Shadow of Night

Downstairs, Diana meets Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. They’re joined by the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, who talks about the ongoing mystery of the disappeared English colonists at Roanoke. Kit tries to convince them to be suspicious of Diana. Matthew tells George, Kit, Henry, and Walter that Diana is from the future. He gives them the basics about her discovery of Ashmole 782, and how it led to her being hunted by magical creatures, forcing them to go back in time. Matthew’s friends debate protecting Diana; Kit thinks it’s dangerous, but Walter thinks they owe Matthew their help.

The School of Night thinks up a “melodramatic” backstory for Diana to explain her strangeness. A shoemaker and glove maker fit her with appropriately sized clothes, and they immediately sense her differences. Matthew reassures her. Diana is worried about whether their actions will alter the future. She recounts her daily events vaguely in a diary, in case future historians find it. Her magic is changing. She starts seeing “time unwinding” but doesn’t tell Matthew.

There is one magical woman, Widow Beaton, nearby. Matthew wants to summon Widow Beaton to help Diana learn to control her magic. Diana fears that associating with Widow Beaton will endanger her in a society suspicious of magic.

The next day, the School of Night attempts to make Diana look like an Elizabethan before Widow Beaton arrives. Widow Beaton is old and gray, with a milky eye and a wart on her nose. They don’t want to give Widow Beaton too much information, so they ask her to check whether Diana is a witch. She gives Diana a test that she recognizes from her youth. She failed the test at her own coming-of-age ceremony and is still unable to pass. To prove that she has magic, she holds a quince and draws the sun and life from it. Diana is perturbed that she can taste the sunlight the fruit has absorbed, and she can see threads of time. Widow Beaton believes they are trying to lure her in to trick her, as other witches are being betrayed and persecuted.

Later that week, the School of Night sit together after dinner. Diana reads from Walter’s copy of The Faerie Queene while Kit and Walter debate over the structure of Kit’s play, Doctor Faustus. Two vampires named Gallowglass and Hancock enter. They’d been in Cheshire with the 1590 version of Matthew, who was displaced by the 21st-century version when he traveled back in time. Diana learns that Matthew was part of the Congregation, which is hunting them in the 21st century. 

Hancock suggests Diana’s presence has to do with “Berwick”—the 1590 Berwick witch trial in Scotland. Diana is upset that Matthew would bring her to a time with an active witch trial. Gallowglass and Hancock say that a priest is coming to question Diana, and she would likely be on trial within the week. Gallowglass reveals that he is Matthew’s nephew. 

Matthew tells Diana to let him talk to the priest. One of the townsmen in attendance is the shoemaker from whom Matthew ordered Diana a pair of shoes. Matthew lies about how Diana is determined to go to church but cannot without proper shoes. The reverend reads the allegations against Diana. The School of Night defends her, but the reverend thinks Diana is making local people ill. Matthew orders them to leave.

Diana is worried that the men know Matthew is a vampire, since they were clearly intimidated by him. Matthew says they only know he is a spy.

Matthew tells Diana that their mission is to find her a teacher; he thinks that his belonging to the Congregation and working as a spy for the queen is irrelevant. Diana is angered by his dismissive tone and secrecy, believing that he is slipping back into 16th-century patriarchal behavior. 

He explains how he fell into the employment of the queen. They realize that Kit, another spy, stirred up rumors about Diana: Diana sees that Kit is in love with Matthew.

Pierre brings Matthew a letter from his father, Phillipe, who is dead in the 21st century. He heard about Matthew’s disappearance from Cheshire from Gallowglass and Hancock and requests that Matthew visits him. Gallowglass says Philippe will be able to tell Matthew is older and from the future. Diana realizes this means Gallowglass and Hanock guessed she was a timewalker. She learns that Raleigh and Henry are also Knights of Lazarus, an organization led by Matthew and established by Philippe. Matthew and Diana decide to go to France together.

Diana thinks seeing Phillippe might heal Matthew’s grief; Phillippe died after being tortured by Nazis. The School of Night members disperse. Before leaving, Diana tucks her diary into Matthew’s library.

This chapter is told in the third-person narration of Rima Jaén, who is organizing a small archive donated by the Gonçalves family in modern-day Seville. She looks through a 16th-century English commonplace book, which she doesn’t know is Diana’s diary. Diana’s name is removed, but it contains the lists and sentences she used to practice her Elizabethan handwriting. Rima’s supervisor dismissed the book, but Rima feels drawn to it. The book is sparse, but Rima knows a real person was behind it.