The library smelled like dust and rain-dampened paper, the kind of scent that made Emma want to curl up and read until the world blurred. The long oaken table near the window was occupied by exactly one person, with a stack of books arranged with surgical precision.
Ethan Blackwell didn't look up when she arrived. He had an open volume of Blake, a closed Norton anthology, and a leather notebook with a pen aligned perfectly parallel to the spine. Emma wondered whether he'd centered the entire table by eye.
"You're on time," he said after a beat, still not looking up.
"I told you I would be." Emma drew out her chair. "Chaos and I… took a break."
At that, his mouth tilted. The tiniest admission of amusement. He raised his gaze and—just like the day before—she felt the weight of it land squarely on her chest. His eyes were the same impossibly calm gray, but calmer up close, like slate washed by rain.
"We need to decide on our topic for Harper's semester project," he said. "Romanticism is broad. He expects something precise."
She slid her notebook open. "I was thinking of the intersection of ruin and desire in Wuthering Heights and later Romantic poetry—how landscapes reflect the self."
"Self as storm," Ethan murmured. "Cliché in the wrong hands. Interesting in the right."
"And you think my hands are—?"
"Capable." His eyes flicked to her ink-stained fingers. "Messy, but capable."
She hid her hand under the table, pretending not to care, and forced herself to focus. "We could structure it like this—Part I: The wild, external landscape. Part II: The internalization of weather. Part III: The cost of loving something that destroys you."
"And what's your thesis?" Ethan asked.
"That love, when it's honest, is inherently transformative," she said before she could stop herself. "It doesn't simply soothe or complete. It erodes. It remakes."
He studied her face for a long, unsettling second. "Noted."
They worked. It startled her how well they worked. He was sharpened steel; she was stubborn flame. She thought in images and metaphors; he shaped them into arguments that could not be shaken. Every time she reached for a quote, he anticipated it. Every time he challenged her, she found herself arguing harder, thinking clearer.
At some point, he nudged a lidded paper cup across the table. "Black. No sugar."
Emma blinked. "You… got me coffee?"
"You prefer tea," he said, eyes on his notes, "but the line was moving faster on the coffee side."
"You notice… everything, don't you?"
"Only what matters," he said, same as yesterday, but softer.
When they finished, the sky had bruised into a late afternoon violet. The rain had returned, slower now, tapping against the window. Emma closed her notebook, aware of a warmth in her chest that felt suspiciously like contentment.
"This is good," Ethan said, stacking their pages. "We'll present our outline to Harper Monday."
"Okay. Monday." She rose, shouldering her bag. "Thank you for the coffee."
He stood as well, and for a heartbeat they were closer than intended. She saw then the faint white seam of a scar that cut from his temple into his hairline, thin as a thread.
"What happened?" The question was out before she could frame it gentler.
Ethan went still. The world seemed to tighten. "Nothing that concerns our thesis."
"Right," she said quickly, heat flooding her cheeks. "I didn't mean—"
"It's fine." He paused, and when he spoke again his voice had regained its smooth neutrality. "There's a Blackwell Foundation event this weekend. A fundraiser. Authors, journalists, a few bored aristocrats. You should come."
Emma blinked. "Me? Why?"
"Access," he said simply. "You want to be a writer. You need rooms with doors you don't yet know how to open. Come as my guest. Consider it… research."
She couldn't tell if he was offering a genuine opportunity or introducing her to a ring of fire. "Would I even fit in at something like that?"
He picked up his pen, then set it down again, a tell she would later learn meant he was suppressing the truth. "You'll fit because you're there. I'll send the details."
Before she could say yes or no, he added: "And Emma?"
She looked up.
"Don't be late."
She laughed despite herself. "I'll do my best to keep the chaos chained."
When she left him standing in the gold-lit library, she realized she was smiling. She didn't know if she was walking into a ballroom or a trap. But she knew one thing with sudden, electric certainty.
She had begun to care what Ethan Blackwell thought.
Outside, under the dripping birches, someone lifted a camera. The flash was small, distant, and gone before she recognized the shape of it in the rain.
The photo would surface later.
Not tonight.
Not yet.