Nicholas Flamel sat in front of the two matching LCD computer screens. William Shakespeare sat on his left while Josh hovered over their shoulders, trying to keep as far away from the English immortal as possible and breathe only through his mouth. When Shakespeare moved, he trailed an odor in his wake, but when he sat still, the stink gathered around him in a thick cloud. Palamedes and Sophie had gone outside to feed the dogs.

“Trust me; it is quite simple,” Shakespeare explained patiently, eyes huge behind his glasses, “the merest variation of the scrying spell Dee taught me over four hundred years ago.”

“Should I mention at this point that the computer is turned off?” Josh interjected, suddenly realizing what apparently no one else had. “Only the screens are on.”

“But we only need the screens,” Shakespeare said enigmatically. He looked at the Alchemyst. “Dee always used a reflective surface for scrying…”

“Scrying?” Josh frowned. He’d heard Flamel use the same word. “What do you mean?”

“From the ancient French word deserter,” Shakespeare murmured, “meaning ‘to proclaim’ or ‘to show.’ In Dee’s case, it meant ‘to reveal.’ When I was with him, he carried a mirror everywhere.”

Flamel nodded. “His famous ‘shew-stone,’ or magical lens. I’ve read about it.”

“He demonstrated it to Queen Elizabeth herself at his home at Mortlake,” Shakespeare said. “She was so terrified by what she saw that she ran from the house and never returned. The doctor could look into the lens and focus in on people and places across the world.”

Flamel nodded. “I’ve often wondered what it was.”

“That sounds like TV,” Josh said quickly. And then he realized he was talking about something in the seventeenth century.

“Yes, very like television, but without a camera at the other end to transmit the picture. It was a scrap of Elder technology,” Shakespeare added, “a gift from his master. I believe it was an organic lens activated by the power of his aura.”

“Whatever happened to it?” Flamel wondered aloud.

Shakespeare smiled, tight-lipped. “I stole it from him the night I ran away. I had a mind to keep it for myself and mayhap even use it against him. But then I realized that if it linked Dee to his master, it probably linked his master to me. I dropped it in the Thames at Southwark, close to where we later built the Globe Theatre.”

“I wonder if it’s still there,” Flamel muttered.