“You’ve started already?” Gallowglass said, alarmed.
“No,” I said.
“Then what’s causing the ruckus?” Gallowglass moved toward the agitated pile.
A tail wagged from between a leather-bound folio and a box of pens.
“Puddles!” Timothy said.
The dog emerged, tail first, pulling a blue folder.
“Good doggy,” Gallowglass crooned. He crouched down and held out his hand. “Bring it to me.”
Puddles stood with the missing page from Ashmole 782 gripped in her teeth, looking very pleased with herself. She did not, however, take it to Gallowglass.
“She wants you to chase her,” Timothy explained.
Gallowglass scowled. “I’m not chasing that dog.”
In the end we all chased her. Puddles was the fastest, cleverest dachshund who’d ever lived, darting under furniture and feinting left and then right before dashing away again. Gallowglass was speedy, but he was not small. Puddles slipped through his fingers again and again, her glee evident. Finally Puddles’ need to pant meant that she had to drop the now slightly moist blue folder in front of her paws. Gallowglass took the opportunity to reach in and secure it.
“What a good girl!” Timothy picked up the squirming dog. “You’re going to win the Great Dachshund Games this summer. No question.” A slip of paper was attached to one of Puddles’ claws.
“Hey. There’s my council tax bill.”
Gallowglass handed me the folder.
“Phoebe should do the honors,” I said. “If not for her, we wouldn’t be here.” I passed the folder on to her.
Phoebe cracked it open. The image inside was so vivid that it might have been painted yesterday, and its striking colors and the details of trunk and leaf only increased the sense of vibrancy that came from the page. There was power in it. That much was unmistakable.
“It’s beautiful.” Phoebe lifted her eyes. “Is this the page you’ve been looking for?”
“Aye,” Gallowglass said. “That’s it, all right.”
Phoebe placed the page in my waiting hands. As soon as the parchment touched them, they brightened, shooting little sparks of color into the room. Filaments of power erupted from my fingertips, connecting to the parchment with an almost audible snap of electricity.
“There’s a lot of energy on that page. Not all of it good,” Timothy said, backing away. “It needs to go back into that book you discovered in the Bodleian.”
“I know you don’t want to sell the page,” I said, “but could I borrow it? Just for a day?” I could go straight to the Bodleian, recall Ashmole 782, and have the page back tomorrow afternoon—provided the Book of Life let me remove it again, once I’d returned it to the binding.
“Nope.” Timothy shook his head.
“You won’t let me buy it. You won’t let me borrow it,” I said, exasperation mounting. “Do you have some sentimental attachment to it?”
“Of course I do. I mean, he’s my ancestor, isn’t he?” Every eye in the room went to the illustration of the tree in my hands. Even Puddles looked at it with renewed interest, sniffing the air with her long, delicate nose.
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“I see things—microchips, crossword puzzles, you, the guy whose skin made that parchment. I knew who you were from the moment you walked into Duke Humfrey’s.” Timothy looked sad. “I told you as much. But you didn’t listen to me and left with the big vampire. You’re the one.”
“The one for what?” My throat closed. Daemon visions were bizarre and surreal, but they could be shockingly accurate.
“The one who will learn how it all began—the blood, the death, the fear. And the one who can put a stop to it, once and for all.” Timothy sighed. “You can’t buy my grandfather, and you can’t borrow him.
But if I give him to you, for safekeeping, you’ll make his death mean something?”
“I can’t promise you that, Timothy.” There was no way I could swear to something so enormous and imprecise. “We don’t know what the book will reveal. And I certainly can’t guarantee that anything will change.”
“Can you make sure his name won’t be forgotten, once you learn what it is?” Timothy asked.
“Names are important, you know.”
A sense of the uncanny washed over me. Ysabeau had told me the same thing shortly after I met her. I saw Edward Kelley in my mind’s eye. “You will find your name in it, too,” he had cried when Emperor Rudolf made him hand over the Book of Life. The hackles on my neck rose.
“I won’t forget his name,” I promised. “Sometimes that’s enough,” Timothy said.