Lacking real options, you sit primly in the corner of the settee. Richard flips the board back over. It remains blank.

  "Charlie," he says, and you know immediately this is some kind of recitation: his voice has settled into a rich narrator-cadence. "Your twopenny relationship drama? It's blather. To anybody of intellect, it holds no interest whatsoever. A thing goes in a hole; a thing doesn't go in a hole— please! So let us forget it entirely, and turn instead to what holds genuine intrigue..." He scratches something down with a stick of chalk.

  "...the metaphysical anomalies." (He has written the same on the blackboard.) You open your mouth. "In small words for you, Charlie? Things bad with Ellery man. Things wrong. Things broken. Things— have you or have you not deemed him 'weird'?"

  "Yes? And?"

  "While facile, it is directionally correct. In your parlance, he is 'weird'. First thing: he should not have been there." He is writing this, too. "A person is not in a manse when they are sleeping. At best they are dreaming, which is quite another thing. The man was certainly asleep, not merely vacant, and yet he was inside his own manse, and worse: lucid. Ordinarily unthinkable."

  (Blackboard: 1. WAS THERE.)

  "Second thing: He should not have been there. Did you notice what he said about me?"

  You think back. "Nice bow?"

  Richard touches his bow tie self-consciously. "Er, yes, but… no. No. He saw me as a snake, Charlie, when I was otherwise. And this has a fairly rational explanation." He draws a circle and divides it into horizontal thirds. "A manse has three layers, each straying progressively farther from reality. On the first, I look as I am now." He tugs at his lapel. "Because you still wield enough influence to make it so. On the second, you do not; thus, accordingly unburdened, I would appear as a snake."

  "Hold on," you say. "Are you saying he saw through to the second layer?"

  "That, or he was operating on multiple layers at once. He was on the second layer. Maybe the third. The Ellery you saw initially would've been a... mimeograph, projected upwards. You saw how he moved?"

  Too fast, too fluid. "Sure."

  "Time's different when you get deeper, so it translates strangely. Charlie: if I wasn't clear, this is at best unorthodox. Most people never make it a layer down, let alone stay for extended periods of time— it's dangerous."

  (2. TOO DEEP.)

  "Third thing: this man jammed my signal. That's why I wasn't there through the mirror, yes? I couldn't get through to you. It's not entirely impossible this was an accident, but combined with the other two points, I'm inclined to think—"

  You frown. "I thought you couldn't get through to me just now?"

  "That was ordinary interference, Charlie. I would've gotten through if you'd given me longer."

  You're forced to accept this.

  (3. SIGNAL JAMMED.)

  "Which brings us around to the fourth and largest anomaly, Charlie: this man is too good. He's too competent. Did you see the way he pulled up that armchair? You realize that armchair did not, previously, exist?"

  You are examining your fingernails. "So? You do that sort of thing all the time."

  "Yes, Charlie, I do that sort of thing all the time. I am not real. I am not human. In theory that man is, and in theory, with dedicated practice, he could pull up a chair like that with several minutes of thought— not instantaneously. And those notes he was leaving! He has extreme control over his manse. I'd say unprecedented."

  "I mean, it's in his mind," you grouse.

  "It's in his mind. It is not his mind. The two ought to be distinct. And yet..." He waves his pointer over the blackboard. "And the white room, Charlie! Are you not the least bit intrigued by the—"

  "No! I'm not!" You slump in your chair. "You tricked me! You just wanted to go on about your lame metaphysics stuff! How is any of this supposed to help with solving his break-up?"

  "Did I ever say it would? I believe I said the opposite? It's not my fault you have the intellectual capacity of a spoon. You mean to say you aren't the least bit nosy about what is going on with this man, metaphysically speaking? You have no interest in what he's been hiding from everybody? His dark, tragic secret?"

  "I…" You suck at your teeth. "Okay, fine."

  "Excellent, let us dissect some of the possibilities. One: we have never met the real Ellery, if he ever existed."

  You boggle. This had never occurred to you, though clearly it should've. "What? Really?"

  "It isn't unheard of for strange beings to escape unreality, should they procure enough haemic Law. This could account for the silver blood, though admittedly I'm unsure of the precise mechanics. Still! Should he have not at least remembered your name?"

  "Yes! He should've! Thank you." You figured he was being rude, or else he was brain-damaged, but this would account for everything. "So he's a demon! Solved!"

  "Did I say demon? I did not say demon. Theory #2, he's—"

  "Theory #2, he's an automaton." You've been thinking very hard about this. "That's even better! Silver blood— that's not human blood. But it is like metal. Metal blood. Metal body? Automaton?"

  "Er," Richard says. "I suppose so, yes. Automaton. I was going to say that, returning to the botched procedure from earlier, it's possible it forced some kind of merger between the real man and the unreal double. This'd enable all the fine control of the manse, which would belong to the unreal half, but I don't know how a surgeon would accomplish such a thing. It'd require a level of metaphysical skill I didn't think a human possessed. And it doesn't explain the blood coloration, either."

  "Maybe," you say, "he's an automaton, and a demon, and he's super fake. There!"

  "Unreal. And... I… maybe." Richard sounds distracted, which is probably the only reason he didn't call you an idiot. "I have one more theory, but I— I don't think— it relies on information that isn't relevant to you. Ignore it. There is no additional theory."

  You fold your arms. "That's dumb."

  >Pick a hypothesis to focus your investigation on. (You can combine #4 and other options.)

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  >[A1] This is not the real Ellery.

  >[A2] Ellery is artificial.

  >[A3] Ellery is a hybrid.

  >[A4] Seriously, that's dumb. Wheedle Richard into telling you his secret theory. [Roll.]

  >[A5] All of these are terrible! You've got all the facts at your fingertips— you should be able to construct a much better hypothesis. Write-in your theory.

  >[B] Optional — Richard's in the best mood you've seen in a while. If you have any unrelated questions for him (about himself, about you, about reality...), now's your best shot to get an answer. [Write-in.]

  >Roll for wheedling: 7, 29, 25 vs. DC 40 - Failure!

  "Seriously, that's dumb." Richard did not respond the first time. You have slumped back onto the settee, arms thrown out to either side. "What would you have to lose? Just tell me."

  He stops in place. "What do I have to lose?"

  "Yeah." It seems like a valid question to you. "You're a... you know, a snake, mostly. You don't live anywhere. You don't own anything. I'm pretty sure you don't know anybody except me?"

  "Hmm." You sit up as Richard meanders over to you. When he squats down in front of you, placing his face is level with your own, you lace your fingers.

  He takes off his sunglasses. He is staring you square in the eyes. "Charlotte Fawkins," he says levelly.

  You glance towards your escape: the other side of the couch. "Uh-huh?"

  "No, Charlie, look me in the eyes." You snap back to his face. It's disconcerting: his eyes are such a pale blue they're almost white. "Good girl. Now: repeat after me. You are a toddler. You have zero concept of object permanence."

  "Of what?" Geez! What did you say wrong?

  Richard is smiling. His teeth are straight and a little too white and it creates the general feeling he wants to eat you. "Object permanence. Anything you can't see, to you, doesn't exist. It can't exist, because you're the one to make the sun go and the stars shine. Yes? I revolve around you?"

  You squirm. "That's not what I—"

  "Well, you wouldn't admit it, would you? Not to me, not to yourself— but that doesn't make it less true, Charlotte Fawkins. I know about all those silly books you read. Is it not true that, deep down, you—" he jabs a finger into your leg— "consider yourself the protagonist?"

  "The what? Richard! I was just saying—"

  "Oh, but you do. You absolutely do. You're the brave little protagonist of your tiny little universe, and you cannot comprehend the idea of anyone else having a life outside yours. It's your anathema."

  There's something about his voice that's troubling you, too. He's aiming for his implacable snake-tone, but something keeps creeping in around the edges. You think you've just hit upon it. "...Wait, are you offended?"

  "What?" Richard stands abruptly. "No."

  And there goes the implacability altogether. You were bang on. "Ha! You're just pissy I said you didn't have material attachments. Or called you a snake. I'm not sure which?"

  "Charlotte, I am not—" He's stuffing his sunglasses back on. "I am not pissy. I don't know where you picked up that absurd term."

  "So do you have material attachments?"

  "I fail to see how that's relevant."

  "Because if you don't, you ought to tell me your theory, right? You've got nothing to lose."

  "You are not hearing the theory. It has nothing to do with you."

  That's not good enough for you. "But have you or have you not got attachments?"

  "Yes!" It comes out a little too vehemently, and his huffy arms-folding afterward doesn't help matters. "I do, in fact, have material— I have material attachments, Charlotte. I am not a pure object of your will, as much as you might desperately wish otherwise. Are you satisfied?"

  "Yeah!" You don't actually care: you're just happy to have the upper hand for once. "Now, if you aren't going to share your theory, probably because it stinks, I've developed another one just now. Because I'm that good. What if—"

  You go on for ten minutes. "Well," Richard says, when you pause for breath. He is seated a decorous distance away from you on the settee. He is massaging his forehead. "The complexity of your theories has certainly increased."

  "Really? You think so?"

  "Yes."

  You rub a stray curl between your fingers. "So were they any good?"

  Richard considers his answer to this in silence for what seems like a full 30 seconds. "Some aspects of them were adequate."

  "Are you still pissy?"

  "No."

  He's absolutely still pissy, so you translate "adequate" to "excellent" in your head. You think they're pretty excellent, too, especially without much practice. You'll consider the "automaton" thing a warm-up (but still, the blood!).

  Another little silence passes before Richard checks his watch again. "It's time to go, by the way."

  "Is it?" Wow! All you had to do was act smart, and he suddenly wants to get out of here? "Really? Because, Richard, I just loved being dragged here under false pretenses, then listening to you talk about keys for four hours, then getting my arm chopped off, then…"

  "Yes, it is. Up." He's already standing. You do the same, slowly. "Turn around."

  "Why?"

  "Just turn around, Charlie." You do. He grips you by the shoulder and brushes the hair from your neck. "Good. Three, two, one—"

  He yanks something invisible and cold from your neck.