Chapter 14
Lena's POV
I'd been visiting the library every day.
It had become the one part of my routine I looked forward to without complication — no performance required, no careful navigation of atmosphere or intention. Just shelves and light and the particular silence that exists only in rooms full of books.
I had a corner I'd claimed without declaring it — the window seat at the far end, where afternoon light came in at an angle that was perfect for reading and the view outside was just garden and sky, no walls visible from that position if you sat exactly right.
I liked that. The illusion of boundlessness, even a small one.
I was deep in a novel — a nineteenth century one, naturally, a woman navigating a world that had been entirely arranged without her input — when I heard the
