There were two things in the box, resting on a silk cushion. The first thing was a book. It was very small, like a personal prayer or chapbook, its brittle pages sewn together with gold thread. The second thing was a small glass vial. The vial’s stopper was made of gold as well, and had been wrought with great skill into the shape of a spider, its abdomen inlaid with a single ruby. I lifted the vial. It was filled with a dark, viscous fluid that I knew at once to be blood.

I sat at the desk with the box and removed the little book. Clearly it was more ancient than anything else in the library. Its cover was made of a thin piece of yellowed wood, incised with strange symbols arranged in a circle; its pages crackled as I turned them, flecks of dust swirling up to glow like sparks in the light of the candle.

As the hours of the night stole by, I pored over the little book. Its pages were filled with archaic words composed in a spidery hand, and my head ached as I tried to decipher what they meant. Unlike the others, this book was about alchemy, that much was clear. It seemed to be some sort of diary, written by a man early in the fifth decade of his life, telling the tale of his quest for the Philosopher’s Stone: an object that could transmute metals into their perfect state—gold.

Only it was more than that. It was as my master had said; the Great Work was a story, a metaphor. From what I could make out, it was not simply base metals this alchemist sought to transmute. It was himself. The Philosopher’s Stone could bring anything to perfection— even human flesh.

“Immortality,” I murmured. “He was seeking immortality.” But who was it who had written this journal so long ago? I turned to the last page, and there at the bottom was inscribed his signature. Breath escaped me as I stared at the words.

Martin Adalbrecht, Anno Domini MDCVII

No, it couldn’t be. This diary had been penned in 1607. Which would mean he was over one hundred years old when I met him five years earlier, though he had looked no older than forty. Only that couldn’t be so.

My brain worked feverishly as I flipped back through the crumbling pages as quickly as I dared. There had to be answers within the book. The two Seekers had spoken of the Philosophers, and the master had been one of their order, of that there could be no doubt. The name the Philosophers gave themselves could not be a coincidence; surely there was some connection between them and the Philosopher’s Stone. But what was it? And what did it have to do with the island of Crete and the ancient palace of Knossos?

A soft sound reached my ears. At once I blew out the candle. Silence, then came another noise: a soft thump, followed by a hiss of breath. Though it was dark, my eyes had adjusted, and I could see easily. I shut the book, placed it with the vial in the box, and closed the lid. Tucking the box in the breast pocket of my coat, I moved to the cabinet, locked it, then returned the key to the desk. I paused by the door of the library, listening, then opened it a crack and peered through.

Two dark figures moved in the dimness of the hall, one petite, the other tall and gangly. So perhaps I was not the only thing they had come searching for after all. The two groped their way across the hall, moving toward the library door. I wondered if I should sneak past—I would be no more than a silent shadow to their senses—or if I should confront them.

Before I could decide, a light appeared in the arched doorway at the far end of the hall, accompanied by the sound of shuffling steps. The two figures tensed, then darted through a side door and were gone. A moment later Pietro entered the hall, carrying an oil lamp. He gazed about, his dark eyes glittering with suspicion, then turned and headed back the way he had come. I took the chance to slip from the library and return to my chamber. It mattered not to me if the two returned to their late-night searching, for I was confident that I now carried in my pocket the very thing they had been sent to find.

The next morning I met the Seekers at breakfast and inquired after the quality of their rest. The dark circles under their eyes belied their polite replies; they had not slept. Nor had I, but I felt strangely fresh and awake. I knew what I had to do. He had said not to trust them, and nor would I. But there was so much I had to learn, things he should have taught me himself. I savored the look of shock on their faces when I told Rebecca and Byron that I would accept their invitation.

“I will journey with you to London at once,” I said. “We shall depart this very day.”

The surprise and satisfaction on Rebecca’s face gave way to a look of perturbation. She knew her late-night wanderings had been detected, and she would have no chance to repeat them. All the same, a moment later she managed a smile that seemed not altogether counterfeit.

“We are fortunate indeed, my lord.”

“Call me Marius,” I said.

Two hours later, I stood before the manor beneath a leaden sky, watching as Rebecca and Byron climbed into the waiting coach. The luggage was already strapped atop, and the driver was ready.

“We shall await your return, Master Marius,” Pietro said. A chill wind howled from the north, and the old servant shook.

I rested a palm against his withered cheek. “Dear Pietro,” I said, then climbed into the coach.

The driver cracked the reins, and the coach lurched into motion. I turned in the seat and watched until the manor was lost from view. It would be many long years before I would return to Madstone Hall, and I never saw Pietro again.

“This is all terribly exciting, Marius,” Byron said. The two Seekers sat on the bench opposite me. “You won’t regret joining us. There’s so much for you to discover.”

“Yes,” I said, noticing Rebecca’s eyes were on me. “Yes, there is.”

I am afraid I must now leap ahead in my tale, for it has taken me much longer to set down this account of my first two decades than I had imagined. However, I believe it was vital for you to see how I was made in my early years—for otherwise, when at last you reach the end, you might not understand why I chose as I did. Why I chose differently than Master Albrecht. And while I have had more time to pen this journal than at first I dared hope—it seems even eyes of gold do not always see clearly— the hour now grows late. Thus I will fly over those next years of my life, to a gray autumn day in London when once again my world was changed forever.

The year was now 1679, and at five-and-twenty years of age I was a man grown into his full power, yet still filled with vigor and optimism that the harshness of the world had not yet had time to wear away. As an order, the Seekers were much the same. Founded in A.D. 1615, the Seekers—like myself at the time—were just coming into their own.

The fractious early years, in which the order was little more than a motley collection of wild-eyed alchemists scrabbling for the secret of making gold in filthy, smoke-hazed dungeons, had been left behind, and already the organization would have been recognizable to a modern-day Seeker. The Age of Discovery and the Renaissance were giving way to an Age of Reason, and thus we chose a scientific approach.

The ideas of transmutation and the Philosopher’s Stone—a mystical catalyst that could bring about the instantaneous achievement of perfection in anything it touched—were thrown in the dustbin along with the ashes of myth and superstition. The Seekers had undergone their own Reformation, and while the order was founded on a belief in the existence of magic—a core conviction we had not rescinded—it was agreed we would approach the subject not with flights of fancy, but rather with logic and cold rationalism. Evidence that pointed to an otherworldly origin of magical forces on Earth was already mounting, and by the time I entered the Seekers the order’s focus was steadily being directed toward a single goal: the discovery of worlds other than this Earth.