Out of his pocket Daniel now takes the small wooden chest. He sets it on Isaac’s lap and opens it. The contents are a stoppered glass flask containing a red liquid, and a paper packet, like a wee Sinthia no bigger than Daniel’s fingernail. Daniel unfolds this with great care to expose a small quantity of gold dust. This is what remains of the ring that Solomon Kohan gave him, which Daniel melted last night to make a counterfeit guinea. Half of that guinea was snipped up into tiny shards that ought to be up Mr. Threader’s sleeve just now. The rest of it Daniel tediously rubbed against a file until it was all gone, and collected the dust of it into this paper packet. The particles are so fine that one needs a microscope to view them; this ought to mean that their superficies are enormous, and easily penetrable by any surrounding menstruum. Right now that happens to be air, and not much seems to be happening. But it is time to carry out the last step, which is to place them in a very different menstruum, altogether more reactive. Daniel picks up the phial of scarlet fluid and thumbs the cork out of it, then, practically in the same motion, pours the dust of the Solomonic Gold into the fluid. He replaces the cork and, holding the flask between his palms, clamps the stopper in place with both thumbs and gives it a shake.