Shakespeare seemed to notice the sword in Josh’s hand for the first time. “Keep up your bright swords,” he murmured. Stepping forward, he produced a surprisingly pristine white handkerchief, pulled off his glasses and started to polish them. Without the thick lenses, Sophie noticed, he looked more like the image of the famous playwright she’d seen in her textbooks. He put his glasses back on and looked at Josh. “It is Clarent?”

Josh nodded. He could feel it tremble slightly in his hands and was aware of a slow warmth soaking into his flesh.

Shakespeare leaned forward, his long narrow nose inches from the tip of the blade, but he made no attempt to touch it. “I saw its twin many times,” he said absently. “The blades are identical, but the hilts are slightly different.”

“Was this when you were with Dee?” Sophie asked shrewdly.

Shakespeare nodded. “When I was with the doctor,” he agreed. He reached out and tentatively touched the tip of the blade with his index finger. The dark stone sparkled and rippled with a tracery of pale yellow, as if a liquid had been poured down the blade, and there was a hint of lemon in the air. “Dee inherited Excalibur from his predecessor, Roger Bacon, but this was really the weapon he wanted to find. The twin blades are older than the Elders and were ancient long before Danu Talis was raised from the seas. Individually, the swords are powerful, but legend has it that together they have the power to destroy the very fabric of the earth itself.”

“I’m surprised Dee didn’t find it,” Josh said a little breathlessly. He could feel the sword buzzing in his hands, and strange images floated at the edge of his consciousness. Somehow he knew that these were Shakespeare’s memories.

A circular building in flames…

A pitifully small grave, and a young girl standing over the opening, tossing in a handful of dirt…

And Dee. A little younger than Josh remembered him; his face unlined, his hair dark and full, his goatee without a hint of gray.

“The Magician always believed the sword had been lost in a lake deep in the Welsh mountains,” Shakespeare continued. “He spent decades hunting for it there.”

“Flamel found it in a cave in Andorra,” Sophie said. “He believed Charlemagne hid it there in the ninth century.”

Shakespeare smiled. “So the Magician was wrong. It is gratifying to know that the doctor is not always correct.”

Sophie stepped out from behind Josh and pushed down his arm. The wind coming across the sword blade moaned. “Are you really… really William Shakespeare? The Bard?” she asked. Even after all she had seen and experienced over the past few days, she still found the idea awe-inspiring.