The Watchtower

by their brush with the muses. It was why I had decided to become a jeweler instead of an artist. “You make it sound very dangerous to go near the boat people.”
    “Oh, it is! Of course you have a touch of them in you and that’s very powerful. I wouldn’t dream of sending you to them otherwise. But don’t forget, you’re also part human. You’ve already succumbed to the attraction of the vampire. There are other creatures who are far more potent and seductive than him whom you will meet.” He held up the bouquet of delicate alpine flowers he had gathered for me. My mother had loved wildflowers and had taught me the names of many. I recognized blue gentian, white edelweiss, yellow cinquefoil, and purple thistle, but a half a dozen of the flowers I didn’t know. He plucked one of these out of the bouquet, a sprig of small, purple orchids. Inside each flower’s throat was a purple heart ringed with white. He tore off one of the green leaves, rubbed it between his fingers, and held it up for me to smell.
    “Mint.”
    “Alpine calamint,” he said. “Keep this one for yourself. If you find yourself falling under the spell of any of the sea fey, take it out and smell it. It might bring you to your senses.”
    “Might?”
    “It’s the best I can do. I could tell you to go home now and forget Will Hughes, the silver box, and the Summer Country, but I don’t suppose you would listen.”
    He looked at me inquisitively. Could I just go home? I wondered. I’d been on the verge of giving up last night, but now … knowing that there was a chance I could find Will…? True, he had taken the box from me, but he had done it so that he could become human again. He had done it so he could sit in the sunshine as I was now. How could I begrudge him that when all I wanted to do was sit in the sun with him just as I was sitting on the bench beside Monsieur Lutin right now? Besides, since I’d gotten to Paris, I had this feeling that Will was heading toward me. I knew it was silly. I knew he was probably far away on the path to the Summer Country, but I also had this strange conviction that we were on parallel paths, like the two paths that spiraled up the Labyrinth, one outside the hill and one inside, with only a thin wall between us. Sooner or later, our paths would have to merge. “No, I don’t think I can,” I said finally.
    “I didn’t think so. Here.” He handed me the bouquet. “Take these to Madame La Pieuvre at the Bibliothèque Océanographique. She’s one of the most civil of the sea fey and acts as a sort of liaison between them and us lesser fairies. If anyone can help you, she can.”
    “Thank you. You’ve been very kind. Earlier when I was walking up the Labyrinth, I was afraid you’d turn out to be a Minotaur!”
    “What an idea!” He chuckled and slapped his hands against his knees. A cloud of greenish yellow dust—pollen from all the flowers he’d collected—rose around him like a halo. “Everyone knows that the Minotaur lives under the Gare de l’Est!”

6
    Alchemy of Blood
    The morning after the party dawned with a radiant light, a shimmer of summer. The rays that balmed Will’s cheeks through an open window also awoke him with a pleasant start. He sprang out of bed with a sense of energy and purpose this entire desultory period had lacked: Marguerite. He whispered her name to himself as if it were an incantation, an alchemical caress of his tongue. The thought of her seemed to flow through his veins with flaming resonance.
    Will dressed with whatever peacock tilt his wardrobe allowed: white-plumed, ruby-red hat, ruffled white shirt and silver vest, dark blue trousers, and gleaming-buckled boots, all of it a compromise between exuberant nobility and being a dandy. His attire served no purpose as to approaching Marguerite successfully, but it reflected his mood.
    He lingered longer than usual over Mrs. Garvey’s simple breakfast, as he knew the difference between paying an early call and paying a too early, rude one. After eating endless buttered rolls and drinking several glasses of ale, Will at last saw the sun lift a few inches over the horizon and knew he could go on his way.
    As he started out on this most reckless errand, Will did not conceal from himself the possible lunacy of what he was doing. For one thing, propriety, given the poet’s marital status, required that Marguerite not be at the poet’s lodgings this early in the day. And if she was there anyway, given