A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [210]
The silence on the other end was absolute.
“Spellbound?” Sarah finally said, aghast. “Of course not!”
The de Clermonts heard a soft click.
“It was Rebecca,” another witch said much more softly. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell. And I don’t know what she did or how she did it, so don’t ask. Rebecca knew she and Stephen wouldn’t be coming back from Africa. She’d seen something—knew something—that frightened her to death. All she would tell me was that she was going to keep Diana safe.”
“Safe from what?” Sarah was horrified.
“Not ‘safe from what.’ Safe until.” Em’s voice dropped further. “Rebecca said she would make sure Diana was safe until her daughter was with her shadowed man.”
“Her shadowed man?” Matthew repeated.
“Yes,” Em whispered. “As soon as Diana told me she was spending time with a vampire, I wondered if you were the one Rebecca had foreseen. But it all happened so fast.”
“Do you see anything, Emily—anything at all—that might help us?” Matthew asked.
“No. There’s a darkness. Diana’s in it. She’s not dead,” she said hastily when Matthew sucked in his breath, “but she’s in pain and somehow not entirely in this world.”
As Baldwin listened, he narrowed his eyes at Ysabeau. Her questions, though maddening, had been most illuminating. He uncrossed his arms and reached into his pocket for his phone. He turned away, dialed, and murmured something into it. Baldwin then looked at Matthew and drew a finger across his throat.
“I’m going for her now,” Matthew said. “When we have news, we’ll call you.” He disconnected before Sarah or Em could pepper him with questions.
“Where are my keys?” Matthew shouted, heading for the door.
Baldwin was in front of him, barring the way.
“Calm down and think,” he said roughly, kicking a stool in his brother’s direction. “What were the castles between here and the Cantal? We only need to know the old castles, the ones Gerbert would be most familiar with.”
“Christ, Baldwin, I can’t remember. Let me through!”
“No. You need to be smart about this. The witches wouldn’t have brought her into Gerbert’s territory—not if they have any sense. If Diana is spellbound, then she’s a mystery to them, too. It will take them some time to solve it. They’ll want privacy, and no vampires interrupting them.” It was the first time Baldwin had managed to say the witch’s name. “In the Cantal the witches would have to answer to Gerbert, so they must be somewhere near the border. Think.” Baldwin’s last drop of patience evaporated. “By the gods, Matthew, you built or designed most of them.”
Matthew’s mind raced over the possibilities, discarding some because they were too close, others because they were too ruined. He looked up in shock. “La Pierre.”
Ysabeau’s mouth tightened, and Marthe looked worried. La Pierre had been the region’s most forbidding castle. It was built on a foundation of basalt that couldn’t be tunneled through and had walls high enough to resist any siege.
Overhead, there was a sound of air being compressed and moved.
“A helicopter,” Baldwin said. “It was waiting in Clermont-Ferrand to take me back to Lyon. Your garden will need work, Ysabeau, but you no doubt think it’s a small price to pay.”
The two vampires streaked out of the château toward the helicopter. They jumped in and were soon flying high above the Auvergne. Nothing but blackness lay below them, punctuated here and there with a soft glow of light from a farmhouse window. It took them more than thirty minutes to arrive at the castle, and even though the brothers knew where it was, the pilot located its outlines with difficulty.
“There’s nowhere to land!” the pilot shouted.
Matthew pointed to an old road that stretched away from the castle. “What about there?” he shouted back. He was already scanning the walls for signs of light or movement.
Baldwin told the pilot to put down where Matthew had indicated, and he received a dubious look in reply.
When they were still twenty feet off the ground, Matthew jumped out and set off at a dead run toward the castle’s gate. Baldwin sighed and