Ririko followed Evelyn down a path lined with plane trees to a small, detached building on the north side of campus.
Dead vines covered its dingy exterior walls, making it look nothing like Gotham University's gleaming academic buildings.
"This old building isn't registered as faculty housing. Professor Tetch stays here sometimes."
Evelyn reached the stairs and led Ririko up to the second floor.
They stopped in front of an ordinary wooden door.
Ririko leaned toward the window and peered inside. The curtains were half drawn, and through the gap she could see a dark room crammed with things.
Evelyn knocked on the door. No one answered.
Ririko took a coffee shop membership card from her purse.
The card was stiff enough, its edges sharp enough. She slipped it into the gap beside the lock and gently pried. The lock opened with a click.
It was a trick she had learned while scraping by in the Lower East Side. When she had nowhere else to turn, this was her only way to shop for free.
The room was packed with books. They filled the shelves, the desk, and the windowsill, with titles on their spines ranging from Victorian Literature to Hypnosis Studies to Neurolinguistics.
Apparently, this was where Tetch stored his clutter.
Ririko stepped around the piles of books on the floor and approached the desk, where a photograph lay beneath a layer of dust.
It showed a young girl with Tetch.
The girl was in her teens, her hair in two braids, smiling happily.
Tetch stood behind her in a plaid shirt. Without his current air of madness, he looked like an ordinary literature professor.
A name had been written in pen in the photograph's lower right corner: Alice.
Ririko remembered that Tetch had a younger sister, but she had