I dropped the soiled napkins on the coffee table. “Normal is not my strength.”
“Good.” Eloise took my mug and poured fresh water over the teabag. “I don't think I need to ask, but how was your day? Tell me everything. The full story. Use details. I want to know why you’re red in the face and pretending you’re not flustered.”
“I amnotflustered,” I lied.
Eloise stared at me. I stared back.
I lost the staring contest.
“Fine,” I said. “There was a man.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “A man.”
“A very tall man.”
She leaned her elbows on my counter. “Interesting.”
“He asked for a book we don’t have.”
“Tragic.”
“And he spoke perfect Spanish.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “You are doomed.”
I covered my face with both hands. “I never even got his name.”
Which was objectively humiliating.
I pulled out the sticky note, and she glanced down at the number in my hand. “You have his number, though.”
“For professional reasons.”
She smiled like she was ten steps ahead of me. “If you say so.”
“I do,” I insisted. Loudly. Unconvincingly.
Eloise gestured at my mug. “Drink. And then tell me the part where you decide you must locate this book even if it kills you.”
I stared into the tea. “I must locate this book. Even if it kills me.”
“I knew it,” she said.
And just like that, the night turned warm and steady again—even if a nameless, bilingual giant was now lodged firmly in my brain.
Because of a book. Obviously. Only the book.
4
ARTHUR
Morning had come gray and damp, much like my mood.
I sank onto the leather chair in my research room and let out a low, frustrated sound. Not quite a growl. Not quite a sigh. Something in between, held together by disappointment.
The chair creaked in protest. It had never liked damp tempers.
Beyond the tall windows, the cliffs were awash in pale morning light. The storm had passed, leaving the sea calm and the sky scrubbed thin and colorless.
