-----Prologue-----
My mother used to say.
"Books have hearts too, Kinon. They only open themselves to those who listen."
Back then, I never understood her. I thought her words were strange, distant, like the quiet corners of the library where she spent so much time.
The library was our sanctuary, a world apart from everything else, where dust hung like memory and silence felt sacred.
She would sit at her desk near the window, pen scratching tirelessly across a notebook. Sometimes I would wake in the middle of the night to find her asleep over her pages, her hand still gripping the pen.
I would drape my coat over her shoulders, and she would blink awake, smile at me, and whisper,
"Stories live as long as someone believes in them, Kinon."
I often watched her work, memorizing the way her fingers danced across the paper, the small movements of her lips as she whispered dialogue into the quiet room.
I didn't understand then that her stories had hearts of their own, speaking silently to those who would listen.