were a brighter reddish gold—just like my mother’s hair.
“It must be the timewalking.”
The house creaked and moaned. I felt it gathering its energy for an outburst.