time to mask her feelings. Equally important: I wanted to witness her reaction. Did you notice it?”
“Of course,” I said, recalling her violent outburst, her physical distress at the names she had read.
“It was frightening and bizarre.”
“Bizarre,” Dr. Seraphina said, “but predictable.”
“Predictable?” I asked, growing even more confused. Gabriella’s behavior was a complete
mystery to me. “I don’t understand.”
“At first the book made her simply uncomfortable. Then, when Gabriella recognized the name
Grigori, and perhaps other names, her discomfort transformed to hysteria, to pure animal fright.”
“Yes, it is true,” I said. “But why?”
“Gabriella displayed all the characteristics of someone who has been discovered in a devious plot.
She reacted like one tormented by guilt. I have seen it before, only the others were much more adept
at hiding their shame.”
“You believe that Gabriella is working against us?” I asked, my voice betraying my astonishment.
“I cannot know for certain,” Dr. Seraphina said. “It is likely she is caught up in an unfortunate
relationship, one that has gotten the better of her. Any way one looks at it, however, she has been
compromised. Once one begins a life of duplicity, it is very difficult to escape. It is a pity that
Gabriella has made an example of herself, but it is an example, one I want you to heed.”
Too stunned to respond, I stared at Dr. Seraphina, hoping she would say something to ease my
anxiety. Although she did not have proof of her suspicions, I did.
“The rooms below the school are completely off-limits, their entrances sealed for the safety of us
all. You must not reveal to anyone what you found there.” Seraphina went to her desk, opened a
drawer, and held up a second key. “There are only two keys to the cellar. I have one. The other was
hidden by Raphael.”
“Perhaps Dr. Raphael showed her the location of the key,” I ventured. I remembered the words that
had passed between Dr. Raphael and Gabriella that morning, and I knew that this was indeed the
answer, one that I did not have the heart to relate to Dr. Seraphina.
“Impossible,” Dr. Seraphina said. “My husband would never reveal such important information to
a student.”
I was deeply uncomfortable by what I now suspected to be Dr. Raphael’s intimate relationship
with Gabriella, and I was equally uncertain about the nature of Gabriella’s crimes, and yet, to my
chagrin, I felt a perverse pleasure at having gained Seraphina’s confidence. Never before had my
teacher spoken to me with such seriousness and camaraderie, as if I were not merely her assistant but
a colleague.
Therefore it was all the more difficult to contemplate Gabriella’s deceptions. If the impressions I
had formed were correct, not only was Gabriella working against the angelologists, but in her
involvement with Dr. Raphael she had betrayed Dr. Seraphina personally. Whereas I’d believed that
Gabriella had been distracted by a man outside our school, I now knew that her affair was more
insidious than I had previously expected. In fact, Dr. Raphael might even be working with Gabriella
against our interests. I knew that I must tell Dr. Seraphina, but I could not bring myself to do so. I
needed time to understand my own feelings before revealing what I knew to anyone.
Finding it necessary to talk of other matters, I broached the topic that had brought me to her office.
“Forgive me for changing the subject,” I said softly, gauging her reaction. “There is something that I
must ask you about the First Angelological Expedition.”
“That is why you came to me this morning?”
“I spent most of the night studying Clematis’s text,” I said. “I read it many times, and each time it
left me more uncertain. I couldn’t understand why the account bothered me, and then I realized why:
You have never spoken to me of the lyre.”
Dr. Seraphina smiled, her professorial serenity returning to her manner. “It is why my husband
gave up on Clematis,” she said. “He spent over a decade trying to find information about the lyre—
searching libraries and antique stores throughout Greece, writing letters to scholars, even hunting
down the relations of Brother Deopus. But it was no use. If Clematis found the lyre in the cavern—as
we believe he did—it was either lost or destroyed. Having no means to come into possession of it
ourselves, we have agreed to keep silent about the lyre.”
“And if you had the means?”
“There would be no more need for silence,” Dr. Seraphina said. “With the map we would be in a