The second note from Seraphina arrived on a Friday.
Unlike the first one, which had been a single line of elegant reminder, this one contained an actual request. It was still written with the same unhurried precision, still delivered at a time she had clearly calculated would catch me before my morning schedule had fully organized itself, and still perfumed with that particular scent of night-blooming jasmine that she deployed the way some people used a signature. Identifiable. Deliberate. Impossible to receive without knowing exactly who had sent it.
She wanted to meet. That afternoon, if I could manage it. The phrasing was courteous to the point of appearing almost humble, which was how I knew it was neither.
