by K. K. Perez
Lucy nodded. He was probably right. Guilt deluged her again at how hard her parents had tried to help her over the years, even when it was smothering.
Ravi dropped a hand onto Lucy’s knee. No tingles. She looked at him, questioning.
“I’m shielding,” he replied. “Now you try.”
“How?”
“Look at the lake. The size of the waves increases as the wind’s strength increases.”
“Thanks for explaining how waves work, Ravi.”
He disregarded the barb. “Close your eyes,” he instructed, and, despite her irritation, she did. “Visualize an enormous sandbar against which the waves crash, never reaching the shore.”
Lucy cracked one eye open. “I thought no man—or woman—was an island.”
“Very droll.” Ravi smirked. “But just give me the benefit of the doubt.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”
“Fair enough.”
Lucy interlaced Ravi’s fingers with her own. Still no tingles.
“Okay, I’ll try,” she told him.
She shut her eyes once more, hyperaware of his scrutiny.
“Maintain the image of the sandbar in your mind.” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “I’m going to slowly lower my defenses and you’re going to raise yours.”
Since this was Lucy’s fantasy, she replaced Lake Windermere with the turquoise waters of a tropical island somewhere exotic like Thailand or Zanzibar. Someplace her parents would never let her visit. She conjured a glittering white-sand beach, grains like diamonds.
Ravi’s shield lowered gradually, his energy tantalizing. Lucy gripped his hand more firmly as a breath shuddered through her. On the horizon, gilded waves gained momentum. The whitecaps multiplied and coalesced into a tidal wave. Euphoric laughter echoed on the breeze.
Don’t give in.
Lucy evoked an enormous sandcastle wall protecting the shore. She was a fortress. She wouldn’t allow anyone to scale her walls.
The wave surged closer. She squirmed, tingles tickling the soles of her feet.
I am a fortress. I am an island.
Lucy knew the instant Ravi relinquished the last shred of control. The sky over her sandbar lit the same fiery pink as when they’d kissed. Was Ravi’s frequency pink? Did everyone have a frequency that corresponded to the color spectrum?
Part of her wanted nothing more than to dive into the tidal wave, let herself float, let it lift her higher and higher. Then Lucy remembered the three-chili-dogs-on-a-roller-coaster feeling that Cole had provoked, and the choking toxic sludge from the thief in Central Park. Could the choking sensation be aggression? Or anger? Either way, she didn’t want to go through that again.
Lucy added another mental layer to the ramparts of her castle. And another. And another until it scraped at the sleeping stars.
The tidal wave broke and Lucy, and Lucy felt … nothing.
Her eyelids flipped open. “Did you put your shield back up?”
Shaking his head, Ravi wore a proud expression. Lucy’s gaze darted to their interlocked hands. “That’s all you,” he said, and a smile blossomed on her face.
Victory was sweet. So sweet her limbs became weightless, gravity a stranger. The smile evaporated. Cursing at herself, Lucy withdrew her hand from his.
“That didn’t last long.”
“Rubbish. You did well. You’ll get the hang of it. Soon enough you won’t even have to think about it—it’ll be like breathing.”
Lucy rolled her eyes.
Ravi showed her an open palm. “Again,” he insisted. She squared her shoulders, glaring at his authoritative tone.
What did she have to lose? Other than everything.
She took his hand.
INK OF A SCHOLAR
Eat. Finals. Train. Sleep. Repeat.
For the past week, Lucy had done nothing but study, work with Ravi, and adjust the sound and lighting system in the gymnasium. Prom was in two days and she couldn’t wait to get it over with. Although she had to admit the smoky gray flapper dress and sparkling tassels really did match her eyes.
Lucy’s father had sent her a model airplane with a note saying, I’m sure you’ll soar through your exams, and the promise that he’d be home soon. The airplane had to be assembled, of course. There hadn’t been any gotcha! questions, so Lucy was actually feeling pretty confident about her results.
The only nausea-inducing moment was right before the physics final started, when Megan showed her a ferociously feline smile. Cole couldn’t even look in her direction. Lucy supposed she deserved that.
She stole a surreptitious glance at Ravi, who was keeping time to Herbie Hancock on the wheel of the Land Rover while navigating midtown Manhattan traffic. Her last exam had been this morning and if her mom emerged from her writing cocoon, she wouldn’t wonder where Lucy was until dinnertime. A perfect chance for a road trip to meet Professor T.
Her eyelids were heavy as they passed Madison Square Park, which was littered with office workers ducking out for a quick snack from one of the many food trucks. Lucy hadn’t had to feign napping on the drive to the city. Meeting a Nobel laureate and alchemist would be daunting enough if Ravi hadn’t been running her ragged to boot.
Weightlifting and crunches would have been highly preferable to the pneumatic-drill headaches Lucy got trying to break through Ravi’s shield. Once she’d become relatively proficient at blocking him, he taught her to visualize a battering ram to shatter other people’s defenses. The ability seemed morally dubious to Lucy but he’d assured her it was only a precautionary measure.
She didn’t mention her throbbing temples to Ravi because she didn’t want him to put the kibosh on their training sessions. As bone-tired as she was, Lucy needed to learn as much as she possibly could. She doubted he’d be sticking around as her personal Jedi master forever.
Besides the frequency jamming, Ravi had Lucy practicing how to control her electromagnetic field with and without the help of the tourmaline. So far she’d had less success without it. She’d shared her theory with him about pushing her electrical current outward versus trapping it inside and he had listened without judgment. With great interest, in fact. Lucy couldn’t deny how much she liked the way Ravi crinkled his nose while he listened or considered a problem.
If they were going to work together, however, as colleagues of sorts, she needed to keep her own defenses in place.
The car stopped.
“Lucy,” he said gently, with the faintest touch to her shoulder. “We’re here.”
Her eyes bugged.
The façade of the mansion on a cross street off Park Avenue South was, in a word, imposing. The ornate metal scrollwork around the entryway reminded Lucy of her father’s office building. Beautiful and Gothic. Very Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.
“Professor T lives here?” Lucy marveled.
“When he’s not in England,” Ravi said. Where did Professor T live in England? A palace?
She counted at least four stories, each level demarcated by a cornice ornamented with gleaming golden gargoyles. It couldn’t be real gold, could it?
The gargoyles nestled between lustrous foliage, palm fronds with liquid lines. Lucy’s chest squeezed as she realized the head of each gargoyle was ringed by petals. Six petals. Gulp. She still hadn’t revealed her dream to Ravi. It seemed too ridiculous. Even for an alchemist. Or an alchemist’s apprentice. How did that work, anyhow?
“You planning on getting out of the car anytime today?” Ravi teased.
Smothering a blush, Lucy opened the door and stepped out onto the mansion’s private driveway, then trailed him up an incredibly grand stone staircase. Her eyes raked the sculptures comprising the balustrade. Women in flowing robes, like togas, peered back at her. Their lips were upturned as if they had a secret.
Ravi rang the doorbell on the first-floor landing and her fingers grasped for the missing charm bracelet. A doorbell seemed too pedestrian for an abode such as this. She would hav
e expected a mischievous enchanted knocker.
On either side of the doorway stood two marble columns like she’d never seen. Chiseled into the buff stone capitals were overlapping, repeating motifs: an Egyptian ankh, a crown, and an eagle. It was hard to say where one ended and the next began, yet each symbol was distinct.
Lucy met Ravi’s sideways glance. “Tessellation,” she said.
He grinned. “No need to be nervous.”
Says you, she told him with a flick of her eyebrow. She gave her outfit a quick up and down. Lucy wasn’t sure what one wore to meet a world-renowned scientist, but she wanted to come across as serious, professional. She’d chosen a creamy satin blouse, a navy-blue skirt, and a patterned cardigan. Ravi had swapped his usual geek-chic T-shirts for an Oxford shirt, which reassured Lucy she’d made the right call.
He gave her hand a quick squeeze just as the door swung open. Ravi had lowered his shield on purpose. If only his frequency didn’t feel so damn good.
“Ravi!” boomed a friendly, very British voice from inside, although his accent was different, thinner somehow.
The owner of that voice appeared a second later.
Professor T’s broad shoulders filled out a tailored linen suit that looked like it cost a million bucks. A few thousand, in any case. And as he embraced Ravi, Lucy noted that he was an inch or two taller, and almost as fit despite his age. He was someone who commanded respect.
Stepping back, he shifted his focus to Lucy.
The bushy, snow-white eyebrows that matched his beard did nothing to soften his penetrating stare. Lucy shifted her weight. Professor T’s slate eyes held a hint of blue to them, and although they glowed warmly at her now, she was positive they could cool to ice.
“You must be Miss Phelps.”
He took her hand, grip firm. No sensation. Of course, he most likely taught Ravi all of his tricks.
“Pr-Professor Weston-Jones,” Lucy stuttered. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“As it is to meet you.” His eyes twinkled and he let out a chuckle reminiscent of Ravi’s. “Now, come in, come in, the tea is steeping. And you must call me Tarquin—or Professor T, as Ravi is wont to do.” He winked at his godson, putting an arm around Lucy’s shoulders to shepherd her into a stately foyer.
“Thank you, Professor T,” she managed.
“I hope you like Moroccan mint,” he said, peering down at her. “It’s perfect for the season. Refreshing. Cleanses the palate.”
Lucy was only half listening because her gaze had drifted upward to the fresco gracing the ceiling of the entrance hall. A man with winged sandals hovered in the clouds above them. Hermes, the Greek messenger god. Since meeting Ravi she’d become infinitely more indebted to her mom for imparting her knowledge of classical mythology.
If Lucy thought the foyer was lavish, however, it was nothing compared with the library.
Magnificent, oak-hewn bookshelves towered above her, twenty or thirty feet high. The stacks reached toward a dome-shaped roof comprised of tinted glass. Natural light streamed onto Lucy’s face. A swift scan of the room told her she was standing at the heart of the mansion. It must have been designed like a Roman villa, only instead of a courtyard there was a library at its center.
Between the stacks on this floor and those on the surrounding, second-story balcony, the library easily contained twenty thousand volumes. Probably more. She inhaled their musty but delicious scent.
A spiral staircase cast from brushed steel and copper connected the two levels, another tessellation of triangles like those on the Chrysler Building adorning its length, creating a feathering effect. Along the sides of the first-floor reading room were long tables for research, Tiffany lamps and lecterns placed at intervals, and in the middle of the room was a sofa, several armchairs, and a mosaic coffee table. The perfect researcher’s respite.
“Please make yourself comfortable whilst I chase up the tea.” Professor T gestured for Lucy to be seated on the leather sofa. She hesitated, afraid to damage it, unconsciously counting the brass buttons studding the armrests.
“I’ll get the tea,” Ravi offered. Lucy fired him a panicked look. You’re fine, he mouthed. She grimaced. “Back in two ticks.”
The butterflies in Lucy’s stomach got jet packs.
Professor T settled into an armchair opposite the sofa, leaving her with no choice but to finally sit while her eyes roved the bookcases. Her mom would sell a kidney for a private library like this.
“The ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr,” he said, and Lucy wrested her gaze from the filigreed spines. “From what Ravi tells me of your academic prowess, I’m confident you’d agree.” His lips quirked as she nodded mutely, both self-conscious and elated that Ravi had paid her such a compliment.
“I can’t take credit for the sentiment,” Professor T continued. “That honor belongs to Caliph Harun al-Rashid, who ruled Baghdad in the eighth century. He brought scholars together in his fabled House of Wisdom, a library to rival Alexandria, commissioning translations into Arabic from treatises collected in Greece and India.”
“He preserved the alchemical texts.”
“Indeed.” His tone held approval and a thrill of triumph zipped through Lucy. Professor T crossed his legs in a deliberately casual manner. “This is my humble and unsatisfactory imitation of the caliph’s great house,” he said, waving a hand around the cavernous space. “Feel free to consult its knowledge at your leisure, Miss Phelps.”
Her jaw dropped. All she could think to say was, “Lucy. Call me Lucy.”
He smiled, leaning toward her. “You’re welcome here anytime, Lucy. Liber librum aperit.”
“Wh-what did you say?”
“Liber librum aperit. An old alchemist’s motto. It means—”
“One book opens another,” Lucy interrupted, too dazed to cringe at her own rudeness. Whoever had written on the photo in her father’s study must know about alchemy. But the handwriting didn’t belong to either her mother or her father. And whoever it was also knew about the Tesla Suite.
Did that someone know about Lucy’s powers?
How could a stranger know and not her own parents?
“I wasn’t aware that Latin was still part of the curriculum at most American schools,” Professor T commented, intruding on Lucy’s speculation.
Distractedly, she replied, “Oh, my mother taught me. She’s a classicist.”
He steepled his fingers, evaluating her.
“A classical education is extremely useful in the sciences as well as the arts. I understand from Ravi that your father is a physicist.”
“Yes. Quantum mechanics. Although he’s mostly a businessman these days.”
“Nothing wrong with wedding science and industry.”
Lucy’s cheeks burned. “Of course.” Where was Ravi? She wasn’t sure how much more of this small talk/cross-examination she could handle. How long could it possibly take to brew tea?
“Quite an accomplished family,” Professor T said. “What is your mother working on at the moment?”
Her heart thumped. She wished she hadn’t lent Claudia the tourmaline to make her necklace on today of all days.
“The role of female scientists in the ancient world,” Lucy answered after a beat. It was a partial truth. She worried how Professor T would react if he learned her mom was trying to decipher the Pharmakon of Kleopatra.
Lucy’s parents might not think she could take care of herself, but she would still try to take care of them.
“A rich topic.” Professor T inclined his chin. “I’d love to read her work.”
Who was the colleague who had shown her mother the Pharmakon? Could he or she be an alchemist too?
Lucy let her eyes fall to the carpet. Antique, like everything else in the place, alchemical symbols woven into a royal-blue base. She picked out the astrological sign for Mercury. Like Lucy, it was a volatile, potentially lethal chemical.
Time to gather her courage. She had come here for a r
eason.
“Professor T, I’ve read about your research into DNA mutation online. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? The lightning gene.” She lifted her gaze and pinned him with it. “Can you help me?”
“I think we can help each other, Lucinda.”
TEA AND SYMPATHY
Ravi picked that moment to return with a silver tray. Lucy sucked down a sigh, her bravery faltering.
He poured a pale, apple-green liquid into three porcelain teacups. The sterling-silver teapot, engraved with a pastoral scene, would have been right at home in Queen Victoria’s drawing room.
Ravi positioned himself next to Lucy on the sofa, extending a cup, which she accepted with trepidation. She avoided anything precious out of habit since her parents hadn’t trusted Lucy with breakable things growing up. Most of their dishes at home were still made from melamine.
Two pairs of eyes watched Lucy sip her tea.
“Heavenly, is it not?” Professor T mused, taking a sip from his own cup. “I have a friend at the souk in Marrakesh who couriers it to me.”
“Delicious,” she agreed.
The professor shifted back in his armchair, balancing the saucer on his knee. Something about his posture, even sinking against the leather, resembled a fighting stance. Ravi must take after him.
“What can you tell me about Archimedes?” Professor T asked her, bringing the cup to his lips, his eyes never leaving hers.
Talk about a non sequitur. Lucy’s mind raced, dredging up her father’s history lessons. “Archimedes was an ancient mathematician…” Think, Lucy. “He discovered that a floating object displaces its own volume in liquid.”
“Do you recall the story of his discovery?”
“Not entirely.”
Professor T set his cup on its saucer and the clink reverberated through the library.
“Archimedes was the chief scientist of Hieron II, king of Sicily,” he began. “King Hieron had commissioned a new golden crown but when it arrived, he suspected the smith had mixed silver into the gold. He tasked Archimedes with determining whether or not he had been swindled. Archimedes promptly went to the public baths to contemplate the problem, as you do.”