Frost by Harry Manners

Highcourt is hanging by a thread. You can swear all the oaths you like, you’ll always be one of us.
    “Anyway, nobody can find this place unless they need to, so don’t look at me like I snuck in the back door with the cat. I need your help, and you’re bloody well going to give it. I’m not leaving until I get what I need, even if I have to smash every teeny weeny cup and saucer in this joint.”
    Jack sensed the slightest shift, and risked turning his head.
    The Man in Purple stared at Barry with the remnant of that harrowed gaze. Slowly, the light crept back into his eyes. Perhaps they flashed violet once more—trying to see straight in here was like trying to hold onto a wet bar of soap; Jack couldn’t quite grasp any single moment, fluid and undulating, as though everything might suddenly melt and reform.
    The Man in Purple flickered his eyelids and gave the slightest bow of acquiescence, then lifted a hand and signalled to the counter, pointing to the table.
    Jack leaned across to Barry and whispered, “Kaard?”
    “It’s his name,” the Man in Purple said airily, straightening his jacket and stepping around the table.
    “One of them.” Barry cleared his throat. “I went through a phase.”
    “Thought he needed a more fantastical title.”
    Barry sent a tiny shake of the head in Jack’s direction; keep your trap shut .
    Jack was all too willing to oblige.
    The Man in Purple sat with one leg crossed over the other, slouching back, eyeing them both anew. “So.”
    Barry visibly relaxed and laced his fingers in front of him. He suddenly looked very tired. “Please, please, keep the crap to a minimum.”
    The Man in Purple didn’t move, nor give any indication he’d heard, just stared.
    “You knew it was Harper that would be here, didn’t you?”
    Again, nothing.
    “I’ll take that as a yes. And you knew that I’d be sent alone?”
    The Man in Purple arched a brow.
    Barry scowled. “I’ll take that as another yes. So that means I’ve been shafted by my own side, and the brass have already written this world off.”
    A dumpy waitress dressed in a flowing summer dress and apron appeared beside the Man in Purple, a silver tray held above one shoulder. Taking a nod from him, she sprang into action, placing three steaming teapots and a plate of fresh muffins before them, sliding them into place with the skill of an Olympic curler.
    Jack wasn’t surprised to receive a heady waft of ginger, and notes of white chocolate. “You must be joking,” he muttered despite himself.
    “I never joke about tea,” the Man in Purple said. “Try it.”
    “I’m fine.”
    The fate of the world in our hands, and he wants me to try the tea.
    “Try it,” Barry said distractedly, ignoring Jack’s gape of surprise. “Can we get on with it?” As he spoke, he set a mug more like a tankard before him and poured from his own teapot. Jack smelled peat, and fiery notes of something warming. He suspected whiskey.
    Barry made a show of pouring from a height, holding the lid fast to the pot with a daintiness that made him look ridiculous. He drank slowly with his pinky raised, working his mouth, tasting deliberately.
    All the while he kept his eyes fixed on the Man in Purple.
    Jack followed suit hurriedly, pulling his pot towards him and copying Barry’s little ritual. He reeled when the taste hit him, morphing and evolving as it made the trip from his lips to his throat, rolling velvet waves that shot up into his brain and teased out ribbons of memory, sharp and vivid as the day they had been laid down.
    The cookies on the tray as his Mom pulled them from the oven. His Dad’s lined face, lit up by the set— Letterman interviewing Robbin Williams. Then he was running, out on the soccer field in PE class, taking a ball to the face as Cathy O’Brien watched with her friends, giggling and pointing.
    She had been his crush all through high school. He hadn’t thought about Cathy in years. Yet now he could have drawn every