as if detecting objection in Vera’s face, but in truth Vera was fascinated by what she had just heard. She had studied John Dee’s historical role in angelology extensively—from his angel conversations to his extensive classical and biblical library—and knew that he was the only known human after Mary who survived the act of summoning an archangel. But, like everyone else, Vera had always believed Dee’s Enochian script to be a hoax.
Sveti continued. “This list of the seeds Noah carried on his ark is most likely a fragment of a larger catalog. The entire record must have been enormous, ranging in the hundreds of thousands.”
Vera thought of the pages of flowers in the album, thousands of petals pressed behind paper. “Why the interest in Noah’s plants in particular?” she asked. “Have you connected the seeds in this list with flora in existence today?”
Azov looked circumspect, as if weighing whether he should disclose a long-held secret. “As you know, Vera, I have devoted my life to the mysteries of Noah and his sons. At the heart of this is an obession I am reluctant to admit to—my own El Dorado, if you will.” He glanced at Sveti, as if looking for support, and continued. “I have been trying to replicate the medicine of Noah, the one cited in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees.”
She had expected Azov to offer some insight into the vagaries of antediluvian geography; she had hoped that he might give her some understanding of the flowers in Rasputin’s album. Never had she imagined how momentous this visit would be for her career, for angelology itself, possibly for all of humanity. “Thus the evil spirits were precluded from harming the sons of Noah,” Vera said, reaching into her bag for Rasputin’s album.
“It is the most cryptic—and therefore the most ridiculed—text in the ancient canon,” Azov replied. “Of course, the project has been a challenge from the beginning—there is no description of the formula in Jubilees, and only a few references are made to the medicine in ancient literature, but I believe in it.”
“Perhaps,” Vera said, pulling out the album full of flowers, “you are not alone.”
• • •
Azov studied the pages of the album, pausing to puzzle over the equations written in the margins, his expression changing from confusion to wonder. He narrowed his gaze. “Where did you find this?”
“It was given to me by a retired angelologist named Nadia Ivanova,” Vera said. She could see his excitement growing as she explained the jeweled egg that had led them to the 8mm film featuring Angela Valko, which in turn brought them to Nadia and Rasputin’s album of flowers.
Azov shook his head in disbelief. “I was beginning to think I was a lunatic for spending the last thirty years working on this, and then something happens and I see a glimmer of reason to what I’m doing, and I know I’m on the right track. You know that Nadia’s husband, Vladimir, was a friend of mine.”
“He was in Angela Valko’s film,” Vera said. “I had no idea you two knew each other.”
Azov smiled. “Angelologists behind the Iron Curtain relied on very old friendships, some made before the revolution. My network is made up of the children and grandchildren of tsarist agents. Vladimir was a good friend. He was able to transmit messages to me even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, through a network of old contacts. But what strikes me most powerfully about what you’ve just told me is this: I briefly worked in the service of Angela Valko. I know her research well. Indeed, I contributed in some ways to her findings.”
Vera was silent, her surprise upon hearing this information overwhelming.
Azov continued. “Unfortunately, the Soviet Union didn’t allow me to travel, and so I never met her in person. But we were in continual contact for a couple of years in the early eighties. She was extremely particular about what she wanted, and I found the instructions strange, to say the least. When she was murdered in 1984, I feared my contributions to her work were to blame. Her father, Raphael, assured me that everyone in the society was grappling with the same guilt. The reach of her influence and collaboration was that vast.”
“You knew Raphael Valko as well?” Vera asked.
“I know him still,” Azov said.
How Azov’s society connections had eluded her all these years was something that Vera wanted to understand. She’d always thought of him as a genius in exile, and yet he seemed to