five

“The note from Nicolas doesn’t use physical alchemy,” I continued as Dorian stared at me, becoming more animated as I spoke. “It uses the concepts of alchemy, not the science. I’ve been using physical chemistry and alchemy to try and raise faded ink. But what if this wasn’t a straightforward letter that faded? I think the message was disguised all along.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes.

“You’re skeptical, I know. But this—”

“Non. You are right. It is a sound theory. I was simply contemplating what to cook with this new bounty.”

I laughed and wrapped my arms around Dorian. I hadn’t felt this hopeful since finding the note. “Go ahead and cook. You can keep me company here in the kitchen. I can do my experiment right here. I’ll be right back.”

Dorian hopped up on his stool, deftly lifted a chef’s knife, and began dicing turnips. Next to my old wooden cutting board was a glass bowl of acidulated water. That’s the fancy name for water mixed with a little bit of acid, such as lemon juice, to keep certain fruits and vegetables from turning brown before the cook is ready to use them. The bowl was filled with sliced apples. I looked forward to sampling whatever creation he was making.

Dorian had taught me just how similar alchemical transformations are to culinary transformations. Both involve organic matter reacting to what’s put into it. And as with cooking, the personal intent one adds to alchemy makes all the difference.

Filled with anticipation, I left the kitchen and headed for my basement alchemy lab.

When most people think of alchemy, they think of medieval men hunched in a dark workshop turning lead into gold. I never got the hang of that, perhaps because I didn’t care enough. My strength was extracting a plant’s essence to create a purer version of its healing powers.

Since alchemy was a precursor to modern chemistry, alchemical tools share a lot in common with what you’d find in chemistry labs. My basement lab was where I’d tried everything I could think of to raise the faded ink in Nicolas’s note. I’d increased the temperature of the ink and paper with different heat sources, bathed and starved the ink of light, and changed the alkaline balance of the paper. Yet each of those experiments was about chemical transformation. As I now realized, I’d been approaching it all wrong. It was an artistic transformation I needed.

I retrieved the note from where I’d left it locked inside a cabinet drawer and hurried back up the stairs. I pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door, held the faded paper flat in my hand, and raised it to eye level.

“What are you doing?” Dorian asked. He’d moved on to mincing onions.

“Anamorphosis,” I said, squinting at the paper. Nothing. I rotated it 90 degrees.

“What is that, Greek? I wish you would speak Latin like a civilized person.”

Since the strange alchemy book that had originally brought Dorian to life had been written in Latin, it was his first language.

“It’s an art term,” I said. “The most famous example is the sixteenth-century painting The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, where he painted a skull that you can only see if you view the painting at a sharp angle. Philippe Hayden’s paintings used the same technique.”

I held the note parallel to the floor but at eye-level. The paper was slightly lumpy from the experiments I’d done on it, so I kept shifting it, looking for a way to make the lines turn into something more. I’d assumed the faint sketches behind the writing were simply old unfinished doodles from Nicolas’s quirky mind; paper was a lot harder to come by in those days. But perhaps, just as Hayden’s artwork contained hidden layers of meaning that were revealed with shifting perspectives, so too did this note.

“Hold this.” I handed Dorian the paper and ran to the attic, taking the stairs two at a time.

Hayden wasn’t as famous as Michelangelo or other Renaissance painters, but I knew his work well because of the Flamels’ interest. The artist had painted alchemical subjects more accurately than any painter of the time. That had raised controversy amongst alchemists because they felt such paintings released the arcane knowledge of their secret art into the world more freely than was wise. Nicolas and Perenelle liked Hayden’s work because they understood that telling the truth about alchemy, through artwork, was the right thing to do. Unlike most alchemists, they believed that sharing this level of true knowledge wasn’t opening the floodgates. Representing true alchemy in art was not directly handing people the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life. People still had to work to achieve those goals through personal transformation. Hayden’s work included enough clues to lead interested, worthy individuals to the books that would reveal more.

I reached the attic and flung open the steamer trunk that sat beyond the organized shelves. The room held the inventory for my online business, Elixir, where I sold items I’d accumulated over the years in order to keep myself going financially. I’d only ever managed to transmute stone minerals into a few ounces of gold, so I’d tried various things over the years to make enough money to live in the ever-changing world. I was an apothecary for many years, but I tended to give away more medicines than I sold because I’ve never been good at turning away someone in need. That’s when I began saving the simple items that took on more value over time. During the decades I traveled around the United States in my Airstream, I sold small items at flea markets, but after buying my fixer-upper in Portland, I’d sent for the larger items I’d been keeping in storage in Paris. And that, of course, was how Dorian found his way to me.

I cast aside my Victorian Vampire-hunting kit and an unruly stack of World War II trading cards. A glint of light in the far corner of the trunk caught my eye. The cylindrical mirror would do the trick. I tucked it into my pocket and hurried back down the stairs.

“There.” I held the curved mirror to the paper, revealing the sketches to be letters. “Dorian, listen to this.”

The words came in and out of focus as I held the paper and mirror in unsteady hands. I read the words in the old French they were written in.

“I might not survive, 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 … ”

Dorian’s horns drew together, the equivalent of scrunching his brow in confusion. “Your mentor spoke like Yoda?”

“It’s missing some words. Some of the ink really has faded too much to read. And the wrinkles in the paper aren’t helping.”

“Read it one more time, s’il vous plait,” Dorian said.

As I complied, he wrote the words on the notepad he used for shopping lists. “Maintenant, I have an idea.”

He tossed onion skins into the compost bin, dried his hands on a kitchen towel, and hopped off his stool. He opened a drawer and removed a rolling pin and motioned for me to hand him the note. With the paper in one hand and the rolling pin in the other, the gargoyle marched over to the dining table, where he began to roll the fragile paper with the wooden pin.

If it had been anyone besides Dorian, I would have objected. But he used cooking tools with a softer touch than I used to think possible.

“We make a good team, you and I,” he said, handing the flattened paper back to me with pride. “Try again with the mirror.”

“I might not survive,” I began reading again, “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 … ” I broke off and gasped. “There’s another line! In the Philippe Hayden painting.”

I’d been right about the portrait. It was by Philippe Hayden. And it contained a clue to the whereabouts of Nicolas Flamel.