What time was it? How long had she spent reading and rereading the pages covered with Albrecht’s elegant handwriting? The day had seemed to grow darker as it went on, and the light of the tin lantern had receded to a flickering circle around the desk. By the cramp in her neck and the pounding between her temples, hours had passed. However, the gnawing in her gut was not from hunger.“It’s all a lie,” she murmured to the gloom.Everything she had been taught about the Seekers, everything she had believed in—the Motto, the Book and the Vow, the Nine Desiderata—all of it was an elaborate deception, perpetuated over centuries, and wrought so that the Seekers would diligently perform the work of the Philosophers without ever knowing—or even guessing at—the truth about their nature.We’re puppets, Deirdre. For four centuries they’ve been pulling our strings. We’ve been doing their work, helping them get closer to their magic elixir—a potion that will grant them true immortality.
