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“Nam quod in iuventus non discitur, in matura aetate nescitur.”
EIGHT
THE GUARD at the foot of the stairs was fast asleep with his head against the banister.
“Poor Cantrell,” whispered Lucas as we stole past the sleeping man. “I’m afraid he’ll never make the grade to Adept if he goes on drinking like a fish.… Still, all the better for us. Come on, quick!”
I was already breathless. We’d had to run the whole way back from the café. Kenneth de Villiers and his sister had kept us there forever, talking for what seemed like hours about country life in general; country life in Gloucestershire in particular (here I’d managed to steer the conversation around to some anecdotes about my cousin Madeleine and a sheep called Clarissa); about the Parker case (all I understood about that was that my grandfather had won it); about that cute little boy Charles, the heir to the throne (hello?); and about all the Grace Kelly films and the star’s marriage to the Prince of Monaco. Now and then, I coughed and tried to interest them in the health risks of smoking, but I got nowhere. When we were finally able to leave the café, it was so late that I didn’t even have time to go to the toilet, although I had pints of tea in my bladder.
“Another three minutes,” gasped Lucas. “And there was so much else I wanted to say to you. If my wretched boss hadn’t turned up—”
“I didn’t know you worked for the de Villiers family,” I said. “After all, you’re the future Lord Montrose, you’ll be a member of the Upper House of Parliament.”
“Yes,” replied Lucas gloomily, “but until I inherit from my father, I still have to earn a living for my family. And I was offered this job … never mind that, listen! Before Saint-Germain died, he censored everything he left to the Guardians: his secret writings, the letters, the chronicles, the entire lot. All the Guardians know is what Saint-Germain saw fit to tell them, and all the information that we do have obviously aims to get later generations putting all their efforts into closing the Circle. But the Guardians don’t know the whole secret.”
“Then you do?” I cried.
“Shh! No, I don’t know it either.”
We turned the final corner, and I flung open the door of the old alchemical laboratory. My stuff was lying on the table just where I’d left it.
“But I’m convinced that Lucy and Paul do know the secret. The last time we met, they were on the point of finding the missing documents.” He looked at his watch. “Damn.”
“Go on!” I begged him, as I snatched up my school bag and the flashlight. At the last moment I remembered to give him back the key. The familiar flip-flop sensation was already taking me over. “Oh, and please shave that mustache off, Grandpa!”
“The count had enemies who are mentioned only briefly in the Chronicles,” gasped Lucas, speaking as fast as he could. “In particular, there was an old secret society with close ties to the Church that had its knife into him. It was called the Florentine Alliance, and in 1745, the year when the Lodge was founded here in London, the Alliance got its hands on some documents that Count Saint-Germain had inherited— Don’t you think the mustache suits me, then?”
The room was beginning to spin around.
“I love you, Grandpa!” I called.
“Some documents showing, among other things, that reading the blood of all twelve time travelers into the chronograph isn’t the whole story! The secret will be revealed only when—” I heard Lucas say, before I was swept off my feet.
A fraction of a second later, I was blinking at bright light. And I was close up to a white shirt front. Half an inch to the left, and I’d have landed right on Mr. George’s feet.
I let out a small cry of alarm and took a few steps back.
“We must remember to give you a piece of chalk next time, to mark the spot where you land,” said Mr. George, shaking his head, and he took the flashlight from my hand. He hadn’t been waiting for my return on his own. Falk de Villiers stood beside him; Dr. White sat on a chair at the table; the little ghost boy, Robert, was peering at me from behind his father’s legs; and Gideon, with a large white plaster on his forehead, was leaning against the wall by the door.
At the sight of him, I had to take a deep breath.
He was in his usual attitude—arms crossed over his chest—but his face was almost as pale as his plaster, and the shadows under his eyes made the irises look unnaturally green. I felt an overpowering desire to run to him, fling my arms around him, and kiss his forehead better, the way I always used to with Nick when he hurt himself.
“Everything all right, Gwyneth?” asked Falk de Villiers.
“Yes,” I said, without taking my eyes off Gideon. Oh, God, I’d missed him. Only now did I realize how much! Had that kiss on the green sofa been only a day ago? Not that you could describe it as one kiss.
Gideon looked back at me impassively, almost indifferently, as if he was just seeing me for the first time. Not a trace of yesterday was left in his eyes.
“I’ll take Gwyneth upstairs so that she can go home,” said Mr. George calmly, putting his hand on my back and propelling me gently past Falk to the door. And right past Gideon.
“Have you … are you all right again?” I asked.
Gideon didn’t reply. He just looked at me. But there was something very wrong with the way he did it. As if I wasn’t a person at all, only an object. Something ordinary and unimportant, something like a … a chair. Maybe he did have concussion after all, and now he didn’t know who I was? I suddenly felt very cold.
“Gideon ought to be in bed, but he has to elapse for a few hours if we don’t want to risk an uncontrolled journey through time,” Dr. White brusquely explained. “But it’s ridiculous to let him go alone—”
“Only to spend two hours in a peaceful cellar in 1953, Jake,” Falk interrupted him. “On a sofa. He’ll survive.”
