A bunch of pamphlets had been released, along with a cryptic message: Whoever could decode the message on the pamphlet would be initiated into the order and inducted into their mysteries. For all of winter 1993, the forum was abuzz with people colluding to decode the symbols, to no avail. Eventually, the whole thing was dismissed as a hoax, though there were still some threads on the site of stalwart users insisting they’d used the wrong cipher, that everyone had just translated it wrong.
And it hit me all at once.
How had I not realized it sooner?
The Order of Autumn, with their political leanings, the headquarters that burned down. S had even detailed the nightmares he’d had after the beheadings in the streets, spoke of the smoke that clogged his throat from their headquarters burning.
The Order of Autumn was the mystery school that S was a member of.
And if Basile had the book … If it was sitting in his office, of all places?
Well. I guess he wasn’t lying when he said they were more than just some math group.
I looked at my phone and opened Basile’s feeds one more time. My phone was blowing up with notifications—I’d set it to alert me when new content of his dropped—and I also had push notifications from the Discord server owned by “the Basilites,” a group of avid Reality Paradox and Basile Samir fans. They were going off, rapid-fire messages mixed with meme after meme.
sierraperez414: Did you see his new video????
amateurPlato: OMGGGGGGG
whatgoeskirdi: I knew it! I freaking knew it!! our boy is going to save the world. Things are really changing now. I can feel it.
amateurPlato: Do you think he will take me with him?
I opened Basile’s page. He’d released two new videos and uploaded them to all of his socials. The first was a teaser video telling people to “watch this space” for exciting new content hours prior. It was strangely serene. He was dressed all in white against a white background.
The second was the same background, same clothes. In it, he seemed almost reverent, with his gaze reaching to the heavens. He laughed, then looked straight at the camera. “To all the nonbelievers, to all the people who have doubted me, I’m here to take my theory one step further. Not only can I prove the existence of a parallel world, but I can also get to it.”
Then the video feed cut off.
I looked over at Max, the skepticism plain in his eyes. Sure, to some it might look like just another publicity stunt. But to me it rang true. Especially with all our research, everything I’d read of S and Basile’s obsession with an invisible world living alongside ours, it was all starting to become clear.
I considered Basile’s “search for truth,” his Reality Paradox, his fixation on this parallel world, the world of Being. I started thinking of Basile’s belief in reincarnation, his ever-driving desire to perfect his soul, and slowly, slowly, the pieces started to fit themselves together in my brain.
I looked at Max, the answer settling like a weight in my stomach. “Phi Kat is the Order of Autumn.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“So what do we do?” Max asked. “Confront them? Get them to reverse what they did?”
But I knew what we had to do. I was more sure than I’d ever been about anything in my life. “We do the binding.”
Max rocked back on his heels, mouth already flying open as a barrage of protests came forth. “You crazy? The last person who did this spell got themselves nearly killed in the process.”
“Not exactly. If our theory is accurate, it was the brothers who did the spell.”
Max threw up his hands, his hat flying off his head. “Semantics! It’s dangerous, that’s what we know.”
“Of course it is.” I stopped and looked at him. Dark half-moons shone under his eyes. The stubble had taken over his face, now coated in prickly black hairs. He was wearing the same shirt he’d worn yesterday and surrounded by empty paper coffee cups. Somehow through it all, he was still as handsome as the day we’d first met.
“What choice do we have? We’re dimidiums, Max,” I said more quietly. “It was always going to be us.”
He looked down, rubbing a hand over his temples. He knew it, too. “‘The Magic of both is stronger than any one,’” he said, reciting the old adage.
Even with everything we’d been through, I couldn’t help but take comfort in having him here with me. Having someone here who knew exactly what I meant, exactly how scared I was, without having to explain myself.
“Fine. But we’re not going in there without a plan.”
I pulled the book out of the trunk and put it in a backpack. “There’s no time.”
