CHAPTER FORTY

Wade couldn’t wait for another day to pass; he had to tell Becca.

At the Thomas Cook office nearest the station, his father and stepmother arranged travel to Antarctica while Wade used the agency’s encrypted phone to call Silva. Lily was smushed in the small communications room with him. It took an agonizing series of minutes to be connected, first to an aide, then to Silva, who was patrolling the corridor outside her room, then after several minutes to Dr. Cranach, who was at her bedside.

“Security,” Lily whispered nervously to him. “It has to be that way. It’ll be okay.”

His heart surged into his throat when the doctor said, “I will hold the phone for her. Just a moment.”

The “moment” became nearly a minute as the line went silent. Wade was about to say something when he heard Becca breathing into the phone. It was a dry, gasping sound, a million miles away.

“Hello . . . ?” she said.

“Becca?” he said softly. “I . . . it’s Wade. Lily is here, too.”

“Hi, Bec. We love you!”

No words, only labored breathing. Lily buried her face in her hands.

“It’s okay,” Wade said, “you don’t have to say anything. We . . . we love you, Becca. I know it’s hard.” He so wanted her to speak and nearly lost his breath waiting for her to say something, but it was obvious she couldn’t. He tried not to choke on the dryness in his own throat and kept going, as much for Lily as for himself.

“Just listen, Bec. So, we found out so much in the last few days. First of all, Michelangelo’s poem turns out to be about meeting Helmut Bern at Egmond Abbey. You sent Bern there, and Michelangelo met him there. You made it happen. We went to the Vatican and met the pope, and the last clue is about you; the rowboat and everything is all about you.”

He knew what he was saying was all crammed together and didn’t make sense the way he was talking, but he kept on.

“The final relic is Corona Borealis. The crown. We learned that it’s at the South Pole. Can you imagine that? It’s winter down there. We’re going soon. And the launch site is the island of Crete, in the Mediterranean. It’s all mountains and palace ruins. We’ll go there, too, Becca. We’re finally getting to the big stuff. All because of you, of what you did in London. That was the key. You had to go back in time for all this to happen: Bern, Michelangelo, all of it.”

Wade paused, waiting for a word or a sound from her; and he waited and waited, but there was only breathing. Lily had her ear to the phone, but she was shaking too much to say anything.

“Okay,” he said. “Then we discovered that Nicolaus himself hid the twelfth relic. He was the one who hid Corona at the South Pole. . . .” He realized he’d just told her that, and he stopped. “Becca, you have to pull through! You have to! Becca, please!”

The phone clicked and scraped as if it were passing hands.

“Becca!” Lily said. “Don’t go!”

Then her voice. “Wa . . .” A bare whisper. Wade pushed the phone against his ear to hear what she was saying.

“Wade . . . you . . . you can do it. . . .”

There was more scuffling on the line.

“Becca?” Lily said. “You’ll do it with us. You’ll help us stop Galina. It’s everything we’ve hoped for, and it’s so close now—”

The low voice of Dr. Cranach came on the line; there were footsteps in the background and the sound of several monitors beeping. “I’m terribly sorry. Your friend cannot speak with you any longer. Just now. We must hang up. Please, you understand. Thank you.”

The line was open for a few more seconds, full of the sound of voices talking over one another, then it cut off abruptly and the connection died.

The call was over.

Wade collapsed to his knees on the floor, and Lily with him.

“Wade!” Darrell ran in from the next office. “Lily? What? What’s going on!”

Per volare in aria. Per volare via da qui.

To fly in the air. To fly away from here.

You’ll fly now to the frozen Pole and to the sea-bound ruins of ancient Crete, its sea-warmed breezes, the blue blue rolling sea, the wine-dark sea, the deep deep deep of the sea.

Il mare. The sea.

Keep going, Wade and Lily. Keep going, Darrell. My lovely Maggie, keep going. Keep going to the end. Andare avanti fino alla fine. I’ll see you flying past. Passato. Past. Passing me as I fly. Passaggio. To pass you by. Passare da voi. To pass. Passare.

Away from here.