“And whether they made it work themselves?” He pressed his godson.

“Very uncertain. They would have had to come somewhere like this, to control the light source. But the glass engraving is astonishing. Dürer’s Melancholia I is concerned with Saturnian studies of magic, and Melancholia II could be his engraving of St. Jerome, the patron saint of alchemists. There’s always been a rumor of a lost third engraving. Our glass plate has only a Roman ‘III’ on it. But what if it were Dürer—an apt missing piece of the puzzle? In the three levels of initiation, any means to raise an angel would perfectly illustrate the highest level of attainment. Dürer was unquestionably a student of the Hermetic philosophy. It’s Dürer, or it’s a hoax: you decide.”

Lucy felt like a disappointed child. To keep her reactions natural, he’d never told her what would happen in the room at the White Hart—only to be prepared. His subsequent explanation had, she felt, left too much out; and like the boat, she’d felt sure there was something further at play. “Alex, is this really all there was to it—the vision that appeared that night?”

He nodded.

“So, you think Dr. Dee never raised an angel? That he was aware it was a trick?”

“I see it differently, Lucy. When a pagan aspirant entered Paradise he was supposedly granted ‘Epopteia’—a vision of the gods during the Initiation rite. What we know from various Mysteries tells us the aspirants were granted this vision through some magical evocation from the operator, as Dee was known. Prospero does the same thing for Miranda and Ferdinand—to bless their union. Dee would have called it an ‘Alchemical Wedding.’”

“In other words, it’s a swizz,” Lucy interrupted him.

“No, I don’t think so. For Dee, science was a way to the magic—part of it. Artificial marvels, achieved through mathematics, proved man could create miracles that were on a level with God. It proved the truth of what Pico said—that every man was potentially higher than the angels, which is close to Amel’s philosophy. Manufactured marvels were shadows of a heavenly reality. Even Shakespeare called his actors ‘shadows’—shadows of the people they reflected. Not quite a trick.”

“But, Alex, I think some people may see angels: just as I think some people may see ghosts, or ‘feel’ God without the need for rationale. It’s faith—something found in the darkness itself—outside the reach of enlightenment. Maybe it’s like being touched by music. That’s what Chartres Cathedral is about. The darkness is mystical, as is the light, like Bruno’s infinity. It crystallizes something within us, if we allow ourselves to respond to its subtlety.”