“Dangerous, deadly and loyal to none but herself. Her master is dead; I believe she may have killed him. She is a Mistress of Air, but she has no love for Flamel and has fought alongside Dee in the past. Flamel will not go to her.”

Machiavelli looked at the final name blinking on the screen. “And then there is Gilgamesh.”

“The king,” the voice sighed, “who knows all the magics, but has no power to use them. Of course.”

“Where do his loyalties lie?” Machiavelli wondered aloud. “His name is not associated with any Elder.”

“Abraham the Mage, the creator of the Codex, is responsible for Gilgamesh’s immortality. I believe the process was flawed. It fractured his mind, and the centuries have made him both mad and forgetful. He might teach the twins, though he could just as easily refuse. Do you have an address?”

“No fixed abode,” Machiavelli said. “Looks like he’s living on the streets. I have a note here that he is usually to be found sleeping in the park close to the Buxton Monument, which is in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament. If Flamel and the twins were at that car yard in North London, it will take them some time to get across the city.”

“My spy reported that a black vehicle left that location at high speed.”

Machiavelli looked up at the photo of Palamedes standing alongside a black London cab. He scrolled down until he found the license plate. “The English capital has more traffic and security cameras than any other city in Europe,” he said absently. “Even more than Paris. However, they use the same traffic monitoring system that we use here.” Two of the screens turned black, and then short lines of code started to appear as Machiavelli hacked into London’s traffic cameras. “And the same software.”

The Italian brought up a high-resolution map of London, found the Buxton Monument in Victoria Tower Gardens alongside the Houses of Parliament and then pinpointed the nearest traffic lights. Sixty seconds later he was looking at the live feed from the traffic camera. Watching the time code, he started running it in reverse: 2:05… 2:04… 2:03… Traffic was sparse, and he sped up the digital video, jumping backward in five-minute intervals. The time code had reversed to 00:01 before he finally found what he was looking for. A black taxicab had stopped at the lights almost directly opposite the monument and a homeless man had shuffled out of the park to wipe the windows. The cab had sat at the light even though it had changed from red to green. Then the same homeless man climbed into the back of the cab and it pulled away.

“I’ve got him,” he said. “They’re heading west toward the A302.”

“Where are they going?” Machiavelli’s master demanded. “I want to know where they’re going.”