A cool salt-and-exhaust-scented breeze whispered through the trees and surrounding bushes. Leaves hissed softly together, and Sophie suddenly shivered. “And Josh and I were in one of those Auspicious Threads?”
“There were a boy and a girl, yes. Twins. Gold and Silver.” Tsagaglalal looked at the girl. “My husband even knew your names.”
Sophie touched the emerald tablet tucked into the waistband of her jeans. It was addressed to her by name.
Tsagaglalal nodded. “He knew a lot about you, though not everything. The strands of time are not always precise. But Abraham and Chronos knew without question that the twins were critical to the survival of the humani race and the world. And they knew for certain that they had to protect a perfect set of twins, a Gold and a Silver.”
“Josh and I aren’t perfect,” Sophie said quickly.
“No one is. But your auras are pure. We knew the twins would need knowledge, so Abraham created the Codex, the Book of the Mage, which held the entire world’s knowledge in its few pages.” The old woman’s face creased in pain. “He was Changing then. Do you know what the Change is?”
Sophie started to shake her head, then nodded as the Witch of Endor’s knowledge meshed with hers. “A transformation. Most of the very oldest Elders morph into …” She stopped, blinking hard at the images. “… into monsters.”
“Not all, but most. Some of the transformations are beautiful. My husband thought the Change might be a mutation caused by solar radiation acting upon incredibly aged cells.”
“But you haven’t Changed.…”
“I’m not an Elder,” Tsagaglalal said simply. “And when Abraham created the Codex, he manipulated its essence so that only the humani would be able to handle it. Its very touch is poisonous to the Elders. A series of humani guardians were chosen to keep the Book safe through the ages.”
“And that was your role?” Sophie asked.
“No,” Tsagaglalal said, surprising her. “Others were chosen to guard the Book. My jobs were to protect the emerald tablets and to watch over the Golds and Silvers and be there at the end when they needed me.”
“Tsagaglalal,” Sophie whispered. “She Who Watches.”
The old woman nodded. “I am She Who Watches. Using forbidden Archon lore, Abraham made me immortal. I was to watch over the twins, to guard and protect them. And to watch over me, to guard and protect me, my husband granted my younger brother the same gift of immortality.”
“Your brother …,” Sophie breathed.
Tsagaglalal nodded. Her eyes were fixed on the sky. “Together, we have lived upon this earth for more than ten thousand years and watched over generations of the Newman family. And what a family tree it has been. My brother and I have guarded princes and paupers, masters and servants. We’ve lived in just about every country on this planet, waiting, waiting, always waiting.…” Her eyes grew large behind sudden tears. “There were occasional Golds in your family line, some Silvers, too, even a couple of sets of twins, but the prophesied twins never materialized, and my brother’s mind began to collapse with the weight of years.”
“But what about the Flamels? Why have they been looking for twins?”
“A mistake, Sophie. A misinterpretation. Perhaps even a little arrogance. Their role was simply to guard the Book. But at some point the Flamels began to believe that their task was to find the twins of legend.”
Sophie felt as if all the breath had been sucked from her body. “So everything they did … was worthless.”
Tsagaglalal smiled kindly. “No, not worthless. Everything they did brought them closer and closer to this city, in this time, and ultimately, to you. Their role was not to find the twins—it was prophesied that the twins would find them. It was their role to protect the twins and bring them to be Awakened.”
Sophie thought her head might explode. It was terrifying to think that everything about her life from the moment of her birth had been foreseen ten thousand years previously. A sudden thought struck her. “Your brother,” Sophie said quickly. “Where is he now?”
“We first went to England when we learned that Scathach had helped put a young man named Arthur on the throne. My brother grew close to the boy; Arthur became like a son to him. When the boy died … well, my brother was devastated. His mind started to fragment, and he found it hard to tell past from present, reality from fantasy. He believed that Arthur would come again and would need him. He never left England. He said he would die there.”
“Gilgamesh,” Sophie breathed.
“Gilgamesh the King,” Tsagaglalal whispered, “though in England they knew him by a different name.” Tears crawled down her lined face and the garden filled with the scent of jasmine. “Lost to me now, long lost.”
“We met him,” Sophie said urgently, leaning forward to touch Tsagaglalal’s arm. Her aura cracked. “He’s alive! In London.” She blinked away her own tears, remembering the ragged and filthy-looking old homeless man with the shockingly blue eyes whom she had first met in the back of a taxicab.
The jasmine soured. Tsagaglalal’s voice was bitter. “Oh, Sophie, I know he is still alive and in London. I have friends there who keep an eye on him for me, who ensure that he is never short of money and he never goes hungry.” She was crying now, huge tears that dripped from her chin to spatter onto the grass. Tiny white jasmine flowers unfurled, blossomed and curled up in the space of a single heartbeat. “He does not remember me,” Tsagaglalal whispered. “No, that is not true: he does remember me, but as I was, ten thousand years ago, young and beautiful. He does not recognize me now.”
“He said he wrote everything down,” Sophie said. She brushed silver tears from her face. “He said he would write about me, to remember me.” She remembered the old man who had shown her a thick sheaf of paper held together with string. There were scraps from notebooks, covers torn from paperbacks, bits of newspapers, restaurant menus and napkins, thick parchment, even pieces of hide and wafer-thin sheets of copper and bark. They had all been cut and torn to roughly the same size, and they were covered in minuscule scrawl.
“This immortality is a curse,” Tsagaglalal said suddenly, angrily. “I loved my husband, but there are times—far too many times—when I hated him for what he did to me and my brother and I cursed his name.”
“Abraham wrote that I would curse his name now and forevermore,” Sophie said.
“If my husband had a flaw, it was that he always told the truth. And sometimes the truth is hard.”
Sophie’s breath caught in her chest. Some of the Witch’s memories were trickling into her thoughts, and they were about something important. She concentrated to make sense of them. “The process that made Gilgamesh immortal was flawed. But if his immortality is removed—” She stopped.
“What are you remembering, child—something else the Witch knew?”
“No, something Gilgamesh asked Josh to do.”
“What was that?”
“He made my brother promise that when this was all over—if we survived—we would return to London with the Codex.”
The old woman frowned, creases deepening to line her forehead. “Why?”
“Gilgamesh said that there was a spell on the first page of the Codex.” She wracked her brain, trying to remember the King’s exact words. “He said … he said that he stood by Abraham’s shoulder and watched him transcribe it.”
Tsagaglalal nodded. “Both my brother and Prometheus were always by my husband’s side. I wonder what he saw?”
“The formula of words that confers immortality,” Sophie said. “And when Josh and I asked why he wanted it, since he was already immortal—”
“To reverse the formula,” Tsagaglalal answered. “It might work. He could become mortal again, he might even regain his memories and remember me,” the old woman breathed. “We could become human again and die in peace.”
“Human again?” Sophie asked. She was suddenly reminded of something the old woman had said earlier. “You’re not an Elder,” she sa
id, “and you’re not an Archon or an Ancient. What are you?”
“Why, Sophie,” Tsagaglalal said with a sad smile, “why do you think the Codex was created so that the Elders could not bear it and only humani could hold it? Gilgamesh and I are humani. We were among the first of the First People brought to life by Prometheus’s aura in the Nameless City on the edge of the world. Now the First People are no more. Only Gilgamesh and I remain. And only one thing is left for me to do,” the old woman added.
The girl sat back against the apple tree and folded her arms. She knew what her aunt was about to offer. “Can I refuse?”
“You can,” Tsagaglalal said, surprising her. “But if you do, then tens of thousands of people who lived and died through time in order to protect you will have died in vain. All those people who guarded the Codex, the previous generations of twins, the Elders and Next Generation who sided with the humani—all will have died in vain.”
“And the world will end,” Sophie added.
“That too.”
“And did your husband see that?”
“I do not know,” Tsagaglalal said. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she had no tears left to shed. “The Change was surging through his body in those last days, turning it to solid gold. Speech became impossible. I am sure he would have found a way to tell me … but then Danu Talis was destroyed in the Final Battle.” Tsagaglalal turned away from Sophie and her gaze followed a fat droning bumblebee as it buzzed around the clearing, dropping onto the grass where moments earlier jasmine flowers had blossomed and died. “Abraham and Chronos saw many lines of history, and each of those lines was created by individual decisions. Often it was impossible to tell—except in the very broadest sense—who had done what. That is why the original prophecy is so vague—‘one to save the world, one to destroy it.’ I do not know which one you are, Sophie.” She pointed back toward the house with her chin. “There is one other tablet in the box, and it is addressed to your brother.”
Sophie gasped in shock as the realization struck home.
Tsagaglalal nodded. “Yes, it could just as easily have been Josh I was talking to now, while Sophie Newman stood alongside Dee and Dare on Alcatraz. But there will come a moment—and soon—when you must choose. And the choice you make will dictate the future of the world and the countless Shadowrealms.” She saw the stricken look on Sophie’s face and reached over to rest her palm against her cheek. “Forget what you know—or think you know—and trust your instincts. Follow your heart. Trust no one.”
“But Josh. What about him? I’ll be able to trust him, won’t I?” Sophie said in alarm.
“Follow your heart,” Tsagaglalal repeated. “Now close your eyes and let me teach you about the Magic of Earth.”
irginia Dare sat on the huge steps in the recreation yard of Alcatraz prison and looked out toward the city over the high wire-topped walls. Josh sat beside her.
“I wonder how close the Lotan is,” he said.
Virginia shook her head. “Hard to tell, but trust me, when it arrives we’ll know. I imagine we’ll hear the screams from here.”
“Where do you think it will come ashore?”
“I have no idea. It’s big, but I don’t think it’s that heavy. Currents run fast here. That’s another reason this place was chosen as a prison. Even if someone did manage to get out of their cell, they wouldn’t survive the water.” She pointed to the Bay Bridge. “I imagine the Lotan will be swept toward the bridge before it manages to swim to shore.”
“Will it cause much destruction before the Elders arrive?” Josh asked.
Dare shrugged, a movement that sent her hair rippling down her back. “It depends how long they wait before intervening.” Then she frowned. “In the old days, people would summon the Elders by praying to them, but no one believes in the Elders anymore, so no one is going to summon them. So yes, there will probably be quite a bit of chaos. The Lotan will eat any meat that comes its way, though I’m not sure how much bigger it could get. It will also drink the aura of any Elder, Next Generation or immortal who gets too close. You saw what happened to Billy.”
Josh shivered at the memory and nodded.
“If you hadn’t intervened, it would have drained him to a husk. However,” she continued, “the Lotan has such a short life span. It had three hours to live when it was set loose—it will have four if it continues to feed—before it starts to shrink back into its shell.”
A foul stink suddenly wafted across the yard, blanketing the sea air.
Virginia’s hand shot out and gripped Josh’s arm as a creature straight out of legend padded across the exercise yard, claws click-clacking on the stones. It was a sphinx, an enormous lion with the wings of an eagle and the head of a beautiful woman. The sphinx turned to look at Virginia and Josh, and a long black tongue flickered out of its mouth, tasting the air.
Josh dropped his hand onto the stone sword he’d placed on the steps and Virginia slowly and deliberately raised her flute to her lips.
The sphinx turned and scuttled away without saying a word.
“Now,” Virginia continued, as if nothing had happened. “You wish to learn the Magic of Air?”
“I do.”
“I need to tell you,” she said, “that I’ve never done this before. But I’ve seen it done.”
“And how did that go?”
“It went well … most of the time.” Josh looked at her quickly.
“I saw an immortal—it might have been Saint-Germain—try to teach another immortal the Magic of Fire.” She stopped and shook her head.
“What happened?”
“Well, let us say that there was a bit of a mishap.”
“Saint-Germain taught Sophie fire magic,” Josh said. “And she didn’t burst into flames?”
“She didn’t.”
“So he’s obviously gotten better at it. And who taught you?”
“Prometheus.”
“Impressive,” Virginia said. She pushed back her sleeves and picked up her flute. “Now, I know there is a certain formula of words that are used when students are being taught the Elemental Magics, about how each magic is stronger than the other—but I’m afraid I don’t know those words, and I don’t believe them anyway. What you have to remember is that no matter who taught you, magic is as strong as the will of the user and the strength of their aura. Great emotions—love, hate, terror—intensify any magical working. But be careful. These same emotions raging through your body can also consume your aura. And once your aura is gone, then so are you!” She clapped her hand suddenly, the sound sending seagulls soaring. “Now look up at the skies,” she commanded.
Josh leaned back, resting his elbows on the step behind him, and looked up into the afternoon sky.
“What do you see?”
“Clouds. Birds. An airplane contrail.”
“Pick a cloud, any cloud …,” she said, and her words trembled through her flute with little whistling sounds.
Josh focused on a cloud. He thought it looked like a face … or a dog … or maybe a dog’s face.…
“Magic has to do with imagination,” Virginia said, her words rising and falling with the notes of the flute. The air filled with the scent of sage. “Did you ever meet Albert Einstein? … No, no of course you didn’t. You’re too young. He was a remarkable man, and we remained good friends throughout his life. He knew what I was; he once said to me that the stories I told him about my immortality and the Shadowrealms inspired his interest in time and relativity.”
“He’s always been one of my heroes,” Josh said.
“Then you will know that he said that imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” She laughed and her flute turned the sound beautiful. “I offered to find someone to make him immortal, but he wasn’t interested.” Virginia’s music changed, becoming wild and dramatic, like a storm over the ocean. “Look a
t the cloud and tell me what you see.”
The cloud had shifted, twisted. “A sailboat,” Josh breathed.
The music crashed and swelled.
“With waves washing over it …”
And the music stopped.
“It’s gone.” Josh blinked in surprise. He’d watched the cloud twist and roil in the air, then disappear.
“But I didn’t make it disappear,” Virginia said. “You did. The music planted the images in your brain and you saw the boat in the storm, and then your imagination filled in everything else and when the music stopped, you imagined the boat had sunk.” She pointed with the wooden flute. “See that cloud?”
Josh nodded.
“Watch it,” Virginia Dare said. Pressing her flute to her lips, she played a long, slow, gentle lullaby.
“Nothing’s happened to it.”
“Not yet,” the immortal said. “But that’s not my fault. It’s yours.” The flute echoed and reechoed in his head, the notes striking memories, bringing up fragments of songs he’d heard in the past, snatches of dialogue from movies and TV programs he’d seen. The sounds wrapped around him like a blanket, and he felt his eyes grow heavy and gritty with sleep. “Look at the cloud again.”
“Sleepy,” Josh mumbled.
“Look,” Virginia commanded.
The cloud was curling and squirming, and Josh realized that it was forming pictures of the images he was seeing in his head, faces of movie stars and singers, characters from games he’d played.
“You are doing that,” Virginia breathed. “Now focus. Think of something you hate.…”
The cloud suddenly grew larger, darker, and abruptly it fell from the sky, a long wriggling python.