Page 81 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

Albizia julibrissin

It was the key to the recipe.

“Holy shit,” I said, shaking with excitement. “This is it.”

Dorian stood behind me, peering down at the symbols. “I don’t understand. What are these?”

“The code to the widows’ keys. All I have to do is translate them and I’ll have my recipe.”

My heart was nearly in my throat as I scanned through. Just as Aspen had predicted, the ingredients from my letter were listed, but there were only two of them: angelica aligned with the disintegrating square and aconite with the crescent moon. The box with the X was something calledGlycyrrhiza uralensis, and the S wasFerula silphion.

Ferula silphion.Oh my god. I looked up at Aspen. “This is silphium, isn’t it?”

Aspen took the slip of paper from me and stared at it before meeting my eyes again, a smile playing on her lips. “It certainly is. Holy shit,” she whispered. “Isabelle, I think we found our hoopoe’s blood. Hoopoe’s blood is silphium.”

The problem was there were only three ingredients in my recipe, but I’d drawn four symbols. For now I decided to ignore theGlycyrrhiza uralensisand to just focus on finding the entry that contained the aconite, angelica, and silphium. When I’d located it, I put my finger on it and showed it to the others.

Desolate Earth, Vibrant Moon, Vibrant Sea

From darkness, the night birds take flight. They reach the mountain just before dawn. An unexpected passage.

“Night birds,” whispered Finn. “Like you and Paloma.”

“Okay,” I said with a smile. “This is definitely it. I just need to make something with these three ingredients and then drink it like that night in the woods, and I think that should help me remember. I think that’s the final step.”