Henry Stafford had the feeling his son wasn’t hearing him, but he spoke on. “And he was a great man, that I know. His interest in metaphysics was not the only thing in his life worthy of comment. A great mathematician, a scientist, translator. A spy who might have worked for Walsingham—the first to call himself 007, it’s been suggested. He had the best library in England. But remembered as Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, someone who conversed with spirits—or tried to. And I have not much patience with that. But your mother was more flexible; we just didn’t talk about it. My wish—and she complied. Whatever there is in that genetic mix of yours, Will, John Dee certainly contributes much of its richness, brilliance, and probably some of your mysticism. I believe the key opens something that belonged to him.” Ignoring the equipment that made his son seem far away and out of touch, Henry had seized Will’s hand on the top sheet. His hair was tidy and trimmed, his face tanned and handsome—yet he looked frighteningly colorless.

Will may have heard him; he wasn’t sure. He was standing, all at once, in a parallel moment, in the center of a labyrinth, with the smell of roses blissfully overwhelming him, light streaming over him: and, at the same time, on the top of Etna’s core, the air pregnant with citrus scents, flatter light, heavy heat. Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen bluhn? he thought: Do you know the land where the lemon trees bloom? What a mistake he’d made. How much time he’d wasted, never learning the whole of any one language, just bits and pieces—never enough for an intellectual conversation with someone from another time and cultural space. How else could you see the world through someone else’s eyes, if you couldn’t complete an important sentence? The word was everything, he understood.

“Dodone. Delphi. Delos.”

He saw a triangle in his mind’s eye; and then looked closely at the pattern on the hilt of the little key. There was a pearl upon it, in the center of a spiral. Why hadn’t he ever taken proper notice of it before? He looked down at his hands, which were grasping something warm and leathery. A dark, old book. He turned it over. His eyes had trouble focusing on the title, lettered in gold. “Ah. The Old King’s Book.” Inside the front cover was inscribed: “Diana Stafford,” above her drawing of a stag and a triangle.

A tear escaped from his father’s eye, and he offered no apology for it.