The warm scent of chamomile drifted past Sophie as Mrs. Williams gently laid a blanket over her legs.
"I'll bring your tea," she said softly, "and something light to eat. You need to build strength. No moving about until I return, young lady."
Sophie gave a sleepy smile. "Yes, ma'am."
Mrs. Williams left with a rustle of skirts and the soft click of the door behind her.
The silence settled like mist.
Sophie sat still for a minute. Her heart wasn't racing anymore, but it still felt like it had miles to walk before it found calm again. She glanced around the room — tall ceilings, soft drapes, an antique lamp humming faintly on the nightstand.
She was safe.
But her curiosity had started to stir again, like an itch under skin.
Mrs. Williams's steps echoed faintly down the hall and vanished altogether.
Sophie stood.
---
The hallway was longer than she remembered. The house felt old, yes — but there was something more. A depth. Like it had been stitched together slowly, with secrets hidden in the seams.
Her bare feet made no sound on the polished wood.
The walls were lined with narrow sconces and dusty portraits — people she didn't recognize, in clothes that whispered of another century.
She turned a corner and paused.
There it was again.
A sound — faint, like the shift of paper or a breeze against old wood.
She followed it.
---
At the end of a narrow hallway, where the corridor seemed to taper like a secret being kept, she found a door.
She hadn't seen it earlier — it blended into the wall, painted the same dusty cream, with a brass handle worn by time.
She placed her hand on the knob.
Turned.
The door creaked open.
---
The air on the other side was cooler. Heavier. Like stepping into a preserved breath of history.
It was a library.
A true one — not just shelves for show, but floor-to-ceiling books in every direction. The ceiling was domed and painted with faint golden stars. There was a small spiral staircase in one corner that led to a mezzanine. A tall window cast filtered light over everything, muted by stained glass.
Sophie stepped inside, stunned.
There was a reading desk near the center. And on the back wall, carved into a dark wooden panel, were words.
Words etched with care.
> "James Abrams – For His First Love, Elena."
Sophie froze.
She stared at the inscription.
Not angrily. Not with jealousy. Just… quietly.
Elena.
So there had been someone else. Of course there had. How could there not be?
He was James — strange and brilliant and lonely. Someone like that didn't live without once having poured his soul into another.
She stepped closer, running her fingers gently along the name.
She didn't feel threatened.
She felt sad. For him. For Elena. For whatever story this message had been carved to preserve.
---
And then she heard a step behind her.
She turned.
James stood at the doorway, his face unreadable, a shadow cutting across his cheekbone.
His eyes found the carved panel. Then her.
"I didn't mean to—" she started.
He raised a hand. "It's alright."
She opened her mouth, but the words stalled.
So he spoke instead.
"Elena was my beginning," he said, his voice so quiet it nearly faded into the stillness.
---
He stepped into the room, eyes on the inscription.
"We were very young," he said. "Too young to understand that love isn't always meant to last forever. Or maybe ours was, and time just didn't allow it."
Sophie stayed still, listening.
"She was sick," James continued. "Like you. Not the same illness — something else. But I watched her fade. I held her hand through the worst of it. I made promises I didn't know how to keep."
He smiled faintly, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"I told her I'd find a way to stop it. To keep her here. And I tried. God, I tried."
Sophie blinked. "You… tried to save her?"
He looked at her.
And in that look, she saw a thousand lifetimes of grief.
"I failed," he said. "And the day she died, something in me broke. It didn't matter how many books I read or how many doors I opened. She was gone. And there was no bringing her back."
Sophie took a breath. "So this library…"
"It was hers," James said. "I built it to remember her. Every book in here was something she read, or something I read to find meaning after she was gone."
Sophie stepped closer to him.
"I'm not upset," she said softly. "I'm not… threatened. That you loved someone before me."
He met her eyes. "Why?"
"Because love doesn't erase love. It expands it. If you still carry her, it only means you're capable of carrying someone."
She smiled gently. "Maybe even me."
James looked at her like she was light itself.
---
They stood in the silence for a while.
Not the silence of awkwardness.
But the kind that says: I see you now.
And maybe for the first time… Sophie felt seen in return.
---