Sure that the doge would not want his ward practicing alchemy—it had to be part of the bargain with Adair’s father, he was sure—Adair began sneaking off to the bishop’s palazzo. He wasn’t too nervous about being stopped along the way as he had nothing on him that would merit being brought up before the inquisitors. He had in his satchel only a few bottles, each containing drams of rare metals to share with the bishop as thanks for this hospitality and to signal that he was not a complete novice. He wanted to show the Venetian noble, whom he imagined to be well versed on the subject, that while he might come from the dark Magyar mountains, he was not backward and ignorant.

Nonetheless, Adair was careful on his journey, for he was alone and the city was notorious for its cutpurses and thieves. He listened carefully for any whispers or scrabbling of movement in the shadows and kept one hand on his sidearm at all times. After what seemed like entirely too long a journey along shimmering, black-faced canals, he came to the bishop’s palazzo, not far from the Rialto Bridge. A footman led him into the house and asked him to wait in the entry hall while he informed the bishop of Adair’s arrival.

Adair had just slipped out of his cloak when he caught a glimpse of movement overhead, and glanced up to see a beautiful young woman crossing the mezzanine. She wore a gown of ivory silk and her dark hair was pinned up with pearls. She looked as luminous as a ghost in the darkness. When she saw that he’d caught her staring down at him, she hurried away like a doe running for the cover of the forest.

Just then the bishop entered, and following the trajectory of Adair’s upward gaze, registered the source of his attention, as a knowing smile crossed his lips. “Young lord! I am so glad you are able to join me in the laboratory tonight.” He tossed back the voluminous satin sleeves of his robe to take Adair’s hand. With a forthrightness that Adair appreciated, the bishop added: “I see that you have noticed my goddaughter Elena.”

Adair nodded. “She would be hard to miss. Your goddaughter is very beautiful, sir.”

“She is indeed. Elena just arrived this week from Florence. Her father is an old friend of mine and wanted to get her out of the city for a while.” Rossi nodded to his young visitor, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “A less than desirable young man has formed an attraction to her, her father says, and he hoped that some time apart will weaken her suitor’s ardor.”

“I see. . . . Is the attraction mutual?” Adair asked as he followed his host down a corridor and deeper into the palazzo.

“I blame it on Elena’s youth. At her age, when a boy turns her head, she is sure there will never be another. She has found her soul mate, the man she is meant to be with forever, and all that rubbish,” the bishop scoffed, and then abruptly changed the subject: “Come, my young lord. A fire has been building in the furnace for some time now and it should be of a sufficient temperature to begin our experiment.”

As the bishop prattled on, describing the recipe he wished to attempt, Adair quickly realized that Rossi had miscalculated from the start. They would need to begin by reducing mercury to its essence, a tricky and time-consuming process: it could be ruined in an instant and thus required constant watching, which meant they would spend the entire evening on this one step. Adair fidgeted as his host went through his preparations for the experiment. Between the bishop’s dithering and the obvious newness of the equipment, Adair came to the conclusion that Rossi was a rank novice. When Adair’s father had informed him that he was being sent away, the one hope Adair was able to salvage was that he’d find someone more experienced to tutor him in Venice, so that he might advance more rapidly. Since arriving in the city, however, he’d had no luck, and it seemed Rossi would be no help in this regard. Adair tried to mask his disappointment.

“The doge has told me a little bit about you,” the bishop said as he tapped out a tiny measure of quicksilver. He seemed to be intent on making small talk. “He says your family is one of the oldest and noblest in Hungary, and that your father is a duke and trusted adviser to your king—King Béla, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Did your father send you here to make an alliance of some kind with Zeno’s court? Are you on a diplomatic mission?”

Adair cleared a spot on the table to rest his elbows, pushing aside flasks and bottles. “I wouldn’t say that, your grace.”

“Oh—so, your family is expecting you to return before too long?”

He wasn’t sure where Rossi was going with this line of questioning, but Adair answered anyway. “I daresay they do not. And it’s not as though I’ll be missed. I have two brothers, both older than me, and my family looks to them to manage our estates and continue our line. I have no designs on my father’s title. He knows I wish to become a physician.”

“A physician!” the bishop said with forced cheer. “It’s commendable that you wish to minimize human suffering—though some might argue that a physician only serves to prolong a patient’s suffering—but I must say, it’s an odd choice of profession for a nobleman’s son.”

“Perhaps. But I have a passion to know things, especially to figure out how things work. I have been told that the human body is the most complex subject there is, and being one who likes a challenge, I decided to study medicine.”

The bishop frowned. “Isn’t one normally drawn to medicine in order to help his fellow man?”

Adair shrugged. “I decided to become a physician because I am seized by the mysteries of life. I cannot help but feel that we, the living, are allowed to see only half of what goes on around us. The world runs by a vast set of rules by which the tides turn, the seasons change, the sun rises and sets, plants grow and then wither, we live and die. There is a rhythm to all these things, a rhythm and pattern to life so complicated that we can’t begin to decipher it. Everything we see is bound by these rules, which are perfectly integrated one to the other, and they are all kept secret from man. I want the universe to share its secrets with me. I want to know who we are and how we came into being.”

Adair’s passionate soliloquy seemed to make the bishop see his guest for the first time—and he did not like what he saw. “Take care, young lord, for it seems to me that the half of the cosmos you wish to know is the realm of the Lord our God. We are not meant to know the ways of the Lord; we are only to accept his will. The church might deem your line of questioning to be quite blasphemous.”

Adair rankled at the warning. “I meant that in the context of the Lord, of course, for he certainly must be the source of these rules. And yet he moves in mysterious ways—ways I would like to understand better. For instance, what is the soul and where does it reside in us? Is it a physical piece of us, like the heart or the brain? I would think it cannot be, since the Bible tells us that the soul cannot die. So it must go on, persisting, after the body has ceased to function.”

“And if the Bible tells us so, it must be true. If you have questions about such matters, you should feel that you can ask them of me,” the bishop said with an air of smug superiority.

The bishop’s lack of intellectual curiosity made Adair respect him less, and he let himself get a little impatient with Rossi. “Then, you can tell me where the soul goes after death? We don’t see them here with us on earth, so they must go somewhere, yes?”

Rossi made no attempt to disguise his irritation. “The Bible has your answers, my young lord: souls go to heaven, hell, or purgatory. Those are the choices. There are no others.”

“And all I wish is proof of it.”

The bishop gawked at him in amazement, too surprised by his guest’s temerity to be outraged. “Proof? You want proof? There is no proof.”

Adair knew he was skirting a run-in with the inquisitors, but he couldn’t stop. “As men of science, it is our duty to look for proof, don’t you think? Otherwise, what is the use of all this?” He waved a hand at the bishop’s assortment of fancy tools and props.

“I am interested in knowledge the same as you, but my interest lies in learning more about the things that God set on this earth so that I might understand God’s ways,” the bishop retorted, his voice trembling with indignation. “The minerals, the waters, the things that can be touched, not matters of the spirit. That is a realm that can’t be seen. That is the realm of faith. The way you talk, sir, it is as though you have no faith at all. When you question faith, you question God, my young lord, and to question God is to play into the devil’s hands. Do you mean to court the devil, with such heretical talk?” Rossi asked, aghast. “Tell me it isn’t so.”

Adair was about to give the bishop a contemptuous reply when he thought the better of it. Rossi was a superstitious fool who would not change his ways, but there was no sense in antagonizing him. If Adair argued too strongly against religion—a direction in which he seemed more inclined every day—Rossi might bring it up to the doge. It would be more prudent to string the bishop along. Why, Rossi—having the doge’s ear—might even come in handy one day.

Adair pressed a hand to his sternum as he made a low bow. “Oh no, your grace, I believe that you misunderstand me, no doubt due to my poor grasp of your language. Rest assured, our aims are the same, to better understand the ways of our Lord. Indeed, I am impressed by your knowledge of the Bible. It is so much stronger than that of my family’s priests.” Adair, still bowing, looked up to see how his words were being received by the bishop, and by the expression on the Italian’s face, Adair could tell that Rossi didn’t doubt him in the least. “Doubtless there is much I can learn from you, in religious matters as well as in the practice of alchemy. Perhaps I can prevail upon you to be my spiritual adviser while I am in Venice?”