Not Henri, not a message, Dominic himself, two knocks with his knuckles, no announcement. I'd been at the desk with my contract law notes spread across it, working through the seminar's assigned reading and trying not to think about the way Arceneaux had said Ah like he was confirming a diagnosis.
I opened the door.
Dominic was in shirtsleeves. That was the first thing I registered—no jacket, collar open at the throat, cuffs rolled back once. The day had worn on him in small visible ways and something about seeing it made me grip the edge of the door before I'd decided to. He looked like a man in the middle of a long evening who had paused it for exactly as long as this would take.
"The study," he said. "When you have a moment."
I closed my notes. "Now works."
* * *
The study was on the first floor, at the back of the house past the dining room, a room that required a turn most visitors wouldn't take, which told me something about its intended function. The door was heavy, solid-core, and the room behind it was the least performed space I'd seen in the house so far.
No artwork on the walls, just shelves, floor to ceiling on three sides, filled with the kind of organized density that came from actually reading rather than decorating. The books weren'tarranged by color or size. They were arranged by use: some sections had the cracked spines and tab-marked pages of things consulted regularly, others were tighter, the arrangement of reference material kept accessible but not handled daily. Maps on one wall, actual paper maps, large format, pinned without frames, several of them marked in different colors of ink that meant something to whoever had drawn them and nothing yet to me.
The desk was clean. Not clear, there was work on it, a laptop, several folders, a legal pad with handwriting I was too far away to read. But organized, in the way of someone for whom a cluttered desk was a form of inefficiency rather than evidence of effort.
I stood in the middle of it and looked at the shelves.
History, in one section, not the survey kind, the specific kind. Individual cities, individual periods, individual events examined in granular detail. Another section that appeared to be law, or adjacent to it, the spines carrying the plain blandness of books that mattered for what was in them rather than what they looked like. And one shelf, shorter than the others, at eye level near the window, that had a different character entirely, older spines, worn covers, the look of books kept because they'd become objects rather than just texts.
I recognized one of them. A collection of short stories, small format, a faded shade of blue.
A copy of the same book that was in my nightstand drawer. The spine was cracked differently from mine — not the settling of something left untouched for decades, but the repeated opening of something still being used. I looked at it for a moment, then looked away. I had already made a decision, two nights ago, not to open mine. Not until I understood more. The inscription on the inside cover was two initials and a year. T.R. 2003. Twenty-three years ago. I looked at his copy again.Someone had been reading it recently. It was possible it had been in this house for years and someone had found it again. It was possible other things. I didn't follow the thought further. That was the tell — I caught it the moment it happened: the small deliberate movement away from something before it finished forming. Which meant part of me already knew where it led. I left it there.
I looked at it for a moment. Did not ask.
Dominic had settled into the chair behind the desk, not in a performed way, simply with the ease of someone in a room he spent significant time in. He waited until I'd looked my fill at the shelves and turned toward him, which he seemed to understand was a process I needed to complete rather than something to be hurried.
"Sit," he said.
"I will." I took the chair across from the desk, the only other seat in the room, which told me something about how many conversations happened in here. "Go ahead."
He looked at me for a moment. The same way as before—reading something in me, unhurried. Then he set his forearms on the desk, clasped his hands, and spoke with the same directness he'd used at dinner, the kind that came from having organized his thoughts before opening his mouth.
"There are four things I need from you," he said. "I'll tell you what they are, and why they matter. If you have questions, ask them."
I pulled my phone out and opened a notes application.
He watched me do it. Said nothing about it.
"The first: when there are social commitments, family dinners, public events, certain commitments, you'll be present. The arrangement requires visible corroboration. I'll do my part. I need you to do yours."
I typed. Then: "How much notice."
"What?"
"How far in advance will I know about these commitments. If I have coursework, exams, I need to plan around them."
A pause. He hadn't anticipated the question being about logistics. He'd expected negotiation on the principle, I suspected, and got a question about the implementation instead. I watched him adjust.
"Forty-eight hours minimum," he said. "Unless something changes quickly. In that case I'll tell you as soon as I know."
"And if forty-eight hours isn't sufficient for what I have scheduled."
"Then we discuss it." He said it without visible reluctance, as though discuss it were a natural resolution rather than a concession. "I don't need blind compliance. I need someone who will be there when it matters. That's different."
I made a note of the distinction. "Continue."