Chapter 14: The Document Aldgate Couldn't Retrieve

The reference number on his palm had lasted through dinner, through study period, through the particular restless dark of eleven o'clock, when the dormitory corridor settled into its own deep breathing and Sable's tap on his door was three knuckles, barely audible, the way they'd agreed.

Two days. They'd waited two full days because Sable said so, which was the right call, because the morning after Aldgate's session a new lock had appeared on the library's east stairwell for reasons no announcement explained, and Drift had spent Tuesday with his shoulders at a particular angle that meant the building was paying attention, and you did not go into the sub-basement when the building was paying attention if you could help it. Wednesday the lock was gone, which was possibly more unsettling than the lock itself. Thursday Drift ate all his dinner and held himself normally and said nothing, which was the closest to an all-clear any of them knew how to read.

Elliot had not told Sable about the reference number until Thursday afternoon, in the reading room, passing his notebook to her open to the page where he'd copied it in pen before it faded from his palm. She looked at it for a long moment without speaking.