fifty-three

As the sun rose, we prepared to drive home. Mina had declared the Flamels stable enough to be moved, and Tobias and I could care for them just as well from my house.

Tobias offered to drive, but I could see the tiredness in his eyes. I took the keys from his hands.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked. “You’ve been up all night. The planetary cycles affect you more than me. You’re in no shape to drive.”

I pointed at the rising sun, breathing in the crisp air of the new day. “I am now. I’m tired, but the sun is waking me up. Get some sleep in the trailer.”

He nodded, but paused as he stepped in. “Hey Zoe, when we get to the house, call me before you get out of the truck.”

“Why would I—oh. Ward.”

“We don’t know where he is. If he knows you’re the one who discovered his identity, he’ll be angry, and he might come for you like he did for Nicolas.”

Before I started the engine, I called Dorian from the trailer to let him know we were on our way.

“Will Max be with you, or only the alchemists?” he asked.

“Max is away looking for Ward Talbot. No need for you to hide.”

“The art dealer Ward? He is the murderous forger?”

“He’s the alchemist Edward Kelley.”

I heard the sound of claws tapping on a keyboard. “Bof! But of course. Talbot … He is a smart one. I believed the false trail of family lineage I uncovered. Très stupide! Kelley … Did you know some people believe him to have created the Voynich manuscript? Before it was called by that name, of course, but—”

“We can talk when I get home. I’ll be there soon.” I hoped. It seemed that rush hour traffic began earlier and earlier each year in all the cities I’d visited in the twenty-first century. I needed to get on the road. But I had one more call to make first. I tried Max, but only got his voicemail.

Just as I’d thought, we hit the beginning of rush hour, with drivers from outlying areas commuting into Portland. As I sat behind a line of cars on the paved I-5 freeway in my 1942 Chevy, with tech workers on either side of me and three centuries-old alchemists in the trailer behind me, I began to laugh.

Tobias would have said I was slap-happy, but it wasn’t lack of sleep making me laugh. As if my life wasn’t strange enough, I needed to prepare Nicolas to meet Dorian.

I eased into my driveway half an hour later. Tobias opened the trailer door before I could call him.

“You weren’t sleeping,” I said as he met me at the door of the truck.

“That Nick is a talker,” he muttered. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Tobias and I circled the house together, checking for any signs of Ward. We stopped at the side gate after doing a full loop.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I said. “He’s probably fled the city by now. I wonder if he convinced Cleo to leave everything behind and go with him.”

“More foolish decisions have been made by people with far fewer resources.”

“Speaking of which,” Tobias said as we hurried back to the trailer, “the Flamels gave me the best gossip. Two centuries’ worth about the rich folks who owned the painting they were trapped inside. I only wish I knew which parts of their half-awake interpretations were true.”

I paused at the door. “Did you happen to prepare Nicolas to meet Dorian?”

“Perenelle did. She told him not to stare at their fellow Frenchman whose alchemical transformation went awry.”

Moments after I opened the front door, Dorian hobbled down the stairs.

“Where’s your sling?” Tobias asked.

“I could not bake with it on. And I wished to fulfill my duties for Blue Sky Teas as well as cook breakfast for our esteemed guests.”

“We have already broken our fast, good man,” Nicolas said after I introduced him to Dorian.

“We would be honored to partake in a meal with you, sir,” Perenelle added. “I, for one, am hungry enough to eat a hundred meals.”

Dorian beamed at her. “Bon! I will not disappoint you, mademoiselle.”

We came together for a most welcome second breakfast. Due to Mina and Tobias’s care, Nicolas was doing better than anyone had expected, so he joined us at the table, still dressed in the purple scrubs Mina had given him. Perenelle remained in her brown dress. She’d declined my offer to loan her some of my clothes. She refused to wear slacks, and didn’t think my one dress of green silk included nearly enough fabric.

“Where did you learn to cook such exquisite food?” Perenelle asked Dorian.

“It is a long story,” Dorian said.

Nicolas grinned at him. “We are alchemists. We have time.”

“You are both from the 1300s,” Dorian said. “Many centuries before Viollet-le-Duc reimagined Notre Dame de Paris, but I believe gargoyles and grotesques had begun being carved a century before your births. You are familiar with such creatures?”

Perenelle gasped. “You are not a man whose alchemical experiments went awry?”

Dorian shook his head. “I am a proud gargoyle.”

I was glad to have Perenelle and Nicolas pepper Dorian with questions about his life. It was a welcome distraction from thinking about what had become of Ward and the detective.

“The iron sculpture in front of your hearth,” Perenelle said, rising from the table after finishing a second plate of food. “It’s exquisite.”

“Isabella Magnus,” I said.

Perenelle stopped with her hand partly outstretched toward the metal sculpture of intertwined birds. “A relative of the man you believe Edward murdered?”

“His wife,” Tobias said. “She’s a talented artist.”

“That she is … ” Perenelle stifled a yawn. “I can’t quite believe I’m saying this after half-sleeping for all these years, but I feel like I need to rest.”

I was exhausted myself, but I needed time to figure out what to do next. Being in the presence of Nicolas and Perenelle was all-consuming.

I was preparing a bed for them when my phone rang.

“Max.” I let out a breath of relief, but the feeling only lasted a moment.

“It’s Isabella Magnus,” he said. “She’s in the hospital. It’s bad, Zoe.”