She noted Hugh looking quizzically at her, as if she were missing something.
So the teacher wants me to earn extra points.
She pursed her lips and returned her attention to the ceiling, picking through the constellations, especially focusing on the spring ones. Three of the lesser spring constellations were connected together, woven by flowing lines.
Hydra, Crater, and Noctua.
“The snake, the cup, and the owl,” she mumbled, naming the shapes they represented. She had no trouble understanding the significance. The snake likely represents Lucifer, the cup could easily be the Chalice mentioned in the prophecy, and the owl had been the symbol of knowledge across many cultures, going back eons.
She glanced to her pack. The Blood Gospel was prophesied to have all the knowledge of the universe locked between its covers. She returned her attention above, noting the smaller lines that formed fanciful curlicues and whorls around the three constellations, weaving them together.
“They’re connected together into one whole,” Erin said.
A glance revealed a broad, congratulatory smile on Hugh’s face. She wanted to smack that smug look off him and get some real answers.
Luckily Jordan interrupted, holding up his phone. “Got it!”
She moved closer.
“Here’s the night sky over France.”
She looked at the screen, seeing that he had labeled the constellation Leo.
“We’re at about latitude forty-three,” he explained. “This time of year, Leo should be at the westernmost edge of the sky, but clearly it’s not in the star map on the ceiling.”
She looked to the roof, recognizing how different that star map was up there. “Then where on the planet does it match this sky?”
“Far to the east, about twenty-eight degrees north latitude.”
“Could it be Tibet?” Erin asked. “Or maybe Nepal?”
Jordan whistled his appreciation and held up his phone for her to see, revealing the name that his phone app had pulled up.
KATMANDU, NEPAL
27°30′N 85°30′E
“Keep in mind,” Jordan cautioned, “this is a rough approximation. But that’s the region of the world referenced above. Basically it could be anywhere in the Himalayas.”
Erin pictured the mural painted on Kelly’s wall, showing a trio of mountains surrounding a dark lake. It must be somewhere in the Himalayan range of Nepal.
But where?
“How did you already guess Nepal?” Rhun asked her.
“Because of the wheels and the stars on the ceiling. They’re Buddhist symbols. Of all the cultures depicted above, they’re the most numerously represented.” Erin talked quickly now, certain of what she was saying. “That wagon wheel over there is Buddha’s wheel of transformation. The rim is limitation, the hub represents the world, and the eight spokes are the Noble Eightfold Path, which is what you need to tread to end suffering.”
Erin turned to Hugh, challenging him. “That’s where you learned your meditation techniques, wasn’t it? You went east, during your travels before you settled in France. You learned these techniques from Buddhists monks.”
Hugh bowed his head in acknowledgment.
Rhun frowned. “But how could Buddhists help you deal with your cursed nature?”
“Because the monks were strigoi themselves.”
Shock rang through the Sanguinists’ faces, even Elizabeth’s, but hers settled into a look more curious than horrified.
Hugh looked up at the lit windows. “After I left the Church, I wandered for many years, trying to make sense of what I was. I followed legends of eternal monks rumored to reside in the Far East, immortals like ourselves. I endured great hardship to find them, but always I was directed onward, until eventually I reached a valley between three peaks where I would learn much about my nature and the nature of the world.”
Into the stunned silence that followed, Elizabeth spoke. “And you left a record of that, didn’t you?”
Hugh lifted his brows in surprise, likely a rare expression for the man. “I did.”
Elizabeth turned to Erin, as if she should know this, too.
Then she did.
Three peaks.
Everything fell into place in her head.
32
“What is Elizabeth talking about?” Jordan asked Erin, noting a familiar expression dawning over her features, one of understanding. She had figured something out.
She took the phone from his fingers. “You have copies of my photos on here, don’t you? From back in Venice.”
“Yeah…”
She flipped through the files, pausing at one recent picture that showed her half-naked, stepping from the bathroom. He had secretly snapped it when they were at Castel Gandolfo. He couldn’t resist taking it.
I mean, look at that body.
She glanced over to him, giving him a quick smile, but that wasn’t the picture she was looking for. Finally, she found it and lifted the phone. “There were three peaks painted on Edward Kelly’s wall. At the time, it reminded me of something Elizabeth had shown us in Venice, but then things got a little crazy in Prague.”
Erin faced Hugh. “There’s a famous mosaic at the cathedral in Venice, which I understand from your history was your favorite city in Italy. You spent a lot of time there.”
“How could I not?” he admitted. “It is a rare city, one blended into the sea itself. It speaks to the dichotomy of man’s relationship with the natural world. Venice is an example of man’s struggle to both circumvent nature and be a part of it.”
“And the basilica there,” Erin continued. “St. Mark’s. Elizabeth said that this particular mosaic was commissioned by alchemists in Prague, the very men to whom you gave your green diamond.”
Erin showed everyone a picture of one of the basilica’s mosaics. It showed a triptych of a black devil confronting Christ in three different ways.
Jordan remembered it himself now. “The Temptations of Christ.”
“You were behind this commission, weren’t you?” Erin said. “The three peaks of that valley of the monks, that’s what Kelly had painted on his wall, something you must have shared with those alchemists when you gave them that diamond, something you also had represented in a mosaic of a timeless city, in a basilica that would stand for centuries. You made a record of that valley in the gold glass tiles.”
Jordan still didn’t understand what she meant.
Erin zoomed in on the third temptation—it’s always the number three—and expanded the view under Christ’s sandals. He was standing on a set of mountains, with a snow-globe-shaped bubble under his feet, like he was walking on water.
“You are correct,” Hugh said. “Such knowledge could not be lost to time. It is too important.”
“What’s so important about it?” Jordan asked Hugh.
Erin answered instead. “That dome of watery light under Christ’s legs, it holds three chalices.” She stared hard at Hugh. “Those three chalices represent the three stones, don’t they?”
“They do,” said Hugh.
“That’s where you first saw them,” Erin said, “where you found them. Arbor, Aqua, and Sanguis. The gems of Garden, Water, and Blood.”
“It is indeed. In that most holy valley, one of divine enlightenment.”