All Souls Trilogy, page 1
All Souls Trilogy
A Discovery of Witches
Shadow of Night
The Book of Life
Deborah Harkness
Praise for A Discovery of Witches
“A wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter or Twilight . . . An irresistible tale of wizardry, science, and forbidden love, A Discovery of Witches will leave you longing for the sequel.”
—People
“A thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail and a gutsy, brainy heroine to match: Diana Bishop, a renowned scholar of seventeenth-century chemistry and a descendant of accomplished witches. . . . Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world.”
—Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly
“Harkness conjures up a scintillating paranormal story. . . . Discover why everyone’s talking about this magical book.”
—USA Today
“Delightfully well-crafted and enchantingly imaginative . . . An enthralling and deeply enjoyable read, A Discovery of Witches is to be the first in a trilogy and will likely draw considerable cross-genre interest. Its fantasy, historical, and romance genre appeal is clear, but it also has some of the same ineluctable atmosphere that made Anne Rice’s vampire books such a popular success.”
—The Miami Herald
“A debut novel with a big supernatural canvas . . . Its ambitions are world-sized, ranging across history and zeroing in on DNA, human and otherworldly. Age-old tensions between science and magic and between evolution and alchemy erupt as Diana seeks to unlock the secrets of Ashmole 782.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Harkness, an eloquent writer, conjures this world of witches with Ivy League degrees and supernatural creatures completely—and believably—while maintaining a sense of wonder. Her large cast of characters is vivid and real. . . . A Discovery of Witches is that rare historical novel that manages to be as intelligent as it is romantic. And it is supernatural fiction that those of us who usually prefer to stay grounded in reality can get caught up in. Pardon the pun, but Witches is truly spellbinding.”
—San Antonio-Express News
“A scintillating debut . . . Harkness imbues Bishop and Clairmont’s romantic adventure with an odd charm, a sweet joy in the life of the mind.”
—The Seattle Times
“Readers who thrilled to Elizabeth Kostova’s 2005 blockbuster, The Historian, will note the parallels, but A Discovery of Witches is a modern Romeo and Juliet story, with older, wiser lovers. Blood will flow when a witch and a vampire fall for each other. Author Deborah Harkness, a UCLA history professor, brings vast knowledge and research to the page.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Enthralling . . . A rollicking mystery.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Fascinating and delightful . . . Harkness introduces elements of mystery, subtly builds up a romance, interjects some breathtaking action scenes, and brings it all to a cliff-hanger of an ending, all the while weaving strong threads of historical fact into the fabric of her fiction.”
—The Tulsa World
“Harkness works her own form of literary alchemy by deftly blending fantasy, romance, history, and horror into one completely bewitching book.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A shrewdly written romp and a satisfying snow-day read for those of us who heartily enjoyed the likes of Anne Rice and Marion Zimmer Bradley. By the book’s rousing end . . . I was impatient for the sequel.”
—NPR
“Five hundred and eighty pages of sheer pleasure. Harkness’s sure hand when it comes to star-crossed love and chilling action sequences in striking locales makes for an enchanting debut.”
—Parade
“Fans of historical fiction will be mesmerized. . . . Harkness’s attention to historical detail [and] the rich fantasy world she creates . . . hold us thoroughly.”
—Paste
“A riveting tale full of romance and danger that will have you on the edge of your seat, yet its chief strength lies in the wonderfully rich and ingenious mythology underlying the story. A Discovery of Witches is a captivating tale that will ensnare the heart and imagination of even the most skeptical reader. . . . Literary magic at its most potent.”
—Stephanie Harrison, BookPage
“Deborah Harkness is a creative genius. She has taken a genre that is saturated with vampires, witches, and daemons, and has created something unique, with its own rich history and mythology, that draws you into her world with captivating storytelling. . . . Hands down the best book I have read in a very long time.”
—Molly Seddon, Words and Pieces
“Harkness creates a spectacular fusion of historical and scientific facts, fantastical elements and creatures, fantasy, romance, and highly intellectual characters and dialogue.”
—Among the Muses
“Pure literary brain candy, but unlike many works of its type, it’s very well written and chock-full of fascinating bits from Harkness’s research. . . . One of those books that I wanted to rip through quickly so I could find out what happens, but also wanted to read very slowly so that I didn’t have to be done too fast. I’ll be waiting—impatiently—to find out what comes next.”
—Jeremy Dibbell, PhiloBiblos
“We cannot give Harkness’s debut enough praise. It is quite simply stunning. Blending fact and fiction, history and present, delicate courtship and tempestuous tantrums, understanding your identity and losing yourself: it is a beautiful work of fiction that fastens onto your heart and feeds your mind. In other words: probably perfection.”
—The Truth About Books
“A Discovery of Witches actually made me excited for vampires again. Deborah Harkness has written one of the most fantastic books I’ve read in ages. A flawless mixture of well-researched history and magic.”
—Vampires.com
“A masterpiece of literary fiction, filled with factional and fantastical beings brought to us by the lyrical narrative of a most talented storyteller . . . An epic tale that will alter your ideas of good versus evil, it’s a mystery of historic proportion and is filled with the fantasy that readers today can’t seem to get enough of.”
—The Reading Frenzy
“Set in our contemporary world with a magical twist, this sparkling debut by a history professor features a large cast of fascinating characters, and readers will find themselves invested in Diana’s success at unlocking the secrets of the manuscript. Although not a nail-biting cliff-hanger, the finale skillfully provides a sense of completion while leaving doors open for the possibility of wonderful sequel adventures. This reviewer, for one, hopes they come soon! Destined to be popular . . . his enchanting novel is an essential purchase. Harkness is an author to watch.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Harkness creates a compelling and sweeping tale that moves from Oxford to Paris to upstate New York and into both Diana’s and Matthew’s complex families and histories. All her characters are fully fleshed and unique, which, when combined with the complex and engaging plot, results in . . . essential reading.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Harkness’s lively debut . . . imagines a crowded universe where normal and paranormal creatures observe a tenuous peace. . . . She brings this world to vibrant life and makes the most of the growing popularity of gothic adventure with an ending that keeps the Old Lodge door wide open.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A strange and wonderful novel of forbidden love and ancient spells that turns every preconception about magic on its head . . . I fell in love with it from the very first page.”
—Danielle Trussoni, author of Angelology
“Deborah Harkness’s novel is a brilliant synthesis of magic and history. A gripping story of dangerous passion, intellectual intrigue, and fantastical beings.”
—Ivy Pochoda, author of The Art of Disappearing
“A fleet-footed novel set in a vivid otherworld, richly peppered with scholarly tidbits. Huge fun—with serious underpinnings of history.”
—Jane Borodale, author of The Book of Fires
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Harkness is a professor of history at the University of Southern California. She has received Fulbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center fellowships, and her most recent scholarly work is The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. She also writes an award-winning wine blog.
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise for A Discovery of Witches
About The Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Acknowledgments
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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penguin.com
A Penguin Random House Company
First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC 2011
Published in Penguin Books 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Deborah Harkness
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Harkness, Deborah E., 1965–
A discovery of witches : a novel / Deborah Harkness
p. cm.
ISBN: 9781101475690
1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Witches—Fiction. 3. Alchemy—Manuscripts—Fiction. 4. Science and magic—Fiction.
I. Title
PS3608.A7436D57 2011
813’.6—dc22 2010030425
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Lexie and Jake, and their bright futures
It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.
Chapter 1
The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, ancient and worn. But I knew there was something odd about it from the moment I collected it.
Duke Humfrey’s Reading Room was deserted on this late-September afternoon, and requests for library materials were filled quickly now that the summer crush of visiting scholars was over and the madness of the fall term had not yet begun. Even so, I was surprised when Sean stopped me at the call desk.
“Dr. Bishop, your manuscripts are up,” he whispered, voice tinged with a touch of mischief. The front of his argyle sweater was streaked with the rusty traces of old leather bindings, and he brushed at it self-consciously. A lock of sandy hair tumbled over his forehead when he did.
“Thanks,” I said, flashing him a grateful smile. I was flagrantly disregarding the rules limiting the number of books a scholar could call in a single day. Sean, who’d shared many a drink with me in the pink-stuccoed pub across the street in our graduate-student days, had been filling my requests without complaint for more than a week. “And stop calling me Dr. Bishop. I always think you’re talking to someone else.”
He grinned back and slid the manuscripts—all containing fine examples of alchemical illustrations from the Bodleian’s collections—over his battered oak desk, each one tucked into a protective gray cardboard box. “Oh, there’s one more.” Sean disappeared into the cage for a moment and returned with a thick, quarto-size manuscript bound simply in mottled calfskin. He laid it on top of the pile and stooped to inspect it. The thin gold rims of his glasses sparked in the dim light provided by the old bronze reading lamp that was attached to a shelf. “This one’s not been called up for a while. I’ll make a note that it needs to be boxed after you return it.”
“Do you want me to remind you?”
“No. Already made a note here.” Sean tapped his head with his fingertips.
“Your mind must be better organized than mine.” My smile widened.
Sean looked at me shyly and tugged on the call slip, but it remained where it was, lodged between the cover and the first pages. “This one doesn’t want to let go,” he commented.
Muffled voices chattered in my ear, intruding on the familiar hush of the room.
“Did you hear that?” I looked around, puzzled by the strange sounds.
“What?” Sean replied, looking up from the manuscript.
Traces of gilt shone along its edges and caught my eye. But those faded touches of gold could not account for a faint, iridescent shimmer that seemed to be escaping from between the pages. I blinked.
“Nothing.” I hastily drew the manuscript toward me, my skin prickling when it made contact with the leather. Sean’s fingers were still holding the call slip, and now it slid easily out of the binding’s grasp. I hoisted the volumes into my arms and tucked them under my chin, assailed by a whiff of the uncanny that drove away the library’s familiar smell of pencil shavings and floor wax.
“Diana? Are you okay?” Sean asked with a concerned frown.
“Fine. Just a bit tired,” I replied, lowering the books away from my nose.
I walked quickly through the original, fifteenth-century part of the library, past the rows of Elizabethan reading desks with their three ascending bookshelves and scarred writing surfaces. Between them, Gothic windows directed the reader’s attention up to the coffered ceilings, where bright paint and gilding picked out the details of the university’s crest of three crowns and open book and where its motto, “God is my illumination,” was proclaimed repeatedly from on high.
Another American academic, Gillian Chamberlain, was my sole companion in the library on this Friday night. A classicist who taught at Bryn Mawr, Gillian spent her time poring over scraps of papyrus sandwiched between sheets of glass. I sped past her, trying to avoid eye contact, but the creaking of the old floor gave me away.
My skin tingled as it always did when another witch looked at me.
“Diana?” she called from the gloom. I smothered a sigh and stopped.
“Hi, Gillian.” Unaccountably possessive of my hoard of manuscripts, I remained as far from the witch as possible and angled my body so they weren’t in her line of sight.
“What are you doing for Mabon?” Gillian was always stopping by my desk to ask me to spend time with my “sisters” while I was in town. With the Wiccan celebrations of the autumn equinox just days away, she was redoubling her efforts to bring me into the Oxford coven.
“Working,” I said promptly.
“There are some very nice witches here, you know,” Gillian said with prim disapproval. “You really should join us on Monday.”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” I said, already moving in the direction of the Selden End, the airy seventeenth-century addition that ran perpendicular to the main axis of Duke Humfrey’s. “I’m working on a conference paper, though, so don’t count on it.” My aunt Sarah had always warned me it wasn’t possible for one witch to lie to another, but that hadn’t stopped me from trying.
Gillian made a sympathetic noise, but her eyes followed me.
Back at my familiar seat facing the arched, leaded windows, I resisted the temptation to dump the manuscripts on the table and wipe my hands. Instead, mindful of their age, I lowered the stack carefully.
The manuscript that had appeared to tug on its call slip lay on top of the pile. Stamped in gilt on the spine was a coat of arms belonging to Elias Ashmole, a seventeenth-century book collector and alchemist whose books and papers had come to the Bodleian from the Ashmolean Museum in the nineteenth century, along with the number 782. I reached out, touching the brown leather.
A mild shock made me withdraw my fingers quickly, but not quickly enough. The tingling traveled up my arms, lifting my skin into tiny goose pimples, then spread across my shoulders, tensing the muscles in my back and neck. These sensations quickly receded, but they left behind a hollow feeling of unmet desire. Shaken by my response, I stepped away from the library table.
