She realized he was much like his companions, the two shepherds. The pair sat to the side, silently alert. During the train ride here, she had noted how the three moved as one, through touch, whisper, and gesture, a coordination that was unnerving—and thrilling to witness. But their truer bond could be appreciated in quieter moments, a tenderness that was shared. The brush of fingers over ruff, the nudge of a shoulder, the contented rumble.
Tucker must have sensed the depth of her stress, the claustrophobic strain of this room of strangers. He reached over and touched the back of her hand as she clutched the edge of the mahogany table.
“Hear him out,” he whispered in a graveled voice. “But just say the word, and we’ll take off.”
She nodded, and her grip on the table relaxed.
“Dr. Stutt,” Gray said, “among the pages that were photographed in that old Greek text was a series of botanical drawings. I was hoping you might identify the specimens.”
Despite her frustration, this piqued her professional curiosity.
Is this why I was drugged and grabbed?
Gray slid the photo to her.
Elle squinted at the picture. It showed a spread of two yellowed, grainy pages. The two halves contained line drawings of a cluster of plants, all with spiked stems and topped by bell-shaped lobes fringed by cilia.
As she frowned at the pictures, her heart thudded harder. “I... I believe it’s a rendition ofDionaea muscipula, the Venus flytrap, an insectivorous species. But the morphology is strange.”
“How so?” Gray asked.
“Dionaea muscipulais not thorned. And its thigmonastic lobes—the leaves that respond to touch—are characteristically trapezoidal. Whereas these look more bulbous, more typical to species of pitcher plants.”
“Which are also carnivorous,” Tucker noted.
She turned to him. “What’s drawn here could be ahybrid, or maybe even an ancient precursor to the modern species.”
Gray leaned over with a pained expression as he strained his injuries. He shifted a second photo toward her. “How about this specimen?”
She pulled it closer, sitting straighter.
The next picture was of another set of open pages. Only the plants drawn here were odd, unlike anything she’d seen before. They rose on tall stalks, with fleshy structures at the top. There was also a long runner that extended outward from one plant.
“Do you recognize this species?” Gray pressed her.
“No, but from the level of detail, I believe it’s a real plant. The leaves, the vining, the rootlike appendages. Even its pendulous calyx and corolla... they almost look primordial, as if it’s nature’s first attempt at a flower. I can’t make sense of it.”
“Maybe,” Tucker said, “but it appears like someone got around to naming it.”
Elle turned to him. “What do you—?”
Tucker tapped the picture’s upper left corner, where someone had inscribed a snippet of Greek. She had barely noted it, as fascinated as she had been by the sketch itself. She drew the page closer.
“I can’t translate it,” she admitted.
“I can.” Father Bailey rose from his seat and crossed to her. He pointed at the page. “The word issarkophágos.”
Monk frowned. “Sarcophagus? Like a tomb?”
Bailey shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s the intent of the artist. The derivation of sarcophagus comes from two Greek roots.Sarkós, which means ‘flesh’ andphágos, or ‘eater of.’”
The priest lifted a brow toward Tucker. “So, the word’s inclusion here is not thenameof the species but adescriptionof it.”
Elle understood. “Sarkophágos. Eater of flesh. Whoever drew this was stating that this is another carnivorous plant. Like the other.”
Gray stared at her. “Your knowledge of such species must be what drew Sychkin to coerce your cooperation.”
“But to what end?” she asked.
