Sophie and Josh watched Nicholas raise the glass to his lips and sip the sticky liquid. His right hand was trembling and he caught it with his left and held it steady. He saw them looking at him and tried to smile, but it came out more like a grimace of pain. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice raw. “You saved her.”

“Perenelle,” Sophie repeated. “What happened?”

Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Those creatures…,” Josh began.

“Vetala,” Nicholas said.

“And what looked like a ghost,” Sophie added.

Nicholas finished the water and put the glass down with a shudder. “Actually, that gives me cause for hope,” he said, and this time his smile was genuine. “Perenelle is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. She can communicate with the shades of the dead; they hold no fear for her. Alcatraz is an isle of ghosts, and ghosts are mostly harmless.”

“Mostly?” Josh said.

“Mostly,” Nicholas agreed. “But none can harm my Perenelle,” he added confidently.

“Do you think anything has happened to her?” Sophie said, just as Josh opened his mouth to ask the same question.

There was a pause, and then Flamel answered. “I don’t think so. We saw her aura flare. Augmented by our auras-yours especially-she would be briefly powerful.”

“But what did she mean when she said you had killed her?” Sophie asked, her voice stronger now.

“I do not know,” he said quietly. “But this I am sure of: if anything had happened to her, I would know. I would feel it.” He came slowly and stiffly to his feet, pressing his hands into the small of his back. He looked around the empty hut and nodded toward the twins’ backpacks. “Get your stuff; we need to get out of here.”

“And go where?” Josh demanded.

“Anywhere away from here,” Nicholas said. “Our combined auras will have acted like a beacon. I’ll wager every Elder, Next Generation and immortal in London is heading this way right now. That’s what has Palamedes so upset.”

Sophie stood. Josh reached out to steady his sister, but she shook her head. “I thought you were going to stay and fight,” she said to Nicholas. “That’s what Perenelle wanted you to do, and isn’t that what Shakespeare and Palamedes both said we should do also?”

Flamel climbed down the steps and waited until the twins had joined him outside in the cool night air before he replied. He looked at Josh. “And what do you think? Stay and fight or flee?”

Josh looked at him in astonishment. “You’re asking me? Why?”

“You are our tactician, inspired by Mars himself. If anyone knows what to do in a battle, it is you. And, as Perenelle reminded me, you two are the twins of legend: you are powerful indeed. So tell me, Josh, what should we do?”