Page 44 of Julian

The desk itself is a study in restraint. Dark walnut, hand polished to a muted sheen, its surface nearly bare save for what is necessary: a leather binder centered perfectly, a Montblanc pen aligned parallel to its edge, a small stack of documents squared with mathematical exactness. No clutter. I learned long ago that disorder invites distraction, and distraction is a luxury I have never afforded myself.

Well, I try not to afford myself. My conscience has been reminding me often of late that Harper has become a distraction, but I push that aside.

To my right, the library stretches the full length of the wall—floor-to-ceiling shelves in the same deep walnut, filled for use. First editions and financial texts sit beside architectural monographs, league reports beside biographies of men who built empires and some who lost them later. Every volume has earned its place.

Behind me, the city rises in glass and steel through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but my attention isn’t on the skyline.

It’s on what’s falling through it: snow.

At first, it’s barely visible. Fine, drifting flakes catching briefly in the light before disappearing against the gray sky, like static on an old TV. But as I watch, it gathers into a scene that’s more resolute, soft snowflakes settling against ledges and rooftops as though the city has exhaled and decided to finally slow.

The first flurry of winter.

The quiet calm before the storm always feels different. It’s subtle. Unannounced. Unmistakable.

I lean back slightly in my chair, my gaze tracking the movement of it.

Change rarely arrives with force. More often, it begins like this—slowly, until suddenly it isn’t.

A soft knock sounds against the door.

“Come in,” I say.

The door opens and Percy steps inside, the motion smooth and unhurried.

He carries a silver tray, polished to a mirror finish, upon which rests a porcelain teacup and matching pot. Steam curls faintly upward, delicate and controlled.

Chamomile.

The same afternoon tea he has brought me for decades.

He crosses the room with measured steps, his presence is as pulled together as the room itself and sets the tray down at the corner of my desk.

“Your tea, sir.”

I glance at it, then back to the window, where the snow has begun to gather more steadily now, softening the edges of the city.

“You’ve been bringing me that since I was thirteen,” I remark, more observation than question.

Percy doesn’t miss a beat. “Fifteen, sir,” he corrects gently. “Your preference shifted from Earl Grey in November of that year. You found chamomile… calming.”

A faint smile touches my mouth. “Did I?”

“You did,” he says. A slight pause. “You had discovered, at the time, that your father’s evening schedule was unlikely to change, regardless of your own.”

Percy has always had a way of delivering truth without weight, allowing it to exist without the need to delve deeper.

I reach for the cup, the porcelain warm against my fingers, familiar in a way few things are.

“Consistency has its advantages,” I say.

“It does, sir.”

I take a sip, the taste exactly as it has always been—light, unassuming, and steady. Unchanged by time or by circumstance. By anything at all.

Percy lingers after setting the tray down, his gaze drifting toward the window. “The first of the season,” he observes.

I follow his line of sight, watching the flakes as they catch the light before disappearing into the gray. “It’s beautiful.”