The Masquerading Magician (18 page)

Thirty-Six

I led Tobias to
my basement alchemy lab. The light switch at the top of the stairs turned on a solitary twenty-watt light bulb. It was one of my many failsafe's to make sure nobody looked too carefully at what I was working on in the basement. I'd removed bulbs from the other light fixtures in the basement and used a combination of kerosene lanterns and candles to light the laboratory for my work. They served the dual purpose of keeping prying eyes from easily seeing what was there, and providing the natural energy of fire that fueled my alchemy.

I found a match and began lighting lanterns and candles.

“How is it possible that Dorian is dying?” Tobias asked. “Isn't he made of stone?”

“Dorian was once a piece of stone. He was a gargoyle carved by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, as a prototype for a gargoyle on the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.”

“Wait. Robert-­Houdin. You said that was his surname. Like the French magician?”

“One and the same.”

“You're telling me that magician was an alchemist who somehow transformed himself into a gargoyle during one of his experiments? It certainly gives a whole new meaning to his being the Father of Modern Magic.”

“I didn't mean it like that. Jean Eugène Robert-­Houdin was Dorian's father—in a way. He was reading from a book of ‘magic' as a prop for an illusion he was creating. He didn't realize it was alchemy, or that it could bring a piece of stone to life.”

“It can't.”

“That's what I thought too. But you saw Dorian with your own eyes.”

“There's got to be something else going on with him.”

“I think there is.” I finished lighting candles and swept my arm across the room. “That's why I've resumed practicing alchemy after decades. I was planning on setting it up properly and easing into it, but Dorian sped up my plans.”

“None of this is very stable for laboratory experiments,” Tobias commented, eying the folding tables serving as countertops. “It isn't very
secret
either.”

“The best laid plans … ” I murmured to myself in the flickering light.

“What was that?”

“When I bought this place at the beginning of the year, I did it with the intention of fixing up the whole house. It's so rundown that it was the perfect cover for doing extensive renovations. I hired a jack-of-all-trades contractor to fix the roof, patch up the house, and create a true alchemy lab in the basement.”

“So what happened?”

“It didn't work out.” I didn't need to distract Tobias by telling him about how the handyman ended up dead on my front porch.

“What you've got here is what you did yourself?” he asked.

I nodded.

“In that case, you've done a pretty decent job.”

“Not the world's most ringing endorsement. I put a lot of effort into this.”

“You know there's still a garage sale tag on that card table. And it smells like beer.”

“Touché.”

“And what's that on the ceiling?”

I sighed. “I couldn't get all the nettle spurs off the ceiling, so I'm pretty sure it germinated.”

Once Tobias stopped laughing hysterically, his mood shifted. His hazel eyes flecked with gold could show great warmth, but now their brightness turned fierce. The transformation was jarring. Tobias grew more serious than I'd seen him since picking him up at the airport that morning.

“This isn't like you, Zoe. The haphazard nature of this lab. It's not true to alchemy. It's not true to
you.
Why don't you tell me what's going on with that little gargoyle gourmet? What are you holding back? What's really going on?”

I hesitated. I couldn't bring myself to say the words
backward alchemy
out loud to another alchemist.

“
This
is why you're sick, isn't it?” His angry eyes flitted across the laboratory. “You're practicing alchemy, but you're not doing it right. Is he forcing you—”

“No, it's nothing like that.”

“What's going on, Zoe?”

“This isn't what I wanted. I haven't practiced true alchemy in ages. You saw my trailer parked in the driveway. I was living out of it, for most of the time, since the fifties.”

“Since we can never stay in one place for too long … ”

“When I came through Portland, I felt such a longing to put down some roots, at least for as long as I could. For a few years at least. I thought I could at least have that.”

“
As much as I'd love to get caught up properly and discuss all the things I can't talk about with anyone else, that's not why you asked me here. I've gotta tell you, you're even better at avoiding the subject than your stone friend. Why don't you tell me what's really going on with him?”

I looked up at the nettle hooks on the basement ceiling. “Whatever is killing him, it's only affecting his body. Not his mind. You saw his limp. He used to be able to turn from stone into flesh and back again with ease. Now it's getting harder and harder for him to do so. But when he's trapped in unmoving stone, he's perfectly conscious. If I don't figure out a way to save him, he'll be awake but trapped in a stone prison.”

“Damn. Not dead, but trapped in a stone coffin. That's worse than death.”

“I know, Tobias. I know.”

“You two go way back?”

I gave a weak laugh. “I only met him three months ago. He hid out in my shipping crates when I had them sent from a storage facility in Paris. The only thing he had with him was an old book.”

“The alchemy book the magician read from?”

“At first, I didn't think it was alchemy
.
” I paused and lifted it from the bookshelf. “
Non Degenera Alchemia
. Which roughly translates to
Not Untrue Alchemy
.”

But Tobias wasn't paying attention. Instead, he picked up the framed photograph of Ambrose.

“I wondered about him,” Tobias said.

I froze. What was going on? Tobias couldn't have known Ambrose. I hadn't yet met Ambrose when I knew Tobias. A tickling sensation ran from my spine to my nose. “What do you mean? I know different alchemists are sensitive to different things, but I didn't realize any of us were capable of being psychic.”

“What's my knowing him have to do with being psychic? We're scientists, Zoe. There ain't no such thing as a psychic.”

“When I was helping the Underground Railroad, I hadn't yet
met
Ambrose. You couldn't have seen this photograph.”

Tobias gave me a strange look, a cross between bewilderment and enlightenment. A look common to the faces of alchemists.

“I mean,” he said, “I knew him in person.”

“How wonderful! So you knew him in the late 1800s, before I did? We didn't meet until 1895. I knew he'd spent some time in America, but I didn't realized he worked with other alchemists.”

Tobias shook his head. “It had to have been the 1950s.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. He opened his eyes and snapped his fingers. “1955.”

I felt myself shiver. “That can't be right. Ambrose killed himself in 1935.”

Tobias gave a start, then looked intently at the photograph. “I didn't mean to shake you, Zoe. You know that over time, faces begin to blur together. I must be mistaken.” But his words were too quick, stumbling over one another. Whatever Tobias really thought, he didn't think he was wrong.

Was it me who was mistaken? Was there any way that Ambrose could have survived? The asylum had shown me his body.
Unless it had been an illusion
. My stomach lurched. Why would they have lied? There was no reason for them to have done so.

There had to be another explanation. Ambrose had had a son, Percival, who hadn't taken to alchemy. But maybe Percy had fathered a child, unbeknownst to us. He had never married, but it was the kind of thing the cad would do. It must have been a family resemblance that Tobias had seen in the man he met in the 1950s. After all, that had been the case with Peter Silverman. It was the easiest explanation. Was it the right one?

Thirty-Seven

“Zoe, you with me?”
Tobias's voice pierced through my confused thoughts.

“What? Sorry. I was distracted.”

“I feel wretched that I rattled you so badly because I thought I recognized the man in the photo. I've seen so many faces over the
years. I was wrong in this case.”

“I know. It's just been a long time. I miss him.” I set the frame down and turned it away. “Let's get back to work. With your interest in alchemical codes, you might be able to shed some light on this. I had the text translated by an expert, to make sure I had a good handle on it.”

“I've gotta warn you,” Tobias said, “I always hated Latin, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help you with this book. I learned alchemy from deciphering the riddles in the pictures, not from solving coded Latin.”

“Even better. The text states that the answers are
in the pictures
. And the illustrations inside aren't like any alchemy I've ever seen. I recently figured out that the woodcut illustrations showing cathedral ruins make up one coherent cathedral when ashes are spread onto the pages to make them blend together. But it's a generic cathedral, so I can't figure out what it means.”

“I think you misspoke, Zoe. You mean acid, not ashes, right?”

I shook my head, then I spread the book open on the angled scriptorium desk and stood back and watched as Tobias slowly turned the faded pages. Only, the pages weren't quite as faded as I remembered them.

“I see what you mean,” he said, startling me. “These illustrations. Are you sure this is truly old? It doesn't have the scent of an old book.”

“It's the strangest thing,” I said. “At first, I thought I was imagining it. But now I'm sure it's not my imagination. The scent of the book keeps getting
sweeter
.”

Tobias's breath caught.

“What is it?” I asked. “You've encountered something like that before?”

“I've read about codes that involve all of the senses, but I've never come across one.”

“I think I know why you've never seen one before.” I hesitated, still feeling hesitant to speak the words aloud. “This book is backward alchemy.”

Tobias gave a low whistle and quickly closed the book. “
That's
why you've been so evasive since I got here. That's what you didn't want to tell me.”

“You know about it?”

“Only that you should steer clear of it.” He stepped away from the book and crossed his arms. “The death rotation. You sure about Dorian?” He paused and ran an anxious hand across his face. “I mean, if this book is what gave him life—”

“I've never been more certain of anything. Whatever he is, he's a good soul. Unlike the intent of the backward alchemists who made this book, Robert-­Houdin's intent was pure. Dorian is an innocent victim.”

“His
intent
,” Tobias repeated. “You think that's what kept Dorian from being corrupted?”

“It's not working for his body, though, since it's reverting to stone.”

“You know,” Tobias said slowly, “you might not be able to save him.”

I reached for my locket and steadied my breathing. “I have to try.”

Tobias relaxed his arms and stepped slowly back toward the desk. “I'll do what I can to help you two, but … ” He hesitated briefly, then opened the book again and shook his head. “I'm sorry, Zoe. Even though I enjoy codes, I'm primarily a spiritual alchemist. I only practice my own form of alchemy, and I don't know anyone who works with this type of whacked alchemy.”

“Normally I'd say that was a good thing.”

“Back up a sec.” He looked at the book as if seeing it for the first time. “Why is this happening
now
? What changed?”

“That's what we can't figure out. We think it's happening to other things too. Several works of art made of gold have been crumbling in European museums.”

“You mean the gold thefts in the papers earlier this year?”

“They
weren't
thefts. The culprits were reported to be cheeky thieves who left gold dust in place of the items they stole, but it happened at the same time Dorian began to return to stone. I think it's related.”

“Damn. But you don't know why?”

I shook my head.

“Then we'd better get to work.”

For the next several hours, Tobias and I went through the book's woodcut illustrations.

His interest in puzzle codes led us to a coded reference I hadn't picked up on—the placement of the flying bees relative to the planets in the different illustrations.

“The bees,” Tobias said. “If you take all the images together, looking at which planets are represented in each image, it's as if they're telling you to follow a path.”

“The ladder of planets,” I said. “I thought of that already, but it doesn't lead anywhere. The Tea of Ashes I'm creating for Dorian isn't like any other transformation I've done. Beginning the process under a certain planet doesn't increase its strength.”

“You're looking at this too literally, Zoe.”

“That's always been one of my problems with alchemy,” I grumbled. “What did you have in mind?”

“The planets have forces that pull different metals to them. Codes convey ideas without being literal about the example.”

“Right. Like how the Language of Birds only symbolically involves birds, and hundreds of different dragon symbols have nothing to do with finding a real dragon.”

“Exactly. A planetary pull is a strong one, controlling massive oceans through the tides, even keeping us glued to the ground instead of flying off into the universe.”

“But you just said this didn't have to do with planets.” I forced myself not to tug at my hair in frustration.

Tobias heard the defeat in my voice. “Let go of literal thinking, Zoe,” he said softly.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, visualizing the melded illustrations of death and resurrection, the ruined cathedral now whole. “The cathedral,” I said, my eyes popping open.

Tobias grinned. “
That's
the planet.”

“It's trying to pull the book toward it.”

“You've gotta find this cathedral.”

“I don't see any identifying markings,” I said, “but the book dates back at least to the sixteenth century, so it's not a modern cathedral.”

Tobias sighed. “Most of them aren't, so that doesn't narrow it down much.”

“Thanks for your optimism.”

Tobias held up his hands. “Don't shoot the messenger.”

“Dorian was originally a carving meant for Notre Dame in Paris,” I said, then shook my head. “But the book came into his possession in Blois.”

“Is there a Blois cathedral?”

“I'm pretty sure there is. But there have got to be hundreds of cathedrals in France alone. There's got to be something else … ”

My cell phone rang.

“You're not answering the door,” Brixton said on the other end of the line. “Dorian says you've got him held hostage in the attic and you're starving him to death. How come you didn't tell me he got out?”

I winced. “I'm so sorry, Brixton. So much is going on that I didn't stop and think. He's only been back for a few hours. How did you find out? Don't tell me it's on the news.”

“Nah, Dorian emailed me. He's on your laptop in the attic.”

Of course he was.

“I think your ‘B' key is broken. He kept spelling Rixton.”

“You can let yourself in. I'm in the basement and I'll meet you in the kitchen in a second.” I hung up the phone.

“Who was that?” Tobias asked.

“The only other person who knows who I really am.”

Dorian refused to stay in the attic. He claimed it was safe enough to be inside with the curtains drawn. With Tobias and Brixton at the house, he insisted on cooking all of us a celebratory welcome-home dinner.

“The police must show you a warrant if they wish to come inside, no?” he asked, his arms crossed and his snout flaring.

“Yes, but—”

“My legs are functioning well enough for me to make it upstairs before you let them in. If they come for me, I will be gone before they find me.”

I gave up arguing with the gargoyle and let him cook a gourmet dinner for the four of us. I didn't have much food in the kitchen, having been preoccupied by other things, but Dorian created a feast out of the staples in the cabinet and the greens he sent Brixton to harvest from the backyard
potager
.

While Brixton was outside, I considered telling Dorian about the revelation Tobias and I had about the cathedral. But without a solution, I decided against it. I'd at least let him enjoy this evening.

Dorian had been giving Brixton cooking lessons, and he thought it would be a great lesson for Brixton to see how to create a feast when a pantry was nearly bare, so he invited us all to join him in “his” kitchen as he cooked.

“Now that Dorian is back,” Brixton said when he returned to the kitchen with a basket full of assorted greens from the garden, “and you've got T helping you with the book, we can help Peter clear his father's name, right?”

There were so many things wrong with that sentence that I didn't know where to start.

“Dorian is on the lam,” Tobias said first. “That's not a fun place to be.”

“You escaped from jail, too?” Brixton asked with wide eyes. “Wicked.” Only after staring at Tobias with wide-eyed awe for a few seconds did it occur to him that this might not be cool. He cleared his throat and let his eyelids droop into a pose of indifference.

“A jail of sorts,” was all Tobias said on the matter. “But he'll never be free until the police are no longer searching for him.”

“We must point the police in a different direction,” Dorian said. He drummed his clawed fingertips together.

“Here's a crazy idea,” I said. “Now that you're safe at home, we should stay out of the investigation. It doesn't have to do with us.”

“But Peter's whole life was ruined,” Brixton protested. “And all because of what people thought of his dad.”

“Helping the magician clear his father's name is a worthy goal,” Dorian agreed, “but Zoe is correct. This is not our concern.”

“How can you say that?” Brixton asked. “People think his dad is a murderer. It sucks when people don't understand what's really going on with your dad.”

“I thought you did not know your father,” Dorian said.

“I mean my stepdad.”

“People do not understand him?” The gargoyle blinked at the boy. Dorian knew a lot about the local community, but he missed out on a lot too.

“He works out of town,” I said gently.

“Doing what?” Dorian asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Brixton mumbled. He looked away.

“Yet you said—”

“Drop it, okay?”

“How about I put on some music,” Tobias suggested. “I think we've all had an exhausting day.”

“I've got a better idea.” I put on a recording of the
Adventures of Ellery Queen
radio show. We listened to the 1940s classic detective radio broadcast as Dorian and Brixton cooked.

“Why do their voices sound so pretentious?” Brixton asked.

“It's not pretentious,” Tobias and I said simultaneously.

“It was the style at the time,” I added.

“Why don't you talk like that, then?” Brixton said. He stopped stirring.

“Before the days of reality television,” I said, “there was more of a distinction between how actors spoke and how people spoke in real life. I was never an actor.”

“I must insist,” Dorian said, his snout flaring, “that if you remain in the kitchen, you do not distract my young assistant.”

“Amazing,” Tobias murmured as Dorian showed Brixton how to deglaze a pan containing a fragrantly charred mix of shallots and spices using a small amount of broth before adding the lentils and homemade vegetable broth to stew a red lentil curry. I wasn't entirely certain whether Tobias was amazed that a gargoyle was cooking, that Dorian was creating a gourmet feast from nearly barren shelves, or that a fourteen-year-old boy was enthusiastically helping.

To go with the curry, Dorian made a cashew cream sauce with the last of our raw cashews, speeding up the process of soaking the cashews by plumping them in boiling water. Dorian sautéed minced garlic in olive oil infused with chili peppers, added a splash of water to steam the heaping bunch of nettles Brixton had picked in the garden, and right before turning off the heat he added the arugula greens also from the garden. I normally ate the arugula raw in a salad or added to a smoothie as a zesty kick, but the brief sautéing brought out its peppery flavor.

Dorian gave Brixton the assignment of dipping freshly picked wild treasure blackberries in melted dark chocolate, giving him a coarse sea salt to sprinkle on top. Brixton was once skeptical of how Dorian added salt to just about everything, including desserts, but he'd come around once he tasted the results. A small amount of high quality salt could transform a dish into a heightened version of itself. The salt worked all too well with the chocolate-covered blackberries; Brixton ate more of them than were added to the parchment paper–covered plate that was supposed to go into the fridge to harden while we ate dinner.

I didn't grow up eating chocolate (I couldn't imagine what Brixton would think of that), but once I was first offered it in France, there was no going back. Many high-quality chocolates don't contain any dairy, such as the barely sweetened dark chocolate I preferred.