“You’re a well-read young woman, Miss King. I can see Dee and his circle were drawn to alchemy, which is a pure translation of the realities of a religious life—the transmutation of the soul from base material to gold.”

Lucy knew he wanted to add, “…however misguided.” She turned back to Venus and Adonis. It was a shame not to have better light to examine the images, which were bursting with riddles about Dee and Shakespeare’s Hermetic philosophy. “I want to change the wall…” she thought. She could see the words in fiery letters from the page that she had carried through the Chartres labyrinth.

She was aware that Temple, standing near her, was still fidgety. He’d been in some physical distress since witnessing the scene they had unwittingly stumbled in upon. He was an ardent believer, she thought, but he undoubtedly couldn’t explain what had happened and was extremely nervous that they might be the victims of some kind of demonology at first hand. It would have made her laugh—but compassion prevented such a callous response. She’d been startled by the spirits of the room; he, she felt, had been genuinely frightened. Just now he too had started chanting the text that had come into her own head. Was it some attempt to placate the apparitions, prevent their return?

“‘I want to change the Wall, and make my Will,’” he said aloud. “‘Wondering what I am or what I ever was.’ Where is our quarry, FW? We’re looking for an object or door, Miss King, that the key fits, aren’t we? Is there an opening concealed somewhere in the mural?”

Lucy’s eyes ranged over the painting, looking to answer him. She was trying to put together the details she and Alex had talked of before, identify the clues he must have identified. Desperate for her not to look well rehearsed, he’d mentioned only some paneling: did he mean the glass protecting the painting? She answered Guy Temple with genuine uncertainty: “They can’t be urging us to desecrate this. Surely, we have to ‘change the wall’ to find what was left in ‘the will.’” By Will, she thought, and “for Will.” “It must be another facade, perhaps on a parallel with the rose, or Adonis—as he is the resurrected figure.”

Temple chanted on, like a holy man bereft of sense, as they turned to the other solid walls in the room. Lucy had a flash of insight. “All that is aflame…” “Every jointed piece…” She spoke fervently: “This wall housed the fireplace. It must be here—behind the fine woodwork. There must be a cranny through which the fearful lovers can uncover the past.”