thirty-four

After dinner, Max’s mom insisted she and Mina would clean up and they’d join us on the covered back porch. Max and I took cups of chamomile lavender tea to the warm room filled with plants that overlooked the backyard.

“Sorry about Mina,” he said. “I warned you she’d try to fix you. She’s like that. She’s a great doctor, but most things don’t interest her. It’s only rare cases that make her pay attention. She likes to know the exact mechanisms that make things work.”

“That’s why she was grilling me about nettles.”

“That’s just her way.”

“I know. I like her. And your mom is the sweetest person on the planet.”

“Mom? My mom? Mary Jasper Liu? I love her more than anything, but ‘sweet’ isn’t a word I’d use to describe her.”

“This house is great,” I said as I sipped the tea. Max’s special blend. “I bet you have some great memories from this place.”

“Before my parents got divorced, my dad’s parents spent a lot of time here with us.”

I knew Max had been close with his grandparents. He’d spoken of them often. His grandfather had gone back to China after his grandmother passed away, and Max had gone to his grandfather’s hundredth birthday celebration earlier that year.

“My grandfather used to take me treasure-hunting along the coast nearby,” Max continued. “When I was little I was obsessed with this kids’ movie, an adventure about a pirate’s treasure that was set here in Astoria. You ever see The Goonies?”

I shook my head.

“Really?” Max asked. “I guess you’re too young. For my birthday one year, Granddad really buried a treasure for me to find.”

“What was the treasure?”

“A treasure chest filled with blocks to build a castle. Which I built here in this room. This is also where … ”

“Where what?”

“It’s silly. Never mind.”

“Come on.” I set down my steaming mug of tea and took Max’s hand in mine.

“This is also where my grandmother showed me how to take care of plants.”

“Why is that silly?”

“Grandmother had the greenest thumb of anyone I’ve ever known. When I was a kid, I believed she could truly bring dead plants back to life. It was like magic.” He shook his head and squeezed my hand. “Now I know they were only false memories of a child, blending my imagination with what I’d really seen.”

“It’s not magic,” I said. “It’s alchemy. The science of transformation. We both coax plants in our backyard gardens back to life from unhealthy states.”

“I know. But it was the way she talked about it too. She believed it was magic, and I believed her. Mina was closer with our mom’s parents than our dad’s, even though she’s the one who went on to become a healer. Mina hates that I became a cop. She thinks she’s the only one who helps people.”

“There’s more than one way to help people,” I said, as much for my own benefit as Max’s. Since giving up my Paris apothecary shop, I hadn’t been helping people as directly as I used to, and I’d even begun to wonder if I was moving away from my humanity, the danger for alchemists. That was one of the reasons I was eager to sell my tinctures at the Autumn Equinox Fair the following weekend. My prices were on a sliding scale, as they always had been, charging however much people could afford.

“You never talk about your family,” Max said.

“I lost them a long time ago. Even the couple who took me in … I lost them too.”

“They all died?”

“My biological family are long dead, but … ” I thought of Nicolas, who’d shown me more fatherly affection and guidance than I’d experienced in my life. “I ran away and lost touch with the surrogate parents who saved my life and mentored me.”

“Sorry. I can tell it’s painful for you to talk about. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“You’re lucky to have your mom and Mina.”

“I know. And as much as we disagree, Mina’s partly right about me. About why I became a cop. One of the reasons I wanted to be a detective had nothing to do with helping people. I love the feeling—the personal satisfaction—of catching the bad guys. In that pirate treasure movie I loved as a kid, the scrappy bunch of teenage friends come together to defeat the bad guys at the end. I always wanted to be like them.”

I laughed and Max looped his fingers through mine.

“What do you say we watch the movie before bed?” he suggested. “It’s a silly kid’s movie, but … ”

“I’d love to.”

Sitting there on the Oregon coast in a cozy covered porch with a wild storm swirling around us, I knew it was the calm before the storm I’d return to in my quest to rescue Nicolas. But I let myself enjoy it. Just for the night.

In the morning, mist surrounded the seaside house but no rain was falling. Mina had left before dawn so she could make it back home in time to start the day at her medical practice. Max’s mom packed half a dozen mason jars of leftovers to send home with us. She also handed a second bag to Max. He peeked inside and smiled.

“What is it?” I asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Homemade chicken soup and Sprite. What she gave me as a kid when I was sick.” He gave his mom a hug. “This is why you got up so early.”

“Of course,” Mary said. “But I forgot one thing. Zoe, can you help me get it?”

I followed Mary into the house.

“You know, all three of us are both right and wrong,” she said. “Me, you, and Mina. We each have different ways of taking care of Max. I’ll tell you a secret I learned from my in-laws. It’s not the method and medicine that matters—it’s the love behind it. We all love him. It’s the love that cures.”

She gave me a hug and walked me out.

“What did she give you?” Max asked after his mom helped me into the jeep and waved goodbye.

“Advice,” I said with a smile. It had been a magical evening of family and pirate treasure, convincing me anything was possible. I had survived wars and witchcraft trials. I almost believed I could get Nicolas out of the painting, and also have the nearly normal life I wanted to have with Max.

“Are you going to tell me how you picked out the perfect gift for my mom?”

I leaned over and kissed him. When I pulled back, I held up two small bundles in my hand. “I didn’t,” I said. “I picked out three. Once I met her, I selected the one that seemed most appropriate.”

Max laughed and started the engine. “Even narrowing it down to three, you’re still pretty magical, Zoe Faust.”

As we drove away from Astoria and headed closer to real life, I felt less and less magical. The unanswered questions about Philippe Hayden, the Flamels, and the Portland art forger who might have been a murderer began to weigh on me again.

We rounded a curve in the road and the clouds transformed from leaping rabbits into columns of trees swaying in the wind. But it wasn’t the clouds that had changed. It was my perspective. Just like in a Philippe Hayden painting, this was an optical illusion. Everything was connected to Philippe Hayden. I needed to figure out how.

Max had a long day ahead of him, so he dropped me at home. I would have been disappointed to part with him if I hadn’t needed to do so much that day.

I found Dorian and Tobias in the attic playing chess. Tobias was winning.

“Monsieur Freeman learned very little with Isabella Magnus yesterday,” Dorian said, not looking up from the board.

“Sorry, Zoe. I didn’t get any closer to finding the stolen painting.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have a plan,” I said. “You up for a trip to the library?”

The kids had checked out as many art history books as they could, but there were still more in the library. With all his red yarn, Dorian was looking at present-day connections, but I knew there was more to find out from the past.

Tobias and I walked under the ivy-covered walkway that led to the library. I needed the help of a librarian, but my heart sank as we stepped into the building. The librarian at the information desk was the one who’d revoked my library card. He looked up with a smile, but his helpful expression turned to a deep frown when he recognized me.

Before the desk librarian could berate me, another librarian with bright orange hair swooped up to me from where she’d been shelving books. “You’re the chef at Blue Sky Teas, aren’t you?”

“You recognize me?” I tucked a short lock of hair behind my ear and reminded myself the paper had only come out a few days before. Public attention was fleeting. People would forget about me soon enough. I hoped.

“Of course.” The librarian beamed. “Your breakfast carrot cake cookies are to die for. It was rad to see you recognized in the weekly. Are you here looking for cookbooks? If so, I’m sorry to tell you that a library patron defaced most of them, so they’re in storage being evaluated for repair.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Tobias said. He steered us away from the other librarian seated at the desk. “There’s something we could use your help with.”

Tobias and I sat at the most secluded table I could find, looking through the stack of books my librarian fan had brought us.

I’ve never fully grasped why some artists become famous while others languish in obscurity, but I understand all too well that much of life is the accidents of history. If Nicolas hadn’t found me, what would I have become?

My stomach gave a loud rumble. I was about to suggest we take a break at the teashop to nourish ourselves, so we’d remain effective, when Tobias’s breath caught. I looked up at him as he began to chuckle.

“I’ve found your museum doppelgänger,” he said, pushing a book across the table.

On the center of a page was a painted portrait of two young people, a brother and sister, done in the style of Philippe Hayden. Time stopped. I stared at the portrait and forgot to breathe.

“Everything okay?” Tobias asked. “It was a silly joke. I’ll get back to work—”

“It’s not that,” I said with a shaky voice. “I know the subjects of that portrait.”

How could I not? I was one of them.

“This,” I said, “is me and my brother, Thomas, in front of the hearth at Nicolas Flamel’s house.”

I now knew who Philippe Hayden was. And I didn’t know why it had taken me so long to realize it was her.