Julian and Matthew entered the room. Its walls were painted as dark as the last few feet of the hallway, yet there were pools of light from strategically placed lanterns. A large oval window gave a view to a snow-covered courtyard. Across a dark blue carpet trimmed with scarlet, Samson Lash sat behind an imposing desk that had a ship carved upon its front. One of the pools of light spread across the desktop and reflected up into the flame-bearded face. And there before Lash—right there atop the desk—was the book bound in red leather that held the potions created by Jonathan Gentry. Right there … so near and yet so far. Even as Matthew’s gaze fell upon it, Lash caressed it with his huge left hand.

On the floor to one side of the desk was a basket containing the satchels of those who had come before. To the other side of the desk was a chair in which sat the white-suited Owl, his golden gaze already fixing upon Matthew.

It took Matthew a few seconds to register that someone else occupied a corner of the room beyond the desk, where the light did not reach. His heart seemed to stutter in his chest.

Cardinal Black sat in a chair with his spidery legs outstretched, the boots crossed at the ankles. His thin, angular frame in a coal-black suit with an ebony cloak about his shoulders indeed made Matthew think of a spider that had spun its web and now waited for the prey to become entangled. On the pale long-fingered hands with their sharpened nails were the multitude of silver rings cast in the shapes of skulls and strange satanic faces. The mane of sleek black hair that settled around the shoulders simply made the cardinal’s pallid, weirdly elongated face appear even more ghostly-pale, as if it were a thing of smoke that had somehow taken form and hung in the air, its puncture-wounds of eyes unblinking. The flesh was drawn so tightly over the cheekbones that Matthew felt pain looking at it, thinking that at any second the bones would burst through. But pain was not the central perception Matthew gathered; the centrality was that of a silent evil, watching and waiting … the spider for the flies.

Miss Mulloy closed the door at their backs. She came around to stand at Lash’s right side. In the low light, even her cherubic countenance had taken on too many shadows for Matthew’s liking. He felt a shiver up his spine. The Owl was still staring at him, and how long would it be before the man mentally unmasked him and recalled seeing his face at The Green Spot?