“One day you’re going to tell me who that Elder was,” Dee grunted, trying to move an enormous black leather lounger. “Why did I buy this?” he muttered.

“Is he asleep?” she asked, waving her hand in front of Josh’s eyes. They remained open and unblinking.

“He’s in a dream state. He’s aware enough to walk and talk and drive, but he’s only semiconscious. No doubt he believes all of this is a dream.”

“Like hypnosis?”

“Just like hypnosis,” Dee agreed. He finally managed to get the chair up against a wall and collapsed into it. “I’m getting too old for this,” he wheezed.

“Doctor,” Virginia said quietly, “you need to see this.”

The tone in the woman’s voice brought Dee quickly across the room. Josh was sitting on a stool at the kitchen table. The four swords and the Codex were on the glass tabletop before him, where Dee had left them. When the boy had rested his hands on the table, all of the swords had immediately started to glow, throbbing gently like beating hearts. There was the sudden odor of oranges, and abruptly the glass surface turned into a sheet of solid gold.

Virginia tapped the gold with her fingernail. “Now, that’s impressive.”

“The boy is powerful indeed,” Dee said. “I’ve never seen a pure Gold before.”

Gossamer threads of Josh’s gold aura drifted across the table like smoke, curling around the stone swords. Crackling sparks leapt from blade to blade. Particles of ice sparkled across Excalibur and red-black smoke drifted off Clarent; gritty brown sand formed on Joyeuse’s blade, and Durendal’s surface rippled as if a chill breeze were blowing across it. Then the heavy copper cover of the Codex flapped open and the pages began to riffle as if blown by a strong breeze. Dee carefully reached out and lifted the book off the table. “He is so strong,” the Magician said, “it seems almost a shame to have to kill him.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Josh.

Wake up.

Josh. Wake up.

Josh.

And Josh woke up, hearing Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel’s voices ringing in his head.

He remembered lying down on the uncomfortable couch in Prometheus’s guesthouse; then there was a dream… a long, boring dream.

Or was it a dream?

He was sitting on a high stool in a modern-looking apartment, with Dr. John Dee and the almost-familiar-looking young woman from his dream watching him.

“You’re awake!” Dee said, sounding surprised.