Gabriella walked to the angelologists and placed the leather case upon the table. “Welcome, friends. When did you arrive?”
“This morning,” Saitou-san said. “Although we wished to be here sooner.”
“We came as soon as we learned of what happened,” Bruno added.
Gabriella gestured to three empty upholstered armchairs, their elaborately carved arms scuffed and dull. “Sit. You must be exhausted.”
Evangeline sank into the soft cushion of a couch, Verlaine at her side. Gabriella perched upon the edge of an armchair, the leather case in her lap. The angelologists watched her with avid attention.
“Welcome, Evangeline,” Vladimir said gravely. “It has been many years, my dear.” He gestured to the case. “I could not have imagined that these circumstances would bring us together.”
Gabriella turned to the leather case and pressed the clasps, opening them with a snap. Inside, Evangeline saw that everything remained exactly as she had left it: the angelology journal; the sealed envelopes containing Abigail Rockefeller’s correspondence; and the leather pouch they had retrieved from the tabernacle.
“This is the angelological journal of Dr. Seraphina Valko,” Gabriella said, taking it from the case. “Celestine and I used to refer to this notebook as Seraphina’s grimoire, a term we used only partially in jest. It is filled with works, spells, secrets, and imaginings of past angelologists.”
“I thought it was lost,” Saitou-san said.
“Not lost, only very well hidden,” Gabriella said. “I brought it to the United States. Evangeline has had it with her at St. Rose Convent, safe and sound.”
“Well done,” Bruno said, taking it from Gabriella. As he weighed it in his hands, he winked at Evangeline, making her smile in return.
“Tell us,” Vladimir said, glancing at the leather case, “what other discoveries have you made?”
Gabriella lifted the leather pouch from the case and slowly untied the string that bound it. A peculiar metallic object rested inside, an object unlike anything Evangeline had seen before. It was as small as a butterfly’s wing and made of a thin, pounded metal that shone in Gabriella’s fingers. It appeared delicate, yet when Gabriella allowed Evangeline to hold it, she felt it to be inflexible.
“It is the plectrum of the lyre,” Bruno said. “How brilliant to separate it from the lyre itself.”
“If you recall,” Gabriella said, “the Venerable Clematis separated the plectrum from the body of the lyre on the First Angelological Expedition. It was sent to Paris, where it remained in the possession of European angelologists until the early nineteenth century, when Mother Francesca brought it to the United States for safekeeping.”
“And built the Adoration Chapel around it,” Verlaine said. “Which would explain her elaborate architectural drawings.”
Vladimir seemed unable to take his eyes from the object. “May I?” he asked at last, delicately lifting the plectrum from Evangeline and cupping it in his hand. “It is lovely,” he said. Evangeline was moved by how gently he ran his finger over the metal, as if reading braille. “Unbelievably lovely.”
“Indeed,” Gabriella said. “It is fashioned from pure Valkine.”
“But how was it kept at the convent all this time?” Verlaine asked.
“In the Adoration Chapel,” Gabriella said. “Evangeline can be more precise than I-she was the one who discovered it.”
“It was hidden in the tabernacle,” Evangeline said. “The tabernacle was locked, and the key was hidden in the monstrance above. I am not exactly sure how the key came to be there, but it seems that it was very well secured.”
“Brilliant,” Gabriella said. “It makes perfect sense that they would keep it in the chapel.”
“How so?” Bruno inquired.
“The Adoration Chapel is the site of the sisters’ perpetual adoration,” Gabriella said. “Do you know the ritual?”
“Two sisters pray before the host,” Vladimir said, thoughtful. “To be replaced each hour by two more sisters. Is that correct?”
“Exactly so,” Evangeline said.
“They are attentive during adoration?” Gabriella asked, turning to Evangeline.
“Of course,” Evangeline said. “It is a time of extreme concentration.”
“And where is all that concentration focused?”
“Upon the host.”
“Which is where?”
Picking up on her grandmother’s line of thought, Evangeline said, “Of course-the sisters direct their entire attention to the host, which was held in the monstrance upon the altar and in the tabernacle. As the plectrum was hidden inside, the sisters unwittingly watched over the instrument as they prayed. The sisters’ perpetual adoration was an elaborate security system.”
“Exactly,” Gabriella said. “Mother Francesca discovered an ingenious method of guarding the plectrum twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There was really no way for it to be discovered, let alone stolen, with such careful and ever-present attendants.”
“Except,” Evangeline said, “during the attack of 1944. Mother Innocenta was murdered on her way to the chapel. The Gibborim killed her before she could get there.”
“How remarkable,” Verlaine said. “For hundreds of years, the sisters have been performing an elaborate farce.”
“I don’t think they believed it a farce,” Evangeline said. “They were performing two duties at once: prayer and protection. None of us knew what was really inside the tabernacle. I had no idea that there was more to daily adoration than prayer.”
Vladimir stroked the metal with his fingertips. “The sound must be quite extraordinary,” he said. “For half a century, I have tried to imagine the exact pitch the kithara would make if plucked with a plectrum.”
“It would be a great mistake to experiment,” Gabriella said. “You know as well as I what could happen if one were to play it.”
“What could happen?” Vladimir asked, although it was clear that he knew the answer to his question before he asked it.
“The lyre was fashioned by an angel,” Bruno said. “As a result it has an ethereal sound, one that is both beautiful and destructive simultaneously and has unearthly-some might say unholy-ramifications.”
“Well said,” Vladimir told him, smiling at Bruno.
“I am quoting your magnum opus, Dr. Ivanov,” Bruno replied.
Gabriella paused to light a cigarette. “Vladimir knows very well that there is no telling what might occur. There are only theories-most of which are his own. The instrument itself has not been studied properly. We have never had it in our possession long enough to do so-but we know from Clematis’s account, and from the field notes taken by Seraphina Valko and Celestine Clochette, that the lyre exerts a seductive force over all who come into contact with it. This is what makes it so dangerous: Even those who mean well are tempted to play the lyre. And the repercussions of its music could be more devastating than anything we can imagine.”
“With a pluck of a string, the world as we know it could fold away and disappear,” Vladimir said.
“It could transform into hell,” Bruno said, “or into paradise. Legend has it that Orpheus discovered the lyre during his journey to the underworld and played it. This music ushered in a new era in human history-learning and husbandry flourished, the arts became a mainstay of human life. It’s one of the reasons Orpheus is so revered. It was an instance of the benefits of the lyre.”
“That’s an extraordinarily dangerous bit of romantic thinking,” Gabriella said sharply. “The lyre’s music is known to be destructive. Such utopian dreams as yours will lead only to annihilation.”