The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

“It’s your serve, I believe,” I told him. “But please be advised, this isn’t a set of lawn tennis we’re playing anymore.”

“It’s clear you’ve been told something that reflects badly on me,” Wolfgang said calmly. “But before I try to explain my side of things, I must ask how much of the situation you already know?”

“Why is that always the first question everyone asks me?” I said. I stabbed at my salad a few times, then put down my fork and looked him in the eye. “I think that even if you did meet Zoe Behn for the first time last year, you know she’s your grandmother, which makes her daughters—your mother and mine—half sisters. And I know neither you nor Zoe sent me that rune manuscript. My mother has just informed me she did. She may have concealed the truth from me for a very long time—but she’s not an out-and-out liar. I wish I could say the same of you. The one thing I have to thank you for is saving my life in an avalanche. Otherwise, as far as I can see, you’ve misled me from the very moment we met up on that mountain, and I demand to know why—tonight.”

Wolfgang was staring at me with a kind of astonishment. I admit, a few of the waiters and other patrons had glanced in our direction, though I’d kept my voice pretty well under control. Then, unexpectedly, Wolfgang smiled.

“Only one thing?” he said with raised brow, ignoring the rest of my tirade. “I should have to say, rather, that I have many things to thank you for. The first, that I have never fallen in love with anyone before now. The second—something I really didn’t expect—that it could be with such a hellcat as you. So I must thank you for—how do you Americans say?—for ‘introducing me to reality.’”

He put his napkin on the table and motioned for our bill. But I was blazing mad and not about to be put off one more time, even by this scathing, if possibly accurate, portrait of myself. I waved the waiter away and picked up my wineglass to emphasize the fact.

“I haven’t finished,” I told Wolfgang firmly.

“Oh yes, you certainly have,” he assured me in exactly the same tone of voice. “Does it not occur to you, Ariel, that I didn’t speak of our relationship earlier because I was warned by everyone of how you feel about the Behn family? That you’ve been distant toward all but your cousin Sam since you were even a little child? Don’t you think I knew beforehand what your reaction would be if I arrived without warning, immediately after this very cousin had died, and said to you, ‘Hallo, it’s me, your cousin Wolfgang whom you’ve never heard of; I’m here to drag you into the bosom of your dangerous family whom you’ve avoided for so long’? And as for the rune manuscript you say I lied to you about, Zoe knew you’d been sent it by your mother because the two of them spoke of it together. Ask her yourself tomorrow, if you don’t believe what I say. I’m sorry, but when I told you it was I who sent it to you, it was the only way I could think of that I could quickly win your trust—”

“Why is it that the only way you can ever think how to ‘win my trust’ is to tell me another lie?” I interrupted Wolfgang’s extremely untimely confession.

But in the back of my mind, I had to admit that much of what he said was true. Handsome and desirable as Wolfgang had seemed to me from the moment I’d first clapped eyes on him, I had spent much time and effort trying to avoid proximity at all cost—and for a reason I could hardly have shared with him, then or now: that Sam was still alive and in danger from every quarter I could think of but my own, and I couldn’t afford to trust anyone, anyone at all.

I also couldn’t help noticing there was still one cog that didn’t fit into Wolfgang’s mechanical blueprint.

“Even if all you’ve said is true,” I added, “it doesn’t explain your lie about the Pod.”

“The—pod?” said Wolfgang, confused.

“My boss, Pastor Owen Dart,” I translated. “Why was he so anxious to get me out of town on an assignment to Russia, and then turn around and follow us to Vienna? What was he doing lurking that night in the vineyard below your house? What did you and he speak of that you couldn’t discuss in front of me?”

Perhaps it was my imagination that Wolfgang grew slightly pale. He seemed about to speak, then stopped. I hoped he wouldn’t try to go on pretending that the man in the vineyard was Father Virgilio—but that thought in itself suggested yet another question.

“Who is Virgilio Santorini, anyway?” I asked. “My uncle Laf seems to know of him, but believes he’s a very dangerous man. Why did you have him meet us at the library of Melk?”

“This is hardly the time or place I would have chosen for such a conversation, but at least it’s difficult to eavesdrop,” Wolfgang said with a sigh of frustration. “And everything is nearly over now, so I’m able to tell you whatever you’d like to know—if at least it will finally make you feel you can trust me. Life is very complex, Ariel, and people are often complex beyond our understanding—”

“Wolfgang, for heaven’s sake, it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. Let’s cut to the chase, okay? Who’s Virgilio, and why was Pastor Dart following us in Vienna?”

“Very well,” Wolfgang said, looking me right in the eye with a you-asked-for-it expression. “Virgilio Santorini is a highly educated, erudite scholar of medieval texts who received his degrees from the Sorbonne and the University of Vienna. He is in fact a priest, but not a librarian of the monastery of Melk. He has complete