There’s a strange cap, embroidered with stars and moons. Next to it, a staff entwined with a pair of snakes wrought of gold. A pair of sandals with wings that flutter as if in a light breeze. A small carpet that floats above the shelf. A primitive burnished wood figurine with bright, white pebble eyes. A vial that gives off sparks of light as if the liquid inside is in constant motion. A snow globe with a perfect tiny house next to a perfect pond set in a perfect winter wood.

Everywhere are marvelous objects, no two alike.

“Oh, my,” Isaac whispers.

He walks down the length of shelves, running his fingers along the shelf edge. The objects are labeled with a system of letters and numbers, some in ancient and some in modern alphabets, which he thinks must be recorded in the ledger. He stops before one of the items, so very familiar.

It’s the—what did Kat call it?—the astrolabe that Isaac had seen in the Library of Alexandria. The astrolabe that Hypatia and the girl took through a mysterious door much like the one he and Amelie just tumbled through.

Isaac has the sudden realization that Hypatia and the girl left this astrolabe in this very place many centuries earlier.

But . . . they had been in ancient Egypt. Not South America.

Isaac steps away as the watch tick-tick-ticks against his palm.

“I know what these are,” Amelie says. “These are magical artifacts. Like the snake. Oh, look at this one. I think I know what it is.” She picks up a ring of mottled stone that’s large enough to fit over her wrist like a cuff.

Isaac takes it back to the ledger and finds the corresponding letter and number and reads in English: “‘Adder Stone. A faerie stone capable of rendering one invisible when worn, but only for a short period of time.’” He hands the cuff back to Amelie.

“Very strange,” he says, awed. He reads a couple of the ledger entries. “Here’s another. ‘The Elixir of Life can heal a fatal wound. Or, given the right conditions, bring someone back from the dead,’” he says, and glances at Amelie.

“Ew,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “That could be really icky, if someone’s been dead awhile.”

He looks back through the ledger again, turning the pages one by one, and then he sees that the last entry is not quite like the ones above.

Instead, he realizes, he’s reading a letter. A letter from his father, addressed to him.