New York City–1884

Twilight settled over the city, shrouding it in a grayish haze. He hated this time of day, the hour lost between darkness and light, when everything became indistinct. Standing in the shadows he watched the mansion from across the street. Linden trees partially hid the Queen Anne – style villa but he could see light glowing through the glass sunburst below the curved‑top window. The lugubrious strains of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata wafted from the open balcony door, appropriate accompaniment to the gloomy dusk.

Even in this murkiness, the elaborate building with its gables, scrolled wrought iron railing, and dozens of gargoyles tucked under the eaves was an impressive sight; a symbol of wealth.

But not his wealth.

Unconsciously, he clenched his jaw, felt the tightness, then forced those muscles to relax.

The front door – with its bas‑relief coat of arms of a giant bird rising from a pyre – opened and a finely dressed woman stepped out. She didn’t have any idea what she might be coming home to later that evening, but he did and thought about how, if the worst happened, she’d accept his sympathy, come to rely on it, and never guess he’d been the one to orchestrate her grief.

“Percy? Esme? Hurry now, we can’t be late for your cousin’s birthday party,” she called.

The children ran past her; the ten‑year‑old boy and his eight‑year‑old sister scampering down the steps and preceding their mother into the waiting carriage.

Once the sound of the children’s laughter and the hoofs clomping on cobblestones was far in the distance, the man crept across the street and silently let himself into the house. Quietly as he could, he traversed the black‑and‑white marble squares in the imposing foyer and walked down a hallway to the library’s open doorway where Trevor Talmage worked at his desk, bent over his papers, reading and making notes, oblivious to the intruder.

“Well aren’t you the busy boy.”

Momentarily startled, Trevor looked up, then smiled indulgently. “When did you get here? Why didn’t Peter announce you?”

“I let myself in.”

“I didn’t know you still had a key,” he said, sounding more tired than surprised at the news.

“Would you like it back?”

A moment’s hesitation. Trevor was considering it but would the bastard have the nerve to say yes?

“No, of course not. Would you like a glass of port? I just got a new shipment from Madeira.” Trevor motioned toward the crystal decanters and glasses on the sideboard.

“That sweet stuff? I’ll take a brandy.”

Trevor rose to get him the libation and refill his own glass at the same time and Davenport eyed the papers overflowing the desk. “So at last I see the famed text. Out of the vault for an evening. How are the translations going?”

“Amazingly well.” Now there was palpable excitement in Trevor’s voice. “According to the scribe who wrote this, the lost Memory Tools were absolutely not a legend. They existed. He saw them and gives a full description of each of the amulets, ornaments, and stones. He writes that they were all smuggled out of India and brought into Egypt well before 1500 BC which, you realize, suggests present‑day historians are incorrect about when the trade routes opened. This is going to create a lot of controversy when I publish.”

“You’re still planning on publishing?”

Trevor handed his brother a glass filled with amber that shimmered like gold in the lamplight. “Of course. And please, don’t try to argue me out of it again. Our father created the Talmage Trust because he believed history was important. He who controls the past controls the future. I firmly agree and–”

“Control is exactly why you can’t publish. Don’t you understand just how much control you’d be giving up,” Davenport interrupted, pleading, really hoping – now that he was there – that Trevor would not force his hand.

“If these tools exist and if they can aid people in rediscovering their past lives, we – you, me, and every member of the Phoenix Club – need to ensure this power is used for the good of all men, not selfishly exploited,” Trevor argued.

“That document was found at an excavation by a man who was paid with our father’s money. I won’t let you do this.”

“ You won’t let me do this? You can’t stop me.” Trevor laughed derisively. “Don’t you understand how meaningful this is? How spiritually significant? It’s not a cache of gold and silver coins we’re arguing over, this could be the key to finding proof that we return in new incarnations. We can’t own information like this, it has to be available to everyone, how else will the actual Memory Tools be found? This discussion is closed.”

“The decision to publish is not yours alone,” Davenport said.

“I can say that same sentence back to you,” Trevor retorted.

“Damn you!”

Davenport slammed down his glass of brandy so hard that it shattered, spilled liquor quickly threatening to ruin the papers.

Annoyed with his brother – no, with himself, for letting Davenport get to him, Trevor cursed as he scooped up the ancient text and placed it out of harm’s way on top of the books on a shelf behind him. But there were still his notes to salvage. As fast as he could he grabbed pile after pile of his papers and put them on top of other books on other shelves.

He was turned away from his brother so he didn’t see him draw the small silver revolver from his jacket pocket or see the competitive grimace on his brother’s face, as if they were children playing a game that Davenport was determined to win.

The force of the bullet slammed Trevor forward into the shelves, the impact of his body pushing one pile of his notes behind a row of books. He reached out to steady himself, grabbed hold of a leather volume that ironically turned out to be the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

It fell with him onto the floor.

Blood spilling out of him as quickly as the brandy spilled out of the broken glass, Trevor lay dying, watching his brother steal out of the library, pistol back in his pocket, spoils under his arm, fearing – until he stopped thinking completely – what would become of the precious knowledge he tried but failed so miserably to protect.