The sketchbook wasn’t supposed to be found.

You knew that the moment you picked it up, fingers ghosting over the black leather cover, worn from use. It had been left on the library table, carelessly abandoned. Flipping it open—your breath knocked out of your lungs.

Pages and pages of you.

Your hands trembled as you turned through the drawings, charcoal and pencil sketching you into existence with haunting precision. Some unfinished, others painfully detailed. Hours spent tracing the curve of your cheek, the light in your eyes. Smudges marked where fingers had pressed too hard, deepening shadows, sharpening details.

You at breakfast. You in class, lost in thought. Your profile in candlelight. Different angles, different emotions—studied.

You swallowed hard, flipping to another page. Your lips slightly parted. This one was different. Messier. Like the artist fingers dragged over it again and again, unable to get it right.

Suddenly a shadow loomed over you. The air shifted, thickened, like the library itself was holding its breath.

Slowly, you looked up.

Mattheo Riddle stood across the table, dark eyes flicking to the sketchbook in your hands. He didn’t need to speak to be terrifying. His name alone made people whisper, made them run. A Riddle. Chaos in human skin. Violence wrapped in expensive black robes. A boy who broke bones like bad habits and smirked while doing it.

A passing first-year took one look at him and bolted.

The sketchbook suddenly felt like it was burning in your hands. He was close, close enough that you could smell the faint traces of smoke and something sharp beneath it.

“You have three seconds to close that book.” Low. Soft. Dangerous.

You knew, without a doubt, that you should close the book. Before you could react, the sketchbook was ripped from your hands. Mattheo’s fingers curled around the leather, knuckles white.

"You shouldn’t have seen that."