“Want me to open a window?”

“All right.” He put the cup down beside the chronograph and took a deep breath. “The rest is easy.” He picked up the pipette. “I just have to put three drops of your blood into each of these two openings—see, under the tiny raven here and under the yin and yang sign? Then I turn the wheel and press this lever down. There we go. Hear that?”

Inside the chronograph, several little cogwheels began turning. There was a grinding, crunching, humming sound, and the air seemed to be warming up. The ruby flickered briefly, and then the sound of the little wheels died away and all was still again. “Uncanny, isn’t it?”

I nodded, and tried to ignore the goose bumps all over me. “So now the blood of all the time travelers except Gideon is in the original chronograph, right? What would happen if his blood was read in as well?” I had folded Lucas’s handkerchief and was pressing it to the cut.

“Apart from the fact that no one knows for sure, the information is strictly secret,” said Lucas. Some color was coming back into his face. “Every Guardian has to kneel down and swear an oath never to mention the secret to anyone outside the Lodge. He swears on his life.”

“Oh.”

Lucas sighed. “But I tell you what … I have rather a weakness for breaking oaths.” He pointed to a little compartment on the chronograph, decorated with a twelve-pointed star. “One thing’s certain: when the blood of all the Twelve is read in, it will complete a process inside the chronograph, and something will land in this compartment. The prophesies speak of the ‘essence’ under the twelve-pointed star or, alternatively, of the philosopher’s stone. The precious stones shall all unite, the scent of time shall fill the night, once time links the fraternity, one man lives for eternity.”

“Is that all there is to the secret?” I said, disappointed. “Just vague, confused stuff again.”

“Well, if you put all the hints together, it’s fairly concrete. Under the sign of the twelvefold star, all sickness and ills will flee afar. Sounds as if, used properly, the substance produced in the chronograph will be able to cure all human diseases.”

That sounded a good deal better.

“Well, in that case, I suppose going to all this trouble would pay off,” I murmured, thinking of the Guardians’ mania for secrecy and their complicated rules and rituals. If a cure for all diseases was the outcome, you could almost understand why they thought so well of themselves. Yes, it would be worth waiting a few hundred years for such a miraculous medicine. And Count Saint-Germain would definitely deserve respect for finding out about it and making the discovery possible. If only he weren’t such a repellent character.…

“But Lucy and Paul doubt whether we really ought to believe the philosopher’s stone theory,” said Lucas, as if he had guessed my thoughts. “They say that someone who doesn’t shrink from murdering his own great-great-great-grandfather won’t necessarily have the good of all mankind at heart.” He cleared his throat. “Has it stopped bleeding?”

“Not yet, but it’s slowing down.” I held my hand in the air to speed up the process. “And now what do we do? Shall I just try the thing out?”

“For heaven’s sake, it’s not a car to be taken for a test drive,” said Lucas, wringing his hands.

“Why not?” I asked. “Wasn’t that the whole idea?”

“Well, yes,” he said, squinting at the thick folio volume he had brought. “I suppose you’re right. At least that way we can make sure it works, even if we don’t have much time left.” Suddenly he was all eager again. Leaning forward, he opened the volume of the Annals. “We have to take care not to pick a date when you’d burst into the middle of a Lodge meeting here. Or run into one of the de Villiers brothers. They spent hours and hours of their lives elapsing in the Dragon Hall.”

“Could I maybe meet Lady Tilney? Alone?” I’d had another good idea. “Preferably sometime after 1912.”

“I wonder if that would be wise.” Lucas was leafing through the volume. “We don’t want to make things more complicated than they already are.”

“But we can’t afford to waste our few chances,” I cried, thinking of what Lesley kept on telling me. I was to exploit every opportunity, she said, and above all, ask as many questions as I could think of. “Who knows when the next chance may come?” I asked. “There could be something else in the chest, and it might not get me any farther. When did you and I first meet?”

“On 12 August 1948, at twelve noon,” said Lucas, deep in the Annals. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Exactly, and to make sure you never forget it, I’m going to write it down for you,” I said. Yes, I really was a bit of a genius, I thought. I scribbled on a page in my notebook:

For Lord Lucas Montrose—important!!!

12 August 1948, 12 noon, the alchemical laboratory. Please come alone.

Gwyneth Shepherd

I tore the page out with a flourish and folded it.

My grandfather glanced up from the folio for a moment. “I could send you to the year 1852, 16 February, at midnight. That’s where Lady Tilney elapses after leaving her own time on 25 December 1929, at nine A.M.,” he murmured. “Poor thing, she couldn’t even spend Christmas Day in comfort at home. At least they gave her a kerosene lamp. Listen, this is what it says here: 12:30 P.M.: Lady Tilney comes back from the year 1852 seeming very cheerful. By the light of the kerosene lamp she took, she finished making two crochet-work piglets for the charity bazaar on Twelfth Night, to be held this year on the theme of Country Life.” He turned to look at me. “Crochet-work pigs! Can you imagine it? Of course, she may get the shock of her life if you suddenly appear out of nowhere. Do we really want to risk it?”

“She’s armed only with a crochet hook, and they have blunt ends as far as I remember.” I bent over the chronograph. “Right, first the year. 1852, that begins with M, right? MDCCCLII. And the month of February is number three in the Celtic calendar you were talking about—no, four—”

“What are you doing? We have to bandage that cut and do some thinking first.”

“No time,” I said. “The day … this lever sets it, right?”

Lucas was looking anxiously over my shoulder. “Not so fast! It has to be exactly right, or else … or else…” He was looking likely to throw up again. “And you must never be holding the chronograph, or you’ll take it into the past with you. And then you couldn’t get back.”

“Like Lucy and Paul,” I whispered.

“Let’s choose a brief three-minute window of time, to be on the safe side. Make it twelve thirty to twelve thirty-three A.M. Then at least she’ll be sitting comfortably making crochet-work piglets. If she happens to be asleep, don’t wake her, or she might have a heart attack—”

“But then wouldn’t it say so in the Annals?” I interrupted him. “When I met Lady Tilney I got the impression that she was a pretty tough character, not the sort to fall down in a faint.”

Lucas moved the chronograph over to the window and put it down behind the curtain. “We can be sure there won’t be any furniture standing here. No need to roll your eyes. Timothy de Villiers once made a crash landing on a table and broke his leg.”

“So suppose Lady Tilney is standing right here looking dreamily out at the night? Oh, don’t look at me like that! Only joking, Grandpa.” I pushed him gently aside, knelt on the floor in front of the chronograph, and opened the little flap just under the ruby. It was exactly the right size for my finger.

“Wait a moment! Your cut!”

“We can see to that in three minutes’ time. See you then,” I said, taking a deep breath and pressing my fingertip down firmly on the needle.

The familiar dizzy roller-coaster sensation came over me, and as the red light began to glow and Lucas was saying, “But I still have to…,” everything blurred before my eyes.

While rumor has it that the Jacobite army has reached Derby and is now advancing on London, we have moved into our new headquarters. We sincerely hope that reports of 10,000 French soldiers joining the forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender to the throne (known to the populace as Bonnie Prince Charlie), will prove mistaken, so that we can celebrate a peaceful Christmas in the city. It is impossible to imagine more suitable accommodation for the Guardians than the venerable buildings here in the Temple. The Knights Templar themselves were, after all, guardians of great mysteries. Not only is Temple Church within sight of our premises, its catacombs are connected to ours. Officially we will be going about our everyday professions from the Temple, but there will also be accommodation for adepts, novices, and guests, and of course for our servants, as well as several laboratories designed for alchemical purposes. We are glad to say that the slanders spread by Lord Alastair (see report of 2 December) have not succeeded in disrupting the good relations of Count Saint-Germain with the Prince of Wales and that, thanks to the patronage of His Highness, we have been able to acquire this complex of buildings. The solemn ceremony in which the secret documents of the Lodge are transferred from the hands of Count Saint-Germain to the members of the Inner Circle is to take place in the Dragon Hall today.

FROM THE ANNALS OF THE GUARDIANS

18 DECEMBER 1745

REPORT: SIR OLIVER NEWTON, INNER CIRCLE

FOUR

IT TOOK ME a few seconds to get used to the different lighting conditions. The hall was lit only by an oil lamp on the table. The picture I saw by its warm but meager light was a comfortable still life: a basket, several balls of pink wool, a teapot with a felt tea cozy, and a cup decorated with roses. Also Lady Tilney, who was sitting on a chair doing crochet, and at the sight of me let her hands sink to her lap. She was obviously older than when we last met, with silver strands in her red hair, which had been neatly permed. All the same, she still had the same majestic, unapproachable look as my grandmother. And she didn’t look in the least likely to scream or go for me brandishing her crochet hook.

“Happy Christmas,” she said.

“Happy Christmas,” I replied, slightly bewildered. For a moment I didn’t know what to say next, but then I pulled myself together. “Don’t worry, I’m not after some of your blood or anything like that.” I stepped out of the shadow of the curtain.

“Oh, we settled all that business about the blood long ago, Gwyneth,” said Lady Tilney, with a touch of reproof in her voice, as if I ought to know exactly what she was talking about. “I’ve been wondering when you’d turn up again. Tea?”

“No, thank you. Look, I’m afraid I only have a few minutes.” I went a step closer and handed her the note. “My grandfather has to get this so that … well, so that everything will happen the way it did happen. It’s very important.”

“I understand.” Lady Tilney took the note and unfolded it at her leisure. She didn’t seem in the least annoyed.