Free The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #2) by Michael Scott

visited your beautiful city often and bought several amazing glass pieces from an antiques shop on
Ojai Avenue
. I’m not sure if you know it: the shop sells only mirrors and glassware”, Flamel added.
    “Witcherly Antiques”, Michael Carroll said immediately. “I know it well. I’m afraid it was completely destroyed in an explosion.”
    Flamel felt suddenly breathless. Hekate had died because he had brought the twins into her Shadowrealm; had the Witch of Endor shared Hekate’s fate? He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “And the owner, Mrs. Witcherly? Is she…?”
    “She’s fine”, the reporter said, and Flamel felt a wave of relief wash over him. “I’ve just taken a statement from her. She’s in remarkably good spirits for someone whose shop has just blown up.” He laughed and added, “She said that when you’ve lived as long as she has, nothing much surprises you.”
    “Is she still there?” Flamel asked, trying to contain the eagerness is his voice. “Would she like to make a statement for the French press? Tell her it’s Nicholas Montmorency. We spoke once before; I’m sure she’ll remember me”, he added.
    “I’ll ask.”
    The voice faded away and Flamel heard the reporter calling out for Dora Witcherly. In the background, he also heard the sound of countless police, fire and ambulance sirens and the fainter shouts and cries of distressed people.
    And it was all his fault.
    He shook his head quickly. No, it was not his fault. This was Dee’s doing. Dee knew no sense of proportion; he had almost burned London to the ground in 1666, had devastated Ireland with the Great Famine in the 1840s, had destroyed most of San Francisco in 1906 and now he’d emptied the graveyards around Ojai. No doubt the streets were littered with bones and bodies. Nicholas heard the reporter s muted voice and then the sound of the cellphone being handed over.
    “Monsieur Montmorency?” Dora said politely in perfect French.
    “Madame. You are unharmed?”
    Dora’s voice fell to a whisper and she slipped into an archaic form of the French language that would be incomprehensible to any modern eavesdropper. “It’s not that easy to kill me”, she said quickly. “Dee has escaped, cut, bruised, battered and very, very upset. You are all safe? Scathach too?”
    “Scatty is safe. However, we’ve had an encounter with Niccol Machiavelli.”
    “So he’s still around. Dee must have warned him. Be careful, Nicholas. Machiavelli is more dangerous than you can imagine. He is even more cunning than Dee. Now I must hurry”, she added urgently. “This reporter is getting suspicious. He probably thinks I’m giving you a better story than I gave him. What do you want?”
    “I need your help, Dora. I need to know who I can trust in Paris. I need to get the children off the streets. They’re exhausted.”
    “Hmmm.” The line crackled with the sound of rustling paper. “I don’t know who is in Paris at the moment. But I’ll find out”, she said decisively. “What time is it there?”
    He glanced at his watch and did the math. “Five-thirty in the morning.”
    “Get to the
Eiffel
Tower
. Be there by seven a.m. and wait for ten minutes. If I can find someone trustworthy, I’ll have them meet you there. If no one you recognize arrives, go back at eight and then at nine. If no one is there by nine, then you’ll know there is no one in Paris you can trust, and you will have to make your own arrangements.”
    “Thank you, Madame Dora”, he said quietly. “I’ll not forget this debt.”
    “There are no debts between friends”, she said. “Oh, and Nicholas, try and keep my granddaughter out of trouble.”
    “I’ll do my best”, Flamel said. “But you know what she’s like: she seems to attract trouble. Though right now, she’s watching over the twins in a café not far from here. At least she can’t get into any trouble there.”

CHAPTER TEN
     
    S cathach brought her leg up, pressed the sole of her