Sophia answered from Christian’s other side. “ ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,’ ” she quoted, a touch sharply. “That is not to be questioned.”
“Being a Sanguinist is not a scientific process of discovery,” Christian added. “Our journey is about faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not the proving of such things.”
Jordan rolled his eyes. “Maybe if you had all asked more questions earlier, we wouldn’t be in such a mess now.”
No one disagreed, and Christian pointed ahead to a small coffeehouse with an outdoor patio. “How about a little refueling? We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
Only Erin and Jordan needed that refueling, but Christian was right. A little caffeine would be good… and a lot would be even better.
Christian went inside to place an order, while Jordan pushed two small round tables together under a patio umbrella. Christian returned shortly with a tray holding two coffees in wide-lipped ceramic mugs and a pile of pastries. Before placing the tray down, he leaned forward and inhaled the steamy aroma from the cups.
He sighed with appreciation.
Erin smiled, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sophia’s lips pinch with disdain. The Sanguinists considered any trace of humanity a weakness. But Erin found the lingering traces of Christian’s humanity endearing, making her trust him more, not less.
Erin held the mug in her palms, letting it warm her, to steady her. She stared around at the others. “What’s the plan from here? It feels like we’re tapping through the dark, like a blind man. It’s time to change that. It’s time we started asking the hard questions. Like understanding the nature of Sanguinists and strigoi. That seems to be critical to our quest.”
Jordan nodded, looking pointedly at Christian and Sophia. “The less we understand, the more likely we are to fail.”
“I agree,” Elizabeth said. “Ignorance has not served us in the past, and it will not serve us now. There are things that the Church should know. They have had two thousand years to study such matters, yet they cannot answer the simplest questions. Like what animates a strigoi?”
“Or another question: How do you change when you take the vow of a Sanguinist?” Erin added. “How does the wine sustain you?”
Her questions erupted into a brief, but heated discussion. Rhun and Sophia took the side of faith and God. Erin, Jordan, and Elizabeth argued for the scientific method and reason. Christian played reluctant referee, trying to find common ground.
In the end, they all ended up even farther apart.
Erin shoved her empty mug away. All that was left on her plate were pastry crumbs. Jordan had taken only a single bite of his apple Danish, but it looked like he’d had enough — if not of the pastry and coffee, then at least of the conversation.
“We should be going,” he said, standing up.
Sophia checked her watch. “Jordan is right. We’ve wasted enough time.”
Erin bit back a sharp retort, knowing it would get them nowhere.
Surprisingly, Elizabeth offered a more conciliatory response. “Perhaps we’ll discover the answers to these questions in John Dee’s laboratory.”
Erin stood up.
We’d better find them… or the world is doomed.
17
Rhun stood beside Elizabeth in the center of Prague’s old town square. Clouds had rolled in, and a light rain had begun to fall, pebbling against the cobblestones. She had stopped, staring up at the golden face of the astronomical clock, the famous Orloj. Then she turned her attention to the surrounding buildings.
“So exactly where is this guy’s lab?” Jordan asked.
“I just need to get my bearings,” Elizabeth said. “Much has changed, but fortunately for us, much has not.”
Rhun studied the clock’s many overlapping dials and symbols. It was already almost four in the afternoon, which left them another two and a half hours of daylight.
Erin huddled in a light blue jacket. “I would’ve thought John Dee’s lab would be somewhere in the Alchemist’s Alley, off by Prague Castle.”
“And you would have been wrong,” Elizabeth said, in a troublesomely haughty tone. “Many alchemists had workshops in that alley, but the most secret work was done not far from here.”
“So then where was Dee’s laboratory?” asked Sophia.
Elizabeth paced slowly away from the clock tower and into the square. She turned in a slow circle, like a compass trying to find true north. Eventually, she pointed down a narrow street that led off the square. Tall apartment buildings flanked both sides.
“Unless it has been destroyed, his laboratory lies that way.”
Erin’s brow creased with worry. Rhun understood her concern. If it was gone, they would not only have made this trip for naught, but they would be lost, with no way forward.
Elizabeth headed off, forcing them to follow her. Sophia hurried to keep abreast of her, while Rhun hung back with the others.
Erin stared around, clearly taking in the history, but her mind was on a more recent event.
“Back in 2002,” she said, with a wave of her arm, “Prague was hard hit by a flood. The Vltava River broke its banks and flooded the capital. When those waters receded, sections of the city streets — including this one, if I’m not mistaken — collapsed into medieval-era tunnels, revealing long-lost rooms, workshops … even alchemy labs.” Erin looked at them, then at the wet stones under her feet. “Over the years, probably a million people walked over those tunnels without knowing what was there. It caused quite a stir in the archaeological community at the time.”
Ahead of them, Elizabeth uttered a single harsh syllable that Rhun recognized as a Hungarian curse. They all hurried to join her. She had stopped next to a wooden sign hanging over the street. Next to it, two dark blue doors stood open. Her eyebrows were drawn down into a scowl. She looked ready to rip the sign off its metal hinges.
On one of the doors, a bright silver circle enclosed a symbol of two flasks connected by tubes. The words Speculum Alchemiae Muzeum Prague were written around it.
“It’s a museum!” Elizabeth spat. “This is how your age guards its secrets?”
“Apparently so,” Jordan said.
Rhun moved closer. Pear-shaped flasks hung from a wrought-iron rack attached to the doors. A golden shield on the front labeled each one’s contents: Elixir of Memory, Elixir of Health, and Elixir of Eternal Youth.
Rhun remembered similar fanciful potions from his childhood.
Christian planted his fists on his hips, looking dubiously at the museum. “John Dee’s papers are here?”
“They were here,” Elizabeth corrected. “This used to be an ordinary-seeming house. It had a great room in front, and a sitting room in back, where alchemists would receive guests and talk about their works. Including scholars such as Tycho Brahe and Rabbi Loew. Old men with white beards hunched over crucibles and alembics. And of course, charlatans, too, like that damnable Edward Kelly.”
Rain ran into Rhun’s eyes, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “What were they working on?”
Elizabeth shook drops from her wimple. “Everything. They searched for many things that would prove foolish and elusive, like a philosopher’s stone capable of turning base metals to gold, but they also discovered much of real consequence.” She stamped her small foot on the cobbles. “Discoveries that were later lost. Things the likes of which your modern mind cannot ever comprehend. And now you have turned it into a child’s amusement show.”