“Yes,” I said.
He let the truth sit there between us, respected and intact.
“Thirty seconds,” I said eventually, because I needed the rules back before my emotions started free-range grazing. “Your turn again.”
Arthur did not hesitate this time. That alone told me something.
He shifted slightly on the bed, one shoulder angling toward me like he had decided to stay instead of retreating into courtesy. His gaze dropped, focused on thewine in his glass.
“There is a phenomenon in urban studies where people feel a sense of belonging to a place they have never lived, simply because it reflects their internal rhythms. It’s called place attachment without residence.”
I stilled.
“It occurs most often in cities built in layers,” he continued. “Places where history presses close. Edinburgh is one of the most cited examples.”
“That’s… very specific,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you just happened to know that?”
He hesitated, then his eyes met mine, something unguarded passing across his face.
“I’ve never been here before, but I read about it when I was younger. I thought… if I were ever allowed to travel, this would be one of the places I would choose.”
Oh.
I cleared my throat, trying to tamp down the spark that had ignited low in my belly when he’d made eye contact. “Timer expired. You passed.”
Rounds blurred together, facts trading places between us like a language we both spoke instinctively. He told me about pigments in medieval manuscripts that faded differently depending on the prayers they were bound with, iron gall ink biting deeper into vellum on devotional pages touched too often by reverent hands. I countered with how librarians could date a book within a decade just by the pattern of foxing alone—the freckles of age clustering where humidity had once lingered too long. He mentioned a study showingpeople trusted handwritten notes more than printed ones even when the content was identical, authority clinging to the illusion of a human hand. I followed with how archives tracked panic eras by the sudden spike in cheaply printed pamphlets, fear spreading faster when paper was thin and plentiful.
We laughed easily. Somewhere along the way, I stopped counting rounds. When the wine was finished, we moved to water. His knee brushed mine and stayed there, the contact sizzling through me.
Then he brought upJane Eyre, almost casually, mentioning that early critics called it dangerous because readers sympathized too much with a woman who wanted things. I agreed that the outrage had never really been about the romance. It was about autonomy. Rochester frightened people far less than Jane’s refusal to shrink.
I explained thatvillaincame fromvillanus, meaning farm laborer, and only became synonymous with evil once the ruling class needed a word for poor people who refused to stay quiet. He went still at that, eyes narrowing slightly, like he was filing it somewhere important.
We spiraled outward from there. Binding errors that revealed censorship. Marginal notes that survived because someone disobeyed protocol. Cities designed to control bodies through narrow streets and sudden turns. He offered facts that weren’t flashy but precise, the kind born of patience and care. I offered the kind that came from obsession and pattern recognition and loving something long enough to see its fractures.
As we spoke, we laughed. I lost track of time somewhere between him mentioning how early maps exaggerated coastlines to protect trade routes and me explaininghow archivists could date fear by ink shortages alone. All the while, his knee remained against mine like it had always belonged there.
Then Arthur paused.
I noticed immediately. I always noticed pauses.
His gaze went distant, thoughtful, like he’d reached the end of a familiar shelf and found it empty.
“I can’t think of one,” he said at last.
I smiled slowly. “That means you’re stuck.”
“Yes.”
I sat up a little straighter, my pulse kicking. “Which means…”
“I owe you a personal question.”
The room seemed to narrow around us, the air suddenly charged. The game had carried us closer without either of us quite acknowledging when.
