

Both Flamels need the Codex to make the elixir of life, or they will age rapidly and die within a month. Dee also uses magic and takes the Codex by force while Josh is holding it – resulting in two pages being left behind "The Final Summoning" pages that Dee needs to raise the Dark Elders, the beings whom Dee serves, and who have kept him immortal for several hundred years.

He discovers that Nick is not an ordinary bookseller, but is the medieval and the legendary alchemist, Nicholas Flamel, being kept alive by making the elixir of life (a secret from the Codex) for him and his wife, Perenelle. Josh witnesses both Nick and Perry using magic. Sophie and Josh Newman are 15-year-old twins who are working at their summer jobs in The Coffee Cup in San Francisco (Sophie works at The Coffee Cup, Josh works at the bookstore on the other side of the street) when a mysterious man, John Dee, comes into the bookstore for a book, the Codex – or Book of Abraham the Mage.
