Then I spent some time with the actual deck.

I went through the 52 cards, read the guidebook, looked at the illustrations, and paid particular attention to the words Deborah chose to associate with each card. The Mirror is about revelations, distortions, and reflections. The Box holds personal baggage and the unknown. The Loom represents fate, time, and destiny. Blood speaks to deep bonds, the self, and vitality. The Skeleton is about building, structure, and support.

And I realized I didn’t really want to explain any of them.

Deborah has already done that. Duh…right?

What I actually want to do for this series is take a look at what would happen if we took the ideas in these cards and turned them back toward the characters we’ve been reading about for years.

Take The Mirror.

The guidebook asks us to think about what a mirror reveals—and what it can distort. But put that card into the world of All Souls and a much more interesting question appears: Which character has the hardest time seeing themselves clearly?

Is it Matthew, who so often sees himself through the worst things he has done rather than the man Diana sees?

Is it Diana, who spends years believing that magic is something she can simply choose not to be part of?

Is it Baldwin, whose understanding of himself as protector of the de Clermont family doesn’t always match the way the rest of the family experiences him?

Or perhaps Gallowglass, whose loyalty to others has shaped so much of the life he has allowed himself to live?

Suddenly The Mirror isn’t something we’re interpreting.

It’s something we’re using.

And there are 51 more cards waiting for us.

The Box makes me wonder what the characters in All Souls are carrying that was handed to them by someone else.

The Loom raises the question of who is really pulling the threads of fate throughout the series.

The Skeleton makes us look at the de Clermont family and ask what actually holds them together when everything else is stripped away.

The Alchemical Wedding gives us an entirely new way to think about Matthew and Diana’s marriage.

And then there is Blood, which may open one of the biggest questions in the entire series: Is blood destiny in All Souls, or has Deborah Harkness spent seven books showing us that it isn’t?

These are the questions I want to explore.

So this series is going to work a little differently than I originally imagined. What else is new, right?

Each week, we’ll draw one card from the Black Bird Oracle and use it as a way into the world of All Souls. We’ll start with the meaning Deborah gives the card, but we won’t stay there. Instead, we’ll turn it toward the characters, relationships, families, and choices we’ve been following since Diana first called Ashmole 782 from the Bodleian stacks.

Some cards may lead us back to Diana and Matthew. Others may take us to Philippe, Ysabeau, Baldwin, Gallowglass, Sarah, Marcus, Phoebe, Becca, or characters we haven’t thought about in a while. And some may make us reconsider a question we thought the books had already answered.

There are 52 cards in the Black Bird Oracle.

I’m not promising 52 articles. But I love the idea that there are now 52 different doors into a world we already know—and that opening one of them might make us notice something we missed the first time through.

That’s where we’re going next.

And we’re starting with The Mirror.

Your Draw

Before we begin: if you could put The Mirror in front of one All Souls character and ask them to see themselves clearly, who would you choose?

Her manuscripts matter.

Her libraries matter.

Her houses matter.

Nothing in All Souls exists simply to move the plot forward. Objects have histories, previous owners, and stories of their own. Ashmole 782 isn’t memorable because it’s magical. It’s memorable because Deborah Harkness convinces us it existed long before Diana Bishop ever called it from the Bodleian stacks.

That ability to make fictional objects feel historical may be one of her greatest gifts as a writer.

Now she’s doing something she has never done before.

On August 18, The Black Bird Oracle Deck will become the first major object from the All Souls universe to cross from fiction into the real world.

What fascinated me wasn’t simply the announcement of a deck. Although I did jump to get my pre-order in and can’t wait for it to arrive!

It was the idea that an object readers had previously encountered only in fiction would now exist beyond the pages of the novel.

That raised a different question for me.

Why an oracle?

Deborah Harkness is a historian. Her novels are built on real manuscripts, real libraries, real places, and centuries of scholarship. Even the most magical moments in All Souls are grounded in historical traditions. Creating an oracle deck might seem like an unexpected departure.

I suspect it isn’t.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like a natural extension of everything she has been writing about for nearly twenty years.

Throughout the All Souls series, Deborah Harkness has explored how knowledge survives. Sometimes it survives in manuscripts. Sometimes in libraries. Sometimes in family traditions passed quietly from one generation to the next. Again and again, she reminds us that ideas endure because someone chooses to preserve them.

An oracle deck, in its own way, asks a similar question.

Not What will happen next?

But How do symbols carry meaning across generations?

That’s a question historians ask all the time.

It’s also the question I’d like to explore over the next several weeks.

Rather than reviewing cards or discussing divination, I’d like to look at the history behind the deck. Why have humans organized knowledge through symbols for thousands of years? Why do birds, elements, moon phases, and alchemical imagery continue to appear across cultures? What makes an object feel like an heirloom? And how does Deborah Harkness make something entirely new feel as though it has existed for centuries?

Those questions feel entirely at home in Between the Stacks.

Because what has always interested me most isn’t simply the story Deborah Harkness tells. It’s the depth of historical thinking that makes her fictional world feel so convincingly real.

Perhaps that’s the greatest magic of all.

Not creating something out of nothing. But creating something so deeply rooted in history that it feels as though we simply hadn’t discovered it until now.

I hope you’ll join me!

But numbers don’t really tell us what interests me most.

They don’t tell us how someone who has lived for three millennia would see the world.

That’s a much more difficult question.

One of the reasons Philippe feels so believable is that Deborah Harkness rarely uses his age to impress us. Instead, she lets us discover it through his perspective. He almost never reacts to events with the urgency of someone thinking about next week or next year. His instinct is always to step back, look farther ahead, and ask what today’s decisions will mean generations from now.

That way of thinking appears again and again in All Souls.

Philippe builds alliances that may not matter for decades. He invests in relationships before they become useful. He prepares Matthew, Baldwin, and the rest of the de Clermont family for futures they cannot yet imagine. Even when others are focused on immediate problems, Philippe is already considering what comes next.

It’s a remarkable contrast to the pace of modern life.

Most of us measure time in days, months, or perhaps the next stage of our lives. We make decisions based on careers, children, retirement, or the next few years. Philippe has the luxury, and the burden, of measuring time differently.

He thinks in centuries.

That way of seeing the world has surprisingly deep roots in the Homeric tradition.

Although The Odyssey tells the story of one man’s journey home, Homer constantly reminds his audience that every decision echoes across generations. Odysseus worries about the future of Telemachus. The reputation of fathers shapes the expectations placed upon sons. Houses rise and fall because of choices made long before the story begins. Memory extends beyond individual lives.

For the Greeks, immortality was rarely about living forever.

It was about being remembered.

The word kleos described the reputation that survived after death—the stories future generations would continue to tell about you. Heroes sought lasting honor because they knew their lives were finite. Their hope was that their names would outlive them.

Philippe presents us with a fascinating inversion of that idea.

He doesn’t need kleos to survive.

He survives.

What matters instead is whether the people and institutions he loves will endure alongside him. His concern is not his own memory but the future of the de Clermont family. Legacy, for Philippe, isn’t measured by stories told after his death. It’s measured by the generations he helps shape while he is still alive.

That shift explains something I’ve often wondered about Philippe.

He is remarkably patient.

Modern stories frequently celebrate decisive action. Philippe certainly acts when necessary, but he rarely rushes. He understands that some conflicts resolve themselves over decades, that relationships require time to mature, and that today’s setback may become tomorrow’s opportunity.

Three thousand years teaches patience in a way no ordinary lifespan can.

It also changes the meaning of loss.

Philippe has loved countless people, buried friends, watched civilizations disappear, and seen ideas once considered permanent quietly fade away. Yet he continues to invest in the future. He continues to build families, protect knowledge, and believe that some things are worth preserving.

That optimism may be one of his most remarkable qualities.

Deborah Harkness could have written an immortal character consumed by nostalgia, forever looking backward. Instead, Philippe remains surprisingly future-oriented. His deepest concern is not preserving the past exactly as it was, but ensuring that the values he believes matter most continue into the future.

Perhaps that’s the final connection to Homer.

Both The Odyssey and All Souls understand that the true measure of a life is not simply how long it lasts. It is what we leave behind.

For Odysseus, that meant restoring his household so the next generation could flourish.

For Philippe, it means preparing the de Clermont family to survive a future he may never completely control.

The centuries between them are vast.

The question they ask is the same.

What deserves to endure?

Read It Again

As you revisit Philippe’s scenes, notice how often he speaks about the future rather than the past. Although he carries three thousand years of memory, his attention is almost always focused on what comes next - Matthew’s future, Diana’s role, the de Clermont family, and the generations that will follow. His greatest gift may not be immortality itself, but the patience to think beyond a single lifetime.

Again and again, Odysseus arrives somewhere unfamiliar. Before anyone asks who he is, where he has come from, or why he is there, he is offered food, wine, a bath, and a place to rest. Only after those needs have been met do the questions begin.

To modern readers, these scenes can feel repetitive. To Homer’s audience, they represented one of the most important values in Greek society.

The Greeks called it xenia.

The word is often translated simply as “hospitality,” but that doesn’t quite capture its meaning. Hospitality today usually suggests courtesy or generosity. Xenia was something much deeper. It described a sacred relationship between host and guest, one protected by Zeus himself. To welcome a stranger, offer food, provide shelter, and ensure their safe departure was not merely an act of kindness. It was a moral responsibility.

That obligation extended to both people.

The host offered protection and generosity.

The guest responded with respect, gratitude, and trust.

Together they created a relationship that could last for generations.

Once you recognize xenia in The Odyssey, you begin to notice how often Homer uses it to reveal character. The best hosts are generous without hesitation. The worst violate the rules completely. The suitors who occupy Odysseus’s home do more than overstay their welcome—they abuse the sacred bond between host and guest by consuming his food, disrespecting his household, and exploiting Penelope’s hospitality. Their behavior is offensive not simply because it is rude, but because it threatens the moral order of the oikos itself.

Reading those scenes made me think about Sept-Tours.

Throughout All Souls, Philippe’s home is more than a family estate. It is a place where alliances are formed, guests are protected, difficult conversations take place, and relationships are tested. People are welcomed, fed, and, perhaps most importantly, brought under Philippe’s protection.

Those scenes are easy to read as expressions of generosity.

I wonder if they are something more.

Like Homer, Deborah Harkness often uses hospitality to reveal character. Who is welcomed? Who is trusted? Who is offered a place at the table? Those choices tell us as much about Philippe as any battle or political negotiation.

What strikes me most is that Philippe rarely separates hospitality from responsibility. Once someone enters his household, he assumes obligations toward them. He may not always be warm. He may not always be easy to understand. But he consistently acts as though the role of host carries duties that cannot simply be set aside when they become inconvenient.

That idea feels deeply ancient.

Today we often think of hospitality as optional. We invite people into our homes because we enjoy their company or because the occasion calls for it. Philippe’s world operates differently. Hospitality creates relationships, and relationships create obligations. Once those obligations exist, they endure.

That perspective also helps explain why meals occupy such an important place in All Souls. Some of the most significant conversations in the series take place around a table. Families argue. Alliances are negotiated. Guests become friends. Trust is built one shared meal at a time.

Food is rarely just food.

The table becomes part of the story.

Perhaps that’s why The Odyssey spends so much time describing meals that modern readers sometimes skim past. Homer understood that a shared table was where strangers became allies and where households revealed the values they lived by.

Deborah Harkness understands the same thing.

The next time I read the scenes at Sept-Tours, I suspect I’ll pay less attention to what is being served and more attention to who has been invited to the table.

Hospitality, it turns out, may be one of the oldest forms of storytelling.

It tells us exactly who we are.

Read It Again

The next time you read a meal at Sept-Tours, resist the temptation to treat it as a pause in the story. Instead, notice who is welcomed, who sits together, who serves, and who is protected. Deborah Harkness rarely uses the dinner table simply as a setting. Like Homer, she uses it to reveal relationships, establish trust, and show us the values that holds the De Clairmont household together.

Today, we often think of family as a group of individuals connected by love and shared experiences. We celebrate personal choice, encourage independence, and generally believe that parents should prepare their children to build lives of their own. These values are so familiar that they can feel timeless.

They aren’t.

In Homer’s world, the family was understood very differently. The Greeks used the word oikos, often translated simply as “household,” but the word meant far more than a home or a collection of relatives. The oikos included the family, the land, servants, wealth, reputation, alliances, and the generations yet to come. It was the foundation of society, and its preservation was the first responsibility of its leader.

That idea lies at the heart of The Odyssey.

Odysseus does not spend twenty years trying to return to Ithaca simply because he misses home. During his absence, his oikos begins to unravel. His wealth is consumed by the suitors. His authority is questioned. His son grows up without him. His wife must defend the household against those who would seize it. Returning home is not simply a personal goal—it is an act of restoring order to everything entrusted to his care.

Once I began thinking about the oikos, I found myself looking at Philippe de Clermont differently.

One of the questions readers often ask is why Philippe demands so much from the members of his family. He arranges alliances, places enormous expectations on Matthew, and repeatedly asks individuals to sacrifice for the good of the de Clermonts. Read through a modern lens, those choices can feel controlling or even unfair.

Read through the idea of the oikos, they tell a different story.

Philippe rarely thinks about one member of the family in isolation. His decisions are almost always measured against the future of the household as a whole. Alliances matter because they strengthen the family across generations. Marriages matter because they protect its future. Every choice is made with an eye toward what will preserve the de Clermonts long after he is gone.

That doesn’t mean we have to agree with his decisions.

But it does help explain them.

One of Deborah Harkness’s greatest strengths as a writer is her refusal to modernize Philippe. It would have been easy to create an immortal character who happened to have lived through history while thinking very much like a contemporary reader. Instead, she gives Philippe a worldview that remains rooted in the civilization that first shaped him.

He adapts to new languages, new countries, and new political realities, but his deepest assumptions about leadership and family remain remarkably consistent. His first instinct is almost always to ask what is best for the de Clermont household, even when the answer comes at great personal cost.

That way of thinking often places him at odds with Matthew.

Matthew values the family deeply, but he also struggles with expectations that seem to leave little room for individual choice. Their disagreements are not simply generational. They reflect two very different understandings of what family exists to do. Philippe sees himself as the guardian of something larger than any one person. Matthew increasingly sees the family as existing to serve the people within it.

Deborah Harkness never suggests that one perspective is entirely right and the other entirely wrong. Instead, she allows both worldviews to coexist, creating one of the richest and most emotionally complex relationships in the series.

Perhaps that’s why Philippe continues to fascinate readers.

He isn’t simply ancient because he has lived for three thousand years.

He is ancient because he still carries the values of the world that first taught him what it meant to lead, to love, and to protect a family.

Understanding the oikos doesn’t resolve every question about Philippe’s choices.

It does something much more interesting.

It reminds us that before we decide whether we agree with him, we should first understand the world that shaped him.

Read It Again

The next time you visit Sept-Tours, notice Philippe's conversations with Matthew and ask yourself a different question. Instead of wondering whether Philippe is being controlling, ask what responsibilities he believes come with leading a family that has survived for centuries. Once you begin reading him through the values of the ancient Greek world, some of his most difficult decisions become less surprising even if they remain open to debate.

When we first meet Philippe de Clermont in Shadow of Night, it’s easy to focus on the obvious. He is powerful. Charismatic. Strategic. He commands loyalty from those around him and seems to carry the weight of centuries with effortless confidence.

Deborah Harkness tells us something else that is just as important, although it’s easy to overlook.

Philippe was born in ancient Greece.

That single fact changes the way I read him.

Not because I imagine him walking beside Odysseus or witnessing the events of The Odyssey. Rather, because it reminds me that Philippe’s earliest understanding of family, leadership, honor, and responsibility would have been shaped by a world very different from our own—a world remarkably like the one Homer describes.

It is tempting to think that living for three thousand years would eventually erase those early influences. Yet that isn’t how people work. Historians often remind us that the values we absorb when we are young become the lens through which we interpret the rest of our lives. We adapt to changing circumstances, but the foundations remain surprisingly durable.

Perhaps that’s why Philippe sometimes feels so different from the other de Clermonts.

Modern readers often judge him by modern expectations. We value independence, individual choice, and personal fulfillment. Philippe certainly understands those ideas—he has lived long enough to witness them emerge—but they are not the values that formed him.

The world Homer describes begins somewhere else.

One of the central ideas in The Odyssey is that a leader’s first responsibility is the survival of the household. A king is expected to protect his people, preserve his family’s future, and make decisions that ensure the continuity of generations yet to come. Personal desires matter, but they are secondary to the stability of the household.

Read Philippe through that lens, and many of his decisions begin to look different.

He builds alliances that will outlast him. He thinks strategically about marriages. He prepares his children not simply for the next conflict, but for conflicts that may arise centuries later. He often asks individuals to sacrifice for something larger than themselves.

That doesn’t always make him easy to like.

It does make him easier to understand.

The same shift happens when we consider how Homer treats intelligence.

Modern retellings often emphasize Odysseus’s adventures—the Cyclops, the Sirens, the Trojan Horse. But Homer’s audience admired something deeper. Odysseus survives because he observes carefully, adapts quickly, and thinks several moves ahead. His greatest victories are intellectual before they are physical.

Philippe possesses that same instinct.

Throughout All Souls, he rarely relies on strength alone. He studies people. He anticipates their choices. He builds relationships long before he needs them. His understanding of politics is measured not in months or years, but in generations.

It is strategy as a way of life.

Perhaps the most revealing comparison, however, lies in Philippe’s understanding of love.

One of the most common criticisms of Philippe is that he sometimes appears emotionally distant. He asks difficult things of Matthew. He expects loyalty. He places extraordinary responsibilities on members of the de Clermont family.

Yet in Homer’s world, love and duty were rarely opposites.

To protect your household, arrange alliances, preserve your family’s future, and place the needs of the community above your own were all understood as expressions of responsibility. Affection certainly existed, but it was inseparable from obligation.

That ancient perspective doesn’t excuse every decision Philippe makes.

It does explain why his love often looks different from ours.

This, I think, is one of Deborah Harkness’s quietest achievements as a writer.

She doesn’t simply tell us Philippe has lived for three thousand years. She allows him to remain, in some essential ways, a man of the ancient Mediterranean. He speaks modern languages. He adapts to changing politics. He embraces science and scholarship. Yet the values that shaped him remain remarkably constant.

History isn’t something Philippe remembers.

It is something he carries.

Reading The Odyssey reminded me that great literature doesn’t only preserve stories. It preserves ways of thinking. The world Homer describes may feel distant, but its ideas continue to live in unexpected places, including the pages of All Souls.

The next time I read Shadow of Night or The Book of Life, I know I’ll see Philippe differently. I’ll still question some of his decisions, and I’ll still sympathize with the frustration his children sometimes feel. But I’ll also remember that Deborah Harkness didn’t create a man who merely lived through history.

She created a man who was shaped by it.

And that might be one of the reasons Philippe is one of the most compelling and powerful characters in the entire series.

Read It Again

The next time Philippe appears in Shadow of Night, listen carefully to the questions he asks before making a decision. Notice how often he thinks about strategy, reputation, alliances, and the long game rather than immediate solutions. Deborah Harkness doesn’t simply tell us Philippe was born in ancient Greece—she lets us see it in the way he thinks.

We encounter them as children, meet them again in school, recognize them in novels, films, and paintings, and then, years later, discover they have been quietly shaping our imagination all along.

This summer, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey returns one of those stories to the big screen. It’s a timely reminder that Homer’s epic has never really disappeared. It has simply changed form, finding new life in every generation that chooses to tell it again.

That announcement made me think less about the film itself and more about another character who has been quietly living in Homer’s world all along.

Philippe de Clermont.

Deborah Harkness tells us that Philippe was born in ancient Greece more than three thousand years ago. It’s an extraordinary piece of his story, but one that’s easy to overlook. We tend to think of it as a fascinating detail about his age rather than a clue to understanding the man himself.

What if it’s much more than that?

What if the key to understanding Philippe isn’t simply that he has lived for three millennia, but that he was shaped by the same world that produced The Odyssey?

That question became the inspiration for this summer’s series.

Over the next five Sundays, I’d like to explore Philippe through the lens of ancient Greece—not to argue that he is another Odysseus, but to ask how a man raised in the Homeric world might think about leadership, family, hospitality, legacy, and time.

We’ll look at the ancient Greek ideas that formed one of All Souls’ most compelling characters and ask how Deborah Harkness quietly wove those ideas into her novels. Along the way, we’ll discover that understanding the world Homer describes doesn’t just deepen our appreciation of The Odyssey. It changes the way we read Philippe as well.

One of the things I’ve always admired about Deborah Harkness is that she doesn’t simply tell stories set in history. She writes as a historian. Her characters are shaped by the civilizations that formed them, and nowhere is that more evident than in Philippe. His decisions, his sense of duty, and even the way he loves his family all make more sense when we remember where—and when—his story began.

My hope is that, by the end of this series, you’ll find yourself returning to Shadow of Night and The Book of Life with new eyes. Not because the story has changed, but because history has given you another way to read it.

I hope you’ll join me.We’ll follow the long conversation that stories have been having with one another for centuries.

Because perhaps no story is ever entirely new.

Every great book carries traces of the books that came before it.

Every library holds echoes.

And somewhere between Homer and Harkness is a path worth following.

I hope you’ll join me.

If Diana is beginning to explore natural magic, whose ideas is she really stepping into?

When we hear the phrase “natural magic,” it can feel distant or abstract. But for scholars living in the sixteenth century, these ideas were part of a serious attempt to understand how the world worked. The boundaries between science, philosophy, theology, and what we would now call magic were far less defined than they are today.

Natural magic was one way of describing the hidden connections between things. It reflected a belief that the universe was structured through relationships linking plants, animals, elements, and even the heavens into a single, interconnected system.

If someone in Tudor England wanted to study these ideas, they would not be inventing something new. They would be reading from a set of books that circulated widely among scholars across Europe.

And again and again, two names appear.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.

And Giambattista della Porta.

Agrippa and the Structure of the Universe

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was writing at a moment when Europe was rediscovering ancient philosophical texts and trying to make sense of them within a Christian framework. His most influential work, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, first published in 1533, attempted to bring order to centuries of scattered ideas.

Drawing on classical philosophy, medieval mysticism, and Renaissance scholarship, Agrippa described a universe built on layers of correspondence. The visible world reflected deeper realities, and everything—from stars to stones—was part of a larger pattern.

Understanding those patterns, he argued, was the key to natural magic.

This did not mean controlling supernatural forces in the way modern readers might imagine. Instead, it meant recognizing relationships that already existed and learning how they interacted. Once those patterns became visible, a scholar could begin to work within them rather than against them.

Agrippa’s ideas spread widely. His book circulated through libraries and private collections, shaping the way Renaissance thinkers approached both science and magic.

Della Porta and the Practice of Observation

A generation later, Giambattista della Porta approached these same ideas from a different direction.

Where Agrippa focused on structure, della Porta focused on observation.

His book Natural Magic, first published in 1558, reads less like a formal system and more like a guide to noticing. He described unusual properties in plants, animals, and minerals, suggesting that careful attention could reveal patterns that were otherwise easy to miss.

Some of his work explored optics and early chemistry, while other sections reflect the Renaissance fascination with hidden knowledge. But throughout the book, his approach remains consistent.

Nature itself holds the answers.

The challenge is learning how to look closely enough to see them.

A World That Had Not Yet Divided

What these books reveal is a world that had not yet separated knowledge into distinct fields. There was no clear line between science and magic, or between observation and belief.

A scholar might study astronomy and alchemy in the same afternoon, seeing both as part of the same effort to understand the structure of the universe. Mathematics, philosophy, and natural magic were all connected, each offering a different way of approaching the same questions.

Knowledge was not divided into disciplines.

It was part of a continuous search.

Books in the World Diana Has Entered

These ideas did not exist in isolation. They lived in books that moved between scholars, carried across countries, copied, debated, and reinterpreted.

Figures like John Dee collected thousands of volumes on mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, and natural philosophy. Libraries became places where ideas gathered and where connections between different fields of study could begin to take shape.

This is the world Deborah Harkness knows deeply as a historian.

And it is the world Diana has stepped into.

Seen from this perspective, the magic Diana begins to encounter in The Black Bird Oracle starts to feel less like an isolated family inheritance and more like part of a much larger intellectual tradition—one that scholars had already been exploring for centuries.

Returning to the Question

If Diana is learning natural magic, she is not beginning from nothing. She is entering a conversation that has been unfolding for generations.

She is stepping into a way of seeing the world that assumes everything is connected, that patterns exist beneath what we can immediately see, and that knowledge has the power to reshape how we understand those connections.

Which brings us back to the question.

If Diana is beginning to explore natural magic, whose ideas is she really stepping into?

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Their brilliance comes with instability, a mind that moves quickly, making connections others cannot, but at the risk of losing structure altogether. Where witches work within magic and vampires within control, daemons exist somewhere in between, shaped by thought, perception, and intensity.

Hamish’s world reflects that balance.

His estate in the Highlands is not expansive in the way Sept-Tours is, nor layered with history in the same visible way as the Old Lodge. What defines it instead is precision. Everything is placed intentionally. Books are arranged. Objects are curated. Nothing feels accidental.

And it is never finished.

Hamish is constantly redecorating, shifting objects, refining the space around him. The order is not fixed. It is something he maintains, adjusts, and reworks over time.

Matthew sees it differently.

At one point, he describes the house as looking like a wedding cake, ornate, carefully constructed, almost too composed. But Hamish leans into that. He enjoys the performance of it, the idea of living within a certain kind of world, and he dresses the part fully.

The Range Rover. The estate. The butler. The expectation that one might go out hunting in the morning and return to a perfectly arranged room in the evening.

None of it is accidental.

When Matthew first brings Diana into that world, Hamish takes him hunting, reinforcing that image of the estate as something lived, not just styled. The setting becomes part of the experience, part of how Hamish defines himself within it.

That matters.

Because Hamish did not come from money.

Everything about the estate reflects something he has built. The order is not inherited. It is constructed, piece by piece, as a way of establishing stability and presence in a world where those things were not always guaranteed.

It is a form of control, but also a form of proof.

That he has made it.

And that control is not static.

For a daemon, structure becomes a way of managing what cannot be fully contained. The mind moves quickly. Ideas overlap. Without something external to hold them in place, that movement can become overwhelming.

The space absorbs that pressure.

Hamish’s environment creates boundaries that his mind does not naturally provide. It allows him to focus, to direct his thinking, to move between ideas without losing himself within them.

That distinction matters.

Because this is not control in the same way we see with Matthew.

Matthew’s world is built on discipline, on systems that regulate behavior and maintain hierarchy. Hamish’s is built on arrangement. A quieter, more deliberate form of order that supports rather than restricts.

It is not about limiting what he is.

It is about making space for it.

That difference becomes clear in how Hamish moves through the world.

He shifts easily between ideas, conversations, and perspectives. His intelligence is not linear. It connects across subjects, across time, across disciplines. The structure around him allows that movement to remain coherent.

Without it, the same brilliance could fragment.

Seen this way, his possessions are not simply objects.

They are anchors.

They hold the world in place long enough for him to move through it.

That makes his space different from others in this series.

The Bishop House responds to presence. The Old Lodge evolves with use. The wine cellar gathers time. The Congregation keys enforce structure.

Hamish’s estate does something quieter.

It stabilizes.

It creates a form of order that does not come from authority or inheritance, but from intention. Every object, every arrangement reflects a decision to keep things just structured enough to hold together.

And that matters now.

Because as the world of All Souls begins to shift, daemons become more central to what is emerging. Their way of thinking, once seen as instability, starts to look more like adaptation.

Hamish’s space reflects that shift.

It shows what it looks like to live with complexity without trying to eliminate it. To create structure not as a rule, but as support.

And the question is not whether that kind of order is necessary.

It’s how much of it the rest of the world will need as it begins to change.

Did Matthew belong to the School of Night because of his curiosity—or because he understood how dangerous knowledge could be?

When Diana Bishop travels back to Elizabethan England in Shadow of Night, she steps into a world where ideas are not always safe.

Knowledge carries risk.

And nowhere is that more apparent than in the group of men known, both in history and in the novel, as the School of Night.

In the world of All Souls, this circle is more than a gathering of intellectuals. It is part of Matthew de Clermont’s past, a network of thinkers, experimenters, and philosophers who shaped the way knowledge was pursued in the late sixteenth century.

To understand Matthew in this period, it helps to understand the kind of company he kept.

The School of Night in History

The “School of Night” is a name that appears only indirectly in historical records, most famously in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, where it is mentioned in passing. Historians have long debated whether it referred to an actual organized group or a looser network of thinkers connected by shared interests.

At the center of this circle was Sir Walter Raleigh, along with figures such as:

• Christopher Marlowe

• Thomas Harriot

• and, in some accounts, George Chapman

These men were united less by formal membership and more by a shared curiosity about the world. They studied mathematics, navigation, astronomy, and natural philosophy. They were also interested in more controversial subjects, including alchemy, cosmology, and ideas that challenged established religious doctrine.

In Elizabethan England, that kind of intellectual curiosity could be dangerous.

To question accepted ideas about the structure of the universe, or the nature of creation itself, was to risk accusations of heresy or atheism. The line between scientific inquiry and political or religious suspicion was thin.

The School of Night, whether formally organized or not, came to represent that tension.

A group of men willing to explore ideas that others preferred to leave untouched.

Matthew and the Circle

In Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness places Matthew de Clermont directly within this intellectual world.

Matthew is not simply an observer.

He is part of the circle.

Through his connections to figures like Raleigh and Marlowe, Matthew moves easily among scholars, explorers, and thinkers who are pushing at the boundaries of what is known. His long life and scientific mind make him particularly well suited to this environment. He understands both the excitement and the risks that come with pursuing new knowledge.

At the same time, Matthew’s role is more complicated than that of the other men.

He is a vampire moving through a human world, carrying secrets that would place him in far greater danger than any intellectual controversy. His presence in the School of Night reflects both his fascination with discovery and his need to remain connected to human thought and progress.

For Matthew, knowledge has always been a way to understand the world and to survive in it.

Dangerous Ideas

What made the School of Night significant was not simply the subjects its members studied, but the way they approached them.

These were men willing to question accepted truths.

They explored new models of the universe, considered alternative explanations for natural phenomena, and engaged with ideas that challenged both religious authority and traditional learning. In some accounts, they were even accused of atheism—a serious charge in Elizabethan England.

This intellectual boldness is part of what draws Diana into their world.

As a historian, she recognizes the importance of the ideas being discussed. As a witch, she understands that knowledge has always been intertwined with power—and that both can be dangerous when misunderstood.

The School of Night represents a moment when science, philosophy, and speculation were not yet separated into distinct disciplines.

Everything was still connected.

Diana Among Them

When Diana enters this circle, she brings something new.

Unlike the men of the School of Night, she understands both the historical context of their work and the magical realities that exist alongside it. She sees how their ideas fit into a larger intellectual tradition, one that includes alchemy, natural philosophy, and the early foundations of modern science.

At the same time, Diana’s presence changes the dynamic of the group.

She is not simply a scholar or an observer. She is someone whose abilities, and whose future, are tied to questions the School of Night is only beginning to explore. The knowledge they pursue abstractly is, for Diana, something immediate and personal.

Her relationship with Matthew also shifts within this environment.

The School of Night is part of Matthew’s past, a reminder of the life he lived before Diana and of the intellectual world he inhabited for centuries. As Diana becomes part of that world, she begins to understand him more fully, not just as a scientist or a vampire, but as someone shaped by the ideas and dangers of his time.

Knowledge and Risk

The School of Night exists at the intersection of curiosity and danger.

Its members sought to understand the world in new ways, but in doing so they stepped beyond the boundaries of what was considered safe or acceptable. Their work helped lay the foundations for later scientific inquiry, yet it also exposed them to suspicion and risk.

That tension is central to Shadow of Night.

Diana and Matthew are not simply navigating a different time period. They are moving through a world where knowledge itself can be threatening—where asking the wrong question, or pursuing the wrong idea, can have real consequences.

The School of Night embodies that world.

A place where discovery and danger exist side by side.

A Circle That Still Echoes

Looking back, the School of Night can be seen as part of a larger shift in intellectual history.

The questions its members asked, about the nature of the universe, the structure of matter, and the limits of human knowledge, did not disappear. They evolved, eventually becoming part of the scientific disciplines that would shape the modern world.

In All Souls, that legacy continues through characters like Matthew and Diana.

Both are drawn to the same questions that fascinated the thinkers of Elizabethan England. Both are willing to look beyond accepted explanations in search of something deeper.

And like the members of the School of Night, they understand that knowledge is never entirely safe.

It always has the power to change the world.

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It is carried in objects, in places, and sometimes in things that are meant to be used.

Matthew’s wine cellar at Oxford’s All Souls College is one of those spaces.

It reflects Matthew’s long life in a way that feels quieter than the rest. Bottles are stored, preserved, and aged over decades, sometimes centuries. Nothing about it is immediate. Everything depends on patience.

That matters.

Because wine is not something that can be rushed. It develops slowly, shaped by time, by environment, and by the conditions in which it is kept. Once sealed, it continues to change, even when it appears still.

That process mirrors Matthew.

His life is built on endurance. On waiting. On carrying memory across time without losing it. The cellar becomes a reflection of that way of being, a space where time is not something to escape, but something to work with.

But the cellar is not just about him.

It becomes a place where he and Diana connect.

Wine allows them to share something that is otherwise difficult to explain. When Diana tastes it, she experiences more than flavor. She senses the past, the conditions in which it was made, the years it has moved through before reaching her.

Matthew understands that.

For him, memory is constant. The past is not distant. It is something he carries with him, something he can return to without effort. The act of tasting wine creates a shared space between them, a way for Diana to experience time in a way that feels closer to how he lives it.

That connection matters.

Because so much of their relationship is defined by difference. Time affects them differently. Memory works differently. Their understanding of the past is not the same.

The wine narrows that distance.

It becomes a point of overlap, where what has been preserved can be experienced together.

That experience is not structured.

It is not controlled.

It is shared.

This is what makes the cellar feel different from the other spaces in this series.

It is not about authority or containment. It does not define who belongs or how power is used. Instead, it reflects something slower, something more patient.

An appreciation for what takes time.

That perspective becomes more important as the story unfolds.

Because not everything can be resolved quickly. Not everything can be controlled. Some things require waiting, attention, and the willingness to let change happen gradually.

The cellar holds that idea.

It is a place where time is not lost, but gathered. Where the past is not just remembered, but experienced. And where connection is built not through structure, but through something shared.

And the question is not how time is controlled.

It’s how it is understood when it is allowed to unfold.

Diana Bishop grows up surrounded by books.

But the most important knowledge about her life is the one thing her father never writes down.

In A Discovery of Witches, Diana remembers Stephen Bishop as a brilliant historian and a loving father who filled her childhood with stories, travel, and curiosity about the past. Like Diana, he was a scholar who believed that history mattered—not simply as a record of events but as a way of understanding how the world works.

Yet Stephen Bishop was also a powerful witch.

And unlike Diana, he understood exactly what her magic might become.

When Diana was still a child, Stephen realized that her abilities were unlike those of most witches. The patterns of power surrounding her were unusual and unpredictable, hinting at something older and rarer within the magical world.

Stephen believed his daughter was a weaver. And he worried for her.

The Knowledge Stephen Chose to Hide

One of the most puzzling aspects of Stephen Bishop’s story is the choice he makes early in Diana’s life. Rather than teaching her about magic, he deliberately prevents her from accessing it.

Together with Diana’s mother, Rebecca Bishop, he casts a powerful spell that blocks Diana’s magical abilities. The spell prevents her from using magic and shields her from the attention of other creatures who might recognize what she is.

For years, Diana grows up unaware of her own power.

At first glance, the decision seems strange. Stephen was an experienced witch and a scholar who believed in knowledge. Why would someone so devoted to learning hide the truth from his own daughter?

The answer may lie in what Stephen understood about weavers.

The Danger Surrounding Weavers

Within the magical world of The All Souls universe, weavers have always been rare and controversial. Unlike ordinary witches who inherit spells and traditions, weavers possess the ability to create entirely new magic.

That power has often frightened other witches.

Throughout history, many weavers were viewed with suspicion or hostility because their abilities challenged established magical hierarchies. A witch capable of inventing spells could not easily be controlled by covens or traditions built around inherited knowledge.

In some cases, witches turned against their own.

Stephen appears to have understood this danger long before Diana did. If other witches discovered that his daughter was a weaver, she might become a target for fear, manipulation, or violence.

The safest way to protect her was to hide what she was.

For a time.

A Scholar’s Approach to Magic

Stephen Bishop was not only a witch but also a historian. His professional life was devoted to studying the past and understanding how knowledge survives across generations.

That perspective shaped the way he approached Diana’s future.

Instead of trying to train her immediately, Stephen chose a different strategy. He surrounded Diana with books, encouraged her intellectual curiosity, and taught her how to think like a historian. By doing so, he gave her the tools she would eventually need to understand the complicated history of the creature world.

He was preparing her long before she realized it.

Stephen also left behind clues that would only make sense when Diana was ready to see them. His connection to Ashmole 782 and his deep knowledge of magical history suggest that he understood far more about the manuscript than he ever told his daughter.

In many ways, Stephen treated knowledge itself as a form of protection.

The Spell That Bought Time

The spell Stephen and Rebecca cast on Diana did more than suppress her magic. It bought her time.

Without the spell, Diana’s abilities might have appeared too early, before she was emotionally or intellectually prepared to face them. As a child she would have had no way of understanding the political tensions and fears surrounding weavers.

The spell allowed her to grow up as something close to ordinary.

She attended school, developed her love of history, and learned to navigate the human world before confronting the complexities of the magical one. By the time her powers finally began to surface, she had already developed the independence and resilience that would help her survive the challenges ahead.

Stephen’s decision delayed the inevitable.

But delay was exactly what he needed.

Preparing Diana for What Was Coming

When Diana eventually discovers Ashmole 782 at the Bodleian Library, the protective spell begins to weaken. The manuscript seems to recognize her in ways that even she cannot explain.

It is the moment when everything Stephen tried to postpone begins to unfold.

Yet by this point Diana is no longer the child he once protected. She is an accomplished historian capable of asking difficult questions and following evidence wherever it leads.

The education Stephen gave her becomes essential.

His daughter approaches magical mysteries the same way she approaches historical ones: by studying sources, comparing ideas, and looking for patterns that others overlook. These habits allow her to navigate the complex world of witches, vampires, and daemons without losing her sense of curiosity or independence.

In other words, Stephen did not simply protect Diana.

He prepared her.

Knowledge as Inheritance

One of the most powerful themes in The All Souls Trilogy is the idea that knowledge can be passed down in many forms. Sometimes it appears in books or manuscripts, but it can also survive in habits of thinking, in family traditions, or in the quiet choices parents make for their children.

Stephen Bishop’s legacy is not a spell or a magical object.

It is a way of understanding the world.

By raising Diana as a scholar, he ensured that when her magic finally emerged she would approach it not with fear but with curiosity. She would study it, question it, and eventually learn how to shape it.

In that sense, Stephen’s greatest act of magic may have been something far simpler than a spell.

He gave his daughter time.

And that leaves us with a question worth considering.

Did Stephen hide the truth about Diana’s magic to protect her—or because he believed that one day she would be ready to discover it herself?

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The Congregation Keys are among the clearest examples.

There are nine of them, small objects that represent the authority of the Congregation and the structure it enforces. Each key stands for a seat, a voice within the system that governs witches, vampires, and daemons.

Together, they form something larger.

A mechanism of control.

The keys do not simply open doors. They define access. They determine who is allowed in, who is kept out, and how the boundaries between creatures are maintained.

That is their purpose.

They reflect the Covenant, the set of rules designed to keep the species separate, to prevent mixing, and to preserve order through division. The system depends on that separation. It is what allows the Congregation to function as it does.

The keys make that separation physical.

They turn an abstract rule into something you can hold.

That matters because it reinforces the idea that authority is fixed. That belonging is defined by structure, not by choice. That the world remains stable as long as those boundaries are respected.

But as the story progresses, that stability begins to strain.

Diana and Matthew’s relationship challenges the very premise the keys are meant to uphold. Their existence together is not an exception. It is evidence that the system itself may no longer reflect reality.

The keys do not change.

But what they represent does.

Instead of reinforcing separation, they begin to highlight its limits. The more the world shifts, the more visible those limits become. The structure the keys support starts to feel less like protection and more like restriction.

That shift is subtle at first.

The keys still function. The system still exists. Authority is still recognized.

But the meaning behind it begins to move.

Because the question is no longer just who has access.

It is whether access should be controlled in the same way at all.

This is where the keys take on a different significance.

They remain symbols of authority, but they also become reminders of a system that is no longer fully aligned with the world it governs. They hold onto a version of order that depends on keeping things apart, even as the story moves toward bringing them together.

That tension is central.

Because All Souls does not simply remove structure. It changes how it works.

The keys represent a world where power is maintained through separation.

Diana and Matthew represent something else.

Connection.

And the question is not whether the keys will continue to exist.

It’s what they will mean in a world where separation is no longer the only way to maintain order.

Today the word alchemy often conjures images of magical transformations—lead turning into gold, mysterious potions, and secret symbols scribbled in dusty manuscripts.

But for centuries, alchemy was something far more serious.

It was a discipline studied by some of the most learned scholars in Europe, pursued in laboratories attached to universities and royal courts, and recorded in books that blended careful experimentation with philosophical speculation about how nature itself worked.

When readers encounter alchemy in the All Souls series, it can feel like a piece of fantasy woven into the story’s magical world. Yet the truth is that alchemy occupied a respected place in Renaissance intellectual life. Many scholars believed that by studying the hidden processes of nature, they might unlock the fundamental principles that governed the universe.

In other words, alchemy was not simply magic.

It was an early attempt to understand the chemistry of the world.

The Real Goals of Alchemy

One of the most persistent misunderstandings about alchemy is the belief that alchemists spent their lives trying to turn lead into gold.

While the transmutation of metals was certainly part of the tradition, it was rarely the ultimate goal.

Most alchemists believed that all matter contained the same fundamental components arranged in different forms. If those hidden structures could be understood, it might be possible to refine substances into more perfect states.

In this view, metals were not fixed substances but stages in a natural process of development. Base metals like lead were thought to be incomplete forms that could eventually mature into noble metals such as gold. The alchemist’s task was to understand—and perhaps accelerate—that transformation.

But alchemy also pursued broader ambitions. Many practitioners believed their work might lead to powerful medicines, methods of purification, and a deeper understanding of how nature generated life.

The laboratory became a place where philosophy and experiment met.

The Philosopher’s Stone

At the center of many alchemical traditions stood the mysterious substance known as the philosopher’s stone.

To modern ears, the idea can sound purely mythical. Yet for Renaissance scholars, the philosopher’s stone represented something more complex: a theoretical substance capable of perfecting matter.

In alchemical texts, the stone was often described as a catalyst capable of transforming base metals into gold. But it was also believed to possess healing properties, capable of restoring balance within the human body and extending life.

In many ways, the philosopher’s stone symbolized the ultimate goal of alchemy.

If nature followed hidden laws, then somewhere within those laws there might exist a key—a substance or process that revealed how transformation itself worked.

The search for the stone was therefore not simply a quest for wealth but an attempt to understand the deeper structure of the natural world.

How Alchemists Worked

Alchemy was not only philosophical speculation. It was also a practical laboratory science.

Alchemists developed many of the experimental techniques that later became standard in chemistry. Processes such as distillation, sublimation, and crystallization were refined through centuries of alchemical work. The laboratory tools used to perform these experiments—including instruments like the retort and the crucible—became foundational equipment for later chemists.

In their search for new substances and transformations, alchemists also made important chemical discoveries. Among the compounds first identified through alchemical experimentation were sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and hydrochloric acid. Although these substances were often investigated in connection with alchemical theories, they eventually became essential components of modern chemistry.

What began as a search for hidden transformations helped establish the experimental practices that science still uses today.

Scholars, Laboratories, and Royal Courts

One reason alchemy flourished in the Renaissance is that it attracted serious scholars and powerful patrons.

Some alchemists worked in universities or monasteries, while others conducted experiments under the sponsorship of noble households or royal courts. The laboratory became a place where natural philosophy, medicine, metallurgy, and practical craft traditions overlapped.

An intriguing example from Elizabethan England is Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. Best known as a poet, translator, and literary patron, Sidney was also associated with the intellectual and experimental culture surrounding alchemy and early chemistry. Historical accounts suggest that she maintained a private laboratory, likely at Wilton House, where she worked on the preparation of chemical and herbal medicines.

Although no manuscripts recording her specific experiments survive today, her activities place her within a network of scholars and thinkers exploring the boundaries between literature, science, and natural philosophy. Sidney was also connected to leading intellectual figures of the period, including the occult philosopher John Dee.

Her work reminds us that Renaissance intellectual culture rarely separated the literary from the scientific. Scholars, writers, and experimenters often moved easily between these worlds.

From Alchemy to Chemistry

Modern historians of science increasingly recognize that alchemy played a crucial role in the development of modern chemistry.

Scholars such as William R. Newman have shown that many early scientists worked directly within alchemical traditions. Figures like Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle did not simply abandon alchemy for modern science; instead, they adapted alchemical ideas and laboratory methods into more systematic forms of experimentation.

In this sense, alchemy represents a bridge between older philosophical traditions and the scientific disciplines that later emerged.

The transition was gradual. Over time, symbolic language and mystical interpretations gave way to clearer experimental methods and standardized terminology. Yet many of the tools, techniques, and questions that defined early chemistry had their origins in alchemical laboratories.

Alchemy was not the opposite of science.

It was one of the paths through which science developed.

Alchemy in the World of All Souls

Deborah Harkness brings this intellectual world to life throughout the All Souls series.

Both Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont approach alchemy not as superstition but as a serious body of knowledge. Diana, as a historian, understands how Renaissance scholars studied alchemical manuscripts as part of their broader search for natural truth. Matthew, as a scientist who has lived for centuries, recognizes the continuity between early alchemical experiments and the later development of chemistry.

Within the story, alchemy becomes a language for interpreting the mysterious manuscript Ashmole 782. The book appears to contain knowledge about the origins of witches, vampires, and daemons, but its symbols and imagery draw heavily on the traditions of alchemical writing.

This isn’t accidental.

Alchemical texts were famous for encoding knowledge through metaphor, diagrams, and symbolic language. To understand them required not only scientific curiosity but also historical and philosophical insight.

In this way, Diana and Matthew approach alchemy much as Renaissance scholars did: as a puzzle that combines observation, symbolism, and intellectual interpretation.

Seeing Alchemy Today

If you’re curious about how historians and scientists now understand alchemy, the Science History Institute provides an amazing resource through its online exhibition The Age of Alchemy.

The exhibition explores how alchemy shaped early laboratories, scientific instruments, and experimental methods. It includes historical manuscripts, diagrams, laboratory tools, and artwork that reveal how scholars once imagined the transformation of matter.

Seeing these materials helps clarify why alchemy held such intellectual power for centuries. It wasn’t just a curiosity, but part of a broader attempt to understand how nature itself worked.

Transformation as Knowledge

To modern readers like us, alchemy can seem strange or misguided. Yet the questions that drove alchemists remain surprisingly familiar: What is matter made of? How do substances change? What hidden processes shape the natural world?

In All Souls, Diana Bishop approaches alchemy with that same curiosity. As a historian and a reluctant witch, she understands that the strange symbols and experiments preserved in alchemical texts were part of a serious attempt to understand how the world works.

For Diana, and for the scholars who came before her, alchemy was not simply about turning lead into gold.

It was about learning how transformation happens.

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Decisions are made across time. Moves are set in motion long before their consequences are visible. The world itself begins to feel structured, as if it operates according to rules that are not always explained, but always present.

The chess piece associated with Diana, often connected to the figure of the huntress, makes that structure visible.

It is a small object, but it carries weight. Like the other objects in this series, it is not just symbolic. It reflects how the story understands power.

Chess is built on control.

Every piece has a defined role. Movement is limited. Strategy depends on understanding those limits and working within them. The board creates order, a system where everything has a place.

At first, that feels familiar.

The world of All Souls is shaped in much the same way. Witches, vampires, and daemons exist within boundaries. The Congregation enforces those rules. Authority depends on maintaining structure.

The game is already in motion.

But Diana does not fit easily within that system.

The huntress is not a passive figure. She moves with intention, but not always within expected patterns. She observes, adapts, and acts based on what she sees, not just what the rules allow.

That distinction matters.

Because it shifts how we understand the game itself.

Diana is not just a piece being moved across the board. She is someone who begins to see the structure for what it is, and to question whether it has to remain fixed.

That awareness changes everything.

Strategy is no longer about following rules. It becomes about recognizing when those rules no longer apply, and deciding what to do next.

The huntress reflects that shift.

She is still part of the game, but she is not defined by it in the same way. Her movement is not limited to what is expected. It responds to the moment, to the environment, to the larger pattern unfolding around her.

That mirrors Diana’s path.

She begins within a system she does not fully understand. Over time, she learns how it works, but she also begins to see its limits. Her power does not align neatly with the roles that have been established.

She changes the structure by moving through it differently.

That shift becomes more important as the story progresses.

Because the game itself begins to change.

The boundaries between pieces become less clear. The roles that once defined everything start to blur. What looked like a fixed system becomes something more fluid, shaped by the choices of the people moving within it.

The chess piece remains.

But what it represents is no longer stable.

It is no longer just about strategy within a defined system.

It becomes a question of who is shaping the game, and how much of it can be rewritten.

Vampires are governed by instinct—hunger, blood, and the pull of their nature. Witches inherit magic that can be taught, practiced, and passed down through generations.

Daemons are different.

They exist in a space that is harder to define.

In The All Souls novels, daemons move through the world with a kind of intensity that doesn’t follow predictable patterns. Their thoughts are quick, their interests wide-ranging, and their abilities difficult to categorize. They are often brilliant, sometimes unstable, and almost always misunderstood.

Even within the creature world.

So the question isn’t simply what daemons are.

It’s where they belong.

A Different Kind of Mind

From the beginning of the series, daemons are described less by what they can do and more by how they think.

Their conversations move quickly, often starting in the middle and ending somewhere unexpected. They make connections others miss, jumping between ideas with a speed that can feel disorienting. This way of thinking sets them apart from both witches and vampires, whose abilities tend to follow more structured patterns.

In Oxford, Diana’s early conversation with Agatha Wilson offers a glimpse into this difference. Agatha speaks as if she already understands something Diana has not yet discovered about herself. Her thoughts move ahead of the moment, guided by instinct but not confined by it.

This unpredictability has consequences.

It makes daemons difficult to categorize, and in a world that depends on order, anything that resists definition can become a problem.

The Creature World’s Hierarchy

Within the structure of the Congregation, witches and vampires occupy positions of power.

Witches possess magic that can be studied and controlled through tradition. Vampires operate within clearly defined hierarchies, governed by lineage, loyalty, and strength. Both groups fit, in different ways, into a system that values stability.

Daemons do not.

They are often described as volatile, their brilliance offset by moments of instability that make others uneasy. Over time, this perception pushes them to the margins of creature society. Their contributions are acknowledged, but their place within the system remains uncertain.

They are included.

But never fully trusted.

Power Without Structure

Part of the difficulty in understanding daemons lies in how their power is defined.

Unlike witches, who can point to spells, or vampires, whose strength is physical and hierarchical, daemon power is harder to measure. It rarely appears as something that can be controlled or taught in a formal way.

Instead, it shows itself through creativity, insight, and the ability to see patterns others miss.

In the sixteenth century, this often took the form of intellectual and artistic brilliance. Christopher Marlowe appears in Shadow of Night as a close companion of Matthew Clairmont—restless, sharp, and intensely perceptive, his mind moving faster than those around him. Another historical figure, Thomas Harriot, is also portrayed as a daemon, contributing to the mathematical and scientific thinking of the School of Night.

Their influence is not expressed through force.

It is expressed through ideas.

In the modern world, that same kind of power takes different forms. A figure like Hamish Osborne demonstrates how daemon thinking can operate strategically, almost like a game played several moves ahead. His ability to read patterns, anticipate shifts, and act with precision allows him to move within financial systems in ways that resemble a kind of intellectual chess.

Daemon power is not always visible.

But it is often decisive.

The Problem of Unpredictability

What makes daemons difficult for the creature world to accept is not weakness.

It is unpredictability.

Systems like the Covenant rely on consistency. They depend on clear categories and predictable outcomes. Witches can be taught. Vampires can be controlled through hierarchy. Daemons resist both approaches.

Their abilities do not follow inherited patterns in the same way as witches, and they are not driven by instinct in the way vampires are. Instead, they exist in a kind of in-between state, shaped by bursts of creativity, insight, and perception that cannot easily be anticipated.

For a system built on order, that kind of variability feels like a risk.

So it is treated as one.

The Book They Wanted

The mystery of Ashmole 782—the Book of Life—reveals just how deeply that uncertainty affects daemons.

Each creature group seeks the manuscript for different reasons. Vampires hope it will explain their declining ability to sire. Witches want to understand the source of their magic and why it seems to weaken across generations.

For daemons, the question is more fundamental.

Agatha Wilson explains that daemons wanted the book because they hoped it would help them understand how they were created and what place they hold within the creature world. For centuries, they have lived with the sense that they do not fully belong within the structures that govern them.

The Book of Life represents the possibility of an answer.

Not just to what they are.

But to why they exist at all.

The Missing Piece

As Matthew’s research develops, a different picture begins to emerge.

Daemons are not simply an unpredictable element within the creature world. They may be essential to it. His work suggests that daemons carry genetic traits that introduce variation into the population—variation that stabilizes the abilities of witches and vampires over time.

Without that variation, the system begins to break down.

Vampires struggle to sire.

Witches lose the strength of their magic.

The very structure the Covenant was designed to preserve begins to weaken.

What was treated as instability may, in fact, be necessary.

A Place in the Future

The appearance of new generations of children at the end of the series begins to shift how daemons are understood.

Children like Margaret Clairmont-Nilsen, born to daemon and witch parents, and the Bright Born twins of Diana and Matthew, suggest that the boundaries between creatures are not fixed. Instead, they may be part of a system that is still changing, still adapting.

In that system, daemons are no longer peripheral.

They are central.

Their unpredictability becomes a source of possibility rather than a flaw. Their ability to move between ideas, to create connections others cannot see, begins to look less like instability and more like evolution.

For the first time, the question of where daemons belong has a different answer.

Not at the margins.

But at the center of what comes next.

A Different Kind of Order

The creature world has long depended on rules that divide, categorize, and control.

But not everything fits within those rules.

Daemons have always existed in the space between—between instinct and structure, between knowledge and intuition, between stability and change. For centuries, that made them difficult to understand and easy to overlook.

Yet it may also be what makes them essential.

Sometimes the parts of a system that seem least stable are the ones that allow it to change.

And sometimes the creatures who never quite fit are the ones who make a new kind of order possible.

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Coming Friday

Next we return to the de Clermont family and one of its most defining figures:

Philippe de Clermont.

How did a father shaped by centuries of power, loyalty, and survival prepare a future he would never live to see?

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Rooms open into one another. Family moves through the space. History is visible, structured, and difficult to avoid.

The turret is different.

Set apart from the rest of the house, it offers distance, both physical and emotional. It is a place Matthew can retreat to, a space that feels contained in a way the rest of Sept-Tours does not.

That separation matters.

Because Matthew’s relationship to his family is not uniform. Each of his siblings occupies a different place in his life, and the way he moves toward or away from them reflects that.

With Ysabeau de Clermont, there is authority, history, and a kind of mutual understanding shaped over centuries. Their relationship is grounded, but also structured, defined by roles that are difficult to step outside of.

With Baldwin de Clermont, that structure becomes more rigid. Authority is formal, tied to hierarchy and expectation. Their interactions carry tension, shaped by position as much as by personality.

Louisa represents something else entirely.

Her presence is unpredictable, volatile, and difficult to contain. Where Baldwin reinforces structure, Louisa disrupts it. Matthew’s relationship with her is defined less by hierarchy and more by the limits of what can be controlled.

The turret sits within all of that.

It is not a space that removes Matthew from his family, but it allows him to step back from the intensity of those relationships. It gives him a place to observe rather than react, to manage what he carries before reentering the rest of the house.

That need for distance is consistent with how Matthew moves through the world.

Control, for him, often requires separation.

The turret reflects that pattern. It is elevated, enclosed, and slightly removed. From it, he can see outward, but remains contained within a space that is entirely his own.

That balance between connection and distance is central to his character.

He is part of a family that is tightly bound by history and expectation, but he does not always move easily within it. The turret becomes a way of navigating that tension, allowing him to remain connected without being fully immersed.

That dynamic shifts when Diana enters the space.

Her presence changes how Matthew relates not only to the house, but to the people within it. The need for isolation does not disappear, but it is no longer the only way he manages what he feels.

The turret remains, but its function begins to evolve.

It is no longer just a place to withdraw. It becomes part of a larger pattern, one where Matthew is learning to stay present in spaces that once required distance.

That matters in the context of Sept-Tours as a whole.

The house is built on structure, on lineage, on clearly defined roles. The turret reflects one way of navigating that structure, through separation and control.

But as the story progresses, that approach becomes less complete.

Matthew is still shaped by those instincts, but he is also part of something that does not fit as neatly within them. His relationships begin to shift. The boundaries between distance and connection become less fixed.

The turret does not change physically.

But what it represents does.

It remains a place of control, but no longer the only one he relies on.

And the question is not whether Matthew will continue to retreat there.

It’s how his relationship to that distance changes as the life around him becomes more difficult to step away from.

Diana Bishop does not first learn the nature of her magic in a university or library.

She learns it in a small London house filled with witches.

In Shadow of Night, Diana and Matthew arrive in Elizabethan London searching for knowledge that has vanished from their own time. Their goal is to understand Ashmole 782 and the strange power unfolding inside Diana, but their search eventually leads them somewhere unexpected. Near St. James Garlickhythe, a gathering of local witches meets regularly under the guidance of an elderly woman known as Goody Alsop.

The house is lively and crowded with magical practitioners who live within the rhythms of the city. Unlike the formal covens Diana knows in the modern world, this community feels older and more organic. Magic here is shared through observation, conversation, and practice rather than rules written in grimoires.

It is in this house that Diana’s magic is finally recognized for what it truly is.

A weaver.

Why Goody Alsop Recognizes Diana

One of the mysteries surrounding Goody Alsop is how quickly she understands what Diana is. By the sixteenth century, weaving magic had already become rare. Many witches believed the ability had disappeared entirely, leaving only fragments of its knowledge behind.

Yet Goody Alsop does not hesitate when she sees Diana’s power.

She recognizes the signs immediately.

This reaction suggests that Goody Alsop belongs to an older magical tradition that still remembers the structure of weaving. She is described as having been apprenticed to Ursula Soothtell, the fifteenth-century seer later remembered in English folklore as Mother Shipton. Through that apprenticeship she inherited knowledge that had already begun fading from the wider magical world.

In other words, Goody Alsop is part of a lineage of teachers who quietly preserved a nearly lost craft.

When Diana arrives in Elizabethan London, Goody Alsop may already be one of the last witches capable of recognizing a true weaver.

Teaching the Lost Craft

Instead of beginning Diana’s training with traditional spells, Goody Alsop starts with something deceptively simple.

Threads.

She introduces Diana to ten colored cords known as the weaver’s cords. At first the exercise seems almost childish. Diana practices tying complex knots in the cords, repeating the patterns again and again as Goody Alsop watches closely.

The lesson, however, is not about knots.

It is about structure.

Each knot represents a way that magical forces can combine and interact. The cords stand in for strands of magical energy, and the knots demonstrate how those strands can be twisted together to create something entirely new. Through repetition Diana begins to understand the architecture of magic rather than simply memorizing spells.

This is the difference between reciting a poem and learning how to write one.

Among the patterns Goody Alsop teaches are the Ninth Knot and the mysterious Tenth Knot, both of which carry extraordinary power. The Ninth Knot later becomes essential to the spell that allows Diana and Matthew to return to their own time.

The Tenth Knot represents something even more profound.

Creation and destruction.

The Rowan Tree and the Firedrake

As Diana’s training progresses, she begins to experiment with weaving on her own. One of the most striking demonstrations of her growing abilities occurs when she creates a powerful forspell that calls forth a living rowan tree.

Rowan has long been associated with protection in European folklore, and in the novels its magic becomes strong enough to tame Diana’s firedrake familiar, Corra. The spell combines natural magic, elemental power, and the instincts of a weaver learning to shape threads of energy into new forms.

The witches around her react with astonishment.

For Goody Alsop, however, the moment feels less surprising.

Diana’s magic is powerful, but its structure is familiar. Goody Alsop recognizes the patterns unfolding within it and understands what Diana is learning to do. Her calm reaction suggests that she has seen weaving before, perhaps decades earlier when weavers were still more common.

The moment reveals something important about her experience.

Goody Alsop remembers a world where this magic still existed.

A Lineage of Magical Teachers

Goody Alsop’s presence in the story hints at how magical knowledge survives across centuries. Many spells are preserved in written grimoires or passed down within families, but weaving seems to have survived through a different method.

Mentorship.

The connection between Goody Alsop and Mother Shipton suggests that weaving knowledge once existed within networks of seers and wise women scattered across England. These teachers may have passed their knowledge quietly from apprentice to apprentice, preserving techniques that the wider magical world had begun to fear.

Over time those networks faded.

What remained were fragments of memory carried by a few individuals who still understood the old traditions.

By the time Diana appears in Elizabethan London, Goody Alsop may be one of the last witches holding that knowledge.

Why the Training Matters

Without Goody Alsop’s guidance, Diana might never have understood her own abilities. In the modern era of the story most witches have forgotten what weaving magic is, let alone how to train someone who possesses it.

Diana’s powers would likely have remained unstable and misunderstood.

Instead, the Elizabethan witches give her something far more valuable than spells.

They give her context.

Through Goody Alsop’s lessons Diana begins to see magic not as something fixed but as something that can still evolve. Weavers do not simply inherit power from the past.

They create something new.

In that sense, Goody Alsop’s decision to train Diana may shape the future of magic itself. By passing on the nearly lost knowledge of weaving, she ensures that the craft survives long enough to reach another generation.

And that leaves us with a question worth considering.

Did Goody Alsop teach Diana simply because she recognized a weaver—or because she knew the future of magic depended on one?

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It is where power gathers.

The Congregation meets there, in a space that feels removed from the rest of the world, hidden in plain sight among the canals, palazzos, and narrow streets. It is a city built on layers, where what is visible and what is concealed exist side by side.

That makes it an ideal location.

Because the Congregation itself operates in much the same way.

On the surface, it is structured, formal, and controlled. It defines the rules that separate witches, vampires, and daemons, reinforcing boundaries that are meant to keep the world stable.

But beneath that structure, there is tension.

Venice reflects that.

The city is beautiful, but it is also fragile. It depends on balance, on systems that require constant maintenance. It is shaped by water, by shifting ground, by the need to hold something steady that is never entirely fixed.

That instability matters.

Because the Congregation presents itself as permanent. Its authority is meant to feel absolute, rooted in tradition and reinforced through repetition.

But like Venice, it depends on conditions that are already beginning to change.

The space itself reinforces that sense of controlled visibility. Meetings take place in rooms that are enclosed, formal, and removed. Authority is performed there. Decisions are made within boundaries that are carefully maintained.

Everything is contained.

Everything is observed.

That structure leaves little room for movement.

Which is why Diana’s presence there feels disruptive.

She does not fit easily within the system the space is designed to uphold. Her power does not align neatly with the rules that define the Congregation’s authority. She introduces something the space is not built to accommodate.

And the longer she remains within it, the more that becomes clear.

The setting begins to feel less stable.

Not because the walls change, but because what they are meant to contain no longer fits within them.

This is where Venice moves from backdrop to meaning.

It reflects a world that appears solid, but is already shifting beneath the surface. A system that depends on control, even as that control becomes harder to maintain.

For Matthew, that tension is familiar.

He understands the system. He has lived within it for centuries. But he also recognizes its limits. The structure that once defined everything is no longer enough to account for what is happening now.

And Venice makes that visible.

It holds power in place, but only as long as the conditions allow it to.

The question is not whether the structure exists.

It’s how long it can continue to hold.

For centuries, creatures believed one rule was absolute.

Witches, vampires, and daemons could not have children together.

The Covenant reinforced this belief by forbidding relationships between the three species. The law was meant to preserve peace among creatures, but it also ensured that the boundaries between witches, vampires, and daemons remained firmly in place. Over time, the rule came to feel less like a political decision and more like a law of nature.

Creatures simply assumed that their differences were permanent.

The birth of the Bright Born challenges that assumption in a profound way.

When Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clermont’s twins—Rebecca and Philip (Pip) —are born, they represent something the creature world had long believed impossible. Their existence forces creatures to reconsider a question that few had seriously asked before.

What if the boundaries between them were never as fixed as they believed?

Darwin and the Question of Origins

Matthew de Clermont has lived through many intellectual revolutions, but one of the most significant would have been the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Darwin proposed a deeply unsettling idea for his time: species were not fixed creations. Instead, they changed gradually over time through variation and natural selection. Traits that helped organisms survive tended to persist, while others faded away. Over generations, these small changes could reshape entire populations.

Perhaps the most radical part of Darwin’s theory was the suggestion that all living things might share a distant common ancestry. Life, Darwin argued, may have begun from a single origin and branched outward into the extraordinary diversity we see today.

For Matthew, a scientist who had spent centuries observing creatures, Darwin’s ideas must have raised some intriguing possibilities.

If humans evolved over time, could creatures have evolved as well?

Matthew’s Notes in the Margins

Matthew did not simply read Darwin’s work.

He studied it closely.

In The Book of Life, we learn that Matthew kept copies of scientific texts filled with his own handwritten observations. His copy of Darwin’s book contains marginal notes—questions, comparisons, and ideas that reveal how carefully he considered Darwin’s argument.

Matthew had already begun to notice patterns among creatures that felt almost biological. Some witch families produced extraordinary magical abilities for generations, while others seemed to lose their magic entirely. Certain vampire bloodlines appeared strong and stable, while others weakened over time in ways that puzzled the Congregation.

Darwin’s theory offered a possible explanation.

If life on Earth shared a common origin, perhaps witches, vampires, daemons, and humans did as well. Instead of entirely separate creations, creatures might represent different expressions of a much older evolutionary history.

It was a possibility that most creatures had never seriously considered.

The Mystery of Ashmole 782

Long before the Bright Born were born, creatures sensed that the answers to their origins might exist somewhere.

That hope was one of the reasons so many factions pursued the mysterious manuscript known as Ashmole 782, later revealed to be the Book of Life.

Each creature group believed the book held something they desperately needed.

Vampires hoped it might explain why their bloodlines were weakening and why they struggled to reproduce. Witches believed it might reveal the source of their magic and why some families seemed to lose their powers entirely.

For daemons, the mystery was even more personal.

Agatha Wilson tells Diana that daemons wanted the manuscript because they hoped it would finally help them understand themselves—how they were created, why they existed, and what role they played within the creature world. For centuries daemons had been treated as unstable outsiders, brilliant but unpredictable, rarely trusted by the Congregation.

They hoped the Book of Life might finally reveal their place in the larger story.

The Role of Daemons

Within that larger story, daemons may be far more important than most creatures realize.

They are often described as volatile, imaginative, and intellectually restless. Their minds move quickly, generating ideas and connections that others sometimes struggle to follow.

Yet those same qualities may play an essential role in the balance of the creature world.

Many of the most unusual developments among creatures appear in families where daemon bloodlines intersect with those of witches or vampires. Their creativity introduces variation into a system that might otherwise become stagnant.

From an evolutionary perspective, variation is the engine of change.

Without it, species cannot adapt.

Seen this way, daemons may not simply be the most unpredictable members of the creature world. They may be the source of the diversity that allows creatures themselves to continue evolving.

The Meaning of the Bright Born

The birth of Rebecca and Philip Bishop-Clairmont brings these questions into sharp focus.

Bright Born children carry traits from both of their parents. They inherit the magical potential of witches alongside the physical strength and longevity associated with vampires. Their existence alone suggests that the divisions creatures relied upon for centuries may not be as absolute as they once believed.

In a quiet way, the Bright Born also answer the question that drove so many creatures to search for the Book of Life.

If witches, vampires, daemons, and humans share a distant common origin, then the Bright Born may not be a miracle or an anomaly.

They may simply be the next stage in a much longer story.

For daemons in particular, this discovery changes something fundamental. The Bright Born suggest that daemons are not merely the unpredictable outsiders of the creature world. Their presence within creature bloodlines may be essential to the future of creatures themselves.

In that sense, the Bright Born give daemons something they had long hoped to find.

A clearer place in the creature world.

A New Chapter

For Diana and Matthew, the birth of their children is deeply personal.

But for the creature world, it may represent something much larger.

Rebecca and Philip are not only the continuation of their family. They are also a glimpse of what creatures might become if the boundaries that once divided them begin to shift.

Matthew’s scientific curiosity and Diana’s historical insight allow them to see something that others are only beginning to understand. The patterns Darwin described in the natural world—the slow unfolding of variation and change—may apply to creatures as well.

And the signs of that change are already appearing.

When Sophie Norman and Nathaniel Wilson child is born, the baby is a witch—even though both parents are daemons. It is another quiet disruption of the assumptions creatures have lived with for centuries. If a witch can emerge from daemon parents, and if Diana and Matthew’s twins represent something entirely new, then the old rules that defined the creature world begin to feel far less certain.

Suddenly the future becomes harder to predict.

For centuries the Covenant attempted to hold the creature world in place, preserving clear boundaries between witches, vampires, and daemons. But evolution rarely respects the rules societies create to control it.

The Bright Born suggest that the story of creatures is still unfolding.

And if the next generation is already rewriting the rules, then all bets may be off.

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