"Now, George, stop it!" Totty said forcefully. But this time . . . no, this time George was not going to be shamed into propriety.

"I will not stop it! You have been holding me back with your coddling this entire journey! You have been trying to stop me from finding Winnifred, and you have involved these hangers-on"-he threw his arm out at their friends, knocking over a vase in his anger but not caring-"in your schemes! And therefore you are to blame for what happens to her now."

"George don't be ridiculous-" Totty tried, ignoring the belly-deep fear that George-who she had seen grow from a boy into the angry oversized man before her-was igniting inside of her. But she shouldn't have ignored it, because George was past reasoning. With one swipe of his great paw, he struck Totty across the face, throwing her into a glass lamp and crashing her to the ground.

The horrified cries of the gathered party echoed in Totty's ears as the light faded in and out in front of her eyes, colors stirring with dark.

"Oh shut up, all of you!" George yelled, a stuttering panic in his voice. Then Totty could hear a shuffling as he leaned over the counter, and a thunk and cry as he pulled the proprietor to him by the collar. "Now, you will tell me exactly what you know about this ring." And then the light faded away entirely.

Totty came to with a splitting headache, and Frau Heider bending over her.

"Oh, she's awake! Gunter, she's awake!" Frau Heider cried, bringing Herr Wurtzer to her side.

"Where is he?" she asked, trying to sit up and finding it impossible, as the whole world spun. "Oh-this is the worst hangover I've ever had."

"Don't try to move," Frau Heider said. "You have a cut under your hair from the glass, and a large bump. There was even blood-we were so frightened for you. Herr Bambridge is gone. Gunter tried to restrain him but-" She shrugged, which was all the explanation for why a sixty-year-old man was not able to stop one half his age who happened to have the size and strength of a gorilla.

"You couldn't have hidden that ring any quicker?" she said to the proprietor, who was anxiously wringing his hands. Totty couldn't blame him. Having an Englishwoman die in your shop is not good for business.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I . . . He made me tell him what I knew. That the man asked for an amount that would get him to Vienna. But he was agitated, and I ended up shorting him, he only got-"

"Yes, yes," Totty replied, waving her hand in the air. "I just can't believe that I was struck."

"Neither can we," Frau Heider said. "I . . . something is wrong with that man. Totty. . . . He . . . Herr Bambridge . . . he took a pistol. From the glass case over there. I believe he has gone mad."

"If he hasn't yet, he will by the time I'm through with him," Totty said darkly. Then, turning to the proprietor, "You. Fetch me ink and paper. And a drink. When I'm done with George Bambridge, he won't know what hit him."

Twenty-four.

Wherein our duo's search ends dramatically, and-curiously-in a church.

THE problems associated with identifying the nunnery, convent, or abbey that had sheltered Maria F. some three hundred years ago were manifold. First, they had to identify the sisterhoods that, some three hundred years ago, would attend services at St. Stephen's on holy days. This was no easy feat. Luckily, Sir Geoffrey spoke a few well-placed words in a few influential ears, and Winn and Jason were able to hold an audience with the parish priest of St. Stephen's. Unluckily, the kind and cooperative priest was unable to help, being as he was not alive three hundred years ago, and the records that were kept were fairly general and not studied in their detail. He was, however, able to provide a list of those abbeys that attended services on All Saints' Day, Christmas, and other feast days, as long as he had been in tenure.

Unfortunately, this list had at least fifty items on it.

"What are we supposed to do?" Jason asked. "Do we just visit every church on this list and cross them off after we spend a few days rummaging around in their belongings?"

"Heavens no," Winn replied practically as they left St. Stephen's Cathedral in the center of Vienna and made their way down Stephensplatz. "It's going to be so much more difficult than that."

"More difficult?" Jason asked, still reeling from the length of the list.

"Yes. Happily, we can eliminate any church or abbey that wasn't active in 1500. But then again, there are likely some convents that existed then that don't anymore. Possibly they were destroyed outright in the Turkish sieges, possibly they were absorbed by larger institutions-either way, we have to track down their remains and add them in." Winn smiled at him cheerfully. "Also, there's nothing to say that our Maria F. wasn't a member of a convent outside of Vienna, and the trip to St. Stephen's was part of a special pilgrimage or visitation. For all we know, we already passed where she lived, in Linz or Melk or-"

"I get the idea," Jason said, beleaguered, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he opened one eye, glancing at Winn's excited countenance. "Wait a moment. How can you possibly be enjoying this?"

"Because this is how it happens, Jason." She grinned at him. "There is a tiny piece of information, to be found somewhere, and this is how we find it. We explore, we dig, we look until our eyes are crossed and we can't look anymore. All in the hope of a moment of discovery. I'm enjoying it because this is the fun part."

Jason held this happy, shining person's gaze and simply shook his head. He was not going to be able to convince her to stroll through the streets of the city this time, taking in the local sights and people. He was not going to be able to purchase her a little trinket as souvenir in Vienna. No, now that the goal was in sight, the bit was between her teeth, and she would not let go. This was the person Winn was meant to be. And it was a glorious thing to behold.

"Where do we start?" He sighed and gave his arm to her as she directed him briskly to the first church on the list.

As they faded into the distance, they were each too focused on the quest or, alternately, the person behind it, to feel the eyes that were on them. Eyes that had chanced upon them as they had headed into St. Stephen's Cathedral, and then shocked by the luck, waited patiently for them to emerge. Eyes that followed them now, at a safe distance. Because he would be damned if Winnifred Crane would be let out of his sight ever again.

When one reads books about Vienna, they comment on the gracefulness of the city, the only real choice to be the capital of the Austrian Empire. They talk about the Danube and its meandering beauty. They talk about the music of the city, the opera house, the palaces . . . but rarely do they mention the churches.

Rather, Winn-picking at the edge of a lavender ruffle on her borrowed dress-thought grimly, they do not pontificate adequately on the number of churches, and how they are simply wedged into the city's corners and alleys, making them hard to locate on a map and even harder to find in person.

Her enthusiasm for the quest had not dwindled, oh no-if anything the past two days of visiting every church on the list provided by the St. Stephen's priest had whetted her appetite for the moment of truth. But when, oh when, would it come?

This is what you get, gambling your whole life on one instant, she told herself, exhausted after yet another church-their third today, and it was not yet tea. Luckily, Sir Geoffrey's influence had not only elicited the list of potential orders from the priest at St. Stephen's, but also a general letter of introduction to those they would need to speak to at various churches, abbeys, nunneries, and convents.

And speak to, they had.

Just that morning, they had visited the Ursulinenkirche, found in a quiet corner of the Innere Stadt, or first district, and were able to reject it almost immediately, as the first thing they learned was it had been built in the 1660s, far too late to house Maria F.

The Dorotheakirche was interesting in that it had converted from Catholicism to Protestantism during the Reformation and stunningly enough, not been converted back by the Hapsburgs during the Counter-Reformation. But alas, after several hours in the church's library with their chaplain yielded no hint that Maria F. had ever been there, in the name of efficiency, they had to move on.

The third church, the one they had just left, was little more than a monastic chapel, and undoubtedly the most disappointing.

"How on earth did that little place end up on the parish priest's list?" Winn asked aloud, utterly frustrated.

"It wasn't so bad," Jason replied. "Except for the decided lack of nuns."

"Well, one more church," Winn said, glancing at the list, "and then I am going to desperately need a pint of ale."

Jason laughed heartily and plucked the list from her hands. "Agreed, but I get to pick the next."

And Jason picked well. For it was at the next church they visited that they had their first bit of luck.

A small, baroque-style chapel within the Innere Stadt of Vienna, Franziskanerkirche was the Church of the Franciscan Order. They spoke for some hours with the Reverend Mother of the Order of St. Clare at the church, who had tried her best to help them but ultimately could not. At least not there.

"We have a sister abbey, in Dobling, just outside the city," the straight-mouthed Reverend Mother told them. "It is where our school for young ladies is." She looked pointedly at Winn, as if perhaps, she would have done well with some Franciscan schooling. "It has been there since the fourteenth century. And I do believe there was a sister from around that time, who had some claim in the world of art . . ."

Winn would be remiss if she did not note the effect that sentence had on the beleaguered spirits of both travelers.

"You have?" Jason asked, sitting up in his chair.

"You do?" Winn asked at the same time, her eyes suddenly very bright.

The Reverend Mother wrote down the information for the abbey in Dobling, and first thing the next morning, off they were. Again.

But this time . . . this time felt different.

"I don't know how, but I have a good feeling about this place," Winn said to Jason as they rumbled along in Sir Geoffrey's carriage. He had generously lent it to them that day . . . on the condition that Gail, Evangeline, and Mr. Ellis be allowed to join them. Gail and Evangeline, because as Sir Geoffrey said, he wanted the girls to "look around the school, see if there was anything to be learned there that they couldn't manage at home," and Mr. Ellis because . . . well, simply because.

"Why do you say that, Miss Crane?" Mr. Ellis asked.

Winn simply shook her head. "Because no other place had yielded so much as a rumor or a whiff of hope. And to have this one place out of a thousand, pointed out by the Reverend Mother of the Poor Clares . . . it simply feels right. Like how it felt when Herr Heider first wrote me about the letters in his collection."

"That's called instinct, Miss Crane," Mr. Ellis smiled. "A necessity for any explorer, or seeker of truth."

"And she has it in spades," Jason replied.

Winn looked up at Jason and her breath caught. If only they were alone in the carriage! She would have taken his hand. But here, now, she was unable to hold it, as they were in the presence of good people, unable to express . . . something. Gratitude? Friendship?

But Winn knew that Jason had just complimented her-in front of others, no less-for the same reason that over the course of the last few days (when they had not been under the close inspection of two young girls, their father, or a respected historian) Winn had perhaps grasped Jason's hand tighter than she used to, perhaps took his arm with more enthusiasm.

But she had to stop doing so. Because as the carriage rumbled into the little town of Dobling, they were coming to the end.

And so, she tucked her hands in her lap and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from making any pert comments back to him, and instead focused on what was in front of her. What she was so close to achieving.

The sisters of the Order of St. Clare, sometimes referred to as "Poor Clares" (as their patron was a follower of St. Francis of Assisi and gave all of her money and belongings away), were as accommodating as their namesake. The Dobling school, convent (the dormitory that served as housing for the nuns and the girls who boarded), and church were separate buildings, none of them auspicious in their scale or architecture, but original to the medieval time they were built-with more modern additions here and there to accommodate the growth of the school. Therefore, it had the look of a small castle keep on a hill, with the occasional baroque-style window or late gothic wall. There was a low wall that surrounded their grounds, keeping the nuns removed from the town and godly in their pursuits. There was some scaffolding in and around the modest church, but the visitors were told not to worry-the roof had merely caved in.

"Since we are outside of the city, we were not targeted during the Turkish raids," the Mother Superior-who went by the name Mother Agnes-told them kindly as she guided them through the school buildings, toward the convent and chapel. She spoke German, naturally, but this time Winn did not have to rely solely on Jason for translation: Miss Gail Alton proved her German to be incredibly accurate. It also seemed that the Alton girls were in charge of their own education and eager to pursue it-Gail fluidly asked all sorts of questions about the school and the curriculum, and translated the answers back to her less linguistically gifted sister, going on about whether they prized the sciences and mathematics, whether or not they taught all dialects of German here along with Latin . . . eventually, Winn, for the sake of expediency, had to interject.

"Mother Agnes-we are looking for the possible author of these letters . . ." Winn began, her speech so rushed and her heart beating so fast with possibilities that Mother Agnes held up her hand with the authority of one who had spent her life teaching overeager girls.

"I have been informed of your quest, my child," she said kindly. "Interrupting will not get you any closer to your destination."

Winn felt herself blushing, properly scolded.

"Perhaps, though, it is best if we divide our group?" Mother Agnes asked, and turned to a young novitiate. "Please take the Frauleins Alton to see the school." The novitiate, young and deferential, nodded and lead the girls down a different hallway in the school.

Freeing the adults of the party to follow Mother Agnes at her smooth gesture.

"I know of your quest because I have received word from my sister at the Franziskanerkirche. But I am afraid that you will find little help from us here."

"Why is that?" Jason asked as they crossed the small courtyard from the school to the convent, passing a line of schoolgirls as they did so.

"Because we are the Order of St. Clare-we believe quite strictly in the lack of personal possessions, to a degree some other orders find extreme."

"That actually makes sense with our case-for you see, the author of these letters gave her paintings away," Winn said, pulling the letters-which had since been carefully wrapped in the vellum and then kidskin leather Mr. Ellis procured for them-out of a portfolio she held tightly in her hands.

Mother Agnes glanced at the letters but declined with a simple wave to read them. "Our beliefs make it highly unlikely that any correspondence your author kept would have survived even her lifetime, never mind beyond it."

At Winn's silence and Jason's quizzical looks, Mr. Ellis jumped into the fray.

"But you do have a library, do you not?" Mr. Ellis asked. "Important papers, ecclesiastical texts, perhaps a registry of the members of your order?"

"We do, and you are welcome to look," Mother Superior said, leading them into the convent and down the hall to a modest room, with little more than a neat desk, a number of locked cabinets, and an unadorned window for light.

"This is my office. All the information you seek would be in these cabinets," Mother Agnes said, pulling out a key from the depths of her scapular and unlocking them with smooth, measured movements. She revealed a number of books and ledgers, all neatly delineated, in progressive states of age.

"Please be kind with the older documents," Mother Agnes said, and then with a discreet bow of her head, "I leave you to your searching."

"Mother Agnes-forgive me," Winn said, stopping the woman at the door of the spartan room. "We came here-that is, we were told a rumor that there once was a sister of some artistic repute."

"I was told the same rumor as a novitiate," Mother Agnes replied with a smile. "Only then it wasn't an artist who painted with Durer, but an astronomer who studied with Galileo. I'm sorry, my dear. Every place has its own mythologies."

Winn could feel all of her senses, all of the instinct that Mr. Ellis had ascribed to her, sitting up and shrieking against what Mother Agnes had just said. Because if it was true . . . then they would be back to square one. Back to the list. A list that had more than half the items checked off it already. To have hopes brought up and then doubted . . .

But she kept it to herself. She kept it to herself, set her shoulders, and turned to her friends.

Friends. How terribly funny to think of them as such. And how completely right.

"Well, gentlemen," she said with a smile. "No time like the present."

They each chose a cabinet and began. The light moved across the floor, the sun shifting places in the sky as morning became afternoon. They heard the church bells every hour, on the hour. Heard the girls move from their classes. If Winn had brought her head up from the books at all, she might have wondered where Gail and Evangeline had gotten to . . . a question that Mr. Ellis answered when he asked the novitiate, who brought them a small repast of bread and cheese around two and told them that the young frauleins had elected to sit in on a few of the classes at the school.

Mr. Ellis proved to be as good as his reputation. He was meticulous, respectful, and thorough in his searching. Jason, too, had by now, after all that time in Nuremberg and then the proceeding time at various book rooms and libraries of churches all over the Innere Stadt, worked up a surprisingly good tolerance for the quieter, dustier aspects of study. She found herself glancing at him more than once, his eyes straining on obscure German handwriting, and . . . well, it was silly, but she was proud of him.

Silly, because . . . he had always been this way. At least with her. He had always been steadfast, he'd always tried so very hard. There was no need for pride, and yet there it was anyway, shining and precious.

He glanced up and caught her gaze. Smiled. She glanced down immediately. She had to stop doing that. With their adventure ending, seeking his eyes was a habit she had to break. She had to maintain her distance.

But-those few kind glances aside-as diligent as they were, as tirelessly thorough, they needn't have been.

Within the first hour, she knew they weren't going to find anything.

No second half of correspondence, no record of a sister of the Order of St. Clare from around 1500 . . . no other leads.

It must have been past six when she closed the last book in the last cabinet. The light from the west was coming in bright yellow and orange, illuminating the dust that floated on the air like a dancing summer snow.

No one said anything for some minutes. Just allowed their eyes to adjust back to seeing distance, stretched their backs.

And again, her gaze unerringly found Jason's.

"Well . . . I think I shall go examine the chapel before we lose the light," Mr. Ellis said, backing out of the small office. "I'm terribly interested to see how they intend to repair the roof." They heard rather than saw him almost bump into the little candled prayer altar down the hall. "Oof! Here's hoping there hasn't been further damage caused to the works inside!" he cried, and was gone.

"Mr. Ellis is nothing if not the epitome of tact," Jason drawled, smiling that half smile at her.

But she couldn't smile back at him.

"I'm never going to find her, am I?" she said, leaning against Mother Agnes's desk.

"Of course you are," Jason replied, leaning against the desk next to her, crossing his arms over his chest, mimicking her exhausted posture. Perhaps he wasn't mimicking. Perhaps he was truly as exhausted as she. "How could you possibly even think it? There's half a list of Viennese nunneries yet to go through."

"I know." Winn shook her head. "Of course tomorrow is going to be another search of other churches, until another rumor is tracked down and another possibility opens up. But I felt so damned sure that this was the place. I had my hopes up. It's so hard to have them let down again." She chanced it, chanced connection, and reached out and patted his shoulder. "I'm simply indulging in a moment of self-pity. It will pass soon enough."

He looked for a moment as though he wanted to say something-a kind of anticipation crossed over his features. But then it fled, and he shrugged in his nonchalant manner.

"Self-pity?" Jason grinned. "How is it possible that you made it this far into the journey without indulging in self-pity?"