Machiavelli had kept a file on the Flamels for centuries. The earliest notes were on parchment with beautifully illuminated drawings; then had come thick handmade paper with pen-and-ink sketches and later still, paper with tinted photographs. The most recent files were digital, with high-resolution photographs and video. He had retained all his earlier notes on the Alchemyst and his wife, but they had also been scanned and imported into his encrypted database. There was frustratingly little information on Nicholas, and very, very little devoted to the Sorceress. So much about her was unknown. There was even a suggestion in a fourteenth-century French report that she had been a widow when she had married Nicholas. And when the Alchemyst had died, he had left everything in his will to Perenelle’s nephew, a man called Perrier. Machiavelli suspected-though he had no evidence to back up his supposition-that Perrier might be a child from her first marriage. Perrier took possession of all the Alchemyst’s papers and belongings… and simply vanished from history. Centuries later, a couple claiming to be the descendents of Perrier’s family appeared in Paris, where they were promptly arrested by Cardinal Richelieu. The Cardinal had been forced to release them when he realized that they knew nothing about their famous ancestor and possessed none of his books and writings.

Perenelle was a mystery.

Machiavelli had spent a fortune paying spies, librarians, historians and researchers to look into the mysterious woman, but even they had found astonishingly little on her. And when he had fought her face to face in Sicily in 1669, he had discovered then that she had access to extraordinary-almost elemental-power. Drawing upon more than a century of learning, he had battled her using a combination of magical and alchemical spells from around the globe. She had countered them all with a bewildering display of sorcery. By evening, he had been exhausted, his aura dangerously depleted, but Perenelle had still looked fresh and composed. If Mount Etna had not erupted and ended the battle, he was convinced she would have destroyed him, or caused his aura to spontaneously combust and consume his body. It was only later that he’d realized that the energies they had both released had probably caused the volcano to erupt.

Niccolò Machiavelli settled a soft wool blanket up around his shoulders and hit the switch that gently converted his comfortable seat into a six-foot-long bed. Lying back, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He would think about the problem of the Sorceress for the next few hours, but one thing was already crystal clear: Perenelle frightened the Dark Elders. And people were usually afraid only of those who could destroy them. One final thought hovered at the edge of his consciousness: who-or what-was Perenelle Flamel?

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The cab hit a pothole and the jolt woke the twins. “Sorry,” Palamedes called back cheerfully.