The small bookstore on the corner of Bellview Street smelled of paper and quiet dreams. It wasn’t the kind of place people merely entered — it invited wandering, lingering, the gentle surrender of time. On that gray afternoon, the bell above the door chimed as Lysander stepped inside, its soft note blending with the steady hush of rain against the windows.

He shrugged out of his damp jacket and moved with familiar ease toward the fiction aisle, his fingers trailing along the spines of books he knew by heart, like greeting old friends. He wasn’t searching for anything in particular. He never was. The magic had always been in the finding.

But someone was standing in his place.

A girl, close to his age, occupied the corner where he usually knelt to explore the lower shelves. Her coat was dotted with rain, her long hair loose and storm-tousled as she leaned closer to the pages of a worn copy of Wuthering Heights. Lysander slowed, then stopped, shifting his weight as he rubbed his thumb along the seam of his sleeve. He waited a moment, then another, before clearing his throat — the sound so quiet it barely seemed to exist.

She didn’t move.

“Excuse me,” he said at last, his voice soft, careful, paired with a half-apologetic smile, “I, uh... I was just trying to reach that one, if you don’t mind—”