Josh stretched his left foot to touch one upright, and as soon as his right foot touched the other upright stone, the voices he’d been hearing in his head from the moment he had stepped into the ancient circle clarified. He suddenly realized why they had sounded so familiar. They were all one voice-the voice of Clarent. He realized then that Clarent and Excalibur had been shaped from the same igneous rock as the great blue stones that had once composed the ancient circle. He saw the faces, both human and inhuman, and some that were a terrible mixture of both, of the original creators of the Henge. Stonehenge was not five thousand years old; it was older than that, much, much older. He glimpsed Cernunnos, shining and beautiful, without its horns, dressed entirely in white, standing in the center of the circle, a simple undistinguished sword held high in both hands.

But while the pillar to Josh’s left crackled and blazed with golden light, the right pillar remained dark.

Flamel cut down a boar that had broken through the circle. He turned to Sophie. “You need to help your brother.”

The girl was so exhausted she could barely stand. She looked at the Alchemyst, trying to shape words in her head. “But Will said if I use any more of my aura, I could burst into flames.”

“And if the gate doesn’t open, then we’re all dead,” Flamel snarled. Catching Sophie by the shoulder, he propelled her toward the stone. She stumbled on the uneven ground, tripped and fell forward, arms outstretched… and her fingertips brushed the stone. There was a burst of vanilla, and then the stone started to glow. Muted silver mist curled off the stone and then it lit up from within, until the pillars of the trilithon throbbed gold and silver, the lintel over them glowing orange.

It was night on Salisbury Plain, but between the stones, a lush sunlit hillside appeared.

Josh stared in wonder at the scene. He could actually smell grass and greenery, feel summer heat on his face and taste the faintest hint of salt in the air. He turned his head; behind him it was night, stars high in the heavens; before him it was day. “Where?” he whispered.

“Mount Tamalpais,” Flamel said triumphantly. Pulling Sophie to her feet, he dragged her toward the opening and the light. The moment her fingertips left the pillar, it started to fade.

“Go,” Shakespeare said. “Go now…”

“Tell Palamedes-”

“I know. Get out of here. Now.”

“What a play you would have got out of this!” the Alchemyst said, wrapping his arm around Josh’s waist, pulling the twins between the blazing stones and into the grassy landscape on the other side of the world.

“I never liked writing tragedies,” William Shakespeare whispered.