The library was below the house, where the air stayed cool and the walls held the smell of damp.
He came down there more often than he meant to.
Upstairs, the rooms were too clean. Too quiet in the wrong way. Down here, the silence felt earned. Books did not ask questions. They did not look at him.
He sat at the long table with a lamp and a stack of volumes Frankenstein had brought home, one after another.
Most of them were useless.
Old accounts dressed up as certainty. Names that changed from page to page. Stories written by men who wanted to sound brave long after the fear had left them. In one book, vampires were called a curse. In another, a sickness. In a third, something made by human hands.
He read anyway.
He skimmed, hunting for the same few things: patterns, places, dates that repeated. Anything that felt like it belonged to the world outside Forks.
His fingers paused on a paragraph describing pale men who did not breathe, who walked among towns and left no tracks in snow. The writer swore it was truth. The next page called it superstition.
He turned it.
His patience had grown thin in the past weeks. Not anger. Weariness. The kind that comes from trying to fit sense around something that refuses to be shaped.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, listening to the house above.
Nothing.
His thoughts went, uninvited, to Frankenstein.
He had been the same and not the same. Still precise. Still composed. But there were moments when his eyes lingered too long on nothing, as if he was counting problems he had not spoken aloud. He moved as if he had slept too little. And when Raizel watched him, Frankenstein always noticed.
Raizel had said nothing.
A car turned into the drive.
The sound reached him through the stone and the floorboards, muffled but clear. Tires on wet gravel. An engine cut.
Frankenstein was home.
Slowly Raizel closed the book and left it on the table. He switched off the lamp and went upstairs.
The entry hall was warmer. Rain ticked against the front windows.
Frankenstein came in a moment later, shrugging water from his coat. He paused with two fingers at his temple, as if the touch might press the ache back where it belonged. When he saw Raizel, his hand dropped at once.
"Master," he said, and bowed.
Raizel watched him.
Frankenstein straightened. His face was calm, but the tiredness sat around his eyes.
"You were delayed," Raizel said.
"Yes." Frankenstein did not offer excuses. "The hospital required more time than expected."
Raizel's gaze went to his temple. "Are you okay?"
"It is nothing," Frankenstein said quickly. Too quickly. Then, softer, "A minor headache."
Raizel did not answer.
Frankenstein held the silence and endured it, as he always did. After a beat he asked, "Did anything occur while I was away, Master?"
"No."
Frankenstein's shoulders eased a fraction, almost imperceptible.
"I am going out," Raizel said.
Frankenstein's eyes sharpened. "Now?"
"Yes."
"To where?" Frankenstein asked, and the question came out controlled, but it was not casual. "May I know your destination, Master?"
"Port Angeles."
Frankenstein's mouth tightened, faintly. "For what purpose?"
"A library," Raizel said. "Local records."
Frankenstein hesitated for the space of a breath. "Master… if you wish to go, then I will drive."
"No."
Frankenstein didn't argue. He rarely argued with Raizel. But he also did not let go.
"Then allow me to prepare the car," he said. "And I will remain nearby."
Raizel's eyes shifted to him.
Frankenstein met the look without flinching. "It is not for interference," he said, very quietly. "It is simply safer."
Raizel waited a moment, then turned toward the door.
Behind him, Frankenstein reached for the keys.