“Here.” I handed the Book of Life to Sidonie.
The witch tried to spring the clasps, pushing and tugging at the metal fittings, but the book refused to cooperate with her. I held out my hands and the book flew across the space between us, eager to be back where it belonged. Sidonie and Gerbert exchanged a long look.
“You open it, Diana,” Agatha said, her eyes round. I thought back to what she’d said in Oxford all those months ago—that Ashmole 782 belonged to the daemons as well as the witches and vampires. Somehow, she had already divined a sense of the contents.
I placed the Book of Life on the table while the Congregation gathered around me. The clasps opened immediately at my touch. Whispers and sighs filled the air, followed by the eldritch traces left by the spirits of the creatures who were bound to the pages.
“Magic isn’t permitted on Isola della Stella,” Domenico protested, an edge of panic in his voice. “Tell her, Gerbert!”
“If I were working magic, Domenico, you’d know it,” I retorted.
Domenico paled as the wraiths grew more coherent, taking on elongated human form with hollow, dark eyes.
I flipped the book open. Everybody bent forward for a closer look.
“There’s nothing there,” Gerbert said, his face twisted with fury. “The book is blank. What have you done to our book of origins?”
“This book smells . . . odd,” Domenico said, giving the air a suspicious sniff. “Like dead animals.”
“No, it smells of dead creatures.” I ruffled the pages so that the scent rose in the air. “Daemons. Vampires. Witches. They’re all in there.”
“You mean . . .” Tatiana looked horrified.
“That’s right.” I nodded. “That’s parchment made from creature skin. The leaves are sewn together with creature hair, too.”
“But where is the text?” Gerbert asked, his voice rising. “The Book of Life is supposed to hold the key to many mysteries. It’s our sacred text—the vampire’s history.”
“Here is your sacred text.” I pushed up my sleeves. Letters and symbols swirled and ran just under my skin, coming to the surface like bubbles on a pond, only to dissolve. I had no idea what my eyes were doing, but I suspected they were full of characters, too. Satu backed away from me.
“You bewitched it,” Gerbert snarled.
“The Book of Life was bewitched long ago,” I said. “All I did was open it.”
“And it chose you.” Osamu reached out a finger to touch the letters on my arm. A few of them gathered around the point where his skin met mine before they danced away again.
“Why did the book choose Diana Bishop?” Domenico asked.
“Because I’m a weaver—a maker of spells—and there are precious few of us left.” I sought out Satu once more. Her lips were pressed together, and her eyes begged me to remain silent. “We had too much creative power, and our fellow witches killed us.”
“The same power that makes it possible for you to create new spells gives you the ability to create new life,” Agatha said, her excitement evident.
“It’s a special blessing the goddess bestows on female weavers,” I replied. “Not all weavers are women, of course. My father was a weaver, too.”
“It’s impossible,” Domenico snarled. “This is more of the witch’s treachery. I’ve never heard of a weaver, and the ancient scourge of blood rage has mutated into an even more dangerous form. As for children born to witches and vampires, we cannot allow such an evil to take root. They would be monsters, beyond reason or control.”
“I must take issue with you on that point, Domenico,” Janet said.
“On what grounds?” he said with a touch of impatience.
“On the grounds that I am such a creature and am neither evil nor monstrous.”
For the first time since my arrival, the attention of the room was directed elsewhere.
“My grandmother was the child of a weaver and a vampire.” Janet’s gray eyes latched on to mine. “Everyone in the Highlands called him Nickie-Ben.”
“Benjamin,” I breathed.
“Aye.” Janet nodded. “Young witches were told to be careful on moonless nights, lest Nickie-Ben catch them. My great-granny, Isobel Gowdie, didn’t listen. They had a mad love affair. The legends say he bit her on the shoulder. When Nickie-Ben went away, he left something behind without knowing it: a daughter. I am named after her.”
I looked down at my arms. In a kind of magical Scrabble, letters rose and arranged themselves into a name: JANET GOWDIE, DAUGHTER OF ISOBEL GOWDIE AND BENJAMIN FOX. Janet’s grandmother had been one of the Bright Born.
“When was your grandmother conceived?” An account of a Bright Born’s life might tell me something about my own children’s futures.
“In 1662,” Janet said. “Granny Janet died in 1912, bless her, at the age of two hundred and fifty. She kept her beauty right until the end, but then, unlike me, Granny Janet was more vampire than witch. She was proud to have inspired the legends of the baobhan sith, having lured many a man to her bed only to cause each of them death and ruin. And it was fearful to behold Granny Janet’s temper when she was crossed.”
“But that would make you . . .” My eyes were round.
“I’ll be one hundred and seventy next year,” Janet said. She murmured a few words and her white hair was revealed to be a dusky black. Another murmured spell showed her skin was a luminous, pearly white.
Janet Gowdie looked no more than thirty. My children’s lives began to take shape in my imagination.
“And your mother?” I asked.
“My mam lived for a full two hundred years. With each passing generation, our lives get shorter.”
“How do you hide what you are from the humans?” Osamu asked.
“Same way the vampires do, I suppose. A bit of luck. A bit of help from our fellow witches. A bit of human willingness to turn away from the truth,” Janet replied.
“This is utter nonsense,” Sidonie said hotly. “You are a famous witch, Janet. Your spell-casting ability is renowned. And you come from a distinguished line of witches. Why you would want to sully your family’s reputation with this story is beyond me.”
“And there it is,” I said, my voice soft.
“There what is?” Sidonie sounded like a testy schoolmarm.
“The disgust. The fear. The dislike of anybody who doesn’t conform to your simpleminded expectations of the world and how it should work.”