twenty-eight

“We’ve been looking at this all wrong,” I said. I tried to stand, but my ankle wasn’t having it. Tobias helped ease me back down onto the sofa.

“Mon Dieu.” Dorian flapped his wings, knocking over a pile of books. But he didn’t seem to notice. “Monsieur Flamel is trapped inside the painting. This is terrible. Terrible! I cannot bear the thought.” He tucked his wings around his body.

“It’s all right, Dorian,” Tobias said in a soothing voice. “If that’s what’s happened to him, we’ll find him and figure out how to get him out.”

Dorian’s lower lip quivered. “But he has been trapped in the painting for centuries. All those years … ” He rocked back and forth.

“Uh, Zoe,” Tobias said softly. “Does he do this sometimes?”

“Dorian,” I said, standing with all my weight on my right leg and putting my hands on the gargoyle’s shoulders. “Your situation wasn’t the same. You were reverting to stone but still wide awake. We don’t know that’s what’s happened to Nicolas.” I hoped my voice conveyed a confidence I didn’t feel.

Dorian looked up at me with his watery black eyes. “I could not bear it for a good man to suffer such a fate.”

“We don’t know what it’s like to be trapped in a painting.”

“Or,” Tobias cut in, “if that’s where he is at all.”

“I don’t know. But if you’d seen that painting. The way he looked at me … it was like he saw me.” I shivered. “I thought at the time it was just the skill of a talented artist. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before that he was inside the painting.”

“Because he might not be,” Tobias said. “It’s a nice theory, but it’s just that: a theory.”

“It was him, Tobias.” I could barely contain my excitement, and I felt my voice shaking as I spoke. “As someone who practices both spiritual and physical alchemy, you know better than anyone how alchemy is about transformation. Philippe Hayden painted alchemical secrets into artwork. Real alchemy, not like most artistic representations of alchemy. Don’t you see? He was an alchemist. One more skilled than us. Philippe Hayden figured out how to use his intent and alchemical ingredients to move objects like gold into paintings.”

“And then people,” Tobias murmured. “Sounds dangerous.”

I gasped. “I wonder if Philippe Hayden was the person Nicolas wanted help fighting, if he was the one who trapped Nicolas into one of his own paintings.”

“Monsieur Hayden was not a backward alchemist,” Dorian said. He seemed to have snapped out of his catatonic state. “Those were stupid, stupid men. They could never have painted a masterpiece.”

“Nicolas was always fearful of losing his humanity as he grew older,” I said. “It was something he warned me of. ” I groaned. “If Philippe Hayden was an alchemist who lived for centuries, that would explain why the experts disagree about which of his works are real. Because they don’t know that Hayden was painting for hundreds of years.”

“Zoe,” Tobias said quietly, “if this Philippe Hayden is an alchemist, and a brilliant artist who knows how to trap people in paintings, he’d be a dangerous, dangerous man.”

“I know.”

Tobias spoke slowly, and so softly I could barely hear him. “Do we know for sure that Logan Magnus is dead?”

Dorian clicked his tongue. “Yes, yes, this is all very dramatic and you two should cowrite a Gothic novel that will make lots of money so you can buy me many truffles and other delicacies. But this does not work in reality. The police have a body. They know he died of poison.”

“And Logan Magnus grew up in the public eye because of his artist father,” I said. “There are lots of photos of him growing up.”

“That’s what I always thought,” I said. “But what if he switched identities with Logan Magnus because they looked so much alike? Even without plastic surgery, Hayden could have altered his appearance with tricks that play on what people expect, the way stage magicians do. And the man who died could have been the real son.” But I knew I was grasping at straws.

“A trick that fooled all his family and friends?” Tobias said.

“Logan was an only child,” I said, “and his father died a long time ago.” Dorian looked as if he was about to suffer an apoplexy, so I quickly continued. “I know, I know. I don’t believe it either. I don’t think Logan Magnus is Philippe Hayden. There’s too much we don’t know. I keep coming back to the fact that Nicolas wanted my help with something. He wanted me to stop someone. Was it Philippe Hayden?”

Dorian scampered to the kitchen and came back with the translated note we’d deciphered.

“I might not survive,” he read, “but if I do, I will be imprisoned … I am not afraid to die. But I fear for the world if I do not complete this important task. I must prevent … You must … stop them … You will find … in the Philippe Hayden painting.”

“‘Them,’” I repeated, “What were ‘they’ doing that Nicolas thought needed to be stopped? Oh no … ”

“What are you pondering?” Dorian asked. “Tobias, I believe our friend might be in need of smelling salts.”

“I’m not swooning,” I snapped. “We’ve been forgetting Perenelle. But Philippe Hayden and Perenelle Flamel together … Two people make a ‘them.’” My heart was racing so fast I could barely breathe. I shook my head. “No, I can’t believe Perenelle would hurt Nicolas.”

“And I can’t believe,” Tobias added, “that the great Nick Flamel would say he fears for the world because of an affair his wife is having. That’s beyond overdramatic. I don’t buy it.”

“She loved Nicolas way too much to have an affair. I don’t think that was her relationship with Philippe. But what if she was advising Philippe to do something dangerous with his art? Or helping him herself.”

“Such as teaching alchemy to a painter,” Dorian said.

“Perenelle loved art. While Nicolas would write the steps of alchemical processes, Perenelle preferred to sketch them. She never learned to paint, but with her interest in art … ”

“She could have been swayed by a dangerous man with ill intentions,” Tobias said.

“The Flamels’ home was filled with art by Philippe Hayden and other painters,” I said. “It was one of the many things I loved about my time with them. Do you think Philippe Hayden could have been one of their students, like I was, and that’s how he met Perenelle?”

“Isabella Magnus,” Dorian declared. He puffed up his chest before continuing. “The mysterious woman who is a metalworker yet cannot paint. Who possesses ergot poison, which has been manipulated for many centuries. Who was the last person in possession of The Alchemist before it disappeared.”

The gargoyle paused, straightened his wings, and drummed his claws together. If he wore glasses, I was sure he would have adjusted them for effect.

“Isabella Magnus,” he said, “is Perenelle Flamel.”