Angelology(181)

it was very well secured.”

“Brilliant,” Gabriella said. “It makes perfect sense that they would keep it in the chapel.”

“How so?” Bruno inquired.

“The Adoration Chapel is the site of the sisters’ perpetual adoration,” Gabriella said. “Do you

know the ritual?”

“Two sisters pray before the host,” Vladimir said, thoughtful. “To be replaced each hour by two

more sisters. Is that correct?”

“Exactly so,” Evangeline said.

“They are attentive during adoration?” Gabriella asked, turning to Evangeline.

“Of course,” Evangeline said. “It is a time of extreme concentration.”

“And where is all that concentration focused?”

“Upon the host.”

“Which is where?”

Picking up on her grandmother’s line of thought, Evangeline said, “Of course—the sisters direct

their entire attention to the host, which was held in the monstrance upon the altar and in the

tabernacle. As the plectrum was hidden inside, the sisters unwittingly watched over the instrument as

they prayed. The sisters’ perpetual adoration was an elaborate security system.”

“Exactly,” Gabriella said. “Mother Francesca discovered an ingenious method of guarding the

plectrum twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There was really no way for it to be

discovered, let alone stolen, with such careful and ever-present attendants.”

“Except,” Evangeline said, “during the attack of 1944. Mother Innocenta was murdered on her way

to the chapel. The Gibborim killed her before she could get there.”

“How remarkable,” Verlaine said. “For hundreds of years, the sisters have been performing an

elaborate farce.”

“I don’t think they believed it a farce,” Evangeline said. “They were performing two duties at

once: prayer and protection. None of us knew what was really inside the tabernacle. I had no idea that

there was more to daily adoration than prayer.”

Vladimir stroked the metal with his fingertips. “The sound must be quite extraordinary,” he said.

“For half a century, I have tried to imagine the exact pitch the kithara would make if plucked with a

plectrum.”

“It would be a great mistake to experiment,” Gabriella said. “You know as well as I what could

happen if one were to play it.”

“What could happen?” Vladimir asked, although it was clear that he knew the answer to his

question before he asked it.

“The lyre was fashioned by an angel,” Bruno said. “As a result it has an ethereal sound, one that is

both beautiful and destructive simultaneously and has unearthly—some might say unholy—

ramifications.”

“Well said,” Vladimir told him, smiling at Bruno.

“I am quoting your magnum opus, Dr. Ivanov,” Bruno replied.

Gabriella paused to light a cigarette. “Vladimir knows very well that there is no telling what might

occur. There are only theories—most of which are his own. The instrument itself has not been studied

properly. We have never had it in our possession long enough to do so—but we know from

Clematis’s account, and from the field notes taken by Seraphina Valko and Celestine Clochette, that

the lyre exerts a seductive force over all who come into contact with it. This is what makes it so

dangerous: Even those who mean well are tempted to play the lyre. And the repercussions of its

music could be more devastating than anything we can imagine.”

“With a pluck of a string, the world as we know it could fold away and disappear,” Vladimir said.

“It could transform into hell,” Bruno said, “or into paradise. Legend has it that Orpheus discovered

the lyre during his journey to the underworld and played it. This music ushered in a new era in human

history—learning and husbandry flourished, the arts became a mainstay of human life. It’s one of the

reasons Orpheus is so revered. It was an instance of the benefits of the lyre.”

“That’s an extraordinarily dangerous bit of romantic thinking,” Gabriella said sharply. “The lyre’s

music is known to be destructive. Such utopian dreams as yours will lead only to annihilation.”

“Come now,” Vladimir said, gesturing to the object on the table. “A piece of the lyre is here,

before us, waiting to be studied.”

All eyes fell upon the plectrum. Evangeline wondered at its power, its allure, the temptation and

desire it inspired.

“One thing I do not understand,” she said, “is what the Watchers hoped to gain by playing the lyre.