Introduction
You live in a world where ordinary humans share space with hidden supernatural species. Witches, vampires, and daemons walk among you while maintaining strict boundaries to keep their existence a secret. You might assume these creatures belong only to folklore, but they form a complex society governed by ancient laws and fragile truces.
The central problem arises when you are a reluctant historian who tries to ignore your own magical heritage. Diana Bishop is an Oxford scholar focused entirely on her academic career. She conceals her formidable powers to escape the trauma of losing her parents to witch-hunters. When your research accidentally summons a bewitched manuscript from the stacks of the Bodleian Library, you shatter centuries of careful concealment.
Deborah Harkness argues that magic, science, and history are deeply intertwined. You cannot separate your personal past from the genetic and political crises threatening all supernatural species.
The book follows Diana as she confronts her suppressed identity and forms a dangerous alliance with the ancient vampire and geneticist Matthew Clairmont. You trace their journey from the historic halls of Oxford to the ancient French estate of Sept-Tours. As the governing body of creatures hunts for the missing manuscript, you navigate rising tensions, genetic decay, and the threat of an impending war.
You will discover the answers to several crucial questions as you read:
- How does the modern creature world maintain its fragile peace through strict covenants?
- What secrets are hidden within the alchemical pages of Ashmole 782?
- Can genetic science explain the declining population of vampires, witches, and daemons?
- How do ancient alliances and secretive orders influence modern supernatural politics?
- What happens when a powerful witch finally embraces her blood and magic?
1. The Bodleian Library and Ashmole 782
You arrive at Oxford's Bodleian Library to find a quiet academic routine. Diana Bishop has earned a doctorate and tenure by relying strictly on reason and scholarship. She actively tries to keep her academic career entirely separate from her magical heritage.
Diana Bishop's quiet academic routine at Oxford is shattered when she inadvertently summons a bewitched alchemical manuscript.
The Selden End Discovery
Diana studies alchemical texts in Duke Humfrey's Reading Room and the Selden End at the Bodleian Library. She interacts with colleagues like Sean at the call desk and fellow scholar Gillian Chamberlain.
Following the mysterious death of her parents in Africa when she was seven, Diana was raised by her Aunt Sarah and Emily Mather. She struggled to learn basic witchcraft as a teenager and resolved to build a purely rational life.
Diana recalls her mother Rebecca's incredible magical abilities, such as conjuring ghostly beings from a bowl of water, and her father Stephen Proctor's anthropological work.
Encountering Matthew Clairmont
Diana inadvertently summons a heavily guarded, bewitched alchemical manuscript that radiates an otherworldly power and displays bizarre anomalies.
Ashmole 782, titled Anthropologia, contains illustrations depicting the philosophical child and the creation of the philosopher's stone. All the details are deliberately incorrect and the text is hidden under a spell rather than washed away.
When Diana touches Ashmole 782, she feels a mild electric shock and tingling sensation, and she later discovers the text is a palimpsest hidden by magic rather than ordinary ink.
Diana encounters a mysterious, intimidating vampire named Matthew Clairmont in the library who takes an active and unsettling interest in her academic work. Matthew Clairmont is a biochemistry professor and physician affiliated with Oxford Neuroscience.
After observing Diana retrieve a book using a minor burst of magic, he confronts her and invites her to dinner. Matthew introduces himself with a business card bearing multiple laboratory numbers at the John Radcliffe Hospital and compliments Diana's published articles on alchemy and Robert Boyle.
2. Creature Society and Hidden Rules
The world is secretly inhabited by multiple supernatural species—witches, daemons, and vampires—who generally maintain strict boundaries to avoid human fear. Aunt Sarah warns Diana that witches, vampires, and daemons are strictly forbidden from mixing because human fear is the strongest force on earth.
The modern world is secretly populated by supernatural species who maintain strict boundaries and watch Diana's movements.
Species and Preternatural Senses
Witches possess intuitive magic, daemons walk the line between genius and madness, and vampires are ancient, beautiful predators who feed on blood and are drawn to scientific fields involving anatomy and physics.
Vampires use preternatural senses to track and observe humans and other creatures without employing supernatural mind-reading abilities. Matthew Clairmont tracks Diana Bishop by utilizing his superior physical abilities, scaling buildings and reading her rooms without picking locks, noting that witches lack supernatural powers like precognition or mind reading.
Matthew scales the copper downspout and vines of Diana's residential building to search her rooms for Ashmole 782 while she sleeps. While Diana sleeps on her couch, Matthew watches pale light seep from her body in pulsing waves. Diana Bishop exhibits an unconscious release of magical energy that manifests as a pale blue, almost white light escaping from her pores when she is asleep or stressed, which contradicts local gossip that she does not use magic.
The Oxford Convergence
Oxford becomes unusually densely populated by hidden creatures when an important lost object resurfaces. Vampires, witches, and daemons converge on the Bodleian Library and the river banks, driven by the rumor that an American historian has called up the lost alchemical manuscript Ashmole 782.
During a single day at Duke Humfrey's Library, Diana encounters an unusually high concentration of hidden creatures, including Gillian Chamberlain, a vampire monk, a daemon, and a threatening wizard. That morning showed a five to one ratio of creatures to humans in Duke Humfrey's library.
Creatures are pursuing Diana because they believe she holds a legendary lost alchemical book. Matthew confirms that the hidden creatures surrounding Diana are not his friends, but are instead tracking her because they believe she has possession of the elusive alchemical manuscript Ashmole 782. Matthew confronts Diana at the Isis Tavern and explains that the various vampires, witches, and daemons are following her because of the lost book.
3. Daemons, Murders, and Alliances
Rising tensions and gruesome murders in London draw the attention of daemons and powerful occult figures seeking the missing book.
The Status of Daemons
Daemons occupy a marginalized and misunderstood position in the hierarchy of creatures because of their unpredictable origins and lack of traditional bloodlines. Unlike witches or vampires who have family histories and explicit lineages to comfort them, daemons are born to human parents, making them vulnerable to human fear and accusations of madness. You can see how this isolation shapes their daily survival in a world dominated by stronger species.
Agatha Wilson explains to Diana that daemons are brilliant and creative rather than vicious, yet they suffer from a lack of community and rely on human tales or accidental encounters with other daemons. Daemons believe that the manuscript Ashmole 782 holds the hidden truth of their origins and explains why they exist. Agatha approaches Diana in Blackwell's café to discuss the manuscript, claiming it tells the beginning, middle, and end of the daemonic story. Agatha Wilson argues that daemons have a greater need to understand their place in the world than witches or vampires, and she extracts a promise from Diana to remember daemons when seeking the book's secrets.
Peter Knox and the Coven
A series of gruesome murders in London attributes violent killings to vampires, drawing the attention of occult experts like Peter Knox. Newspapers dub the killings vampire murders after victims are found with massive blood loss and severed carotid arteries, prompting public fear and police investigations.
The bodies of 22-year-old Daniel Bennett and 26-year-old Jason Enright are found behind the White Hart pub in Westminster with severed carotid arteries and massive blood loss. These violent events create an atmosphere of panic that mirrors the 2007 murder of Sergei Morozov in St Petersburg.
Peter Knox pursues Diana and the manuscript because he believes it holds the foundational secrets of witchcraft. Knox corners Diana at the warden's lodgings under the guise of an introduction, interrogating her about Ashmole 782 and demanding to know if she has shared her observations with Matthew Clairmont. He asserts that the manuscript contains the first spells ever created, the secret of immortality, and the origins of daemons and vampires. At Nicholas Marsh's invitation, Diana meets Peter Knox, who uses a fabricated crisis of missing freshers to secure private time to question her about the alchemical manuscript.
4. Science, History, and Awakening Magic
Matthew confronts Diana for suppressing her innate witchcraft, arguing that magic is embedded in her blood and bones.
You discover that supernatural species can secretly gather together in harmony for specialized activities. Matthew drives you out to a hidden sixteenth-century Tudor manor house known as the Old Lodge.
Diana attends her first class at the Old Lodge, observing daemons, witches, and vampires practicing yoga together under the guidance of Amira.
Matthew reveals that he is at least five hundred years old. He constructed the main manor house in 1536 after King Henry gave him the land on the condition that he tear down the preexisting abbey.
Matthew shows Diana the keystone over the house gate bearing the date 1536 and explains that King Henry granted him the land as part of the spoils of the Reformation.
Yoga at the Old Lodge
Trying to push your magic aside proves to be a failed strategy. Matthew confronts Diana for trying to hide and suppress her witchcraft, pointing out that you cannot successfully hide your inherent power from those around her.
The Futility of Denying Magic
You realize you have spent your entire life violating your own rules by unconsciously channeling magic into your academic scholarship and alchemical research.
While sitting in the Selden End after Miriam delivers her sweater, Diana's fingers begin to itch and emit blue-green sparks reminiscent of a childhood kitchen fire.
When reviewing her research pieces on an imaginary white table, Diana experiences sudden static electricity, blue-green sparks from her fingertips, and uncontrollable physical reactions. These events force you to recognize that your historical scholarship relies on active magic instead of pure academic rigor.
5. Genetics and Species Extinction
Matthew's laboratory at Oxford uses genetic analysis to prove that all creature species are facing gradual population decline.
Matthew, Miriam, and Marcus run a high-security history lab located behind modern laboratory architecture. You find the team extracting DNA from ancient burial sites and living beings to analyze the health of supernatural populations.
Chromosomal Differences
Creatures and humans possess distinct chromosomal structures. While humans have twenty-three chromosomal pairs in every cell nucleus, vampires and witches carry twenty-four pairs. Daemons share human pair counts but possess a single extra chromosome linked to their instability and creativity.
Matthew sketches a genetic diagram on a file folder to explain chromosomal makeup to Diana.
The Extinction Crisis
All creature species, including vampires and witches, are facing gradual population decline and genetic deterioration in a predominantly human world. Creatures currently make up only ten percent of the world's population.
Vampires are increasingly failing to create new life during transformation attempts. Witches show reduced genetic markers for magic over generations, pointing toward species extinction through natural selection.
Matthew shows Diana global news reports and files documenting mysterious bloodless corpses and botched human transformations.
Diana voluntarily offers her blood and cheek swab samples to Matthew's laboratory to uncover the hidden traits of her powerful witch bloodline. Despite Matthew's warnings about the intrusive nature of genetic testing, you insist on having your DNA analyzed to understand your family's history and why your lineage possesses such unique abilities.
Matthew reluctantly draws Diana's blood using a specimen kit in the lab while Miriam and Marcus look on. Marcus and Miriam assist Matthew in analyzing genetic markers and mitochondrial DNA from historical witch lineages like Benvenguda.
6. All Souls College and Missing History
Diana discovers that Ashmole 782 has been officially missing from the Bodleian library for 150 years.
Dinner at All Souls
Matthew resides in the exclusive All Souls College at Oxford, maintaining a private set of rooms and a hidden personal wine cellar. All Souls College is a fellowship without students that maintains extreme exclusivity and strict protocols. Matthew's rooms blend fifteenth-century architecture with eighteenth-century rugs and nineteenth-century furniture. The space creates an Edwardian gentlemen's club atmosphere containing his private paperweights, refectory table, and a hidden secure wine cellar.
Matthew takes you through a secured security keypad and down into the college cellar filled with historic wines dating back through world wars and notable eras. You sample bottles such as a Château Margaux from 1981 and an old Madeira Malmsey wine from 1795. Matthew returned to Oxford this time in 1989 as a science student at Oriel College.
Diana decides to recall the mysterious manuscript Ashmole 782 on Monday, ignoring warnings of the dangers involved. Diana plans to attempt to break the spell on Ashmole 782 again. Matthew worries that her lack of active spellcasting means she met the manuscript's original conditions. This action will trigger severe retaliation from Peter Knox and other creatures.
The Missing Manuscript
When Diana requests the manuscript again, the call desk and supervisor Mr. Johnson confirm that no one has seen Ashmole 782 since 1859, and no microfilm exists. This revelation causes panic and alerts the gathered creatures. Sean checks the slips and brings a note from the supervisor stating the item has been missing since 1859. The manuscript has officially been missing for 150 years, confounding you since you saw it recently.
Diana receives a disturbing, color photograph in the mail showing the gruesome murder scene of her parents in Nigeria. Inside an envelope with no stamp from within the university, Diana finds a vivid color photograph from 1983 depicting her parents' dead bodies surrounded by a chalk circle, sending her into severe shock and traumatic panic.
7. Flight to Sept-Tours
To protect Diana from Peter Knox and the Congregation, Matthew transports her to his ancestral French château.
Recognizing that Oxford is no longer safe due to break-ins and aggressive witches, Matthew rejects Scotland. He opts for Sept-Tours despite the massive friction it will cause with his fierce mother Ysabeau. You watch as Matthew arranges a private plane from an old American air force base to transport you across Europe. There are six weeks away until the upcoming alchemy conference.
The de Clermont Fortress
You land in France at about eight in the evening. Matthew flies you to Sept-Tours, a heavily fortified château in the Auvergne region. Seven smaller towers and a turreted gatehouse surround the main building.
Over Marcus's intense objections, Matthew insists on placing Marcus and Miriam in the gatehouse to maintain a protective illusion. Ysabeau embodies aristocratic vampire elegance and initially greets you with cold hostility. She states that she dislikes the way witches smell, describing you as sweet and repulsively green like spring.
As a powerful and conservative vampire matriarch, Ysabeau views human witches with deep suspicion. She maintains a strict, intimidating household alongside the ancient vampire servant Marthe. Marthe entered her immortal life at a human age in her sixties.
Aurora Consurgens
Matthew possesses an exceptionally rare, illuminated fourteenth-century copy of the alchemical text Aurora Consurgens. This volume predates and surpasses all known historical records. To help you prepare your keynote address, Matthew offers access to his private library.
The library features a 1356 copy of Aurora Consurgens containing forty unique illustrations attributed to Bourgot Le Noir. Standard copies previously known contain thirty-eight images, and the earliest previously known copy dates to the 1420s.
When you inspect the manuscript, you find stunning illuminations by a female artist:
- a queen sheltering seven small creatures inside her cloak;
- a man in a black robe looking up in supplication.
8. The Covenant and the Congregation
Enforcing the Rules
The Congregation strictly enforces an ancient covenant prohibiting liaisons between different creature types to maintain secrecy from humans. You watch as Domenico Michele visits Sept-Tours to serve an official warning to Diana Bishop. Your association with Matthew de Clermont violates the covenant established during the Crusades by a council of nine daemons, witches, and vampires.
Domenico confronts Matthew, Ysabeau, and Diana outside the château gates, warning that the Congregation will take necessary steps to uphold the covenant.
The de Clermont family raises a symbolic family standard to alert the local village whenever outside creatures are present.
Ysabeau raises a forked black banner bearing a silver ouroboros on the watchtower roof, which prompts villagers to be on guard against untrustworthy vampires. After Domenico arrives, Ysabeau unfurls the black banner, and a corresponding flag rises in the village accompanied by a tolling bell.
The Threat of the Council
Matthew attempts to push Diana away and conform to the Congregation's rules to protect her from lethal scrutiny. Believing that defying the covenant will put Diana in mortal danger from powerful figures like Peter Knox, Matthew adopts a cold persona and insists they must abide by the ancient rules.
Matthew tries to frighten Diana by emphasizing his predatory nature and dangerous cravings for blood so she will agree to stay safe.
High levels of stress and grief can trigger powerful, uncontrollable elemental magic known as witchwater in capable witches. Diana experiences an explosive outpouring of water from her eyes, hair, and body after Matthew's departure and Domenico's threat, realizing she has become the water itself rather than just manipulating it.
Diana sits on the watchtower roof and floods the area with a torrent of water tasting of the sea until Ysabeau sings to pull her back.
9. The Knights of Lazarus
Diana uncovers secret account books and seals in Matthew's desk revealing the immense financial reach of the Knights of Lazarus.
Matthew leads the ancient Knights of Lazarus, an order whose existence and financial records are concealed within a secret drawer in his desk. You find a hidden compartment in Matthew's mahogany desk containing bronze seals belonging to the Knights of Lazarus, including a great seal and a personal seal marked with his initials. Consulting account books in his library, you realize the order has bankrolled major historical events and absorbed the wealth and members of the Knights Templar.
Diana finds account books marked with Greek letters detailing massive historical transactions, such as Eleanor Regina giving 40,000 marks in 1149, and Jacques de Molay turning over everything to the order in 1313.
Centuries of Conspiracies
The Knights of Lazarus operated across centuries as a secret financial powerhouse, funding wars, diplomacy, and debts regardless of political or religious lines. Account books spanning from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century show the order paying for Mary Tudor's dowry, the Battle of Lepanto, the Schmalkaldic League, and Elizabeth I's debts to the Antwerp Bourse, while managing massive property sales and social welfare payments.
Ledgers marked with Greek letters like lambda and psi reveal that the brotherhood secretly purchased factories in Manchester and settled hospital bills and dowries.
Specific historical milestones anchor these records:
- 1117: the starting date of the earliest ledger entries.
- 1601: the year inscribed on Matthew's personal seal, originally mistaken for Roman numerals MDCI.
- 1314: the year Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake for heresy after turning over his assets to the Knights of Lazarus in 1313.
- 19th century: the period up to which the order was actively disbursing funds and purchasing properties like factories in Manchester.
Declaring War
Publicly exchanging a passionate kiss constitutes an unbreakable oath that turns Matthew and Diana into outlaws within the creature world.
When Matthew returns to Sept-Tours, his affectionate greeting and public marking of Diana violate the strict rules and covenant holding the creature world together, prompting Ysabeau to declare them outlaws and commit the family to fighting as a unit. Ysabeau slaps Matthew for asking if they should leave, then embraces Diana and asserts that the de Clermont family will fight together against the impending hounding by other creatures.
Break-ins at Oxford laboratories and New College rooms reveal that creatures are actively hunting for Diana's DNA and research. Matthew reveals that intruders broke into Miriam and Marcus's lab and Diana's university rooms to search for genetic material such as hair, skin, and fingernails, confirming that a faction of creatures is targeting her. Diana realizes that her mother's strict childhood habit of flushing away hair and nail clippings protected her from leaving genetic traces that could be used in binding or love magic.
10. Kidnapped by Satu Järvinen
Satu abducts Diana and imprisons her in a medieval oubliette to extract her secrets and break her hidden defenses.
Imprisonment at La Pierre
Satu Järvinen swoops down into the garden at Sept-Tours, silences Diana, and flies her away to the ruined fortress of La Pierre in the Auvergne mountains. Gerbert of Aurillac and Domenico Michele briefly meet them at the desolate castle before the vampires withdraw.
Satu and the de Clermont family soon realize that Diana is spellbound. Sarah and Emily confirm over the phone that Diana's mother Rebecca placed a protective spell on her to keep her safe until she met her shadowed man.
Frustrated by your resistance and your hidden defenses, Satu cuts your forearm and carves a magical circle onto your back with green fire. Satu casts a spell that sears Diana's back and leaves her in the dark, rat-infested oubliette populated by ghosts. The stone prison measures 60 feet in depth.
The Spellbound Truth
Matthew issues an ultimatum to Baldwin, stripping him of his French master status and mobilizing the ancient military order. Matthew invokes his authority as master of the Knights of Lazarus to force Baldwin's compliance and declare war on the witches. Baldwin is given 7 days to find a new place to live.
Diana escapes captivity by utilizing her inner magic to fly out of the stone oubliette. Diana uses the memory of a childhood fairy tale told by her mother to summon the magic needed to fly out of the deep stone prison at La Pierre. Encouraged by visions of her deceased parents, Diana visualizes a magical silver ribbon and projects herself through a small roof opening, where Matthew and Baldwin are waiting to pull her to safety.
11. Return to Madison and Family Secrets
The group flees to Madison, where Diana discovers the missing page from Ashmole 782 and learns of her father's timewalking abilities.
You arrive at the late-eighteenth-century Bishop farmhouse in Madison, where magical lineage houses possess active, sentient characteristics that react dynamically to visitors and family members. The house acts as a living entity that exhibits various supernatural phenomena, including hosting deceased family ghosts and manipulating physical doors or lights based on who is present. Diana's grandmother and another ancestor appear as ghosts in the keeping room, while the house spontaneously shoots interior fireworks during an emotional moment.
The Bishop Farmhouse
The house delivers a brown envelope containing a letter from Diana's mother and a missing page from the ancient manuscript. The illustration portrays the chemical marriage of mercury and sulfur, featuring symbols of the bride and groom alongside various creatures and the crest of Matthew. Diana and Matthew examine the vibrant illustration in the keeping room, recognizing it as a depiction of their alchemical union and a crucial piece of the missing manuscript.
Stephen Proctor's Legacy
Diana's father, Stephen Proctor, had the rare and dangerous ability to timewalk to the past and future. Stephen traveled in time at least once a year, often following anthropologists' conventions in December. Stephen once spent a full year figuring out what bonnet Rebecca should wear when he took her waltzing in Vienna. Timewalking requires carrying three objects from the target time and place to avoid getting lost, while future travel necessitates witchcraft.
Matthew deduces that Stephen visited the past to place a protective spell on the manuscript, explaining why the book recognized Diana when she requested it. Stephen placed a spell on Ashmole 782 to ensure no one but his historian daughter could trigger its retrieval.
Miriam brings comparative mitochondrial DNA reports showing that Diana and Sarah do not descend from the four standard witch clans. Matthew identifies the genetic marker as the ancient Hebrew glyph for the number five, indicating Clan Heh either descends from mtLilith or from a sister of mtLilith, making Diana's ancestor a clan mother. Matthew sketches out comparative diagrams of mitochondrial Eve's seven known daughters and the four known witch clans to explain the lineages:
- Seven known daughters of mitochondrial Eve
- Four lines of descent or clans of witches
- Aleph lived about 7000 years ago
- Gimel lived about 40,000 years ago
Marcus and Miriam argue that Ashmole 782 is fundamentally about reproduction and cross-species breeding as an evolutionary adaptation. Interpreting the alchemical stages of conjunctio and conceptio, Miriam and Marcus propose that the manuscript details how vampires and witches might successfully reproduce. They argue that declining birth rates and diminishing powers across creatures are driving evolutionary adaptations toward cross-species breeding, similar to how spadefoot toads mate with related species under survival pressures. Marcus references the spadefoot toad to explain how female amphibians mate with different species to gain traits that help their offspring survive.
12. A New Conventicle and Time Travel
Faced with an impending war, the characters form a unified conventicle of witches, vampires, and daemons before preparing to timewalk.
When Juliette pierces Matthew's chest and damages his aorta and jugular, you watch Diana overcome her hesitation. Diana unleashes powerful witchfire and a wind spell to completely destroy Juliette.
Diana releases a ball of fire that envelopes Juliette, turning her ribs and lungs to coal despite her vampire resilience.
Facing Matthew's imminent death, Diana strikes a bargain with the goddess. She offers any price to save him, and feeds Matthew her own powerful blood to heal his mortal wounds. Two women representing the maiden and the crone appear within a barrier of flames, accepting Diana's promise in exchange for Matthew's life.
Allies and Artifacts
Daemons Sophie and Nathaniel Wilson arrive at the Madison house following dreams and premonitions. Sophie is five months along with a witch child and seeks Diana's help.
Sophie shows Diana a face jug she crafted depicting Diana's features and presents a silver figurine of the goddess Diana.
A crack opens in the paneling, dropping a rough-spun poppet into Diana's lap. Tearing open the X on its chest releases the scent of rue, clover, and other herbs, and uncovers one of Matthew's mother's earrings. Diana and her family inspect the poppet associated with their ancestor Bridget Bishop, pulling out an intricate golden earring with a teardrop pearl.
Stepping Through Time
Carrying another person through time requires intense emotional focus and creates a vastly different sensory experience than traveling alone.
Diana successfully transports Matthew back to their first night alone in the Madison house by focusing intensely on the touch of his fingers and their shared emotional connection. This test follows about ninety seconds for Diana's solo test trip in the barn.
Matthew and Diana utilize three distinct items to anchor the travelers:
- a chess piece;
- a gold earring;
- Christopher Marlowe's manuscript of Doctor Faustus.
Matthew opens the leather-bound manuscript of Doctor Faustus containing a tender dedication to Matthew Roydon. This proves 1590 is their destination year as they navigate the spiderweb of time to find Ashmole 782 and protect themselves from the Congregation.
10 Key Ideas
- Diana Bishop's quiet academic routine at Oxford is shattered when she inadvertently summons a bewitched alchemical manuscript.
- The modern world is secretly populated by supernatural species who maintain strict boundaries and watch Diana's movements.
- Rising tensions and gruesome murders in London draw the attention of daemons and powerful occult figures seeking the missing book.
- Matthew confronts Diana for suppressing her innate witchcraft, arguing that magic is embedded in her blood and bones.
- Matthew's laboratory at Oxford uses genetic analysis to prove that all creature species are facing gradual population decline.
- Diana discovers that Ashmole 782 has been officially missing from the Bodleian library for 150 years.
- To protect Diana from Peter Knox and the Congregation, Matthew transports her to his ancestral French château.
- The de Clermont family raises a symbolic family standard to alert the local village whenever outside creatures are present.
- Diana uncovers secret account books and seals in Matthew's desk revealing the immense financial reach of the Knights of Lazarus.
- Satu abducts Diana and imprisons her in a medieval oubliette to extract her secrets and break her hidden defenses.