DANTE POV
He is in the library for operational reasons.
He tells himself this on the way down the hall. He has files he needs to review and the library table is larger than the desk in his office and the light is better in the afternoon. These are facts. They are also, he is aware at some level he is not currently examining, the same facts he identified yesterday when he came to the library for operational reasons, and the day before that.
He pushes the door open.
She looks up.
She is in the chair by the window not the one she moved to when she was watching his study, a different one, pulled closer to the reading lamp in the corner. She has her feet tucked up underneath her, which is a thing she does without seeming to notice she does it, and she is holding a paperback that is clearly not from the curated section of the library because its spine is broken and its cover is soft from use and it belongs on the bottom shelf with the books no one catalogued.
She found it anyway.
