He didn’t answer. But his eyes lingered, and I felt the pull settle warm and steady between us.
The doorbell rang at seven.
Seven. In the morning.
For one glorious second, I thought it was a dream, but then it rang again.
Cristian was apparently still dead to the world—literally—so I dragged myself out of bed, cardigan half-on, hair doing an interpretive dance around my face and shoulders. The tether pulled faintly, but it was calm. Cristian was resting. Good. Maybe some good sleep would make him less brooding.
When I opened the door, a man stood on the porch wearing an actual suit, too polished for this early in the day, and holding a briefcase that screamed, “I still fax things.”
“Good morning,” he said brightly. “My name is Hammond. I’m with the Universal Encyclopedia Collective. May I have a moment of your time?”
I blinked. “You’re… selling encyclopedias?”
He smiled wider. “Indeed. A full, comprehensive collection. They’re timeless, really.”
My brain struggled to compute. “Do you mean… books?”
“Yes.”
This was the part where I would take a sip of coffee if I had any. “Like… physical books? About facts?”
“Precisely.”
I stared at him. “This is a scam, right?”
He chuckled. “You’d be surprised how many households lack foundational knowledge. History, science, the arts—vital information lost to digital decay.”
“Uh-huh.” I started to close the door. “Well, good luck with that.”
Before the latch clicked, a polished shoe blocked the frame.
I froze. “Excuse me?”
“Just a moment,” he said, pressing his hand against the wood. “I’d love to show you the craftsmanship. The binding alone?—”
“I’m not interested.”
He kept talking. His words blended together in a soothing murmur. Something about “preserving wisdom” and “illuminating the ignorant.”
I was suddenly tired. Not regular tired. The kind that made my limbs heavy and my head floaty.
“Okay,” I said weakly. “You really need to?—”
The world tilted. I reached for the doorframe and missed, lowering myself to the floor before my body decided to fall on its own.
Hammond stepped closer, crouching until we were eye-level. His eyes had a faint shimmer to them, too bright to be normal. His smile was patient.
“Knowledge,” he said softly, “should never be refused.”
I wanted to tell him he was giving cult-leader energy, but my tongue wouldn’t cooperate. My thoughts were sludge.
He kept talking about encyclopedias—how each volume contained “power” and “legacy” and “names worth remembering.”
My body wouldn’t move. My vision blurred.
The bond tugged.
