A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [83]
“I met a daemon, Agatha Wilson, at Blackwell’s last week. According to the Internet, she’s a famous designer. Agatha told me the daemons believe that Ashmole 782 is the story of all origins—even human origins. Peter Knox told me a different story. He said it was the first grimoire, the source of all witches’ power. Knox believes that the manuscript contains the secret of immortality,” I said, glancing at Matthew, “and how to destroy vampires. I’ve heard the daemon and witch versions of the story—now I want yours.”
“Vampires believe the lost manuscript explains our longevity and our strength,” he said. “In the past, our fear was that this secret—if it fell into witches’ hands—would lead to our extermination. Some fear that magic was involved in our making and that the witches might find a way to reverse the magic and destroy us. It seems that that part of the legend might be true.” He exhaled softly, looking worried.
“I still don’t understand why you’re so certain that this book of origins—whatever it may contain—is hidden inside an alchemy book.”
“An alchemy book could hide these secrets in plain sight—just like Peter Knox hides his identity as a witch under the veneer that he’s an expert in the occult. I think it was vampires who learned that the book was alchemical. It’s too perfect a fit to be coincidence. The human alchemists seemed to capture what it is to be a vampire when they wrote about the philosopher’s stone. Becoming a vampire makes us nearly immortal, it makes most of us rich, and it gives us the chance to accrue unimaginable knowledge and learning.”
“That’s the philosopher’s stone, all right.” The parallels between this mythic substance and the creature sitting opposite me were striking—and chilling. “But it’s still hard to imagine such a book really exists. For one thing, all the stories contradict one another. And who would be so foolish as to put so much information in one place?”
“As with the legends about vampires and witches, there’s at least a nugget of truth in all the stories about the manuscript. We just have to figure out what that nugget is and strip away the rest. Then we’ll begin to understand.”
Matthew’s face bore no trace of deceit or evasion. Encouraged by his use of “we,” I decided he’d earned more information.
“You’re right about Ashmole 782. The book you’ve been seeking is inside it.”
“Go on,” Matthew said softly, trying to control his curiosity.
“It’s an alchemy book on the surface. The images contain errors, or deliberate mistakes—I still can’t decide which.” I bit my lip in concentration, and his eyes fixed on the place where my teeth had drawn a tiny bead of blood to the surface.
“What do you mean ‘it’s an alchemy book on the surface’?” Matthew held his glass closer to his nose.
“It’s a palimpsest. But the ink hasn’t been washed away. Magic is hiding the text. I almost missed the words, they’re hidden so well. But when I turned one of the pages, the light was at just the right angle and I could see lines of writing moving underneath.”
“Could you read it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “If Ashmole 782 contains information about who we are, how we came to be, and how we might be destroyed, it’s deeply buried.”
“It’s fine if it remains buried,” Matthew said grimly, “at least for now. But the time is quickly coming when we will need that book.”
“Why? What makes it so urgent?”
“I’d rather show you than tell you. Can you come to my lab tomorrow?”
I nodded, mystified.
“We can walk there after lunch,” he said, standing up and stretching. We had emptied the bottle of wine amid all this talk of secrets and origins. “It’s late. I should go.”
Matthew reached for the doorknob and gave it a twist. It rattled, and the catch sprang open easily.
He frowned. “Have you had trouble with your lock?”
“No,” I said, pushing the mechanism in and out, “not that I’m aware of.”
“You should have them look at that,” he said, still jiggling the door’s hardware. “It might not close properly until you do.”
When I looked up from the door, an emotion I couldn’t name flitted across