Boris was waiting for her outside the café, his back turned as he looked down at the menu card. Alice watched him for a few moments before sighing and walking up to him.
Wordlessly, she took the seat on the other side of the table. Boris looked up at the sound of chair legs scraping against concrete. "Oh. Alice."
She studied his expression carefully. He didn't seem angry at seeing her again. If anything, he looked surprised.
"So, you got my note," she said uselessly.
"Yeah."
The silence that hung between them was so thick it felt tangible. Alice held her breath, wondering whether to go first or let Boris speak. She'd rehearsed everything she'd wanted to say on the way here in her head, but now that she was face-to-face with him, her thoughts had gone blank.
Finally, Boris shuffled in his seat. "How have you been?"
"Fine," said Alice. "And you?"
"No complaints. How are the Hatters?"
Unlike last time, there didn't appear to be any anger in his voice. Alice dropped her eyes to the table. "They're all okay." In fact, she'd just come here from the mansion.
"Glad to hear it." Suddenly, Boris sighed and shook his head. "Look, let's just get it out of the way with. I was wrong to shout at you, and I've been feeling bad about it ever since. I'm sorry, Alice."
Hearing Boris break the ice, Alice felt her words float to the surface once again. "No, I'm the one who should be apologising. You're one of my closest friends and I was wrong to lie to you, especially after everything you'd done for me."
Boris reached across the table and placed his hands on top of hers. He flashed her a warm smile. "Apology accepted. Fighting sucks, right?"
"It really does." Encouraged by his smile, Alice laughed softly in relief. She'd been worried about this for so long.
"I didn't tell you at the time, but you really smacked me hard. I was impressed!"
"Oh." Alice felt her cheeks redden. She'd forgotten about that. "Sorry."
"No need. I deserved it." He looked up as a waiter approached their table carrying a tray of drinks. "I ordered you lemonade. Is that okay?"
"Perfect." After thanking the waiter, she took a sip. The sharpness of the lemon juice rolled across her tongue.
"Julius has been asking about you," said Boris, downing half of his glass in one. He'd apparently opted for some kind of iced tea.
The last time Alice had seen Julius had been the time when she'd found his sketch pad. She'd been on her way to visit him when one of Raphael's group had kidnapped her. "How is he handling being away from the tower?"
"Fine. Mostly, at least. Gowland's the one who sees him the most. He never leaves the house. I think the Amusement Park scares him."
Alice couldn't hold back her giggle. She'd actually been considering taking Julius to the park at some point. He'd probably hate it and have to be dragged off the sofa, but she figured it would be a welcome change of pace for the both of them, a distraction from everything that had been going on.
"So," said Boris, leaning back in his chair, "there's probably a bunch of stuff I've missed while we've been apart. Fancy filling me in?"
Alice took a sip of her drink. She'd been planning on telling him about Raphael, but as her eyes scanned her surroundings, she realised it would probably be better to hold on until later. The tables around them were packed with faceless, and she wasn't about to run the risk of one of his spies overhearing them talking.
She kept the conversation light until they'd finished their drinks and were walking down the street. Boris stretched out his arms, threw back his head and yawned.
"That was nice. I can't remember the last time I went to a café with someone else." He smiled at Alice. "Do you want to go to the Amusement Park for a bit? We're running a promotion where you can get a free ice cream."
With the lemonade having awakened her sweet tooth, Alice had to admit that ice cream sounded good right now, but she shook her head. "I was hoping we could talk somewhere more private, actually." Seeing the flash of fear in Boris's eyes, she quickly added, "Nothing bad has happened. Don't worry."
At least, I don't think it has, she thought.
"Of course." Boris took her by the wrist and gently led her forward. "Come on. I know just the place."
"And he just keeps them there, you say?"
"No," said Alice. "They want to be there. Some of them even have children."
"Huh." Boris and rubbed his chin. "Well, I can honestly tell you I wasn't expecting any of that."
"Neither was I." Alice leaned back on her hands, the grass tickling her fingers. The small meadow they sat in lay just outside the village. With the forest on one side and houses on the other, it was the perfect spot away from eavesdroppers.
"Do you think they mean any harm?" asked Boris a little hesitantly.
Alice thought back to the time she'd spent with Raphael. While she wasn't about to say she trusted him completely, her gut told her that he'd been telling the truth. After all, if he and his people had been living in the mountains peacefully all this time, then what reason did he have to lie?
Boris nodded when Alice told him that. "True, true. This other group, though, the one that split off at the beginning..."
Even now, Alice wasn't sure what to think about that. "They're the dangerous ones. It's likely that they've been taking clocks and controlling the afterimages."
"Controlling afterimages, huh?" Boris fell back against the grass and looked up at her, the dark pink of his hair a stark contrast against the green. "I didn't know the faceless could do that. Heck, I didn't know the faceless even had a reason to do something like that. I always just thought they, you know, went along with the flow."
Nobody cares if we're hurt or even killed. The role-holders take centre stage and we faceless are the background players. Raphael's words returned to her with surprising clarity. It seemed that to the role-holders, as well as her, there were still so many aspects of the faceless that were overlooked.
"Do you think that he was just telling you what he wanted you to hear?" Boris continued. "He did drug and kidnap you, after all."
"I'm not sure. It's not like it matters either way at the moment. The only way to get into the caves is through a long corridor, and they have guards on patrol. Even if you took an army, you'd only be able to enter in single file, and they'd pick you off one-by-one."
Raphael had been very clear in explaining that to Alice. It hadn't been a threat, but a warning that he and his people wouldn't hesitate to defend their home to the death. Not that Alice had any intentions of disrupting their way of life. Raphael had made her swear not to tell another soul about the existence of their community, but it wasn't as if she could keep something like this to herself. Boris was only the second person she'd told after Blood, and she'd made the pair of them promise to stay quiet about it. Blood had sworn not even to tell Elliot.
"I'm not saying we take an army there." Boris grinned as he turned onto his front. "That'd be fun, though, wouldn't it? Everyone shooting their guns at the same time, people screaming left and right. I haven't had a proper fight in ages."
Despite the amount of times she'd been living here, it was apparent to Alice that she and the residents still had very different opinions about the meaning of 'fun'.
"If the other group really are the ones who destroyed the Clock Tower and are getting the afterimages to attack people, what do you think it means?" Alice drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest.
"They probably want to change time or something. That's the usual reason people mess around with clocks, isn't it? It's a shame Ace isn't around to sort them out."
"That's more or less what Raphael said," Alice muttered.
"I never liked the guy, but damn, was he good with a sword. Scary good. In fact—" He paused suddenly, as if remembering something. "Ah, sorry. I don't need to tell you what you already know, right?"
Alice shook her head. "Don't worry about it." She didn't particularly like remembering the time Ace had almost killed her in a duel, but she didn't hold it against Boris for bringing it up. "The way you're talking about Ace makes it sound like he's dead."
"Of course not. At least, I don't think so. I've never broken the rules that badly before." With a sigh, Boris rolled onto his back again. "I don't plan on dying anytime soon, either. It'll take more than a few bullets to bring me down."
He shot Alice a playful look, but she was too deep in thought to return it. She never had gotten around to talking to Elliot about what had happened to Ace. Now it seemed that the only one who knew how to go forward was the Knight.
If only there were some way to reach out to him. If she could speak to him for just a few minutes, it might help shine a light on the situation. At the moment, all she had was shards of information scattered around like broken glass. As the Executioner, someone who'd once dealt with faceless who broke the rules, Ace must have some knowledge of how to track down the group causing these attacks. Alice wouldn't see another of her friends hurt. She had to put an end to this, even if it meant taking up a sword and doing the job herself.