Page 21 of Alchemy of Secrets

Framed newspapers had been torn from walls. Books had been ripped off shelves. Drawers had been ruthlessly pulled out of desks. Cushions had been yanked from chairs. The entire house was ransacked.

Gabe said something, but his voice sounded far away. Holland could barely hear it over the staticky buzzing of light bulbs—or maybe the sound was only in her head.

Holland had always loved the Professor’s office.

It was one of those spaces, like the milk-glass room, that was full of the magic of simple, timeless things.

Most of the Professor’s treasures were related to her myths.

Her bookshelves were full of blueprints for haunted Hollywood hotels, elaborately framed recipes for sidecars, original ticket stubs to the Old LA Zoo, windup clocks from her collection.

One of the clocks appeared to be broken.

The minute hand was spinning like a second hand, and the hour hand was ticking like a minute hand and echoing through the battered room.

“We need to find the Professor,” Holland said. “We need to make sure she’s okay .” Holland couldn’t bring herself to say the word alive . She didn’t want to entertain the idea that the Professor might be dead, like Jake.

Holland didn’t know how much more she could handle tonight, but she definitely couldn’t handle losing the Professor.

Gabe pressed his lips into a tight line as his eyes landed on a trashed copy of Murder at San Simeon —one of the Professor’s favorite conspiracy novels. His expression seemed to say, If your Professor is here, then she’s not going to be okay.

“She might be injured,” Holland said. She started toward the door, which led to the rest of the house. She tried to avoid stepping on any books or shards of broken glass, but her legs were unsteady and her movements were sloppy.

Gabe grabbed her wrist and quickly pulled her back with a force that nearly made her trip. “I’ll look. You stay.”

“But—”

“No,” he said sharply. “We do it this way, or we leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You think I can’t make you?” His fingers tightened, sending a line of heat up her arm. “Stay,” he ordered. Then he let her go.

The light seemed dimmer as soon as he was gone.

Holland had thought the overhead chandelier was on, but now there was just the glow of the Professor’s tipped-over Tiffany lamp.

It was on the desk, next to a shiny green rotary phone that was making the noise phones make when they’ve been taken off the hook.

Holland walked to the desk to put the phone back on the receiver, and that’s when she saw it, tucked under the handle: a pale cream business card with emerald-green lettering.

JANUARY ST. JAMES

Rare Book & Artifact Collections

Holland’s head began to spin. January and the Professor didn’t know each other. They had never met. And January had been in Spain for all of October, so she couldn’t have been here. Unless she’d stopped by last month. But then why hadn’t either January or the Professor mentioned it?

Holland wanted to tell herself that she was reading too much into this. The Professor loved rare books and artifacts. Maybe she’d gotten hold of January to track something down, and both of them had forgotten to mention it to Holland. Or there was a bigger connection Holland wasn’t seeing.

She thought about Gabe. He knew about the Watch Man and the Alchemical Heart. It made her wonder if January did as well. But then why wouldn’t she have mentioned any of it to Holland?

Before Jake, Holland had never shared the Professor’s myths and legends with anyone, except for January.

After starting her thesis, Holland had shared a draft of it with her sister.

Then she’d told her the Professor’s myth about the devil and the sidecar.

Holland had tried to forget what her sister had said because her words hurt too much.

You need to grow up, Holland. They’re gone. They aren’t coming back, and making up stories about them won’t change that.

The fight about the thesis had turned into a fight about their parents.

Holland had been mad at January for never talking about them, and January had been angry at Holland for refusing to let them go.

Then somehow it had turned into January telling Holland she needed to scrap the thesis and end her relationship with the Professor, whom January had then called a crackpot.

It was the worst argument they’d ever had. They’d gone for a full month without speaking. Then, one night, January had come over to Holland’s house unannounced with an overnight backpack and a bottle of wine with a label that read, I’m sorry, I suck .

They didn’t revisit the topic of the thesis or the Professor. But knowing how stubborn January could be, Holland doubted that she had changed her mind on the subject. Which made Holland wonder once again: Where had the Professor gotten January’s business card? And why did she have it?

Holland had spent the last few years studying stories, and she knew that no matter how complicated something appeared, at the heart of every story was always one simple truth that tied everything together.

So, either Holland still didn’t have all the pieces of this story, or she was putting them together incorrectly.

Holland shoved January’s business card into her messenger bag as she turned away from the desk. Maybe she’d ask Gabe about it when he came back. Holland literally didn’t have the time to figure it out now.

Every single book had been ripped from the Professor’s shelves, as though whoever had done this was looking for her journal.

Holland felt her heart break as she took in the damage to the Professor’s most prized things.

Very little of it looked salvageable, but Holland couldn’t stop herself from trying.

After putting a few books back up on the Professor’s shelf, she picked up a Price of Magic film poster that usually hung on the Professor’s wall.

Holland had often wondered how the Professor had gotten her hands on it.

Holland’s father had been very particular about replicas never being made of his original posters because he liked to hide Easter eggs in them.

At the top of this poster, the title blazed in fiery letters above a windswept picture of the film’s main couple, Red and Sophia Westcott. They were holding hands, but if you looked closely, you would see it was really Sophia holding on to Red.

Behind him, it looked as if the sun had finished setting, but again, upon closer inspection, Red was actually standing in front of a pair of shadowy black gates.

Behind Sophia was a group of children. A more prominent child with perfect blond ringlets was holding on to a dog with a sprig of holly and a pair of bells attached to its collar along with a heart-shaped red name tag with the letters JJ .

The bells and the holly were for Holland, because of her nickname Hollybells, and the JJ was for January.

Their dad had put little gifts for his daughters in both Price of Magic films, which had then led them on two of their favorite treasure hunts.

As Holland held the poster now, she wondered if perhaps it contained another Easter egg she had never seen. She knew—

The house creaked.

Holland froze.

Then she heard footsteps.

Gabe was returning. At least she hoped it was Gabe. Maybe she was being paranoid, but she swore these footsteps sounded different, lighter. Someone was trying to be quiet. Holland wished there was something more substantial in her hands than an old movie poster.

The footsteps were outside the office.

Holland lunged for the rotary phone, just as Adam Bishop sauntered through the door.