Josh turned to look at his twin and saw that she was staring at his hands. He looked down. A pair of gauntlets had appeared on his hands where they gripped the hilt of the stone sword. They looked like soft leather gloves, and they were stained and worn, the leather scraped, dappled with what looked like dirt and mud.

Another tremendous blow struck the gate.

“We don’t have enough troops to hold the walls,” Josh said, thinking aloud. He pointed with Clarent. “Palamedes and Shakespeare should open the gates. The Gabriel Hounds can pick off the attackers as they bunch up in the narrow entrance.”

Flamel stepped forward and reached out for Josh. “We need to get out of here.”

The moment his fingers touched the boy’s shoulder, Josh’s aura intensified around him, yellow threads of power crawling across his chest and arms. The Alchemyst jerked his fingers back as if they had been burned. The stone sword glowed briefly gold, then faded to an ugly red-speckled black as a wash of emotions took Josh by surprise.

Fear. A terrible all-consuming fear of beastlike creatures and shadowy humans.

Loss. Countless faces, men, women and children, family, friends and neighbors. All dead.

Anger. The overriding emotion was one of anger-a simmering, all-consuming rage.

The boy slowly turned to look at the immortal. Their eyes locked. Josh immediately knew that these new emotions had nothing to do with the sword. He had held Clarent before and had come to recognize the peculiarly repulsive nature of its memories and impressions. He knew that what he’d just experienced were the Alchemyst’s thoughts. When the man had touched him, he’d felt Flamel’s fear, loss and anger, and something else also: for a single instant there had been the vaguest ghostly impression of children… lots of children, in the clothes and costumes of a dozen countries from across the centuries. And as the immortal human had jerked his hand away, Josh had been left with the impression that all the children had been twins.

Josh took a step toward the Alchemyst and stretched out his hand, fingers spread wide. Perhaps if he just touched Nicholas and held on tightly, he’d finally have some answers. He would know the truth about the immortal Nicholas Flamel.

The Alchemyst took a step back from Josh. Although his lips still curled into a smile, Josh saw the older man’s hands close into fists and caught the suggestion of light as his fingernails turned green. A suggestion of mint touched the air, but it was sour and bitter.