“Gwen. I want to explain.…” Gideon disappeared into thin air in front of me. For a few seconds, as the chill came back into my body, I stared at the flickering torchlight and the death’s-head, tried to suppress my tears, and then everything blurred before my eyes.
It took me a few seconds to get used to the light in the chronograph room of my own time, but I heard the alarm in Dr. White’s voice and the sound of ripping fabric.
“It’s nothing,” said Gideon. “Only a tiny cut. It hardly bled at all. I don’t even need a plaster for it, Dr. White, and you can put those clamps away again! Nothing happened.”
“Hello, haystack girl!” said Xemerius. “You’ll never guess what we’ve found out! Oh, no! You haven’t been crying again, have you?”
Mr. George took hold of me with both hands and swung me once around my own axis. “She’s not injured!” he said, with relief in his voice.
Not injured, no, except for my heart.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Xemerius. “Bonehead’s brother and your friend Lesley have something very interesting to tell you! Guess what? They’ve tracked down the place described by the coordinates in the Green Rider code. You’ll never believe it!”
“Gwyneth?” Gideon was looking at me as if he was afraid I might throw myself under the first bus to come along, all because of him.
“I’m fine,” I said, without looking him in the eye. “Mr. George, could you please take me upstairs? I have to go home. It’s urgent.”
“Of course.” Mr. George nodded.
Gideon made a movement, but Dr. White was holding him. “Oh, keep still, for heaven’s sake!” He had torn the sleeves of Gideon’s jacket and the shirt he was wearing under it right off. The bare arm was encrusted with blood, and I saw a small cut up almost by Gideon’s shoulder. The little ghost boy Robert was staring at all the blood in horror.
“Who did this? It will have to be disinfected and stitched,” said Dr. White gloomily.
“Certainly not,” said Gideon. He was pale, and there was nothing left of the high spirits he’d shown back in the eighteenth century. “We can see about that later. I have to talk to Gwyneth first.”
“There’s really no need,” I said. “I know all I want to know. And now I have to go home.”
“I should just about think so!” said Xemerius.
“Tomorrow is another day,” Mr. George told Gideon, as he picked up the black scarf. “And Gwyneth looks tired. She has to go to school tomorrow morning.”
“Exactly!” said Xemerius. “And tonight she’s going on a treasure hunt. Or a hunt for whatever those coordinates lead us to.”
Mr. George blindfolded me. The last thing I saw was Gideon’s eyes, looking unnaturally green in his pale face.
“Good night, everyone,” I said, and then Mr. George led me out of the room. No one had answered me anyway, except for little Robert.
“Okay, I’ll put you out of your suspense,” said Xemerius. “Lesley and Raphael had a lot of fun this afternoon—unlike you, I guess from the look of you. Well, anyway, the two of them managed to locate the place described in the coordinates precisely. You can have three guesses where it is.”
“Here in London?” I asked.
“Bingo!” cried Xemerius.
“What did you say?” Mr. George asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. “Excuse me, Mr. George.”
Mr. George sighed. “I hope your conversation with Count Saint-Germain went well.”
“Oh, yes,” I said bitterly. “It was very instructive in all sorts of ways.”
“Hello! I’m still here, you know,” said Xemerius, and I felt his damp aura as he clung to my back like a monkey, with his arms around my neck. “And I have really, really interesting news. Listen to this: the hiding place we’re looking for is here in London. And even better, it’s in Mayfair. To be precise, in Bourdon Place. And to be even more precise, at number 81 Bourdon Place. Now what do you say?”
In my own home? The coordinates described a place in our own house? For heaven’s sake, what would my grandfather have hidden there? Maybe another book? One with drawings that would finally help us to get somewhere?
“So far the doggy girl and the frog-eater have done a good job,” said Xemerius. “Admittedly, I had no idea of that coordinates stuff myself. But now I can be really useful. Because only the unique, the wonderful, the brilliantly clever Xemerius can stick his head through walls and see what’s hidden behind them. We’re both going on a treasure hunt tonight.”
“Would you like to talk about it?” asked Mr. George.
I shook my head. “No, it can wait until tomorrow,” I said, and I was speaking to both Mr. George and Xemerius.
Tonight I was going to lie awake in mourning for my broken heart. I wanted to wallow in self-pity and high-flown metaphors. And maybe I’d listen to Bon Jovi and “Hallelujah” while I wallowed. After all, everyone needs her own soundtrack for a tragic case like this.
EPILOGUE
London,
29 September 1782
HE LANDED with his back to the wall, placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, and looked around him. There was no one about in the yard of the inn, just as Lord Alastair had promised. Washing lines stretched across it from wall to wall, and the white sheets hanging on them moved slightly in the wind.
Paul looked up at the windows that reflected the afternoon sun. A cat lay on one windowsill, giving him a mocking glance, one paw dangling casually over the edge of the sill. The cat reminded him of Lucy.
He took his hand off the sword hilt and shook out the lace cuffs around his wrists. These Rococo clothes all looked the same to him, stupid knee breeches, weird, impractically long tailcoats, embroidery and lace everywhere. Frightful. He had intended to wear the wig and costume left over from his visits to the year 1745, but Lucy and Lady Tilney had insisted on having a completely new outfit made for him. They said everyone would notice if he went about in 1782 wearing clothes dating back to 1745, and when he said, who cared, he was only going to a remote yard for a short time to meet Lord Alastair and exchange the papers, they refused to see his point. He slipped his hand between his coat and his shirt, where the folded copies lay in a brown envelope.
“Excellent. You are punctual.”
The cool voice made him spin around. Lord Alastair stepped out of the shadow of the arched entrance to the yard, as elegantly dressed as ever, even if his clothes were very colorful, and their embroidery and the jewels he wore sparkled in the sunlight. He looked exotic against the plain background of the sheets. Even the hilt of his sword seemed to be made of pure gold and was set with gemstones. They gave the weapon the appearance of being harmless, almost ridiculous.
Paul glanced quickly through the arch, where green turf ran beside the road and down to the Thames. He could hear horses snorting, so he assumed that Lord Alastair had come in a coach.
“Are you alone?” asked his lordship. His tone of voice was extremely arrogant, although he also sounded like a man with a chronically stuffy nose. He came closer. “What a pity! I would have liked to see your pretty red-haired companion again. She had such … such an unusual way of expressing her opinion.”
“She was only disappointed that you didn’t make use of the advantage our last information gave you. And she’s suspicious about what you intend to do with it.”
“Your information was incomplete.”
“It was complete enough! The Florentine Alliance hadn’t thought its plans through properly! In forty years, five attempts on the count’s life have failed, and you were personally responsible for two of them. Last time—and that was eleven years ago—you seem to have been so certain of yourself!”
“Have no fear! The next attempt won’t fail!” said Lord Alastair. “Until now, my ancestors and I have always made the mistake of fighting the so-called count as if he were an ordinary human being. We have tried to unmask him, spread defamatory rumors about him, destroy his reputation. We have also tried to help lost souls like you back to the straight and narrow path, before we realized that you were all lost long ago—because you inherited his demonic blood.”
Paul frowned with annoyance. He had never been able to make head or tail of the unctuous remarks uttered by his lordship and the other men of the Florentine Alliance.
“We have tried to destroy him, like any ordinary man, with poison, the sword, bullets,” Lord Alastair went on. “How ludicrous!” He gave a hoarse laugh. “But whatever we did, he always seemed to be one step ahead of us. Wherever we went, he was always there first. He seemed invincible. He has influential friends and protectors everywhere, and like him, they are experts in black magic. The members of his Lodge are among the most powerful men of our time. It has taken me decades to understand that a demon cannot be defeated by human methods. But now I know better.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Paul, casting a quick glance to one side. Two more men, clad in black and carrying drawn swords, had appeared in the arched entrance. Damn it—Lucy had been right! Alastair had no intention of keeping his word. “Do you have the letters?”
“Of course,” said Lord Alastair, taking a thick bundle of papers tied together with a red cord out of his coat pocket. “These days—and not least thanks to you and your excellent information—I have succeeded in getting a good friend of mine to infiltrate the ranks of the Guardians. He is now providing me with important news every day. Did you know that the count is back in town at this moment? Ah, but of course you did!” He weighed up the bundle in his hand, and then tossed it to Paul.
Paul caught it neatly with one hand. “Thank you. I’m sure you’ve had copies of them made.”
“There was no need,” said his lordship, with his usual arrogance. “And what about you? Have you brought me what I asked for?”
Paul stowed the bundle of letters away under his coat and held up the brown envelope. “Five pages of the family tree of the de Villiers family, beginning in the sixteenth century with Lancelot de Villiers, the first time traveler, and ending with Gideon de Villiers, born in the twentieth century.”
“And the female line?” asked Lord Alastair, and now he almost sounded excited.
“It’s all in there as well. Beginning with Elaine Burghley and ending with the name of Gwyneth Shepherd.” Speaking her name gave Paul a pang. He cast a quick glance at the two men. They had stopped under the arch, hands on the hilts of their swords, as if they were waiting for something. Gritting his teeth, he admitted to himself that he could guess what it was.
“Good. Then give it to me.”
Paul hesitated. “You haven’t kept to our agreement,” he said, trying to gain time. He pointed to the two men. “You were going to come alone.”
Lord Alastair followed his gaze with indifference. “A gentleman of my social rank is never alone. My servants accompany me everywhere.” He took another step forward. “Now, give me the papers! I’ll see to the rest of it myself.”