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They exchanged glances. William continued.
“Now’s your move, Alexandra. Such is the nature of the game – you represent the forces of chaos.”
“And me?” Christopher widened his eyes.
“Your partron desperately clings to order, but soon he will understand that there will be no more old order – because he has already begun his path to becoming.”
“Hooray!” Christopher exclaimed. “I mean, I hope it doesn’t tear him apart and all, and I’ll finally get to meet him.”
“So what’s going to be my move?” Alexandra spoke.
“Any – it depends on your wish to move the plot along. To push what’s already moving.”
“Christopher’s partron,” Alexandra concluded. “He came into motion.”
William nodded.
“So I need the one who acts in a circus, jumps through fiery hoops, spies for the British Queen, and he’s on the first stage of the Great Work already?”
“Exactly,” William agreed.
“What should I do with the wine – and the fact that someone wanted to kill me?”
“Trust your intuition. They didn’t intend to kill you – it was a counter-move, an attempt to provoke a reaction.”
“Why a counter-move?”
“You’re successful,” Christopher answered for William. “They’re afraid of your radiance. Your existence is like a red flag to them.”
“After what happened, there will be even more resonance.”
“They’re foolish. They’ve read your books, but they didn’t understand anything.”
“That’s how it always goes—”
“Our lot, Alexandra, is to be out of time and place in our era,” William rose from the chair, adjusted his jacket’s lapels. “And to get slaps on the back of our heads from those who speak a different language.”
“It’s a wordplay,” Christopher added. “They can speak our language just fine.”
Christopher repeated after William as he stood, Alexandra watched them walk to the exit, as always, no goodbyes.
The young man turned around.
“Circus,” he reminded.
Alexandra nodded. When they disappeared, she mouthed the word – to make sure she remembers.
10. Breakfast
[Great Britain, London, City of Westminster]
Alexandra was in the bathroom, Richard was leafing through the red notebook that she left on the table, brows furrowed on his handsome face. The words arranged into formulas, in English and Russian, the notes were divided into chapters, sectioned by associative array.
Keys, lists of names and phrases – sorted by the stages of the Great Work, according to her system of symbols … Turning the notebook over and opening it on the other side, Richard found conventional notes, sorted chronologically.
As soon as she woke up, she wrote down: ‘Christopher’s partron acts in a circus’.
The word ‘circus’ jolted Richard – it had to be a coincidence, she can’t have found out about the Circus. ‘Partron’ is most likely a neologism, or Poet jargon.
There was a knock at the door, Richard shuddered. He quickly put the red notebook back to where it was and opened the door to find breakfast served appetizingly on a cart. Richard knew Alexandra will be happy to see the pot of coffee and a jug of warm milk, but won’t even touch the food … He wanted to display himself as trying to be thoughtful, though not always getting it right.
She came out of the bathroom in her underwear, her hair in a messy bun, her bangs parted on her forehead. Richard sat in the chair in his underwear, too, scrolling through the news on his phone, appearing bored, he took some time before he turned to smile at her.
“Good morning.”
He was awake when she woke up, and pretended to be asleep. His eyes closed, he listened to her stir and stretch across the wide bed, he felt her glance and heard the sigh of her scoff.
Right away, she got up and went to the living room to write something in the red book.
She seemed unhappy to see him – unhappy that he didn’t think to leave.
“Good morning, Richard,” she said.
Richard put his phone down and approached her – he headed to the bathroom. Alexandra appraised him openly, half-smiling, he stayed in his underwear on purpose, to show off his six-foot tall bodybuilder figure – broad chest and shoulders, six-pack and round ass … The white snake of a scar on his left shoulder, a pink blot of a scar on his right pectoral, something pale, a barely noticeable scar or burn, on his left thigh. If she turned to follow him with her gaze, she’d have seen two more – under his left shoulder blade and under his right knee.
He walked past her, closed the door, and met his own eyes in the mirror.
He needed to find out who Christopher is.
Alexandra didn’t wait for Richard as she went to pour her coffee, climbed onto the couch – it still glittered from yesterday – and stared into the void until the bathroom door opened.
“I’m afraid to read the news,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Then don’t. Your managers will tell you everything you need to know – the rest doesn’t matter.”
His hair was wet as if he didn’t dry it at all, wetness glistened on his neck, shoulders and thighs. He won’t be able to seduce her with that.
“I forgot to thank you. Thanks. For sticking with me through this, for— Well, you know—”
She waved her hand – the empty cup in her other – as she tried to explain her feelings, but it was a rare moment when Alexandra the wordsmith was at a loss for words.
“I was happy to help. And I will be happy to help – if you let me.”
She simply sighed.
“The lawyer didn’t call. They’ll likely take our fingerprints – you, me, everyone in the official lists. They won’t be able to identify all guests – there wasn’t a registration for the event.”
A real detective … Richard sat next to her and carefully took the cup from her hand.
“It’s not your fault. None of it. The police will handle it. You’re safe now, I’m here, no one will dare to put you in danger again.”
On and on he goes! Like he wants her to jump at every shadow, to dread staying alone.
“They probably won’t try to poison your food again,” he nodded at the breakfast cart.
Alexandra scoffed.
“I know. Whoever it was, they were trying to provoke me, not kill me.”
Richard’s face fell slightly, he started turning the cup in his hand, watching the smears of coffee foam inside it.
Alchemists see symbols even in the abstract – like a Rorschach test.
“It could have been one of your haters – they feed on fear.”
“It wasn’t a hater,” Alexandra protested, and when Richard looked at her, added, “their methods are less sophisticated.”
A scentless poison handed directly to her, a rational explanation will come later along the way. And the innocent victim’s name will sink into the crowd.
She had no proof – just her gut and what William and Christopher had told her in her visions.
“Then who? Do you have any theories?”
He tried to understand, to figure it all out – but to a layman her symbols were mere fantasy tropes, not truth or objective reality.
Everything needs to be called by its name – and the nameless must be named.
“I’d call it a conspiracy of writers,” Alexandra said. “And a bad set of circumstances where I’m to be guillotined for my freethinking ways.”
Richard’s not interested in books – only in her. How does she get it through to him that her writing is her life, that everything is important – and interconnected? He always listened carefully, and she still couldn’t grasp why – because he was trying too
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