“Might be. Alex didn’t know of one either, beyond her letting ‘Willie’ slip out at Sunday lunches. He told me Will wasn’t thrilled about that—it might have been appropriate in private, but not in front of his parents. But I’m sure there was a pet name they had for each other.”

“If you’re right—and I remember ‘Willie,’ now that you mention it, and the filthy look that followed it!—it would be something suggestive, with a clever twist, if I know Will. But let me know where you’re going with this when you feel like sharing!”

Lucy smiled in a secretive way. “In the meantime, you might give some thought as to why it could be important that a sunflower tracks the sun. Does anything track the moon? And what did they mean on the phone today about ‘weaving straw into gold’?” Lucy had been pondering this all afternoon.

“Hm. Here’s your conundrum.” He opened the Apple. “I want you to look at these notes of Will’s—they’re from the very last day in France, which he e-mailed back from some Internet café in Chartres. Random thoughts, perhaps.” Simon booted the page, with only a short paragraph of text in the body of the e-mail. It showed the date and time it was sent—Friday, September 19, in the early afternoon.

Lucy read out softly: “‘Be open to the presence of the rose. It is a complicated flower, full of symbology and paradoxical meanings. It indicates what is secret and silent, but also knows the human unconscious. The rose guides adepts, alchemists, and society members, heart-to-heart.’”

She felt powerfully affected by the words, as though she understood some of this through her own experience in the labyrinth. She couldn’t put this into words for Simon, so she settled back for takeoff. Grace had promised to fill Alex in on the history of Chartres. And he, silencing his own protests, had decided not to let their adversaries have it all their own way. He was dusting off his Latin and studying the texts from a mathematical perspective. Plus, she had a willing and genial accomplice here beside her. Will’s troops, she thought. Within the allotted week we will have solved the whole mystery. She watched the screen saver on the Apple fade out to a painting: of a woman, dangling a pearl over a double-handed chalice. Who was she?

“DON’T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT HER, ALEX. YOU CAN’T BELIEVE HOW DETERMINED she is—a woman with a renewed sense of purpose.” Grace stepped from the kitchen with a bottle of wine for him to open, then spooned some rice from a carton onto plates and put the curries on a mat.