She followed him down to the first floor, through the dining room and back up the stairs, back down, back up, then back up to the third floor. She didn’t hurry, though when he hurried up so did she, as if that were one of the rules of the game. It might have been comical if he weren’t being chased by a blue demon who could burn him to nothing just by touching him, and probably without touching him. Sometimes she paid attention to the walls and the floors and the ceilings, sometimes she passed through them with no resistance.

Maybe the weirdest thing about this surreal duel was that he was starting to enjoy it. However distorted or transmuted she was, she was still Alice. He was spending time with her. She was pure magic now, pure rage and power, but he had always loved her rage and her power. Those were two of the greatest things about her. She wasn’t Alice, but she wasn’t quite not-Alice either.

At this rate he could stay ahead of her forever as long as he avoided dead ends. It was like he was a ghost, he thought giddily, and she was Pac-Man, or the other way around. (Though no—Pac-Man could eat the ghosts when they were blue. Never mind. Focus.) He wondered how long till she lost patience and went for him. It was like swimming with sharks, except that he knew what sharks wanted. He couldn’t guess within a million miles what Alice wanted.

There were moments when he wanted to throw himself at her, right into her arms, and let her burn him up in an instant. What an incredibly stupid fucking idea.

After half an hour of this he doubled back through the red door, back home. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. He sat on the edge of the work table, gasping a little from all the stair climbing. He was still alive, but he wasn’t making progress. Someway or other he was doing this wrong.

He was still there when Plum came up around seven with coffee.

“Jesus,” she said. “Are you playing chicken with that thing?”

“With Alice.” He corrected her automatically. “I guess I am.”

“How’s it going?”

“Pretty well,” Quentin said. “I’m not dead.”

“And Alice—?”

“She’s still dead.”

Plum nodded.

“I don’t mean to sound at all critical,” she said, “but maybe you should just leave this alone? Stop tempting fate? I feel weird just being in the same house with it. Her.”

“I want to learn about her.”

“What’ve you got so far?”

“Not much. She likes to play. She could’ve killed me by now, but she hasn’t.”

“Christ! Quentin!”

They both watched the open doorway like it was a TV, or a hole through which they were ice fishing.