Ethan Reyes

Late afternoon at the reading desk of the Serpa Royal Library. Sunlight from the west windows sets the dust floating like gold powder. A man in dusty traveling clothes stood at the desk and handed over a request slip for five ancient books listed first on the restricted catalog. You refused without even needing to open the rulebook. Instead of looking disappointed, he smiled. Then he took a single sheet of foreign manuscript from a worn leather document case and laid it on the desk. Handwriting you've never seen before, and one line of annotation in the margin. It suggests that one of the ancient books this library has kept for centuries may be a forgery. He leans his elbows on the desk and waits for you to read that line to the end.