“No, thank you. Jeffrey, what is this place?”
“A laboratory,” said Ember. “As you see, a laboratory, and the scene of some extremely interesting experiments.”
“Carried out by you?”
“Carried out by me ... and some others.”
“You have brought other people in here? Jeffrey, I think that was inexcusable.”
“I have not yet attempted to excuse myself.”
For a moment his eyes met hers. She saw something, a spark, a flash, from the flames within. It was her first hint that there was, or could be, a flame there at all. It startled her in just the same degree that an actual spark touching her flesh would have startled her—not more.
He spoke again at once.
“Just now I called this place a laboratory. If I were a poet”—he laughed easily—“I might have used another word. I might have said, ‘This is the crucible out of which has come the new Philosopher’s Stone.’”
Raymond lifted her eyebrows.