The Copernicus Archives #2 by Tony Abbott

friend of Terence’s, and her granddaughter a friend of Julian’s, and have anything to do with the Teutonic Order.
    I knew she was on our side. How could a Wren be anything else?
    â€œHans Holbein made a puzzle. I saw it in a . . . dream, then drew it,” I said, opening my notebook. “This isn’t the original, but it’s pretty exact.”
    I showed her what I had drawn on the train.
    Mavis drew in a breath. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my dear!”

C HAPTER F IFTEEN
    M avis’s face went dark, concentrated, but her old eyes glowed.
    â€œAnd I thought you were going to give me something simple. This is quite fascinating. The Gothic-style letters”—she pointed them out with the retracted tip of her ballpoint—“proclaim it as indeed German, early sixteenth century. Holbein is very likely its author. The alchemical symbols are common enough.”
    â€œWe think it tells the location of something Sir Thomas More called an algorism stone, which we think is code for a special box,” Wade said, glancing at me. “When he was executed, we think he gave this box to his family.”
    â€œWe can tell you more, but there’s a bit of danger involved,” said Sara.
    â€œMore than a bit,” Darrell added. “There’s a group called the Teutonic Order trying to stop us from decrypting this.”
    â€œBy any means necessary,” said Lily.
    â€œThey’ve already tried to kill us,” Wade said.
    â€œKill you?” said Mavis. “Well, of course they have! You only know you’re onto something if someone wants you dead. I’m trained for that, you know.”
    She took a huge sloshing gulp of tea, pushed her cup to the side, bent over my notebook, then jumped to her feet. “I need the photocopy machine!” She bounded across the hall, where a copier was hidden behind a narrow set of closet doors.
    â€œIs there a restroom?” asked Sara.
    â€œI’ll show you,” said Emma.
    No sooner had they left the room than an elderly gentleman doddered into the library. I wondered if he had worked at Bletchley Park, too, and asked him.
    â€œAh, no,” he said. “Thothe codebweakers were the weal hewoes.”
    His pant legs were clipped tightly around his calves, indicating that he had just been on a bicycle. He had a mop of bushy gray hair and thick glasses that kept sliding down his nose as he peered at the books. He grinnedtoothily. “Bookth! Thome of them you can’t find anywhere elthe in England!”
    I smiled back. “It’s a wonderful place, isn’t it?”
    â€œOh, it ith,” he said. “It thertainly ith. Ta-ta!”
    After nearly knocking him down on her way back in, Mavis stormed over to us, waving a sheet of white card stock. “Scissors!” she shouted, even as she rummaged through the old drawers, wrenching them out until she had found a pair. In seconds she had trimmed her copy into a perfect circle.
    â€œYou said this was Holbein’s puzzle?” Mavis asked.
    â€œYes—”
    â€œIncorrect!” she said.
    â€œBut, I’m pretty sure—”
    â€œThis,” she said, “is one half of Holbein’s puzzle! It is, as you probably guessed, the base of a two-part cipher wheel. The other wheel will be smaller and fit over this one. You’ll also need a key to know the sequence of turns for the top wheel. The key could be a word or a number and could, in fact, be among the symbols on this wheel. But you won’t find the answer without the top wheel.”
    â€œSomething else to look for,” said Lily. “Is there anything you can tell us?”
    Mavis nodded her head. “There is some code-breaking we can do. For instance, nine Gothic letters areinterspersed with the symbols. They need to be unscrambled. There are several Latin letters here, too. They could spell a clue, or a number. For that, we will need the Bombe. And