St. Dunstan-in-the-East, London – 2:06 p.m.
The ruined church was half-eaten by ivy. Bombed during the Blitz, its Gothic arches still stood like rib bones of a fallen giant. But beneath the crumbling beauty, Langdon sensed purpose.
"Looks abandoned," Lenka whispered.
Langdon approached the rusted gate and saw the symbol carved subtly into the stone threshold—a downward spiral inside a sunburst.
"Renaissance philosophers believed ruins weren't destruction," he murmured.
"They were initiation." They stepped inside.
Within the nave, sunlight filtered through broken glass, revealing a strange geometrical layout of the pews—moved recently into a nine-pointed star.
At its centre, a brass plate had been bolted to the floor.
Lenka knelt. "It's a lock." Langdon examined the star's orientation. "This isn't Christian… it's Hermetic. And each point of the star aligns with a planet." He pulled the Prague scroll from his satchel and overlaid it.
Perfect fit.
With his fingertip, he traced a path from Mercury to Saturn to Jupiter.
Click.
The floor shifted. A spiral staircase revealed itself, descending into darkness.
Langdon turned to Lenka.
"You still believe in impossible?" She cracked a rare smile.
"Let's go find her."