Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(7)

“Father, what is this?” Luke demanded. He held up his own parcel, similar to Jane’s.

Thomas held up his gift as well, a bulkier bag of objects tied with a leather cord. His glass vial looked tiny and fragile in his massive hands.

“It’s glowing,” he announced.

Gideon ran his trembling hands along the scarred surface of their dinner table. He had a terrible suspicion this would be the last time they were here together. He saw the gouge Thomas’s knife had made last Easter. He saw the red stain burned into the table from the time Luke had mixed herbs, wine, and rare chemicals stolen from the lab to make his own “plague cure” when he was ten. In another corner, Katherine had carved something that looked like a dragon. Gideon still remembered the conversation: My dear, there are no such things as dragons. She had looked up defiantly. There should be. Perhaps I will build one some day. Even young Jane had been quick to leave her mark. Her place at the table had been previously scarred from generations of Cahills, but she’d filled in those scars with various paints — as if color could heal — and created a web of beautiful lines.

Around this table, Olivia and Gideon had celebrated the birth of each of their children. To think that they might never be together again … He swallowed and braced himself for what he must do.

“Children, I need your help. We are in great danger. As you well know, I’ve worked many years attempting to find a cure for the plague. At first, I sought a way to kill the contagion. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the answer was instead to strengthen the body. If a man could be made more resilient, healthier, stronger in mind, body, and spirit, then perhaps the Black Death could not touch him. My approach had … unexpected consequences.”

Katherine held up her vial with new interest. “A serum of some kind? To strengthen the receiver?”

Gideon glanced at Olivia. Her eyes were full of warning, but it was too late to turn back now.

“I discovered the formula quite by accident,” he said. “In its combined form … it is very potent.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “You took it! You experimented on yourself. Last month when you were sick, it wasn’t an illness, was it?”

Gideon shook his head. “I was terribly foolish, Jane. It almost killed me and —” He stopped himself before he could complete that thought: and it still might. “But when I rose from my bed, I found I had changed. I was stronger. More agile. My mind had a greater capacity for numbers. My memory increased a hundredfold.”

“Excellent.” Luke hefted the vial, a greedy light in his eyes. “And this is the serum? How can we be in danger, Father, if you are giving us such power?”

“I am not giving you such power,” Gideon said. “What you are holding is not the completed serum. That is … not perfected yet.”

As in fatal, Gideon thought bitterly, but he tried to keep his tone even.

“I am still working on the final variation of the formula,” he said, “but for now the master serum is far too dangerous, especially if it were to fall into the wrong hands.”

“Like Luke’s,” Thomas grumbled.

“Shut up, oaf!” Luke snapped.

“Children!” Gideon said. “Lord Vesper has guessed about the serum. He will stop at nothing to get it, and he cannot be allowed to have it. We have very little time.”

Jane frowned. “But Lord Vesper is your friend.”

“Foolish little sister,” Katherine said. “His Lordship is no one’s friend. He tolerates people as long as they are useful. And Father is very useful.”

It was bitter to hear this from a girl of fifteen — bitter to think she had such a cynical view.

“Sadly, Katherine is right,” he said. “Damien — Lord Vesper — has become too power hungry. He cannot be trusted or kept at bay any longer. Your mother and I feared this might happen, which is why I have divided my research. Each of you must guard the treasures I have given you — ingredients, tools, pieces of the formula. Your individual portions are not meant to make sense. I have intentionally obscured the means to re-create the complete formula. But taken together, reassembled properly with all thirty-nine ingredients, these treasures will yield the secret of the master serum. Until we can escape Lord Vesper’s reach —”

“Wait,” Thomas said. “What about these glowing vials?”

Gideon hesitated. His work was so complex few adults could understand it, much less children. But looking around at his family, he knew he owed them complete honesty. More than that, he realized with fierce pride that all of them could understand. As different as they were, his children were all brilliant in their own ways. All of them were at least as bright as he was.

“Each vial holds an incomplete version of the serum,” he explained. “Thinking of you children — how different you are and yet how gifted — is what inspired me to try the four-part approach. While the master serum is still imperfect, far too dangerous to take, the four strands separately are safe enough. Together, your four vials would re-create the master serum, but in an emergency, children — you might use your individual serums to give you strength, according to your natural talents.”

“Give us the master serum,” Luke said. “You took the risk and lived! Together, we would be unstoppable. We could overcome Lord Vesper easily.”