The library held its usual late-afternoon quiet, gold light slanting low through the high stained glass, dust turning slowly in it above the reading tables. A pair of second-years argued in whispers two tables over about a citation neither of them could find. Isole had been three hours into the same reference volume when her wristband pulsed.
She opened the message. She read it once, in silence, and then a second time, more slowly, as if the second reading might return a different result than the first.
She took the band off her wrist and set it completely flat on the table. Both of her hands moved to the heavy leather cover of the archive in front of her. She did not close the book. She simply rested her palms against the ancient leather, pressing down, the way a person presses down on something solid when the rest of the room has started to feel less solid than it should.
Vane put his pen down.
