Elsa said, “There is one obvious solution—I’ll simply avoid asking about the future. Facts about the present only, no predictions. Just in case.”
She walked toward one of the doorways, and as she moved closer, the dark alcove began to brighten. She stepped inside, expecting the light to have a source, but there were no sconces or lamps, only a directionless ambient glow. The effect was surreal, and she couldn’t help but wonder how Jabir had succeeded in so elegantly twisting the laws of physics. He’d been a master of his craft, no doubt about that.
On the wall there was a single raised carving of a stylized hand, fingers pointing down, with a large eye in the center of the palm. The hand seemed to be shaped from the same stone as the wall, though the eye looked like colored glass, with a black pupil and deep-blue iris surrounded by white.
Elsa leaned in to get a closer look. The eye moved, focusing on her as if it were alive, and she jerked away from it.
“You have questions, young mortal,” said a deep, resonant voice. The voice, like the light, seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Elsa hesitated and glanced back at everyone else behind her, several meters outside the alcove. They wouldn’t be able to hear. She cleared her throat. “Where is my mother?”
“She is with her abductor.”
“Okay…” Elsa rested her hands on her hips, trying to think of a way to elicit a more helpful response. “So then who is this abductor?”
“A brilliant man—a man intent on accomplishing great and terrible deeds. A man who crushes hindrances like cockroaches beneath his boot heel. If you pursue him, you will lose something precious to you.”
“No predictions!” Elsa snapped. “I only want to know about events that have already come to pass. Why did he take my mother?”
“Because she can scribe the book,” said the Oracle.
“The book? A specific worldbook?” Elsa thought of the one that had gone missing from the cottage along with Jumi.
The Oracle said, “The book that resides with the man who betrayed her.”
“Betrayed her—you mean to say my mother knew one of the men responsible?”
The Oracle paused. “I said precisely what I meant to say.”
“Yes, of course,” said Elsa impatiently. “But did she know one of them?”
“Certain events would not have been possible were it not for the betrayal committed by a man she knew.”
Elsa glowered at the Oracle’s eye. “You aren’t overly fond of specifics, are you?”
“The details are as grains of sand. One cannot perceive the desert if each grain must first be weighed and measured.…”
The voice trailed off and the glass eye’s focus shifted to something behind her. Elsa turned to see Faraz standing uncertainly in the doorway to the alcove.
“How goes it?” he said, torn between caution and reverence.
Faraz had aimed the question at Elsa, but the Oracle answered for her. “The world has entered a time of flux. Much depends on the choices you make.”
Faraz stepped closer, drawn in by a fascination that seemed to Elsa almost magnetic in nature. “‘Much’? What does that mean?”
“I wouldn’t—” Elsa warned, but the Oracle cut her off.
“I will tell you what I see, son of Allah,” said the Oracle. “The waters writhe with eldritch horrors. A plume of ash ten thousand meters high blocks out the sun.”
Elsa shivered. The Oracle’s voice gave her a sensation like insects crawling down her spine. She had no idea what son of Allah meant, but Faraz’s eyes went wide and the color seemed to drain from his face as he listened to the prediction.
She grabbed his arm. “Don’t say another word.”
He nodded mutely. They both stood, transfixed.
You will lose something precious. She’d already lost Jumi and Veldana; what else could she possibly lose? Alek, perhaps, who was the closest thing she and Jumi had to family, or maybe something more abstract, like her freedom. Or it meant those precious things—her mother, her world—weren’t truly lost yet, but could be.
“Elsa?” Faraz prompted.
She shook herself. “Yes, we should go. But … let’s not mention this to Leo and Porzia, all right?”
He nodded, half-reluctant and half-relieved. “No use making them worry.”
They stepped away from the Oracle’s eye, moving back toward the others. “We can’t even be sure the Oracle truly has prophetic abilities,” Elsa said, trying to convince herself as much as Faraz.
“Right,” he agreed. “Nothing to be done about it now, in any case.”
In truth he seemed as shaken as she herself felt, and sharing the prophecies would solidify her fears into something too real to be ignored. Better to pretend it had never happened and forge onward.
She couldn’t afford to hesitate when Jumi’s life depended on her.
10
TO LIVE IN PEACE AND WITHOUT THE MARK OF HERESY AND EXCOMMUNICATION HE WILL HAVE TO RETRACT HIS STATEMENTS.
—Paolo Sarpi, regarding Galileo
They returned once again to the library in Casa della Pazzia, and this time Elsa forbade them any distractions. They would go to the office worldbook next, where Montaigne presumably had kept his notes and journals and correspondence. It seemed an awfully obvious place to hide something as important as evidence of his connection with Jumi’s abductors, but for the sake of thoroughness, they would need to eliminate it.
Elsa found the book for the office and dialed the coordinates on her portal device, and they all stepped through. But instead of an office, they landed in an empty foyer facing three closed doors.
Porzia rested a hand on her hip and said, “Huh.”
Faraz said, “So are we supposed to pick a door?”
“Montaigne did love puzzles,” Elsa said. “Couldn’t resist the opportunity to show off how clever he was.” This much she remembered from her limited interactions with him as a child. It seemed a good sign that he’d protected the entrance to his office with a puzzle; they might find something important in there, after all.
She stepped closer to give the three doors a proper examination. The door on the left was flanked by columns, and the stone cornice above had leaves carved into it. The middle door’s frame had a rounded arch with a prominent keystone. The door on the right bore a circular stained-glass window and was set into a pointed-arch frame.
“Greek, Roman, Gothic,” Porzia declared, pointing at them from left to right.
The names didn’t mean much to Elsa. “So?”
Porzia grinned. “France is known for its Gothic architecture.”
Leo strode past them, declaring, “Door on the right it is, then.” He pushed it open and crossed the threshold.