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“You really ought to have known better—I mean, about what had happened to me,” I said. “After all, you’re studying medicine.”
“Yes, and that’s exactly why I knew for certain that you—” He stopped in front of me, and for a change, he was the one biting his lower lip, which somehow went to my heart. He slowly raised his hand. “The point of the sword had gone that far into you.” He spread his thumb and forefinger quite a long way apart. “A little scratch wouldn’t have made you collapse. And then all the color went out of your face at once, and you broke out in a cold sweat. So I knew that Alastair must have hit a major artery. You were suffering from internal bleeding.”
I stared at his hand in front of my face.
“But you’ve seen the wound yourself now. It really is nothing,” I said, clearing my throat. Something about being so close to him was affecting my vocal cords. “It … it must have been … Maybe it was simply the shock. You know, I imagined I was seriously wounded, so it looked as if I was really—”
“No, Gwenny, you didn’t imagine it.”
“But then how did I get off so lightly, with just that little injury?” I whispered.
He lowered his hand and began pacing up and down the room. “That’s what I didn’t understand myself at first,” he said almost fiercely. “I was so … so relieved that you were alive, I convinced myself that there’d be some logical explanation for the wound. But under the shower just now, light suddenly dawned on me.”
“Ah, that must be it,” I said. “I haven’t showered yet.” I loosened my convulsive grip on the edge of the desk and sat down on the rug. Okay, that was better. At least my knees had stopped shaking.
With my back against the side of my bed, I looked up at him. “Do you have to prowl around like that? It’s making me nervous. I mean, even more nervous than I am already.”
Gideon knelt down on the rug right in front of me and put his hand on my shoulder, without stopping to think that from now on, I was in no position to listen properly to what he was saying, since my mind was busy with less important ideas such as “I hope at least I smell good” and “I mustn’t forget to breathe.”
“You know the feeling when you’re solving Sudoku and you find the one number that makes it easy to fill in all the other spaces at once?”
I tentatively nodded.
Lost in thought, Gideon was caressing me. “I’ve been thinking over so many things for days, but only this evening did I find that one magic number. Do you see what I mean? I read those papers over and over again, so often that I almost knew them by heart—”
“What papers?” I interrupted him.
He let go of me. “The papers that Paul got from Lord Alastair in return for our family trees. Paul gave them to me on the day you had your conversation with the count.” When he saw all the question marks in my face, he gave me a wry smile. “I’d have told you then, only you were too busy asking me weird questions and then running away, acting all insulted. I couldn’t go after you because Dr. White insisted on cleaning my wound, remember?”
“That was only on Monday, Gideon.”
“Yes, you’re right. Seems like an eternity ago, doesn’t it? So when he finally let me go home, I was calling you every ten minutes, to tell you that I…” He cleared his throat, and then took my hand again. “To explain it all to you, but your mobile was always busy.”
“Maybe because I was telling Lesley what a bastard you are,” I said. “We do have a landline, you know.”
He took no notice of that. “In the intervals between calling you, I started reading the papers. They’re prophesies and notes from the count’s private papers. Documents that the Guardians don’t know about. Documents that he intentionally kept from his own people.”
I groaned. “Let me guess. More silly verses, and you didn’t understand a word of what they said.”
Gideon leaned forward. “No,” he said slowly. “Far from it. They were perfectly clear. They say that if the philosopher’s stone is to take full effect, someone must die.” He was looking straight into my eyes. “And that someone is you.”
“Oh. I see.” I wasn’t as impressed as I probably should have been. “Then I’m the price that has to be paid.”
“I was shocked when I read that.” A strand of hair fell over Gideon’s face, but he didn’t notice it. “At first I couldn’t believe it, but the prophesies all agreed. The ruby-red life is extinguished, the raven’s death reveals the end, the twelfth star fades, and so on and so forth. It went on like that forever.” He paused for a moment. “And the notes that the count had written in the margins were even clearer. As soon as the circle is closed and the elixir has reached its true destination, you’re to die. He says so almost word for word.”
I swallowed after all. “How am I supposed to die?” Instinctively, I thought of the bloodstained blade of Lord Alastair’s sword again. “Did the papers say that as well?”
Gideon smiled slightly. “Well, as usual, the prophesies are vague on that point, but they make one thing very clear. It’s obvious that I—I mean the Diamond, the Lion, Number Eleven—will have something to do with it.” The smile disappeared from his face, and there was a note in his voice that I’d never heard before. “The papers say that you’re going to die because of me. For love.”
o;Yup, a plate for Gollum,” Nick whispered to me, grinning.
Charlotte ignored Aunt Maddy and went back to her own place at the table, still with that stony expression.
“That’s very kind of you, but no thanks. I’ve already eaten this evening,” said Gideon.
I’d finally managed to get the bit of quiche down, and I quickly got to my feet. “And I’ve had enough,” I said. “Is it all right if I leave the table?” I looked first at Mum and then at my grandmother.
The two of them exchanged a strange look, as if they understood something that we didn’t. Then they sighed deeply in unison.
