The Warlock (the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #5)

The fifth book in the six-part Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series opens with a prologue written by Perenelle Flamel, wife of the legendary alchemist Nicholas Flamel. Writing from a collapsing Shadowrealm, a pocket dimension adjacent to San Francisco, Perenelle reports that Nicholas has fallen unconscious after using a crystal skull to track 15-year-old Josh Newman. In previous books, Josh and his twin sister Sophie were identified as the twins of an ancient prophecy, one destined to save the world and the other to destroy it. Now Josh has chosen to leave with the villainous Dr. John Dee, an immortal English Magician, and the dangerous American immortal Virginia Dare, an old associate of Dee's, rather than stay with Sophie or the Flamels. Perenelle reveals that a hook-handed man told her about this day when she was a child, and she knows what she must do.

Multiple storylines unfold simultaneously. In Paris, Isis and Osiris, a husband-and-wife pair of Elders, members of an ancient race of powerful beings who once ruled the world, travel through linked Shadowrealms to visit Mars Ultor, an Elder warrior imprisoned beneath the city for millennia. Mars's estranged wife, the Witch of Endor (also called Zephaniah), trapped him centuries earlier in a shell of his own hardened aura, the magical energy that surrounds all beings. Now Zephaniah frees Mars, declaring the world needs a warlock, an oath breaker, again.

In San Francisco, Josh drives Dee and Dare away from a burning building on Telegraph Hill. Disoriented after his encounter with the Archon Coatlicue, a being from a race that predates the Elders, Josh is vulnerable to Dee's manipulation. Dee claims Sophie is under the Flamels' spell and that the only way to save her is to kill Nicholas or Perenelle. Josh admits he trusts Dee more than the Flamels, though he secretly carries two pages torn from the Codex, the ancient Book of Abraham the Mage.

Meanwhile, Sophie and the immortal Japanese Swordsman Niten flee Telegraph Hill on foot. Sophie is devastated by Josh's departure. Niten shares his own grief: Aoife, the warrior he has loved for four centuries, is trapped in a Shadowrealm fighting Coatlicue. They head to the house of Aunt Agnes, the elderly woman Sophie has known all her life. Agnes shocks Sophie by addressing Niten by his real name, Miyamoto Musashi, in Japanese. Sophie faints as she realizes her aunt is Tsagaglalal, an ageless being known as She Who Watches.

Prometheus, the Elder known as the Master of Fire, races a jeep through his own dying Shadowrealm with the unconscious Nicholas and Perenelle. The crystal skull drained his memories and energy, turning his red hair white. His world dissolves into nothingness, and his First People, clay creatures he animated millennia ago, crumble to dust. They barely escape into the earth Shadowrealm at Point Reyes. Perenelle reveals that the hook-handed man, Marethyu, has been shaping events for millennia, and she directs Prometheus to Tsagaglalal.

On Alcatraz Island, which Dee's company Enoch Enterprises secretly converted into a holding facility for monsters, the Italian immortal Niccolò Machiavelli and the American immortal Billy the Kid meet Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, an Elder whose lower body resembles an octopus. Nereus offers a Lotan, a seven-headed sea dragon, as the first creature to unleash on the city. The Elders' broader plan is to release monsters on San Francisco and then appear as saviors, reclaiming humanity's worship.

Ten thousand years in the past, on the island of Danu Talis, Marethyu explains to his immortal companions—Scathach the Warrior, Joan of Arc, the Comte de Saint-Germain, the Saracen Knight Palamedes, and William Shakespeare—that Isis and Osiris plan to prevent Danu Talis from sinking. If they succeed, the future world will never exist. The island must fall so that the magic released transforms the world and gives rise to humankind. Before the group can act, anpu, jackal-headed warriors, capture them in vimanas, spinning flying discs, and imprison them in caves inside an active volcano. Marethyu is separated from the others.

Back in the present, Dee reveals his true ambition: He intends to use the Codex to travel back in time to Danu Talis and destroy all the Elders while they are gathered in one place. He promises Virginia rule over the Shadowrealms and offers Josh the earth itself.

At Tsagaglalal's house, the threads converge. Nicholas lies dying. Perenelle asks Sophie and Tsagaglalal to help transfer a portion of her own life force into Nicholas using a jade scarab as a conduit. The process turns dangerous as Perenelle's aura darkens and she drains energy from everyone present. Sophie wrenches free, and Prometheus and Niten intervene. Nicholas revives, granted one extra day of life at the cost of one of Perenelle's remaining two days.

Elders begin arriving. Mars Ultor comes on foot, still adjusting after centuries of imprisonment. Odin, a one-eyed Elder, arrives with his niece Hel and the immortal Black Hawk, a Native American warrior serving the Elder Quetzalcoatl. Hel's body is diseased, her legs little more than bare bones. All three seek to kill Dee. Tsagaglalal commands them to put aside their enmities and distributes emerald tablets that Abraham the Mage inscribed 10,000 years ago, each personalized for its recipient. Sophie's tablet warns that she has the power to save or destroy the world and that success will come at a devastating personal cost.

Privately, Tsagaglalal reveals to Sophie that she is one of Prometheus's First People, made immortal by Abraham to watch over Sophie's ancestors. She teaches Sophie that all magic is the shaping of one's aura through imagination and will, with no true distinction among the elemental magics.

On Danu Talis, Marethyu persuades Aten, the Lord of Danu Talis, that the island must fall. Aten helps Marethyu escape in an ancient crystal vimana, knowing his brother Anubis and their cat-headed mother Bastet will use the betrayal to seize the throne. Meanwhile, Prometheus rescues Scathach's group from the volcano prison using a large Rukma vimana, a warship-class flying craft. They reach Abraham's crystal tower, where Gilgamesh the King and the young Tsagaglalal defend the Mage as he finishes writing the Codex. Abraham addresses each companion with personalized guidance before sending them to ensure Danu Talis falls.

On Alcatraz, Machiavelli and Billy privately decide they cannot release monsters on innocent people and declare themselves warlocks, oath breakers against their Elder masters. Virginia Dare offers to awaken the creatures with her flute in exchange for Billy's life, and Dee accepts. She also teaches Josh the Magic of Air. When Mars, Odin, and Hel arrive to kill Dee, the Magician releases the monsters to slow them, then arranges the four Swords of Power, ancient stone blades, in a rectangle and pours his aura into them, opening a portal of swirling blackness.

At Pier 14, Nicholas uses a Transmutation spell to revert the Lotan to its original egg form just as the creature erupts from the bay. A seagull snatches the egg, neutralizing the threat.

Sophie uses her emerald tablet as a leygate mirror, a tool that lets her travel through magical pathways, to transport herself from Tsagaglalal's garden to Alcatraz. Dee and Dare have already leapt through the portal. Sophie grabs Josh's hand as he moves to follow, pleading with him to stay. Josh insists the Flamels are using her. Sophie pushes instead of pulling, and both twins tumble through into nothingness together.

They emerge on Danu Talis. A vimana descends and a couple in white ceramic armor steps out, greeting the twins by name. Sophie and Josh recognize them and respond: "Mom...Dad." The couple identifies themselves as Isis and Osiris and welcomes the children to Danu Talis, calling it home. The story continues in the sixth and final volume, The Enchantress.