Perhaps he could get Roderick to send him on some important errand in town. He’d simply not return to the castle. Or maybe in the general work and confusion beneath the cathedral, he could find Edgar’s tunnel and escape that way. He wouldn’t be able to take much. Luggage would naturally draw suspicion.

A knock at his chamber door startled him. Nobody ever visited him in the White Tower. Ever. Not since Dee had gone.

He sat up in bed, hesitated. “Come in.”

Roderick entered. “Good. You’re awake. I took a chance.” He glanced around Kelley’s room. “Your accommodations seem adequate.”

“I’m comfortable.”

Roderick nodded, toyed with a rolled-up piece of parchment in his hands. He seemed to be considering it. Finally, he stepped forward, handed it to Kelley. “I need you to memorize this then return it to me in the morning.”

“What is it?”

“Oh…” Roderick shrugged. “It’s the final sequence. Instructions for the machine.”

“What?” Kelley stood, unrolled the parchment. He looked over it quickly, trying to take it all in at once. “It’s finished?”

“Fully assembled.”

As much as he hated the machine, hated what it did, Kelley could not help but feel awe. Such an undertaking. Finished at last. What would it mean to the world?

“Why give me the instructions?”

“I just thought somebody else should know how to operate it,” Roderick said. “It occurred to me only just an hour ago that I’m the only man alive that knows completely how the contraption works.” He chuckled.

“Are you going somewhere?” Kelley asked.

“No, no. Nothing like that.” Roderick waved the notion away. “Just a precaution, you know. What if I choke on a chicken bone or something? Wouldn’t that give the emperor fits? It’s simple common sense. Somebody else should know. But that’s the master copy. Memorize it and give it back to me in the morning. There’s a good fellow.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Kelley.” He flicked a wave. “Good night.” The astrologer let himself out.

Kelley examined the intricate instructions, complete with diagram. Roderick must have been drunk or out of his mind. If Kelley had a year, he’d never be able to memorize all this. He took out his journal and began to copy the information. It took him two hours. He checked the information three times to make sure he’d duplicated it perfectly.

He had.

He laughed. So much time and effort. Who would ever read it?

Ten minutes to closing, and Allen figured they would probably check the restrooms.

He’d spent the last hour scouting possibilities. Hiding in the reading room was his best option, since there was only one door between the reading room and the special collections, where they kept the handwritten manuscripts. At least, that’s where Allen hoped they would be.

The reading room: Six rows of five desks each. A service window at the far end of the room where patrons checked out reading material. Enormous Czech flags on poles stood in each corner of the room, and various framed maps and portraits hung on the walls. Allen stood with his hands clasped behind his back and pretended to examine one of the maps. The monastery had almost completely drained itself of tourists and other patrons. Soon they would shoo out the stragglers. There was only one other patron in the reading room-a middle-aged man with a sizable pile of books.

Come on, dude. They’re going to close soon.

Three minutes to closing, the man finally stood and began to gather the books. He took them to the window, and Allen held his breath, as he edged toward the corner of the room. The man at the window took the materials from the middle-aged patron, turned his back.

Now!

Allen leaped into the corner of the room, grabbed the corner of the big Czech flag, and spun twice, completely wrapping himself within the smooth fabric. He stood perfectly still next to the flagpole, only the bottoms of his shoes showing. Hopefully nobody would notice.

He stood there like a flag mummy, wrapped up, the fabric tight on his face. Within three minutes he was hot, and it was hard to breathe. Allen thought maybe the flag was some synthetic fabric that didn’t breathe well. Sweat fell from his neck and down his back, but he didn’t budge. He developed an itch at the very top of his ass-crack.

No. Put it out of your mind. Don’t move.

He finally heard footsteps, the jingle of keys. Allen held his breath. A bead of sweat trickled down his back. He wanted to swipe at it, squirm. The sound of a door opening. The lights went out. The door closed again, the sound of locks tumbling. Footsteps fading away.

Allen stood perfectly still another five minutes, then slowly unwrapped himself from the flag. The room was nearly pitch black, a feeble glow of light from beneath the door. He felt his way forward and tried to recall the layout of the place from the guidebook. The special treasure room was beyond the service window and down a short hall.

His knee smacked sharply into a desk, and Allen swallowed an expletive.

Any cartoon cat burglar would have invested in a flashlight. But Allen was a grad student specializing in the Brontës. How incredibly useless. He bumped his other knee into a different desk.

“Fuck!”

He clapped his hand over his mouth, held his breath, listening. No security guards. No blaring alarms.

This is stupid. He went to the wall, felt along until his hand passed over the light switch. He flipped it on. No windows. Nobody would see the light.

He went to the door next to the service window and tried the knob. Locked. He yanked on it, nudged his shoulder against the door experimentally. Very locked.

Okay. An experienced cat burglar would have had a flashlight and some tools. Maybe he could look around the room, find something to jimmy the lock. The hinges. Maybe he could knock them out somehow, take the whole door off. He was an intelligent guy. He just needed to figure this out. He glanced at the service window.

It was open.

He hopped up on the counter, swung his legs around, and dropped into the little room beyond.

A chair, a desk, a phone. A small TV with a cold-war antenna. Something that looked like a card catalog, but it was in Czech. Only one other door, so that had to be it. He tried the knob. Locked. No surprise.

He searched the desk, then the shelves. He ran his fingers along the ledge above the door and hit something metallic; he knocked it off, and it clanged on the tile. He got on his hands and knees, searching, crawling under the desk until he found it-a dull copper key.

Allen unlocked the door and entered a short hall. This cat burglar stuff was child’s play. He found another door, open this time. He pushed it open, and its hinges squealed with ancient rust. He entered. This time it was a little harder to find the light switch-a black push button installed sometime between Hitler and Khrushchev. He pushed it, and dim lightbulbs in wire cages overhead spread halfhearted illumination through the long room.

Imagine any old university library, with shelves floor to ceiling. Now imagine nobody had dusted the place since moveable type had been invented. Add a sort of musty basement smell. Now pile old papers on all these shelves. Label everything in Czech.

Might as well be looking for the fucking Holy Grail.

Okay. Where to start. Find a system. Maybe not the system, but something to get walking in the right direction. That was the key. Even the most half-assed library has some kind of order, even if it’s something that evolved by accident. He couldn’t read Czech, but names and dates would be recognizable. He picked up the first stack of papers he could reach.