“Divination is the way to go,” Sarah said. “We’ll put candles on the four cardinal points of north, east, south, and west, then sit you in the center with a bowl of water and see what develops.”
“If I’m going to divine by water, I’ll need more space than this.” The breakfast room would fill up with witchwater at an alarming speed.
“We could use the garden,” Ysabeau suggested. “Or the ballroom upstairs. I never did think the Trojan War was a suitable subject for the frescoes, so it would be no great loss if they were damaged.”
“We might want to tune up your third eye before you start, too,” Sarah said, looking critically at my forehead as though it were a radio.
Phoebe returned with a small box. She handed it to Ysabeau. “Perhaps we should see if this can help first.” Ysabeau drew Master Habermel’s compendium from the cardboard container. “Alain packed up some of your things from Sept-Tours. He thought they would make you feel more at home here.”
The compendium was a beautiful instrument, expertly fashioned from brass, gilded and silvered to make it shine, and loaded with everything from a storage slot for paper and pencil to a compass, latitude tables, and a small clock. At the moment the instrument appeared to be going haywire, for the dials on the face of the compendium were spinning around. We could hear the steady whir of the gears.
Sarah peered at the instrument. “Definitely enchanted.”
“It’s going to wear itself out.” Gallowglass extended a thick finger, ready to give the hands on the clock a poke to slow them down.
“No touching,” Sarah said sharply. “You can never anticipate how a bewitched object will respond to unwanted interference.”
“Did you ever put it near the picture of the chemical wedding, Auntie?” Gallowglass asked. “If you’re right, and Master Habermel’s toy acts up when someone is looking for the Book of Life, then maybe seeing the page will quiet it.”
“Good idea. The picture of the chemical wedding is in the Chinese Room along with the picture of the dragons.” I lumbered to my feet. “I left them on the card table.”
Ysabeau was gone before I could straighten up. She was back quickly, holding the two pages as though they were glass and might shatter at any moment. The moment I laid them on the table, the hand on the compendium dial began to swing slowly from left to right instead of revolving around its central pin. When I picked the pages up, the compendium began to spin again—though slower than it had before.
“I do not think the compendium registers when someone is looking for the Book of Life,” Fernando said. “The instrument itself seems to be searching for the book. Now that it senses some of the pages are nearby, it is narrowing its focus.”
“How strange.” I put the pages back on the table and watched in fascination as the hand slowed and resumed its pendulum swing.
“Can you use it to find the last missing page?” Ysabeau said, staring at the compendium with equal fascination.
“Only if I drive all over England, Wales, and Scotland with it.” I wondered how long it would take me to damage the delicate, priceless instrument, holding it on my lap while Gallowglass or Leonard sped up the M40.
“Or you could devise a locator spell. With a map and that contraption, you might be able to triangulate the missing page’s position,” Sarah said thoughtfully, tapping her lips with her finger.
“What kind of locator spell do you have in mind?” This went well beyond bell, book, and candle or writing a charm on a moonwort pod.
“We’d have to try a few and see—test them to figure out which is best,” Sarah mused. “Then you’d need to perform it under the right conditions, with plenty of magical support so the spell doesn’t get bent out of shape.”