“Oh. Um. Er,” I said, not very imaginatively. “But they’re only a set of old rhymes.”

Gideon shook his head. “Don’t you understand? I couldn’t let that happen, Gwenny. It’s the only reason I went along with your silly game and made out that I’d been lying and playing with your feelings.”

Light finally dawned. “So in case I got some silly idea of dying for love of you, next day you made sure I’d hate you? That was very … how can I put it?… very chivalrous of you.” I leaned forward and put the unruly strand of hair back from his face. “Really, very chivalrous.”

Gideon grinned faintly. “Most difficult thing I’ve ever done, believe me.”

Once I’d started, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. My fingers wandered slowly over his face. He obviously hadn’t gotten around to shaving, but the stubble felt kind of sexy.

“Let’s stay friends—that was a really brilliant move,” I murmured. “The moment you said that, I hated your guts.”

Gideon groaned. “But that’s not what I wanted. I really wanted us to be friends,” he said. He took my hand and held it tight for a moment. “The idea that saying so would infuriate you so much…” He left the rest of his sentence hanging in the air.

I leaned even closer and took his face in both my hands. “Well, maybe you’d better remember it for future reference,” I whispered. “You never, never, never say that to anyone you’ve kissed.”

“Wait, Gwen, that’s not all. There’s something else I have to—” he began, but I didn’t intend to delay this any longer. I cautiously placed my lips on his and began kissing him.

Gideon responded, gently and carefully at first, but when I put my arms around his neck and nestled against him, he kissed me harder. His left hand was buried in my hair and his right hand began stroking my throat, slowly wandering on down. Just as it reached the top button of my blouse, my mobile rang. Reluctantly, I moved away from him.

“It’s Lesley,” I said, looking at the display. “I’ll have to answer—just a quick reply, anyway, or she’ll be worrying.”

Gideon grinned. “That’s okay. I’ve no intention of dissolving into thin air.”

“Lesley? Can I call you back?”

But Lesley wasn’t listening to me. “Gwen, listen, I’ve been right through Anna Karenina,” she said excitedly. “And I think I know what the count really plans to do with the philosopher’s stone.”

I couldn’t have cared less about the philosopher’s stone. At this moment, anyway.

“That’s great,” I said, glancing at Gideon. “You must tell me all about it later—”

“Don’t worry,” said Lesley. “I’m on my way.”

“Really? But I—”

“Well, to be precise, I’m here already.”

“Where?”

“Here. I’m standing at the end of the corridor leading to your room, and your mum and your brother and sister are just coming upstairs after me. With your great-aunt puffing along in their wake. Oh, they’ve overtaken me now. I’m afraid they’ll be knocking on your door any moment—”

But Caroline didn’t go to the trouble of knocking. She just flung the door open and cried, beaming happily, “Chocolate cake for everyone!” Then she turned to the others. “Told you so,” she said. “They’re not necking at all.”

ELEVEN

THE DAY REALLY had been full of all kinds of strange revelations, and the most important was that Gideon really did love me after all! Oh, and then of course there was the bit about Lord Alastair’s sword and dying. But in a way, the family picnic in my room this evening seemed the strangest of today’s events. Here was almost everyone who meant most to me in the world, sitting on the rug, laughing, all of them talking at once: Mum, Aunt Maddy, Nick, Caroline, Lesley—and Gideon! And they all had chocolate on their faces. (As Aunt Glenda and Charlotte had lost their appetite and Lady Arista had no sweet tooth at all, we had the whole chocolate cake to ourselves.) Maybe it was because of the cake that Gideon and my family immediately seemed to be on very good terms, or maybe it was because he was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him before. Even though Mum and Aunt Maddy kept asking him any number of questions, ranging from genuinely curious to embarrassing, and Nick still insisted on calling him Gollum.

When we’d finished the last crumbs, Aunt Maddy got up, groaning. “I think I’d better go down and give Arista some moral backing—Mr. Turner managed to slip into the house when that boyfriend of Charlotte’s arrived, and I’m sure they’re still quarreling about begonias.” She gave Gideon one of her dimpled, rosy smiles. “You know, you’re unusually nice for one of the de Villiers family, Gideon.”

Gideon got to his feet as well. “Thank you very much,” he said cheerfully, shaking hands with Aunt Maddy. “I’m delighted to have met you properly.”

“See that?” Lesley whispered, nudging me in the ribs. “Good manners. Gets his bum off the floor when a lady stands up. Cute little bum too. Pity he’s such a bastard.”

I rolled my eyes.

Mum brushed crumbs off her dress and hauled Caroline and Nick up. “Come along, you two—time for bed.”

“Mum!” said Nick, sounding deeply injured. “It’s a Friday, and I’m twelve.”

“And I want to stay here, please.” Caroline looked innocently up at Gideon. “I like you,” she said. “You’re ever so nice and ever so good-looking.”

“Yes, ever so,” Lesley whispered to me. “Is he by any chance blushing?”

Seemed like it. How sweet.

Lesley’s elbow landed in my ribs. “You’re gawping like a sheep,” she hissed. At that moment, Xemerius flew through the closed window and came down on my desk, with a satisfied belch.

“When the clever and extraordinarily handsome demon returned from his outing, full of hope, he was disappointed to see that in his absence the girl had lost neither the piss-yellow blouse nor her innocence,” he quoted from his unwritten novel.

I mouthed a silent “shut up!” in his direction.

“All I mean,” he said, sounding hurt, “is that it was a good opportunity. You’re not as young as you were, and who knows, you may be hating the guy’s guts again tomorrow.”

When Aunt Maddy had left and Mum had shooed my brother and sister out of the room ahead of her, Gideon closed the door behind them and looked at us, grinning.

Lesley raised both hands. “No, forget it! I’m not going. I have important things to discuss with Gwen. Strictly secret things.”

“Then I’m not going, either,” said Xemerius, hopping on my bed and curling up on the pillow.

“Lesley, I don’t think we need to keep things secret from Gideon anymore,” I said. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea if, for the common good, we pooled all our knowledge to date.” I thought I’d put that rather well.

“Especially as I doubt whether Google will be much help in the circumstances,” said Gideon with a touch of sarcasm. “Sorry, Lesley, but I hear that Mr. Whitman was showing people a folder in which you’d … er, collected up all sorts of information.”

“Oh, yes?” Lesley put her hands on her hips. “And there was I just now, thinking maybe after all you weren’t such an arrogant a**hole as Gwen always said, but quite cute! Cute, that’s a joke! It was…” She wrinkled up her nose, looking rather embarrassed. “How mean of Mr. Squirrel to show my folder around! Those Internet researches were all we had to go on at first, and I was quite proud of them.”

“But now we’ve found out far more,” I said. “In the first place, Lesley is a genius, and in the second place, I’ve had several conversations with my grandf—”

“Of course we are not about to give away our sources!” Lesley’s eyes flashed at me. “He’s still one of the arrogant sort, Gwen. Even if he’s cast some kind of spell over you, remember, it’s only hormonal.”

Gideon gave us a broad grin as he sat down cross-legged on the rug. “Okay. Then I’ll be the first to tell you two what I know,” he said. And without waiting to get the go-ahead from Lesley, he began talking about the papers that Paul had given him again. Unlike me, Lesley was more than horrified to hear that I was supposed to die as soon as the Circle of Blood was closed. She went really pale under her freckles.

“Can I have a look at those papers?” she asked.

“Sure.” Gideon took several folded sheets out of his jeans pocket and a few more from the breast pocket of his shirt. The papers were rather yellowed, and as far as I could see, they looked flimsy along the folds.

Lesley stared at him blankly. “You just walk about with stuff like this in your pockets? Those documents are valuable originals, not … not snot-rags.” She put out her hand for them. “They’re practically falling apart. Isn’t that just typical of a man?” Carefully, she unfolded the papers. “And you’re sure they’re not forgeries?”

Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not a graphologist or a historian. But they look exactly like the other originals, the papers in the keeping of the Guardians.”

“Yes, and I bet those are kept under glass and at the right temperature,” said Lesley, still accusingly. “The way such things ought to be stored.”

“But how did the Florentine Alliance people get their hands on the papers?” I asked.

Gideon shrugged again. “Theft, I assume. I haven’t had time to sift right through the Annals for a clue. Or to check up on all of what they say. But I’ve been going around with these papers for days. I know them by heart, although I can’t make much of most of the contents. Apart from that one crucial point.”

“At least you didn’t go straight off to Falk and show them to him,” I said appreciatively.

“Although I did think of doing just that. But then…” Gideon sighed. “Right now I simply don’t know who can be trusted.”

“Trust no one,” I whispered, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Or that’s what my mother told me.”

“Your mother,” murmured Gideon. “I’d be interested to know how much she knows about everything.”

“And it means that when the Circle is closed, and the count has this elixir he’s after, Gwyneth will…” Lesley couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“Die, yes,” I said.

“Pop her clogs, pass over to the other side, kick the bucket, go west, shuffle off this mortal coil, breathe her last, start pushing up the daisies.” Xemerius made his own drowsy contribution.

“Will be murdered!” Lesley reached for my hand with a dramatic gesture. “Because you’re not about to fall down dead of your own accord!” She ran her fingers through her hair, which was sticking out untidily in all directions already. Gideon cleared his throat, but Lesley wasn’t letting him get a word in edgeways. “To be honest, I’ve had a bad feeling about it all along,” she said. “Those other rhymes are terribly … terribly ominous, too. All about the raven, the ruby, and the number twelve, and the outlook is kind of grim for them. And it does fit with what I’ve found out myself.” She let go of my hand and reached for her backpack—a brand-new one!—to fish out Anna Karenina. “Well, really I suppose Lucy and Paul and your grandfather found it out—and Giordano.”