“But my dad . . .” Not for the first time, Alex found a racing new landscape of thoughts opening and struggled to keep track. “Dad was still quite young when he died. Maybe if he’d lived longer, it might have started in him again, like it did with you.”

“Well,” his grandfather said after a long pause. “We’ll never know. But, Alex, the potion, it’s not just a question of biology and chemistry. It also required a magical element to ignite it. And you’ve not had that. But, yes: it may be lying dormant in you. That’s perhaps what the golem’s tablet responded to in you, actually. It’s maybe why it responded when your blood touched it. It’s two different types of magic being brought together that shouldn’t have been. Alex, I— I’m sorry. I should have never started any of this, son. I should never have thought I could have a fam— Well, I’m sorry, that’s all. But here we are.”

A heavy silence fell between them.

“Those deaths you talked about,” Alex said after a while. “That’s part of what’s in me, too. In my blood. Those deaths. Murders.”

“Alex. Listen very carefully. This is our history, but it wasn’t our choice, and it’s certainly not your fault. It’s good to know the history, but you’re not chained to it, son.”

“No. I know.” Alex paused. Amid his jittering jumble of thoughts, two more memories suddenly linked up. “There’s nothing left of the victims’ bodies, you said. The flower, the leaf, it absorbs everything . . . That newspaper story I asked you about in Harry’s office, about the railway worker that went missing from the train. They just found his uniform in a heap. Was that . . . ?”

“Ah, I reckon so, Alex. I clipped that story. I’ve tried to keep track over the years.”

“I think it’s happened again,” Alex whispered. “The climbers we met on the Kandel. I think I found their clothes just lying . . .”

The old man opened his mouth, but no words came. His head fell forward. “All five?” he finally managed.

Alex nodded.

“So soon,” his grandfather said after a moment. “So many. That’s much faster than ever before. There used to be years between . . .” He let the thought drift into silence.

“How many?” Alex said.

“How many?”

“Lives. Deaths. In the . . . potion. I mean, before you knew and went away from him. While you were still taking it.”

“I don’t know, son.” The old man still sat with his head bowed.

“Grandad. It’s not your fault. It’s all just . . . it’s horrible.”

“That it is, Alex.” His grandfather patted his arm. “That it is.” He looked up. “And that’s all the more reason for us to keep going and try to stop it. If you can.”