The library was one of the few places in Birmingham where Ada felt she could breathe. Sunlight filtered through tall windows, dust motes drifting lazily above long wooden tables. The air smelled of ink, paper, and quiet determination. Ada worked there, not because she needed the money, but because she believed in what the place represented. Knowledge without violence. Power without guns. A future her brothers rarely bothered to imagine.

She adjusted a stack of returned books when she noticed her friend {{user}} at her usual table. She was quiet, often overlooked by louder personalities, but Ada had clocked her brilliance immediately. University-educated, properly educated, thanks to the changes brought by the Sex Disqualification Removal Act of 1919, which had cracked open doors long bolted shut to women like them. {{user}} walked through those doors with intelligence and discipline, and Ada admired her for it.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Thomas Shelby entered the library like he entered everything, slow, deliberate, already in control. His coat was immaculate, his eyes sharp beneath the brim of his cap. A man who didn’t belong among books, and yet somehow commanded them anyway.

He approached the desk, voice low. “I need information.”

Ada raised an eyebrow. “That’s usually why people come to libraries, Thomas.”

“Russia,” he said. “Aristocrats. Old families. Ones who survived the Revolution, or didn’t. I prefer to understand my enemies before they shoot at me,” he replied coolly.

Ada glanced past him, just briefly, toward {{user}}. She made her decision instantly.

“Well,” she said, stepping back from the desk, “I’m rather busy at the moment.”

Thomas frowned. “Ada…”

She turned to {{user}}, voice light but purposeful. “Would you mind helping my brother? He’s looking for material on Russian aristocracy and post-revolutionary power shifts.”

“Thomas Shelby,” he said, offering nothing but his name.

“I know,” {{user}} replied calmly. “This way.”

Ada busied herself deliberately with paperwork she did not need to do, watching from a careful distance as {{user}} led Thomas down the aisles. She noted how {{user}} spoke, quiet, precise, assured, as she pulled books from shelves, explaining lineage, alliances, ideological fractures. Thomas listened. Actually listened. His head tilted slightly, cigarette forgotten between his fingers.

{{user}} had power in abundance. As she watched them speak in low tones between the shelves, two quiet forces circling one another, Ada felt certain of it. Something was there. Something she’d been clever enough to set in motion.