AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Typical Guardians’ logic again! If they’d wanted me not to fall in love with Gideon, they should have made sure he was an unattractive idiot with a silly quiff of hair, grubby fingernails, and a speech impediment. And they could have left out the violin stuff.
Mr. George led me through the darkness. “Maybe it’s just too long ago that I was sixteen years old. But I do remember how easily one is impressed at your age.”
“Mr. George, have you told anyone that I can see ghosts?”
“No,” said Mr. George. “That’s to say, I did try, but no one would listen to me. You see, the Guardians are scientists and mystics, but they won’t meddle with parapsychology. Careful, there’s a step here.”
“Lesley—she’s my best friend, but you probably know that—well, Lesley thinks that my … my ability is the magic of the raven.”
Mr. George said nothing for a while. Then he replied, “Yes. I think so, too.”
“And how exactly is the magic of the raven supposed to help me?”
“My dear child, if only I could tell you. I wish you’d rely more on sound human reason, but…”
“But I’m a hopeless case, you were going to say?” I couldn’t help laughing. “You’re probably right.”
Gideon was waiting for us in the chronograph room, with Falk de Villiers, who paid me a rather absentminded compliment on my dress as he set the little cogwheels of the chronograph moving.
“Right, Gwyneth, today your conversation with Count Saint-Germain takes place. It’s afternoon, the day before the soirée.”
“I know,” I said, with a surreptitious glance at Gideon.
“It’s not a particularly arduous task,” said Falk. “Gideon will take you up to the count’s rooms and collect you again.”
That had to mean I was to be left alone with the count. I began to feel anxious at once.
“Don’t worry. You were getting on so well yesterday, remember?” Gideon put his finger into the chronograph and smiled at me. “Ready?”
“Ready when you are,” I said softly, while the room filled with white light and Gideon disappeared before my eyes.
I stepped forward and gave Falk my hand.
“Today’s password is qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare,” said Falk, as he pressed the needle into my finger. The ruby lit up, and everything went around in a swirl of red.
When I landed, I had forgotten the password again.
“Everything’s all right,” said Gideon’s voice right beside me.
“Why is it so dark here? The count’s expecting us. He might have been kind enough to light us a candle.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know exactly where we land,” said Gideon.
“Why not?”
I couldn’t see him, but I felt that he was shrugging his shoulders. “He’s never asked, and I have a vague feeling he wouldn’t be very happy to think of us using his beloved alchemical laboratory as a runway for taking off and landing. Go carefully—this place is full of fragile objects.”
We groped our way to the door. Out in the corridor, Gideon lit a torch and took it out of its holder. It cast eerie, moving shadows on the wall, and I instinctively moved a step closer to Gideon. “What was that wretched password again? Just in case anyone hits you on the head.”
“Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare.”
“Why Nessie swims Loch Ness in the rain?”
He laughed and put the torch back in its holder.
“What are you doing?”
“I only wanted to … I mean, just now, when Mr. George interrupted us, there was something very important I wanted to say to you.”
