Chapter 12: Priya's Hypothesis, and Why It's Already Wrong

Priya chose the library.

Not the main library on the second floor, which had a quality of being listened to that Callum had noticed on their second day and chosen not to mention yet, but a smaller room off the western staircase landing that appeared on no copy of the floor plan he had seen and that Priya had apparently located through a process she described only as systematic elimination. It held four shelves of books in languages he did not immediately recognize, two chairs that did not match each other or anything else in the castle, and a window that faced west and, crucially, showed the same courtyard every time regardless of light or hour, which Priya had noted as entry seven in her first tab and subsequently designated as the most trustworthy room she had found.

She was already there when he arrived. She had pushed the two chairs together at an angle that was not quite facing and not quite parallel — a geometry that said *conversation* without committing to *intimacy* — and she had her notebook open in her lap and a second, smaller notebook open on the arm of the chair beside her, which was new. Callum had not seen the second notebook before.