“Ffff…frig!” Simon changed his first choice of word, remembering Max. “‘Claudia’ doesn’t open the e-mail.” He looked deflated. “And before you ask, I’ve tried the other obvious things. Your house name in the country. His first girlfriend.” Alex inflected surprise at him. “Short of exhausting the Oxford Dictionary, I can’t think what else to try. Anyway, Will was a bit dyslexic, wasn’t he? His spelling was creative but erratic.”

Alex nodded. They might never know what he used, without a prompt.

He walked back to the hob and took the pasta off, tossing it with the chicken. “Come and eat, Max.”

“Wait, Daddy. I’ve got to get them some more money, and then I can put it on pause.”

“What do you mean, more money?”

“It’s a cheat.” He grinned broadly at his father. “You can do this cool thing and the characters get more money to play with.” Alex walked over to see, and to extricate his son while the food was still hot. “You just go, ‘Rosebud’ and then type in some symbols, and the more times you do it, the more money they get. It’s a gamer’s trick. Uncle Will showed me how.”

Alex crossed the space back to Simon, who’d heard it too. “Citizen Kane. It’s the name on the sled, isn’t it, at the end? Will’s seminal film.” But Simon was right up with him, typing it in. He was suddenly connected.

The pasta was cooling, but Alex’s eyes were riveted by an e-mail in the outbox addressed to him, awaiting editing and yet to be sent—which explained why it had never come to him. Simon’s eyes consulted him, and he opened the file as Alex nodded permission. It was Simon who read aloud the first few words: “‘In the Tree of Life, it is Kether which represents the Source. This is the Sun behind the Sun, the Ultimate Light, the reservoir of consciousness for all initiated alchemists. This Source can be tapped into, whenever there are Light Meetings—which are beyond both time and space. They take place in the imagination of the true “Adept,” under the protection of the Rose. At these Light Meetings all Adepts can connect with not only the Source, but all other members of their fellowship throughout the world, not excepting the past masters and early alchemists. Every red-rose king must join with his white-rose queen, to effect change not only in themselves but in those gathered nearest to them. And it is in this way that the underground river of wisdom flows without a break, from ancient times.’”