Thirty-Three

I was shaking so much that I could barely shove Percy’s bag into his arms and lock the door behind him. I somehow got the door bolted before sliding down onto the floor.

I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I was too numb from shock. I’d grieved for Ambrose, but this was different. Yet strangely, along with my horror, I also felt a sliver of peace.

Ambrose had grieved for his son. He’d lost himself in his guilt over finding the Elixir of Life when his only son could not, and he found it difficult to move on in the months that followed Percy’s supposed death. But he hadn’t been so lost that he’d taken his own life.

I gripped the wallet in my hand. As I’d shoved Percy’s bag into his arms, I’d also lifted his wallet. It was done sloppily with shaking hands, but he’d been too upset to notice. There were still many blanks about Percy’s current situation, but I couldn’t bear to keep asking him questions. I hoped the wallet would provide some answers.

I took several deep breaths and picked up the coffee table Percy had knocked over. The simple action gave me a measure of reality to focus on. By the time I’d collected the books and newspapers that had fallen to the floor, I had mostly stopped shaking. I sat down on the couch and opened the wallet. Percival Smythe had a driver’s license from Britain with an address in London, a membership card for a gym in a town in a suburb of Paris, and a library card from Edinburgh. A black credit card and several hundred dollars in cash indicated he was living well.

Two photographs were tucked inside the wallet. The first photograph was of Percy and a glamorous young woman. They sat together at a Parisian café, a cigarette in her hand and a pipe in his. They weren’t looking at the camera, but at each other. She looked like a movie star. She reminded me of an actress from a 1930s Charlie Chan movie.

The other photograph was a faded black-and-white picture of Ambrose. The print was nearly worn through in the center, as if fingers had run over its surface many times. Percy had saved the photograph of his father and looked at it countless times. Damn. I couldn’t dismiss him as completely heartless.

A tentative knock sounded on the front door.

“Zoe?” The voice was hesitant. “You don’t have to look at me again, but I think my wallet fell out. Could you check the couch cushions?”

If it hadn’t been for that well-loved photo of Ambrose, I wouldn’t have opened the door. But now …

I opened the door and pressed the wallet into Percy’s hands. “I hope you find peace before you die, Percy. But never show your face here again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “For everything.”

By the time I locked the door again, my anger hadn’t subsided, but it was a calmer rage. Clarity washed over me, showing me an important fact.

Percy was either one of the world’s greatest actors, or he truly felt remorse over killing his father. He wholeheartedly believed the myth that alchemists can’t kill one another without suffering grave consequences, and thought it was this old wives’ tale that had brought him to death’s door, not his own guilt. I would have bet my gold locket that he sincerely believed he’d nearly died from the wrath of a magical legend.

Meaning he couldn’t have killed Lucien.

Filled with a confusing mix of fury and anticipation, I couldn’t stand to be indoors. I went out to the backyard and stepped into the garden. It was a clear, crisp night. Pinpricks of stars dotted the indigo sky above. Amidst the sorrel, garlic, and nasturtiums, I breathed in the early-summer scents.

A desperate sound escaped my lips, half laughter and half sob. Finding a backward alchemist had been a distraction, not Dorian’s salvation. An experienced backward alchemist had died because he came to Portland in search of Non Degenera Alchemia, and a less experienced one wasn’t able to tell me anything truly helpful. All Percy had done was devastate me.

I lay down in the garden, not bothering to look at which plants were beneath me. I didn’t mind that I happened to be in the midst of blackberry brambles. I took pleasure in the pain of the thorns pricking my skin. It was a distraction from the mess of a situation I had to climb out of. I stared up at the star-filled sky.

I’d wasted too much of my life wallowing. Five minutes was enough time to compose myself. I had a gargoyle to save.

I brushed the brambles from my hair and clothes and went back inside to climb the stairs to the attic. There, surrounded by my alchemical and healing artifacts, I emailed Dorian to tell him I’d kicked Percy out.

I can come home? he emailed back immediately. Tres bién. Julian Lake’s housekeeper does not like me. She is suspicious that I will not let her see my visage. I believe she will try to sneak into my bedchamber tonight—little does she know I do not sleep!

It’s not late enough for you to walk across town, I wrote back. I’ll pick you up at the end of his driveway in 20 minutes.

On the drive across town, I second-guessed everything I’d done not only that day, but since deciding to leave Paris several days ago. If I had stayed in Paris, how would things have played out with Lucien?

I pulled up in front of Julian Lake’s estate. House wasn’t a big enough word to describe the castle-like mansion, complete with stone lions standing guard. I didn’t plan on walking up to the house and ringing the doorbell, so I idled the engine and waited with my thoughts.

A hunched figure in a black cape carrying a small satchel sprinted across the lawn. His bad leg gave him a limp, but it didn’t slow him much. He looked rather like a hunchbacked Little Red Riding Hood with a book-shaped picnic basket.

Dorian climbed into the truck with Non Degenera Alchemia tucked under his arm. On the drive home, I filled Dorian in on what had happened with Percy. He replied with a string of profanities.

“I am so sorry, my friend,” he said once he’d exhausted all the profane words he knew in both French and English, some of which I’d never heard. “Never fear. Dorian Robert-Houdin is on the case. I will put my little grey cells to work.”

That’s what worried me.