I look up.
A guy is standing there — tall, dark hoodie, hands moving back into his pockets like the gesture was nothing. He doesn't smile. He looks at me with dark eyes.
I look down at the book.
The Prince.Machiavelli. Annotated edition.
I look back up at him. "Can I help you?"
"You've been staring at the same page for twenty minutes," he says. Not unkind. Just factual. "Whatever you're reading isn't working."
The nerve of that is almost impressive. "And this will?"
"If you want to understand how power protects itself," he says, nodding at the book, "stop reading what academics write about it. Read what the people who actually had it wrote for each other."
I glance down at the cover, then back at him. He's still watching me with that same unhurried expression, like he's already decided something and is waiting for me to catch up.
"I didn't ask for a reading list," I say.
"No," he agrees. "You didn't."
He doesn't elaborate. Doesn't apologize for the intrusion or fill the silence with small talk. He stands there, patient and unreadable, and something about that specific quality — the stillness of him — makes my skin prickle in a way I don't like.
I cross my arms. "Do you make a habit of reading over strangers' shoulders?"
"Only when they're looking for something in the wrong place."
I open my mouth to respond and then close it, because the honest answer is that he's not wrong, and something in his expression tells me he already knows that.
"Adela," I say, because the silence has stretched long enough that it needs filling.
He nods once, like he's filing it away. "Theo."
Just the first name. No offer of a last name, no explanation for why he's here or how he knew what I was looking for, no indication that this conversation is going to continue.
He takes a step back.
"The annotations in the margins are more useful than the text," he says, nodding at the book one more time. Then he turns and walks away, hands back in his pockets, disappearing between the stacks without looking back.
I sit with the book in front of me for a moment.
Then I open it.
I try to focus after he leaves.
But I can't concentrate.
My mind keeps replaying the interaction.
There was something about him.
I open the book, read the first page, and read it again. Nothing sticks. I'm still hearing the particular flatness in his voice when he saidyou're looking in the wrong place— not condescending, just certain, the way someone sounds when they're stating something they've known for a long time.
I glance up toward the stacks.
Nothing. Just shelves.
I look back down at the page.
