The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

“Think of the alternatives,” she said, reverting to the ancient French of their youth.
    “True,” he said gently. “I could be sitting here alone.”
    “Or I could,” she said. “After all these years—I’m glad we are still together.”
    “Only because of you,” the Alchemyst said. He turned to look at his wife, and his hand touched the antique scarab he wore around his neck under his shirt. So much had happened in the past few hours that it seemed like a lifetime ago, but it had only been earlier that day that Perenelle had used the power of Tsagaglalal’s and Sophie’s auras to transfer a little of her own aura into the scarab and then into Nicholas. She had given him an extra twenty-four hours of life. In return, she had shortened her own life by the same amount. Neither of them needed a watch to know that they had little more than nineteen hours left to live. They had no plans to sleep that night.
    Perenelle reached out and rested the palm of her hand flat against Nicholas’s cheek. “I told you: I do not want to live in a world without you.”
    “Nor I without you,” he said softly. Nicholas knew that the transfer of aura had been at a terrible cost to his wife. He could see it etched in the new lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth.
    Centuries of watching him allowed her to read his expression as easily as if he had spoken. “Yes, I’ve grown old,” she said. “My hair gets grayer with every hour.” She touched her long hair, brushing it back off her face. “I always said you would give me gray hairs.” She ran her hand across his close-cropped skull. A thin fuzz of black hair covered his head, and the whiskers on his cheeks and chin were dark. “Whereas you . . . my aura obviously agreed with you. You look young.”
    “Not that young,” he teased.
    “Not that young,” she agreed. “But young enough. No one would ever guess you will be six hundred and seventy-seven years old in a few months’ time.”
    He squeezed her hand. “That’s a birthday I am never going to have. But still,” he said with a smile, “six hundred and seventy-six isn’t too bad.”
    “Remember, every time you use your aura, you are draining the little that remains in the scarab.” She touched the stone he wore around his neck. A white spark leapt from her fingers, sizzling through the cloth.
    “I understand. I’ll try to hoard it until I need it.”
    “You’re going to need it soon. That stunt with the parrot could have cost you a couple of hours of life.”
    Nicholas shook his head. “Thirty minutes, maybe. And it was worth it. I had forgotten what a joy it was to fly. Besides, we learned a lot from my stunt. We discovered that Machiavelli and Billy are now our allies.”
    “I don’t trust him.”
    “Which one?”
    “Either of them. But especially Machiavelli. With Dee you always knew where you stood.”
    “I always felt a little sorry for the English Magician,” Nicholas admitted. “And I’ve had a grudging admiration for the Italian. I think in different circumstances, we might have been friends.”
    The Sorceress made a face. “Remember Mount Etna,” she said.
    “You defeated him. You hurt him too.”
    “He poisoned you. And made the volcano erupt!”
    “In fairness, I don’t think that was entirely his fault. That was a by-product of your aura, which brought it to life. But look—these are strange times. There’s a lot happening that we’ve no idea about. Let’s take our allies wherever we can find them. Anyway,” he added with a grin, “we’ll be dead by morning and it won’t be our problem!”
    “You’re impossible!” Perenelle pulled her hand away and folded her arms. “Don’t say that.”
    “It’s the truth.”
    Perenelle turned in her seat to look down the street, peering into the fog. “Where are the boys?” she wondered.
    “You’re deliberately changing the subject, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    Even as she was speaking, two shapes—one large, the other slender—loomed out of the dense, swirling fog. It was Niten and Prometheus. The large Elder was carrying a cardboard tray with three big white paper cups. Niten was carrying a smaller cup and nibbling on a pastry sticking out the top of a brown paper bag.
    The Elder crouched beside the couple and handed Nicholas and Perenelle steaming cups of coffee. “We decided that since you’re both French you’d prefer coffee to tea.” He glanced up at Niten. “Actually, it was Niten’s