"If there's another body, I'll call." His fingers are steady when he gathers the folder, until he reaches the photographs. Then they slow. "Please don't do anything reckless."
"Detective, reckless is practically my governing principle."
His mouth almost smiles, but it doesn't survive the attempt. "I know."
That shouldn't land softly. It does, and I resent both of us for it.
Hugo leaves with the folder tucked under his arm, shoulders slumped beneath the trench coat, and the bell above the door chimes with a cheerful, mocking sound that makes me want to smash it with a hammer. The silence that follows isn't empty. It's full of Cain, Ira, and Aven all knowing I'm full of shit and deciding, in three different terrible ways, whether to say so.
Aven sets the polishing cloth down and comes closer, not all the way, just enough that I can feel the shape of his concern without having to look directly at it. "Your detective brought homework from the murder office," he says. "And you hated the assignment."
"Not my detective."
"Sure."
"If you say that again, I'm feeding you to the mandrake roots. They're ambitious, and I believe in nurturing growth."
His mouth curves, but the expression fades too quickly. Cain reaches for the scan, and I slap my hand down over it before his fingers touch the paper. His eyes lift to mine. He says my name gently, which is infinitely worse than if he'd said it like an order.
"No," I say.
"I only want to see the symbol."
"I said no."
Ira's voice comes from behind me, low and even. "What did you recognize?"
"Nothing." Aven's mouth tightens. Cain's expression doesn't change. Ira simply waits, which is worse than interrogation because he's weaponized patience into a personal flaw. I pull the scan off the counter and fold it once, carefully enough that my hands have something to do besides shake. "It's old language. Probably ceremonial. Possibly bureaucratic. Definitely ugly. That's all."
"That isn't all," Ira says.
"No, but it's all I'm giving you while I still have the option to be charmingly evasive."
"Soren."
I whirl on him because Ira's voice in that register always makes me feel like I'm being guided away from a ledge, and today I'd rather jump out of spite. "Don't use the command voice on me. I'm not one of your field reports."
His jaw shifts. He doesn't apologize, but his hands loosen at his sides. Aven watches that too, because of course he does. Aven watches anything that looks like control because he's still learning where the locks are in every room. The realization makes me angrier, not at him, never at him, which means the anger goes everywhere else.
"I need Vera's library," I say.
Cain's gaze sharpens. "Alone?"
"Yes, alone. That's the traditional way to be alone."
"You're frightened."
"I'm annoyed."
"You're both," Aven says.
I point the folded scan at him. "You've been working here three days. Don't start accurately reading me. It's inappropriate workplace behavior."
His expression softens just enough to make my throat hurt. I leave before any of them can say something kind.
Vera's library accepts me with its usual warmth and its usual judgment. The heavy oak door closes behind me, muffling the shop until the world narrows to old paper, dried lavender, beeswax, and the faint stubborn trace of my grandmother's perfume caught in the upholstery. The room smells like secrets organized by someone who loved me enough to lie. Usually, that makes me feel safe. Today, it makes my skin prickle.
The scan trembles once in my hand before I force my fingers still.
