Chapter Sixteen #2
“Rivals or not, I appreciate how friendly you are about the challenge.” I look around for a food table or something so I can claim hunger and depart.
Théo laughs. “Exactly so, Dr. Wilder. Everyone here is civilized, right, ma chérie?”
“Oh yes, for the most part,” Delphine says. “You know who you must meet, Dr. Wilder? Alexandre Allard. He’s here, yes, Théo?”
“Oui,” Théo says. He grabs Sophie, who’s been circling us like a lazy hawk patrolling for prey. “Sophie, Zoe simply must meet Alexandre.”
“You read my mind.” Sophie grins and takes my arm, turning me sharply by the window, to an area where a large ornamental screen stretches. “You will like Monsieur Allard, Zoe.”
I turn to see an absolute giant of a man step halfway out from behind the screen.
It’s almost like he was waiting there, ready for the moment of introduction, but that’s my increasing discomfort talking.
He’s blond and heavily muscled, like he spends a lot of time in the gym.
His ice-blue eyes are unwavering as Sophie introduces us.
“Alexandre Allard, meet Dr. Zoe Wilder,” Sophie says with a kind of mad grin not unlike the one Delphine gave me, as though they’re all in on a joke that I don’t know. “Zoe, Alexandre is also a cryptologist, although he focuses on digital cryptology. NFTs and the like.”
“So lovely to meet you.” Alexandre looks at me with a disturbing intensity. He takes my hands in his giant ones. Sophie moves away, wending her way through her guests with ease. He smirks at whatever he sees in my face and kisses the back of my hand.
“Dr. Wilder,” he says. “Delighted.” His accent is much thicker than Sophie’s, but his words are slower, measured.
“Oh?” I ask, my heart pounding in alarm.
He doesn’t let my hand go. He uses his grip on mine to pull me in, and I’m forced to take a step closer to him.
He’s staring at me with those piercing blue eyes, and I think he’s trying to feign interest, but I get the sense he doesn’t like me.
There’s nothing specific, just a feeling. A coldness in his face, maybe.
“I heard about your paper at the conference,” he says.
Apparently, everyone here knows my history. “Yes…?”
“And now you are here in Paris for some sightseeing, yes?”
He has to know I’m not. “Yes. The usual. Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame. Can’t wait to see it now that they’ve reopened it.
And Montparnasse. I want to see Simone de Beauvoir’s grave there.
” The graves of Beauvoir and her partner, Jean-Paul Sartre, are the only ones I can think of in the famous cemetery, and I’m lucky I can pull them from the depths of an undergrad-literature-class memory.
“Lovely,” Alexandre says. “And did Sophie tell you about her rare book with all the ciphers in it? It’s from Athanasius Kircher’s library. It’s quite a treasure. She has it here, just down the hall in her office. She would love for you to see it.”
I can’t help the spark of interest despite the feeling that this is a trap.
I wrote a paper as part of my graduate work on Kircher, a seventeenth-century scholar, whose now widely debunked work on the Coptic language was rumored to have a hidden, deeper message through his own hieroglyphs.
Does Alexandre know about that paper? But there is no way that book is here.
“Another time maybe.” I make to move away, but he catches my elbow.
“Please.” His eyes are sharp. Focused. “Come see it. There is nothing to worry about, Dr. Wilder. You have my word.” He smiles, the kind of grin you make when you hold all the cards. “After all, it’s a part of Oedipus Aegyptiacus. A treasure.”
I can’t trust anyone’s word, but damn if this man doesn’t know the exact words to reel me in, and they are Oedipus Aegyptiacus. It would be amazing to see the book if Sophie has it. The only original volumes I’m aware of are in Cornell’s rare-manuscript collection.
“The book is just in there,” he says, gesturing to an open doorway into another room. “Then you shall return to Mr. Seaver.”
Mr. Seaver, it appears, isn’t concerned with what I’m doing, because he’s gone to wherever he went with that siren.
I follow Alexandre into the next room, which is a small lounge. Tall bookshelves with glass doors line the walls, and more luxurious-looking sofas sit in the middle.
“Look.” He points at the window.
The view from this room is incredible. The city sparkles before us, a sea of lights and possibility, and where the Eiffel Tower was visible from the main salon, now it’s a central part of the view.
“Where is the book?” I ask. My voice is strained, and I’m prepared to march back into the main room.
“Here.” He turns, and—it really is there, sitting open on a book stand on a dresser.
It’s bound in faded dark cloth, which is thrilling because the other volumes at Cornell are bound in brown cloth and vellum with clasps.
I can’t imagine how Sophie managed to obtain this.
I run a finger over the binding and gently lift a hunk of pages.
“Amazing, isn’t it,” Alexandre says. “It’s always so curious what we’ll do for the Enigma Challenge.” He shakes his giant head, and I give him a sharp look. “Whatever Dane Seaver has told you about the game, he is lying.”
I can’t read him. Yes, Dane may have lied, but Alexandre’s words feel calculated to make me question everything.
“Look at me, worrying you.” Allard chuckles. “I just want to make sure you understand who you are consorting with.” He takes my hand in his. His grip is just a shade too tight. All my internal alarms are suddenly blaring.
I pull my hand away. “You know, I think I’ll—”
That’s when the lights go out.