I groaned, maddeningly frustrated at this unbelievable discovery and the short amount of time I’d had to explore it. But given how quickly the flashlight and camera had drained my battery, I gave myself sixty seconds to get out, maybe less. I flipped the flashlight on again, backed my way out of the room and swung the hidden door closed as best I could. Then I backtracked, quickly crossing the first room and stepping once again into the corridor. Ahead, the subtle glow of moonlight crept inside from the third and final door.

As expected, my phone died within seconds of stepping outside. Still hidden behind the thorny shrub, I did my best to blindly set the exterior door back into position, but I felt sure I did a terrible job of it. I scooped up some dirt and leaves with my hands and tossed them haphazardly around the base of the door to give it the appearance of being undisturbed. Then I pushed my way past the shrub and turned around to look at my work; the door certainly didn’t look as snug as when I first discovered it, but it was still quite inconspicuous. I could only hope that no one had been paying as close attention to the area as I had.

I rushed back to the locked gate and heaved myself onto one of the pillars, though not without a great deal of straining and heavy breathing. Pulling my legs over the pillar, I jumped to the other side. I wiped my hands on my pants and looked up to the glass windows above me. Still, nothing moved; as far as I could tell, no one knew I was here, much less what I’d done.

It was no wonder the apothecary had remained a mystery; her door was well hidden by the wall of shelves, and only the passage of two centuries had deteriorated things enough for me to find it. That, and a little bit of recklessness and lawbreaking on my part. But if there was any doubt about her existence, it was gone now.

I walked out of Bear Alley aware that I’d just committed a crime for the very first time in my life. I had dirt underneath my fingernails and a dead cell phone full of incriminating photos to prove it. Yet guilt eluded me. Instead, I was so anxious to plug my phone into a charger and review the photos that I had to resist running back to the hotel.

But James. As I slipped quietly into the hotel room, hoping not to wake him, my heart sank. He was awake on the sofa with a book.

We didn’t speak to one another as I crawled into bed and plugged in my phone. I yawned, my adrenaline having melted into an aching fatigue, and peeked over at him. He seemed entirely engrossed in his book, as alert as I’d been at bedtime last night.