The reputation of the "Brentwood Prodigy" began to seep beyond the confines of his home, a slow, persistent leak that could not be contained. It was no longer just his parents who marveled; it was the vicar, who found himself bested in a discussion of biblical chronology by a five-year-old; it was the local schoolmaster, who declared the boy unteachable, as he already seemed to possess knowledge the schoolmaster himself had yet to grasp.
Lysander cultivated this reputation with the precision of a master gardener, allowing certain weeds of "ignorance" to grow, he feigned a lack of interest in childish games, a clumsiness with physical tasks, to make the flowers of his intellect seem all the more brilliant. He was creating a brand: Lysander, the Abstract Mind.
But his ultimate target remained Alistair Finch. And to approach Finch, his abstract knowledge needed a specific, alchemical focus. He began the most dangerous phase of his performance yet.
He started with his father. Using his carefully accumulated "genius" credit, he began asking more pointed questions.
"Father, when you tan the leather, the chemicals change its nature, do they not? It transforms from a skin that would rot into something that lasts. Is that not a form of… transmutation?"
Edmund, oiling a harness, paused. "I suppose you could call it that, son. But it's a practical craft. We're not trying to make gold."
"But the principle is the same, is it not?" Lysander pressed, his voice filled with a convincing, childlike wonder. "Changing one substance into another, improving it. Are there not books on this? On the deeper principles of change?"
Edmund looked at his son, a deep groove of concern forming between his eyebrows. "There are. But they are not for you, Lysander. They lead men down dark paths. The pursuit of gold is the pursuit of vanity. The pursuit of immortality is the pursuit of blasphemy."
"I do not seek gold or immortality," Lysander said, and this, at least, was the perfect truth. "I seek only to understand the principle. How can one thing become another? It is the greatest puzzle."
This relentless, Socratic questioning became his new norm. He steered conversations with his mother about cooking from recipes to the chemical changes that occurred when dough rose or sugar caramelized. He was building a documented, observable pattern of a mind obsessed with a single, alchemical concept: Transformation.
The breakthrough came from an unexpected source: Theodore. Now six, and fiercely loyal to his strange, brilliant friend, Theodore was a font of street-level intelligence.
"The magic man on Elm Street," Theodore reported one day, his voice hushed with dramatic import. "My da says he was at the print shop! He was ordering pamphlets. Da says they were full of strange symbols and drawings of… of glass eggs with snakes inside!"
Lysander's heart leaped. A print shop. Finch was disseminating his work. This was an opportunity, a point of entry he had not considered.
"Which print shop, Theo?" Lysander asked, trying to keep the urgency from his voice.
"Gable's, on Crown Street," Theodore said, proud of his spycraft.
The next "walk" with his mother was, through a series of calculated requests and feigned interests in the shop windows along the way, redirected to Crown Street. Lysander's eyes scanned the storefronts until he saw it: "Gable & Son, Printers." His pulse quickened.
"Mother, look! The printer's! Can we see the books?"
Clara, ever eager to feed his intellectual hunger, agreed. The bell above the door jingled as they entered. The air was thick with the smell of ink, oil, and paper, a scent that sent a painful, wonderful pang of nostalgia through Lysander for his own lost shop.
An elderly man with ink-stained fingers looked up from a press. "Good day, madam. Young sir. How can I help you?"
Before Clara could speak, Lysander pointed to a stack of freshly printed pamphlets on the counter. They were indeed covered in alchemical symbols: the ouroboros, the symbols for sulfur and mercury, intricate diagrams of distillation retorts. "What are those?" he asked, his voice filled with a perfectly feigned, naive curiosity.
The printer, Mr. Gable, chuckled. "Ah, that is the work of a… particular client. Not for young eyes, I fear. Complex philosophies."
"I like complex things," Lysander said, looking the man directly in the eye. "I like to know how things change. My father says the alchemists seek the secrets of change."
Mr. Gable's bushy eyebrows rose. "Does he now? And what does a lad like you know of alchemy?"
Lysander took a breath. This was the moment. He had to plant the seed here, in neutral territory, where it could be reported back.
"I know that Paracelsus said the purpose of alchemy is not to make gold, but to make medicines," Lysander recited, having prepared this line for weeks. "That the true transformation is of the self. That to understand the Prima Materia is to understand the soul of the world."
The silence in the print shop was absolute. Clara stared at her son, her hand flying to her mouth. Mr. Gable looked utterly flabbergasted, as if a puppy had just recited Shakespeare.
"Upon my soul," the printer breathed. "Where did you learn that, boy?"
"The words… they come to me," Lysander said, using his standard, unassailable excuse. He looked at the pamphlets with a longing he did not have to fake. "I should very much like to understand the symbols."
He left the shop with his stunned mother, the bell jingling behind them. The performance was complete. He had publicly, and verifiably, declared his esoteric interest to a man who had direct business with Alistair Finch. It was a message in a bottle, tossed directly into the current that led to Finch's door. He had presented himself not as a threat, nor as a mere child, but as a potential acolyte, a rare, intellectual curiosity that a reclusive, egotistical alchemist would find impossible to ignore.
The risk was immense. He had drawn a line in the sand of his carefully constructed life, pointing it directly at the most dangerous man he knew. But as he walked home, the scent of printer's ink still clinging to his clothes, he felt a grim satisfaction. The hunter had just laid a trap, using his own reputation as bait. The next move was Finch's. All Lysander could do was wait, and hope that the alchemist's hunger for a singular phenomenon would outweigh his instinct for secrecy.