Lucy had pulled back fractionally, observing an unholy color in her captor’s face. Now a strange fever emanated from his apparently senior colleague too. Together they truly frightened her, and she hoped she wasn’t far from the end of the whole ordeal. There was no reasoning with either of them from this point. She had read about these so-called seven vials in her research on Dee and Bruno; she knew about Thomas Brightman. He had counted trumpets and vials from Romans and Revelation, and decided upon a date for the “calling of the Jews to be a Christian nation.” The anticipated date for this was in the 1630s; but when this failed to materialize, dates and numbers and historical events had been shifted and reordered. Lucy thought that honest record-keepers must be up to at least seventy vials by now—and heaven knew how many trumpets—but she thought this was a bad time to dispute Walters’s mathematics.

Angelo carefully stepped into the enormous Tudor fireplace and lifted the strongbox from the side, setting it on a low trestle. Temple had taken a few slow steps to witness the greatness, but crumpled alongside the chest, chanting again. Lucy was startled. He chose the words from the Tablet of Jupiter, which was said to protect one and bring the angels: “Elohim, Elohi, Adonai, Zebaoth.” She looked at him in the strange half-light, and saw with horror that he was seriously ashen. It was a color she was familiar with from her own days in the hospital, and she was about to speak to Walters when she realized he was single-mindedly intent on his conquest. He was blind to everything except the chest, and turned at last to Lucy with barely reined-in excitement.

“Open it.” This was no polite request. He dropped the polished performance as Lucy had known he eventually must. She peered at the ornate lid, which had a single red rose painted upon it and gilt edges around the metal hinges. It was dusty, not overlarge, but strongly made and quite beautiful. The inscription made her shiver as she read aloud, with dramatic effect:

“Whomsoever would open this, doe so only if you be the Dark Lady of the Light, Sister and Beloved, and her Rose-Cross Knight Loyal and True. A plague be on your houses if this be not soe. The words of Mercury are harsh, after the sweet songs of Apollo.”

Lucy saw no reference to angels or trumpets, but she felt the power of ideas behind the words written so long ago. She looked at his eager face. “Dr. Walters, I daren’t open this. It may be that I am the Lady of Light, but you’re not the Red-Cross Knight. Alexander ought to be here, to metaphorically cut the Gordian knot. Because I think two keys are required.”