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I clicked on an image from a magazine profile published last year. He was standing in what looked like a library, one hand resting on the back of a leather chair. Strong. Certain. The kind of hand that looked like it could hold on and not let go. I let my eyes move over the rest of him without hurry. He was an undeniably attractive man.
Recognizing that did not surprise me. I encountered good-looking men every day. What surprised me was the pull low in my stomach, something I hadn’t felt in longer than I cared to admit. It usually required trust built over time, the kind of safety that came from knowing someone through life’s seasons, seeing who they were when things were easy and who they became when they weren’t. It was not something I experienced looking at a photo of a man I had never met.
I turned my attention to the room behind him. Shelves climbed two stories, filled with books both modern and classic. There was a fireplace nearby and an adorable golden retriever resting next to it. Nothing in the photograph seemed accidental, including where he had chosen to stand.
A man who controlled the smallest of details rarely left larger ones to chance. I admired the precision. Still, something about it tugged at a memory I had no desire to examine too closely.
My online search did not answer what I most wanted to know: why he had personally approved Project Aurora as the sole recipient, and how he had come to that choice so quickly. It did, however, raise another question. Why was I so intrigued?
A knock sounded at the door before I could spiral further. Priya stepped in carrying two cups of coffee. She set one on my desk. Two creams, one sugar, exactly the way I took it. She studied me for a moment. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I’ve been lost in thought.”
“About moving an entire laboratory?” she asked, one eyebrow arched in amusement.
“That,” I admitted. “And something else.”
Priya waited. She knew how to get me talking.
I looked up at her. “Why would someone like Alexander Blackwood personally approve a research grant?”
Priya shrugged. “Maybe Blackwood Hall does things differently.”
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe,” she said, “he read your proposal and thought it deserved funding.”
I looked back at the email. “People usually don’t build institutions the size of Blackwood by personally reading grant applications.”
“No,” Priya agreed. “They don’t.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “I am just grateful that we will not be unemployed in six months,” she said. “Everything else can wait.”
Although I found that reassuring, something about the speed of it all didn’t sit right. Mystery was useful in theater, terrible in science, and dangerous in funding. I preferred variables I could measure, donors I could verify, and institutions that made sense.
For the rest of the day, I focused on things that were measurable and tangible. I reviewed data, updated Priya on our experimental priorities, answered emails, and started a list of equipment that could be relocated without requiring too many logistical hurdles. Practical tasks helped. They always helped. They gave anxiety a place to go.
Still, every so often I looked back at the email.
By late afternoon, the rain outside had softened to a mist and the lab moved at a calmer rhythm than it had this morning. I stood at my office door watching the team work through their familiar routines. Mateo was labeling samples while listening to music. Priya was pretending not to cry over inventory spreadsheets. Two postdocs argued about whether the rumors of Blackwood Hall being haunted extended to the labs. For the first time in months, I watched people talking about what came next instead of worrying about whether Aurora would survive another funding cycle.
I was grateful. But gratitude did not erase what leaving would cost. I was about to leave behind nearly every place, person, and routine that had anchored my life in recent years. Since its inception, Project Aurora had existed at Columbia. Every corner of the lab carried a memory. The bench where our first successful western blot was run. The conference room where my dad watched a presentation about our latest breakthrough. The office where Priya discussed her idea for the next experiment. Every plan I had made for the future assumed that the work would continue here.
Blackwood had given Aurora a future. Accepting it meant moving not only the research, but the life I had built around it, into an entirely new world.
At 6:03 p.m., just as I was packing my laptop to leave, I heard the chime of an incoming email.
Blackwood Hall Institute for Science and Fine Arts: Project Aurora Relocation Packet
The attachment took several seconds to load. When it opened, the first page displayed the Blackwood crest in dark gold above a formal welcome letter. Beneath it was my name, the project title, and a relocation schedule so detailed it included access credentials, security orientation, equipment transfer windows, residential accommodations, and a mandatory on-site orientation scheduled for twelve days from now. One appointment stood out:
Initial Institutional Welcome
Alexander Blackwood, Chairman
Blackwood Hall
I stared at the line.
