Elara did not turn around, but she recognized the flat, toneless voice immediately. It was the man from the previous day—the one who had chased her near the Sorbonne, the one with the charcoal suit and the utterly vacant eyes.
"It is, indeed, a handsome piece of work," Elara replied, her heart hammering but her voice smooth and professional. She kept the cool, silver key pressed firmly into her palm. "I was documenting the erosion patterns on the fountain's base. It is a terrible shame the city neglects such history."
The man, whom we shall call Henri, stepped closer. He was not smiling. "Drop the pretense, Mademoiselle Dubois. The game is over. My superior requests that you hand over the artifact you just removed from the water."
"Artifact?" Elara feigned offense. "You accuse a curator of stealing public property in a central Parisian courtyard? I suggest you address your concerns to the Prefecture."
Henri's eyes flicked dismissively toward the busy entrance of the Palais de Justice. "The police will not interfere with our arrangement. This is between you and the Society." He extended his hand, his movement economical and lethal. "The key, please."
Elara realized she had only one card to play: chaos.
Taking a deep, sharp breath, she pulled her hand back as if to surrender the key, then suddenly whipped her arm, splashing the icy water from the fountain's basin directly into Henri's face.
Blinded and momentarily stunned by the cold shock, Henri recoiled with a hiss of frustration. Elara didn't wait. She bolted, not toward the busy main road, but diving into the nearest cluster of clerks and barristers rushing toward the entrance of the court house.
The crowd acted as her immediate shield. She ducked past a group of arguing lawyers, her small size allowing her to weave through the narrow gaps. Henri, hampered by his tailored suit and the need to maintain discretion in a public square, was slowed.
She burst out onto the chaotic Quai des Orfèvres, vanishing into the stream of traffic and pedestrians. She didn't stop running until she was across the river, disappearing into the maze of used book stalls that lined the Seine.
Elara found refuge in a cramped, musty stall selling antique maps and theological texts. The scent of aging paper was a familiar comfort. Hidden behind a stack of dusty volumes, she finally pulled out the key.
The silver was cold and surprisingly heavy. It wasn't the kind of key that opened a modern lock; it was long, thin, and tipped with a complicated arrangement of teeth. She turned it over, examining the faint, engraved symbol: a stylized hourglass, split vertically in half.
It was an obscure alchemical symbol for the concept of Aeternitas (Eternity), often used by masters of transmutation.
This confirmed Laurent's terrifying warning: this was not about lost gold, but about something far more dangerous.
She pulled out the photographic prints of the journal pages she had taken at the museum. Flipping through the meticulously rendered ciphers, she searched for a matching hourglass symbol.
On Page 18, the Aeternitas symbol was drawn in the margin next to a paragraph of encoded text. Beside the symbol was a small, crudely drawn illustration—a series of arches and columns.
Elara furiously worked the frequency key Laurent had given her, applying the known cipher to the new sequence. It took nearly an hour, hunched over the tiny paper, but the message slowly coalesced:
...where time has stopped, beneath the shadow of the gargoyle who sleeps, the workshop waits. The silver key fits the lock of the forge.
Elara recognized the description instantly. The gargoyle who sleeps was an informal name given to one of the peculiar, hooded figures carved into the façade of the Saint-Jacques Tower—a detached gothic spire in the 4th Arrondissement, a historical center of medieval guilds and alchemy.
Her next destination was clear: the tower. But she knew the Argentum Society would be watching the fountain. She had to move fast, under cover of darkness, and trust no one. Especially not the man who was supposed to be her mentor.
neutral, crowded territory. She headed directly for the Bibliothèque Nationale—the only place she felt truly safe among the millions of books.
Huddled in a quiet corner of the cavernous reading room, Elara focused on the line: "The Key rests where the Archduke weeps."
"Archduke": She immediately dismissed Archduke Franz Ferdinand (too modern) and historical royal figures (too grand). Vance was a private alchemist. He would hide the clue in plain sight, tied to a minor historical artifact or location.
"Weeps": This implied grief, flowing water, or a specific architectural feature—a weeping figure, perhaps a pleureur sculpture.
She pulled out a city guide and began cross-referencing minor statues, fountains, and historical markers from the 17th century. After thirty minutes of frantic searching, her eye landed on a small entry:
The Fountain of Archduke Louis (1695).
The fountain, commissioned after the tragic, early death of a minor royal, stood in the central courtyard of the old Palais de Justice. The centerpiece featured a statue of the Archduke kneeling, head bowed, eternally weeping into the basin below.
It was perfect. Subtle, overlooked, and tied to historical grief.
She grabbed her coat and rushed out, heading for the Île de la Cité. The courtyard was busy with legal officials and clerks. The fountain was exactly as described: moss-covered, the stone Archduke perpetually bowing his head as water flowed endlessly from his clasped hands.
The "Key" had to be here.
Elara approached the fountain, pretending to be a tourist admiring the architecture. She discreetly ran her fingers along the stone base, expecting a latch or a carving.
Nothing.
She grew more desperate, reaching into the cold, shallow basin where the water collected. Her hand brushed against a slick object nestled beneath a patch of algae—a metallic lump, cool and heavy.
With a heart-stopping surge of excitement, she closed her fingers around it and withdrew her hand, wiping it quickly on her skirt.
It wasn't a modern key. It was a single, antique silver key—ornate, weighty, and bearing a faint symbol: a small, stylized depiction of an hourglass.
She had it. The first piece of the puzzle. But the second she lifted the key, she heard a voice behind her, sharp and familiar:
"A beautiful piece of bronze work, isn't it, Mademoiselle Dubois? Tell me, why would a curator of ancient texts be so interested in a late 17th-century fountain?"
She turned to face the charcoal-suited man from the day before. He wasn't a thief; he was Dubois's agent, and he had followed her directly from the museum.