White City

“It’s a lovely city,” Jennifer said.

The young man who stood at her side kept his hands in the pockets of his long green coat and gazed out over the cityscape, which was a calming blend of architecture and flora gone multi-coloured for autumn.

“It looks nice,” the man agreed.

“It isn’t actually nice?” Jennifer cast him a sidelong glance and saw something like cruel amusement twist his mouth into a painful facsimile of a smile.

“It can be nice.” He tugged one hand out of a pocket and pointed across the city to a tall white building. “See that place right there?”

Jennifer followed the line of his arm. “Yes?”

“It’s a school. I spent twelve years of my life there. They found me when I was four, and I graduated when I was sixteen - two years ahead of all the other students in my class,” the man said. He reached up and ran a hand over his short red hair, and something about the longing in that gesture made Jennifer wonder how long his hair had been before.

“So you were a genius?”

“Perhaps prodigy is a better term, although I had a prodigy of my own on my team once I escaped the hallowed walls of the White City,” he said.

“What kind of school was it?”

“One you’ve never heard of, but one that runs the world,” he said.

“Oh? What did they teach you there?”

“Everything - music, art, dancing, poetry, history, geography.” His expression turned distant again. “Firearms and bladed weapons, hand-to-hand combat, computer hacking, basic confidence scams and advanced disguises and sleight-of-hand. Everything a school could want for its agents.”

“Agents? Not students?”

“Not at Rosenkreuz. But if you have the money, and the will, you can hire yourself a team from the White City, and they will lay the world at your feet.”

“At what price?”

“More than anyone ever really wants to pay.”

(326 words)