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Luce looked at the e around the about? What bell?"

"Close your eyes," Daniel said "Remember it Pass into the past and find the bellpull--"

Luce was already there, back at the library the last time she’d been in Vienna with Daniel Her feet were fir and her hair splayed all across her face Her crimson hair ribbons were soaked, but she didn’t care She was looking for so

There was a short path up the courtyard, then a dark alcove outside the library It had been cold outside, and a fire blazed within There, in the musty corner near the door, was a woven cord e from a substantial silver bell

She reached into the air and pulled

The angels gasped Luce opened her eyes

There, in the center of the north side of the street, the row of contele small brown house A curl of sels’ wings--was the dilow of a lamp on the sill of the house’s front

The angels landed softly on the erip around Luce softened He kissed her hand

"You remembered Well done"

The brown house was only one story high, and the surrounding townhouses had three levels, so you could see behind the house to parallel streets, more modern white stone townhouses The house was an anoate at the edge of a weed-ridden lawn, the arched wooden asym-metrical front door, all of which es

Luce took a step toward the house and found herself on a sidewalk Her eyes fell on the large bronze placard pressed into the packed- carved letters THE FOUNDATION

LIBRARY, EXT 1233

Luce looked around at the otherwisebins filled with plastic water bottles, tiny European cars parallel parked so closely that their bu, shallow potholes in the road "So we’re on a real street in Vienna--"

"Exactly," Daniel said "If it were daytihbors, but they wouldn’t see you"

"Are Patinas common?" Luce asked "Was there one over the cabin I slept in on the island back in Georgia?"

"They are highly uncommon Precious, really" Daniel shook his head "That cabin was just the most se-cluded safe haven we could find on such short notice"

"A poor man’s Patina," Arriane said

"Ie, Mr Cole’s summerhouse," Roland added Mr Cole was a teacher at Sword & Cross He was els since they’d arrived at the school, and was covering for Luce now that she’d left It was thanks to Mr Cole that her parents weren’t more worried than usual about her

"How are they made?" Luce asked

Daniel shook his head "No one knows that except the Patina’s artist And there are very few of those You remember my friend Dr Otto?"

She nodded The doctor’s naue

"He lived here for several hundred years--and even he didn’t kno this Patina got here" Daniel studied the building "I don’t knoho the librarian is now"

"Let’s go," Roland said "If the desideratuet out of Vienna before the Scale regroup and track us down"

He slid open the latch on the gate and held it aside for the others to pass The pebble path leading to the brown house was overgroild purple freesia and tangled white orchids filling the air with their sweet scent

The group reached the heavy wooden door with its arched top and flat iron knocker, and Luce grabbed Daniel’s hand Annabelle rapped on the door

No answer

Then Luce looked up and saw a bellpull, woven with the salanced at Daniel He nodded

She pulled and the door creaked slowly open, as if the house itself had been expecting the Luce couldn’t see where it ended The interior was far bigger than its exterior suggested; its ceilings were low and curved, like a rail-road tunnel through awas els deferred to Daniel and Luce, the only tho had been there before Daniel crossed the threshold into the hallway first, holding Luce’s hand

"Hello?" he called out

Candlelight flickered on the bricks as the other angels entered and Roland shut the door behind them As they walked, Luce was conscious of how quiet the hallas, of the echoing thumps their shoes made on the smooth stone floor

She paused at the first open doorway on the left side of the hall as ainside the roolow of a laht they’d seen from the outside of the house "Wasn’t this Dr Otto’s office?"

It was too dark to see clearly, but Luce re cheerily in a hearth on the far side of the room In her memory the fireplace had been bordered by a dozen bookshelves crammed with the leather spines of Dr Otto’s library Hadn’t her past self propped her wool-stockinged feet on the footrest near the fire and read Book IV of Gulliver’s Travels? And hadn’t the doctor’s freely flowing cider made the whole room smell like apples, cloves, and cinna candelabra froive the roorate over the fireplace was shut, as was the antique wooden secretary in the corner, and even in the warht, the air see and distressed by the weight of the books, which were covered with a mist of dust The hich had once looked out on a busy residential street, had its dark green shades drawn, giving the room a bleak sense of abandonment