“Giordano?” I repeated, bewildered.
“Yes, haven’t you read his essays?” Lesley leafed through the book. “The Guardians had to take him into the Lodge, to keep him from broadcasting his theories to the world at large.”
I shook my head, feeling a bit ashamed of myself. I’d lost all interest in Giordano’s writings after the first long-winded sentence. (Even apart from the fact that they were by Giordano—well, I mean to say!)
“Wake me up if this gets interesting,” said Xemerius, closing his eyes. “I need a nap to help me digest my supper.”
“No one has ever taken Giordano really seriously, not even the Guardians,” Gideon said. “He’s published confused theories in dubious journals about the supernatural. The readers of such things regard the count as One Transformed and an Ascended Master, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“I can tell you all about it!” Lesley held Anna Karenina under his nose as if she were producing Exhibit A in court as evidence. “As a historian, Giordano stumbled on letters and records of the Inquisition from the sixteenth century. The sources show that when the count was a very young man and on one of his journeys in time, he met a girl who was living in a convent—Elisabetta di Madrone, daughter of the Conte di Madrone—seduced her, and made her pregnant. And on that occasion…” She hesitated for a moment. “Or, well, presumably either before or after it, he told her all kinds of things about himself—maybe because he was still young and rash, or simply because he’d lulled himself into a false sense of security.”
“What kinds of things?” I asked.
“He was very free with information, beginning with his origins and his real name, going on to the fact that he could travel in time, and finally claiming that he was in possession of priceless secrets. Secrets that would enable him to create the philosopher’s stone.”
Gideon nodded, as if he knew the story, but he didn’t fool Lesley.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t go down too well in the sixteenth century,” she went on. “At that time, people thought the count was a dangerous demon, and this girl Elisabetta’s father was so furious about what had happened to his daughter that he founded the Florentine Alliance and devoted the rest of his life to looking for the count and others like him. So have many generations after him—” She stopped. “Where was I? My goodness, my head’s so full of information that I feel it might explode any moment now.”
“What on earth does any of this have to do with Tolstoy?” asked Gideon, looking impatiently at Lucas’s special edition of the novel. “Don’t snap my nose off, but so far you haven’t told me anything really new.”
Lesley cast him a dark glance.
“Well, you’ve told me a lot I didn’t know,” I was quick to say. “But you were going to explain what the count really intends to do with the philosopher’s stone, Lesley!”
“Right.” Lesley frowned. “But I had to go farther back, because of course it was some time before the descendants of the Conte di Madrone got on the track of the first time traveler, Lancelot de Villiers, in—”
“You can cut it short if you like,” Gideon interrupted her. “We don’t have all the time in the world. The day after tomorrow we’re meeting the count again, and meanwhile, on his instructions, I’m supposed to be getting some blood from Lucy and Paul. I’m afraid that if I don’t succeed, he’ll come up with an alternative plan.” He sighed. “Well?”
“But we can’t neglect the details.” Lesley also sighed and buried her face in her hands for a moment. “Oh, all right. The Guardians think the philosopher’s stone is something that will work wonders for mankind, because it will be a cure for all sickness and disease, right?”
“Right,” Gideon and I said in unison.
“But Lucy and Paul and Gwenny’s grandfather and, yes, strictly speaking, the Alliance people as well, all thought that was a lie.”
I nodded.
“Hang on.” Gideon’s eyebrows were drawn together. “Gwenny’s grandfather? Our Grand Master before Uncle Falk took over?”
I nodded, this time a little guiltily. He was staring at me, and suddenly he looked as if light had dawned on him. “Go on, Lesley,” he said. “What exactly did you find out?”
“Lucy and Paul thought the count just wants the philosopher’s stone for himself.” Lesley stopped for a moment, to make sure that we really were hanging on her lips. “Because he intends the stone to make him, and only him, immortal.”
Gideon and I said nothing. I was suitably impressed, speaking for myself. I wasn’t so sure about Gideon. His face didn’t even begin to tell me what he was thinking.
“Of course the count had to invent all that about the benefit to mankind, blah-blah-blah, so that he could convince people it would be a good idea to work for him,” Lesley went on. “He could hardly have built up such a massive secret organization if he’d said what he was really planning to do.”
“You mean that’s all? It’s simply because that old buffer the count is scared of dying?” I said. I was almost disappointed. Was that really supposed to be the secret behind the secret? All the fuss and expense, just for this?
As I was shaking my head skeptically and trying to think what to say next, something beginning with “but,” Gideon’s eyebrows moved even closer together.
“It would fit,” he murmured. “Damn it, Lesley’s right! It does fit.”
“What fits?” I asked.
He jumped up and began prowling around my room. “I can’t believe that my family’s been blindly falling for his tricks for centuries,” he said. “That I’ve been blindly falling for his tricks!” He stopped in front of me and took a deep breath. “The precious stones shall all unite, the scent of time shall fill the night, once time links the fraternity, one man lives for eternity. Read that the right way, and you see what it’s all about. Under the sign of the twelvefold star, all sickness and ills will flee afar. Of course! If it’s going to give someone eternal life, that substance must be able to cure anything.” He rubbed his forehead and pointed to the papers lying on the rug. They looked the worse for wear. “And the prophesies that the count never let the Guardians see say so even more clearly. The philosopher’s stone shall eternity bind. New strength will arise in the young at that hour, making one man immortal, for he holds the power. It’s so simple! Why didn’t I catch on long ago? I was so stunned by the idea that Gwyneth was going to die and it could be my fault, I just didn’t see the truth. Although it was staring me right in the face!”
“Oh, well,” said Lesley, allowing herself a small, triumphant smile. “I guess your strengths lie in other areas. Right, Gwenny?” She added, kindly, “And you had plenty of other problems on your hands.”
I reached for Gideon’s papers. “But beware: when the twelfth star shows its own force, his life here on earth runs its natural course. And if youth is destroyed, then the oak tree will stand, to the end of all time, rooted fast in the land,” I read hesitantly, trying to ignore the fact that the little hairs on my arms stood up when I took in those words. “Okay, so I’m the twelfth, I get that, but the rest of it might as well be in Chinese, for all the sense it makes to me.”
“Here, see what’s written in the margin? As soon as I have the elixir, she must die!” murmured Lesley, her head beside mine as we looked at the papers. “You get that bit, don’t you?” She hugged me hard. “You must never, never go near that murderer again, understand? That grisly Circle of Blood simply mustn’t be closed, not at any price.” She held me a little way away from her. “Lucy and Paul were acting for the best when they ran off with the chronograph. It’s a shame there was a second one lying about.” Letting go of me, she looked accusingly at Gideon. “And to think that someone in this room had nothing better to do than go around busily getting blood from all the time travelers to fuel it! Promise me, here and now, that the count will never get a chance to throttle Gwyneth, or stab her—”
Xemerius woke from deep sleep with a start. “Poison her, shoot her, hang her, behead her, trample her to death, drown her, throw her off a tower block,” he cried enthusiastically. “What are you talking about?”
“As the star dies, the eagle arises supreme, fulfilling his ancient and magical dream,” said Gideon quietly. “Except that she can’t die!”
“Mustn’t die, you mean,” Lesley corrected him.
“Must, can, should, would,” droned Xemerius, and he dropped his head on his paws again.
Gideon got down on the floor in front of us. His expression was very serious again. “That was what I was going to tell you just now, before we started—” He cleared his throat. “Did you tell Lesley how Lord Alastair ran you through with his sword?”
I nodded, and Lesley said, “She was really amazingly lucky that he didn’t wound her seriously.”
“Lord Alastair is one of the best swordsmen I know,” said Gideon. “And he did wound Gwyneth seriously. It was a very dangerous wound indeed.” He touched my hand with his fingertips. “As a matter of fact, it was a fatal wound.”
Lesley was gasping for air.
“But I only imagi—” I murmured, and then I thought of the way I’d floated up to the ceiling and the spectacular view I had from up there of what was going on down below.
“No.” Gideon shook his head. “You didn’t only imagine it! I don’t know if anyone could imagine a thing like that. And I was there at the time!” For a moment, he seemed unable to go on, then he got himself under control. “When we traveled back, you hadn’t been breathing for at least half a minute, and when I arrived in the cellar with you, you still had no pulse, I’m certain of that. Then a minute later, you sat up as if nothing had happened.”
“Does that mean…,” asked Lesley, and this time she was the one gawping like a sheep.
“It means Gwenny is the one who’s immortal,” said Gideon, giving me a flickering smile. I could only stare back, baffled.
Xemerius had sat up and was scratching his tummy uncertainly. His mouth opened and then closed, but instead of making any comment, he just spat a little gush of water over my pillow.
“Immortal?” Lesley’s eyes were wide open. “Like … like the Highlander?”
Gideon nodded. “Except that she won’t die even if she’s beheaded.” He stood up again, and his face set hard. “Gwyneth can’t die, unless she takes her own life.” And he recited, in a low voice, “For a star goes out in the sky above, if it freely chooses to die for love.”
* * *
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, the light of the rising sun was flooding into my room, and little dust motes were dancing in the air, bathed in bright, rosy light. I was wide awake at once—it wasn’t at all like the last few mornings. Cautiously, I felt beneath my nightdress for the wound under my breast and ran my finger along the scab over it.