The dream clung to Selene all day like a stubborn ghost. It was a shadow at the edge of her vision, a whisper in the quiet moments between thoughts. The solid, logical facts of her research carbon dating, stratigraphic layers, typologies of pottery felt flimsy, unable to stand against the visceral, emotional weight of what she had felt in her sleep. The fear in that other Lyra's eyes was more real to her than the text on the page in front of her.
She tried to focus, to lose herself in the familiar rhythm of academic work, but it was useless. Her gaze kept drifting to Lyra, who was now at the front desk, meticulously stamping due dates. The afternoon sun caught the subtle highlights in her dark hair, and she looked so perfectly, peacefully present. So now.
The contrast was too jarring. The question burning in Selene's mind needed an outlet, and Lyra, with her endless shelves of stories that spanned centuries, felt like the only person who might not immediately dismiss it as madness.
Taking a steadying breath, Selene gathered her things and approached the desk. Lyra looked up, her expression softening into a smile as she saw her.
"Escaping the Bronze Age for a bit?" Lyra asked, her tone light.
"Something like that," Selene said, leaning against the counter. She fiddled with the strap of her bag, her heart suddenly beating a little faster. This was it. She had to ask. "Lyra... can I ask you a weird question? A hypothetical one?"
Lyra set down her stamp, giving Selene her full attention. Her dark eyes were warm and open. "Of course. I specialize in weird questions. It's in the job description."
Selene took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully. She looked down at her hands, then back up, meeting Lyra's gaze. "What if... what if you kept dreaming of someone you know? But in the dreams, they're... different. They're the same person, you know it's them, but it's like they're living in a different time. A different timeline." She paused, watching Lyra's face, searching for any sign of understanding. "Or what if you... experienced knowing the same person, but in different times throughout history? What would you do with that? What would that even mean?"
The moment the words left her mouth, the air around them changed.
Lyra's breath hitched, just for a fraction of a second. The easy smile on her face froze, then tightened at the corners into something more careful, more controlled. She didn't gasp or pale dramatically, but a subtle veil seemed to drop behind her eyes, shielding her thoughts. It was a shift so slight Selene might have missed it if she weren't watching so closely.
Lyra looked down, busying her hands with straightening a stack of bookplates that didn't need straightening. She was buying time.
"That is a weird question," Lyra said, her voice noticeably cooler, more measured than it had been moments before. She finally looked up, but her gaze was guarded now. "Dreams are strange. Our minds process the day, our anxieties... our desires. It's probably just that."
The answer was too pat, too textbook. It was a dismissal, a gentle brushing aside of something that felt monumentally important to Selene. It was the kind of answer you gave someone you wanted to placate, not engage with.
But Selene's gut churned. She saw the way Lyra's knuckles had whitened just a little where she gripped the edge of the counter. She saw the fleeting shadow that had passed over her face before she'd schooled her features into neutrality.
"Probably," Selene echoed, her own voice quiet. She wasn't convinced. Not even close.
Lyra offered a small, tight smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I think if someone spent their life digging up the past, it's only natural for it to start seeping into their dreams. You spend all day with history; it's no wonder it follows you to sleep."
It was a logical explanation. A perfectly reasonable, rational explanation. And Selene knew, with a certainty that settled deep in her bones, that it was a deflection. Lyra wasn't just answering a hypothetical; she was sidestepping a truth she recognized all too well.
The woman in front of her wasn't just a librarian giving a casual opinion. She was a fortress, and Selene had just inadvertently rattled the gates. The connection she felt between them now thrummed with a new, unsettling frequency; it was laced with secrets. Lyra knew something. She was hiding something. And Selene's dreams were somehow at the heart of it.