Each step moved beneath his weight. He was halfway up when his foot went all the way through a stair with a dull snap. He felt the entire staircase sway, and he realized that it was going to collapse. He launched himself up the rest of the way just as the staircase shuddered and collapsed, crashing into the shop below. Josh’s chest slammed onto the landing; his legs dangled in midair as his fingers scrambled to grab hold of the thick carpet covering the upper floor, but it ripped and shredded to threads in his grip. He attempted to scream but the sound got caught at the back of his throat. A chunk of carpet ripped away in his hand and he jerked backward…

Iron-hard fingers caught his wrists.

Josh was hauled up and found himself looking into Perenelle Flamel’s bright green eyes. “Josh Newman,” she murmured as she set him down gently on the landing. “We were not expecting you.”

Nicholas appeared out of a doorway and stopped beside his wife. “We were expecting… trouble,” he said quietly. “It’s good to see you.”

Josh rubbed his numb wrists. Perenelle’s strength was astonishing, and she’d almost wrenched his shoulders out of their sockets when she’d lifted him straight up in the air. He pressed his hands against his chest where it had hit the landing and took a deep breath. He was bruised, but he didn’t think he’d broken any ribs.

“What brings you here, Josh?” Perenelle said softly, her eyes searching his face. She answered her own question: “Sophie.”

“Sophie’s missing,” Josh said breathlessly. “She was kidnapped by a girl calling herself Aoife. She said she was Scathach’s sister,” he added. “She sure looked like her.” He saw their expressions change slightly, watched what he recognized as fear flicker in the Alchemyst’s eyes. “That’s not good, is it?”

Perenelle shook her head. “Not good at all.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Vingt… vingt-et-un…twenty-two.” Joan of Arc slid down the grassy incline and rejoined her companion on the banks of the narrow stream. “What do you call twenty-two saber-toothed tigers?” the slender, gray-eyed woman asked breathlessly. “A pack, a pride?”

“I call them trouble,” Scathach said shortly. She straightened and looked back up the incline. “And you’re about to tell me they’re heading this way.”

Joan nodded. “They are heading this way,” she said with a grin.

Scathach tapped her foot at the edge of the stream. It fit into a huge splayed footprint sunk in the mud. “This is their watering hole.” Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and then pointed with one of her matched short swords. “More are approaching from the south.”

“And from the east,” Joan added.

Scatty opened her eyes and looked at her friend. The late-afternoon sunshine turned Joan’s pale skin golden. “How do you know?”