CHAPTER 37 JAMESON
JAMESON
Miracle of miracles, Jameson had slept—and dreamed of Avery. Of Tahiti. It had still been dark outside when he’d awoken with an ache where his heart should have been. He’d funneled that ache, that agony, into twin obsessions: the Devil’s Mercy and the crucible.
The old man’s game for Alice and the one that Hannah had left for Toby.
If Hannah really was the one who wrote that card. Having slept, Jameson had to question that, but he had enough foresight and self-control not to push that issue with his uncle—yet. Sleep had done nothing to dull the intensity pouring off the elder Hawthorne in waves.
Like uncle, like nephew.
For ninety-seven minutes and counting, Jameson and Toby had worked—in tandem and mostly in silence.
A crucible was a container capable of withstanding the temperatures necessary to melt metals.
The Crucible was a famous play by Arthur Miller focused on the Salem witch trials.
Jameson had speed-read the play from start to finish, researched its theatrical history on the West End and elsewhere in London, and compiled a list of every physical crucible in every museum within the city limits.
There were hundreds, dating back to as early as 80 AD, but a majority of the museum pieces were medieval—some Roman, some Saxon, some fragmented, some whole.
Made of stoneware or clay, not a single one of them was anything to look at based on the pictures Jameson had been able to pull up.
“The museums will be opening at ten,” Jameson said, throwing open the twin doors to the terrace and staring straight at the rising sun. He crossed to the balcony railing, resisting the urge to climb up onto it, to balance over a fifty-foot drop.
“In the meantime…” Jameson waited for Toby to join him at the rail before he continued, “What do you know about alchemy?”
Every few minutes, Jameson flashed back to his phone call with Rohan, to the symbol of the Devil’s Mercy, an alchemical symbol for alchemy, a reminder that some patterns were always repeating—across years and centuries and men.
“Alchemy?” Toby, like Jameson, didn’t even blink at the sun. “Part precursor to modern chemistry, part esoteric mumbo-jumbo, focused on the transmutation of matter. Some alchemists had a particular interest in metals.”
“The kind you need a crucible to melt.” Jameson felt like he was swiping at smoke and fog. He knew what Xander would have said: You need more sleep.
But what Jameson needed—the only thing he needed—was Avery.
He had no choice but to keep going. The crucible.
The symbol. The Devil’s Mercy. Logically, Jameson knew there might be no connection between the puzzle he’d come to London to solve and the one that had brought Toby here.
Jameson knew that it would be foolish to allow himself to become distracted from his original goal in coming to London.
And yet…
Jameson gave into the urge to climb up on the terrace railing. He balanced there, on the balls of his feet, willing the prospect of that fifty-foot drop to crack open his mind and allow possibility after possibility heretofore unseen to come rushing in.
“You’re reckless.” There was no judgment in Toby’s tone.
“I’m a ticking time bomb,” Jameson replied.
“Been there, done that.” Toby climbed up on the railing next to Jameson and stared out at the city. “The trick is to imagine her glaring at you and putting out the fuse.”