There was a single desk in the room, a great ancient thing carved from some kind of deep red tropical wood, empty apart from a single lit candle and an antique rotary dial phone. The man behind it rose when she entered and remained standing, the top of his face hidden by the excessive folds of the purple robe that he wore. He was clean- shaven, olive-skinned, and perhaps middle-aged, she guessed.
“Purple?” Alice said skeptically, cocking her head to one side and grinning, the heavy gun again resting across her shoulders, one hand wrapped loosely around the grip. “That’s what you went with?”
The part of the man’s face she could see smiled back.
“Purple was once reserved for royalty,” he said softly. “Purple is also the color of magic.”
Alice’s grin broadened.
“You might want to go with something a bit more contemporary,” she offered. “These days, a guy in a purple bathrobe might seem a little gay.”
When the man laughed, the silken folds of his robe flexed and bent, moving gently as if in the wind, the metallic thread that constituted the fringe catching the light in odd ways. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper, but she had no trouble hearing it nonetheless, even from across the room. On the desk, the lone red candle guttered, little more than a nub, its flame buffeted by a wind that she could not feel.
“Do you really not remember me at all, Alice?”
The man asked the question softly, the same half-smile on his face, ambiguous and somehow off- putting.
Alice shrugged, unconcerned.
“Look, I already had this conversation once today, with someone I would have actually liked to be able to remember, so can we just,” Alice gestured impatiently with her free hand, “get on with this?”
The man smiled, briefly, gently.
“You’ve always been impatient, Alice,” he said affectionately. “And I am sorry to delay you, but I have to admit this reunion is something that I’ve been looking forward to for some time. You see, my dear, you work for me.”
Alice laughed.
“Right. Whatever you say, boss.”
“No, I’m telling the truth,” the man in the robe said insistently. “You were one of my very best.”
“If I work for you,” Alice said acidly, “then why is it that I am here conducting an Audit on Central’s authority?”
“Because that’s what I asked you to do,” the man said, shrugging, a gesture that sent ripples down the length of the purple fabric. “More than two hundred years ago. I needed you to become an Auditor, Alice, and you’ve done so very well for me. I am truly grateful.”
“Right, fuck this,” Alice snapped. “Since I’m on official business, I’ll need your name. You can tell me, or I can have Alistair interrogate your corpse. No big thing to me, either way.”
The man chuckled softly.
“We used to be lovers, you know? It hurts my pride very much that you don’t remember me. And I’m not telling you my name because you already know it. But, if you can’t remember it, then you can call me the Rosicrucian.”
Alice lifted the shotgun off her shoulders, leveling it one-handed at the man’s head. Around her, she heard the heavy footfalls and the deep guttural intakes of breath from the restless crowd of Weir, nervous and uncertain. Behind the gaping mouth of the gun, Alice’s face lit up with pure, feral ecstasy.
“Whatever you say,” Alice said, leering. “In that case, try and get me off, before I finish you.”
The Rosicrucian raised his arms up, only his olive fingers visible poking out from the generous sleeves, small purple sparks dancing around him in strange, contrary rotations, snapping and sparking in the air around him.
“You can’t possibly win, Alice,” he said, almost pleaded. “This isn’t necessary.”
Alice smile widened by a millimeter. Then she pulled the trigger.
Thirty One
“It snowed. When did it snow?”
Eerie frowned and brushed a strand of hair out of his face that had somehow freed itself from the confines of his new knit cap. He’d been a bit surprised that it fit him perfectly, until it occurred to him that Eerie had knitted it while he lay unconscious, and that she probably had ample opportunity to get the size right.
“It started snowing almost two weeks ago,” Eerie said with a concerned smile.
“Wow,” Alex said, wincing. “It’s still hard to believe its December. Last I remember it was a week before Halloween.”
Alex looked around the quad, stunned at how much had changed while he slept. The whole campus was buried under nearly a foot of virtually undisturbed snow, with more falling in fat white flakes, turning over in lazy revolutions as they descended. Everything was covered in a layer of powder, even the sides of the buildings and the ornate stonework.
“I was worried,” Eerie admitted, “especially during the first week. But, Rebecca came down to see you every day, and she told me that you would definitely wake up.”
The only snow Alex had ever seen had been closer to hail, one particularly cold winter in Bakersfield. It had melted as it hit the ground, hard round balls of ice that turned brown and disintegrated into the mud. This was nothing like that, and he was reduced to a state something like awe. Without even thinking about it, he found himself sticking his tongue out to catch the snow on, something that he had only read about in books.
“I’m a little surprised that everyone worried about me so much,” Alex said, looking up at the dense grey sky. “I didn’t really expect that…”
“Not everyone was worried,” Eerie said mischievously. “Anastasia never even asked about you.”
Eerie laughed and twirled around next to him, her sneakers making only a slight indention on the snow as she walked along the top of it, as if it had simply never occurred to her that she was supposed to sink.
“You missed the Winter Dance,” Eerie added shyly, looking away. “I wore a dress.”
“Oh,” Alex stammered. “Um. I’m sorry I missed it. I wish I could have seen that.”
Eerie’s cheeks burned.
“Maybe some other time…”
They walked along the cleared path in the quad, Alex staring at the clumps of brown grass that peaked through at the edges where the snow was thinnest. He wondered if the grass was still alive, despite the brown, despite all the snow, just waiting for the right time to let everyone know it, and felt strangely envious.
“Alex is happy to be back,” Eerie observed warmly, her eyes sparkling. “The Academy starts to feel a bit like home, doesn’t it?”
Alex crouched down and grabbed a handful of the snow, attempting to mold it into a snowball, disappointed to find that it was too dry and wouldn’t stick together. He looked up at Eerie and smiled, tossing the snow aside.
“I guess,” he said, standing up to walk beside her. “I’m not sure that I know what home feels like, to be honest. But, I feel, I don’t know… like I want to be here,” Alex said, struggling for words, “or something like that. I think I have friends here. I guess I’m closer to happy here than I’ve been anywhere else.”
Alex was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, walking beside Eerie, his own sneakers crunching through the snow and slowly soaking through, Eerie padding along beside him almost silently. She was cute, he thought, with bits of snow caught in her tussled blue hair, almost an inch of blond showing at her part, wrapped in her oversized sweatshirt. She caught him looking at her and smiled at him, causing him to blush and look away.
“What about you, Eerie?”
Eerie appeared to consider it for a moment, hopping up onto the edge of a concrete planter that bordered the quad, walking along the edge, one foot in front of the other, her arms spread for balance.
“I have two homes already,” she said finally. “But I’ve never been happy there. So I like it better here, too. “
Alex looked over at her, as she hopped down at the edge of the planter, her cheeks flushed, her hands hidden
