The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

Billy said, turning to leave.
    “Billy—wait!” Machiavelli and Black Hawk called together.
    The American ignored them. As he moved cautiously through the fog, he began to make out the tall pillar of the lighthouse tower to his right and then the vague outline of gray walls and empty windows to his left. Suddenly he saw a figure—tall, misshapen, shrouded in fog—move past one of the openings. Billy caught a glimpse of the creature and thought he saw a white mane flowing down its back. Was it a centaur or another satyr? He watched as it stopped, then turned toward him, the white oval of a face peering at him. Claw-tipped fingers rose at its sides, pointing at him, and Billy’s hands fell to his waist as he pulled the spearheads from his belt and sent them whistling through the air . . .
    . . . just as Perenelle Flamel, white hair glistening in the damp, stepped forward, hand raised in greeting.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
    ON THE WILD northeast shore of Danu Talis, the crystal tower rising out of the pounding waters began to glow and pulse with a pale golden light. Then it began to vibrate, a deep subsonic disturbance that trembled deep into the earth, thrashing the water to white foam.
    “I’m here,” Tsagaglalal said. She was wearing the white ceramic armor her husband had given her, the matched kopesh in sheaths across her back.
    Abraham the Mage stood tall and slender in a darkened room at the top of the Tor Ri. He was wrapped in shadow, facing away from her, so that she would not see the Change that had almost completely claimed his flesh, transforming it to solid gold.
    “Let me look at you,” she whispered, turning him to the light. “Let me see you, and remember this moment.”
    “I would rather you remember me as I was.”
    “I carry that image within me always,” she said. She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest. “But this is you also, and I will never forget this. I will never forget you, Abraham.”
    She held him, pressing his flesh and metal against her skin, and wept on his shoulder. She looked up into his face and saw a single tear, a solid bead of gold, rolling down his cheek. Raising up on her toes, she kissed the tear off his face, swallowing it. Tsagaglalal pressed her hands to her stomach. “I will carry it within me always.”
    “You are about to begin a journey that will last ten thousand years, Tsagaglalal.” Every one of Abraham’s breaths was a labored effort now. “I have seen your future, I know what lies ahead for you.”
    “Don’t tell me,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
    Abraham pressed on. “Like any life, there is both sorrow and joy in it. Entire tribes and nations will rise and honor you. You will be known by a thousand names, and many songs will be sung and stories told about you. Your legend will endure.”
    The tower was vibrating harder now, the top swaying from side of side, tiny featherlike cracks appearing in the crystal.
    “If I have a wish for you, it is for you to have a companion, someone to share your life with,” he continued. “I do not want you to be lonely. But in all the years of your life to come, I do not see you with anyone.”
    “There will never be anyone,” she said firmly. “By rights we should never have met: I was a statue of mud, brought to life by Prometheus’s aura. You are one of the Elders of Danu Talis. And yet the moment I saw you, I knew—with absolute conviction—that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I can say now, with the same conviction, that there will never be another.”
    Abraham drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you have any regrets?” he asked.
    “I would have liked to have had children,” she said.
    “In your years to come, Tsagaglalal, you will be a mother to many children. You will foster and adopt thousands of humans. Untold numbers of children will call you mother and aunt and grandmother, and they will be as dear to you as if they were your own. And toward the end, in ten thousand years’ time, when you watch over the twins and protect and guide them, there will be much joy. This I have seen: though you will exasperate and often infuriate them, they will love you with all their hearts, because they will instinctively understand that you love them unconditionally.”
    “Ten thousand years,” she breathed. “Do I really have to live that long?”
    “Yes. You must,” he rasped. “There are no unimportant players in this extraordinary plan Marethyu and I