Chapter 8: What Aethermoor Did at Fifteen

He set the Woolf on the returns desk at quarter past five, told Ord the maps could wait until Thursday, locked the front door, and walked home.

The folder was where he'd left it.

He stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment in his jacket, keys still in his hand, and looked at it. The light was going outside, the grey coastal dark coming in off the water the way it did at this hour — not sudden but gradual, the way someone leans against a door until the latch gives. Ptolemy moved past him, stepped onto the table without ceremony, and sat down beside the folder with the expression of an animal that had been waiting all day to make a point.